Total pages in book: 175
Estimated words: 166095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 830(@200wpm)___ 664(@250wpm)___ 554(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 166095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 830(@200wpm)___ 664(@250wpm)___ 554(@300wpm)
Zakoar of the Broken Back is the best at what he does, but he isn’t cheap.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed. “How do I pay you?”
“Already paid.” He gets to his feet with a mighty creak of his cybernetics, which look just as ancient as mine were. “I’ll remain on station for a day, and we’ll watch for any sorts of program errors or limb rejection, but I suspect you’ll be fine.”
“What do you mean, already paid?” The only thing we have of value is the ship…or Dora. Cold pours through my veins. Bethiah wouldn’t…no. She wouldn’t dare. The moment the thought crosses my mind, I shove it away. Bethiah loves Dora as much as I do. More, actually. She wouldn’t sell the human to save me. “What exactly were you paid with?”
He puts away the scanner, distracted. “You have a human on board that had a lot of jewelry and dresses. My Tessa liked them.”
Rhonda? They stole Rhonda’s wardrobe and sold it to Zakoar? I bark a laugh, because I’d be willing to bet that Rhonda doesn’t know that she’s now a pauper. “Perfect.”
“I thought so.” He inclines his horns towards the door. “Should we let her in now? She refuses to leave.”
Dora? I nod. I just hope she and Bethiah don’t resent me for how much I’ve cost us. I bet Rhonda’s wardrobe cost a small fortune and they probably could have done a lot with the credits.
Zakoar moves towards the door and activates the unlock. The door slides open and Dora flies through, making a line straight for me. Her arms go around my waist and she presses her cheek to my chest, sobbing.
“You’re back,” she cries. “Oh, thank god you’re back. You scared the shit out of us!” She hugs me, and then grabs the front of my tunic and hauls my face down to hers for a quick, forceful kiss. “Never, ever do that again!”
One Hundred Twenty-Seven
BETHIAH
With a pair of heavy gloves covering my hands, I tear an old environmental system apart like it belongs to Rhonda personally. I rip out components, wiring, and then I get a heavy sledgehammer and pound out all of the soldered-in pieces. The value is in the metal itself, not all the crap inside, which has already been picked through for parts. That means I can attack it with abandon.
It feels good to rip something apart. The amount of credits I’d get from helping Jerrok is negligible, but whatever I can do to pay down our debts to Zakoar of the Broken Back? It’ll be worth it. Mostly, though, it’s not about the credits. I just have to stay busy. I can’t sit patiently at Jamef’s bedside like Dora. Seeing him lying there, so still, it makes me crazy. I want to reach through the glass and shake him until he’s awake, and I know that’s a bad idea…
So here I am, attacking anything I can with a sledgehammer to get some of the anxiety out of my system. The metal clangs loudly as I hammer at it, the sound ringing through the second cargo hold that Jerrok keeps for the bigger scrapping tasks. I like the sound—it drowns out my thoughts—and so I swing harder and faster, trying to make the entire chamber reverberate with noise.
Something bounces off one of my horns and lands at my feet. It’s a twisted knot of wires, and I pause in my efforts, frowning down at it as if it offends me. How the kef did that fly through the air?
“Are you going to attack that shit all morning or are you going to say hello to me?”
Jamef.
I turn, incredulous, and see my mate standing there at the base of the tall scrap pile I’m currently perched atop. Dora is at his side, a bright smile on her face and her eyes shining with happy tears. Jamef looks thin, his color pale, but he’s on his feet and the look on his face is his usual dry humor.
A thousand responses spring to mind—to tease him, to pretend like he hasn’t been sick, to go back to scrapping and force him to get my attention. To be me.
Instead, I burst into tears.
I’m so keffing relieved.
“Are you crying?” he asks, incredulous.
I sit down atop the busted environmental system, gasping with sobs. “I’m not crying,” I manage. “These are tears of rage.”
“They don’t look like rage,” Dora teases, wiping at her own eyes and giggling.
Jamef holds a hand out to me, inviting me to join him and Dora below. I sniff, feeling like the most ridiculous creature in the universe. Crying over a mate. Me. It’s ridiculous. I get to my feet and dust my gloves off on my bodysuit, trying to hold my scraps of dignity together. I peel my gloves off as I descend, ignoring the hand he holds out to me as if that will somehow give me strength.