Alpha Star: Big Sky Alien Mail Order Brides #1 (Intergalactic Dating Agency): Intergalactic Dating Agency (14 page)

When she looked up, their gazes locked as they both considered that statement, and a zing went down Zoe’s spine. If he was thinking of getting her naked and probed…

Well, okay, now
she
was thinking about that.

“Go with him,” Delaney urged. “If they can help you, you should take advantage.”

And so Zoe found herself following Sin through his spaceship. Wait, she didn’t want to be a follower. She skipped a few paces to catch up to him. “
Sinner’s Prayer
?”

“I’m aware of its meaning in your language.” He glanced down at her. “And it does not displease me.”

She snorted. “Why does that not surprise me?”

“Because we’re a match.”

She rocked to a halt in the spaceship hallway and stared up at the alien male who had pivoted to face her. “I already told you—”

He held up one hand. “I remember. That you’ve chosen not to be my mate doesn’t change the fact we are a match.” He gestured. “The med-suite is this way.”

He strode away again and she hurried to catch up. “If you’re so mad that I turned you down, why did you offer to help me?”

“I’m not mad at you.” The tension in his jaw belied that answer, but he continued, “I’m annoyed at the IDA for wasting my time, luring me to the outer reaches of the civilized universe with the promise…” He paused. “Never mind. I’m making amends for mixing you up in my mess.”

“It’s not really your mess,” she pointed out.

He shrugged. “I am the fifth son of a fourth son of an eighth son. I rarely had anything to call my own, but my debts are mine and no one else’s and I pay them so I owe no one.”

At a double-wide doorway he turned sharply enough that the portal almost didn’t have time to part for him. The interior was so familiar Zoe froze, her gut clenching instinctively.

“Why are hospitals always so bright white?” she muttered.

“Making full use of the visible spectrum to find the holes where life is leaking.” He scowled too. “I hate the stink.”

“Right? Doesn’t matter how much antiseptic they use, still smells like losing.” She shuddered.

He studied her, his blue eyes half shuttered. “Maybe I can give you something back.” He guided her up onto a long, semi-inclined table with a hand at her shoulder.

She glanced around nervously. “You’re a doctor? Seems like mercenaries could use one.”

He shook his head. “Our crew is too small for a dedicated medic. We make do with battlefield triage and a high-end med-suite.” He flipped his hand over. “Anything more intense waits until we get back to civilization.”

She followed his motions nervously as he maneuvered a ray-gun-type thing toward her. “What happened to your hand?”

“Lost it.”

“Got it back though, so that’s nice.” She twisted to watch him summon up another of those holographic displays. “And now you’re retiring to live in the country.”

He grunted, studying the display. “Got a hand, yes. Still working on the other.”

She tilted her head at his noncommittal tone. “You don’t want your inheritance? Seems like you do if you were willing to get married for it.”

He swept the display aside to look at her. “I do. But…” He shrugged. “Being offered such a valuable thing, a nice thing that is just mine makes me suspicious.”

“That’s sad.”

He shrugged again. “Knowing something is going to blow up in your grasp teaches you not to reach for it.” He positioned the ray-gun nearer her. “Scanner shows the point of contact was the side of your head?”

Nodding, she touched her skull above her ear. “A missile exploded a building I was working on. Bricks flew everywhere, but only one hit me.”

He slid his fingers into her hair. “Who shot this missile at you? I will introduce them to the
Prayer
’s pulse cannon.”

She closed her eyes when he traced the edges of the scar. A shiver cascaded down her body. “It was a year ago. It’s over.”

“Had this brick hit you here”—his thumb circled her temple—“
you
would be over.”

She opened her eyes and found him staring down at her, his blue stare fierce. “When I woke up, they told me I was lucky to be alive. They even saved some of the brick shards for me.”

He made a low noise in his throat. “Savages.”

“It was a really nice brick, actually. I helped make it myself.”

“I meant whoever patched you up. That’s the best they could do on the healing?” His harsh exhale ruffled her hair. “Hold on.” He moved the ray-gun toward her skull.

“Is this going to hurt?”

“It’s just a scan at first.”

That wasn’t quite the answer she wanted. She blinked at him. “Thank you for trying anyway.”

His lip curled, part snarl, part smile. “We haven’t failed yet.”

“No, we haven’t.” Because just in one day she’d found pieces of herself she’d thought had blown away forever.

Sin stared down into her deep eyes. Dark as space but tinted with warmth. He could get used to staring into her eyes, that mix of naiveté and boldness that he thought must be quintessentially Earther. And uniquely Zoe.

But with her damaged vision, she couldn’t see the real him: the lost and wandering lesser son, uncertain of his path. And if she could see him… He had to set the med-suite scanner to refocus her memories. She wasn’t an IDA bride and didn’t want to be. He’d leave her with clear eyes and a hazy memory of a close encounter that had ended with the dawn.

He stepped back when the scanner took over and swiveled around her head, threads of light tracing her skull. She followed its progress with wary eyes before her gaze snapped back to him.

“You’re not going to leave me here with it, are you?” She swallowed, her pulse fluttering in her throat.

He’d had his mouth there, but maybe he hadn’t properly appreciated the rush, the sweet softness of her skin.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said.

Through his cyborg hand, he felt a tug. He looked down and realized they were linked, fingers laced together. Had he taken her hand, not noticing the contact through his ersatz skin? Or had she reached for him?

He held her gently, exquisitely careful not to bruise her with the unfeeling servos. “The scanner is mapping the scarring, not just external but internal. Then it will send pulses of energy along the nerves to stimulate healing and regrowth.”

“Like your hand. Why don’t you have more…” She fluttered her fingers in his. “I don’t know, more implants, more technological enhancements. You could be half cyborg.”

He cocked one eyebrow wryly. “Earther technology must be much more advanced than ours if you’re so willing to replace parts of yourself.”

She was silent for a moment, then chuckled. “Okay, yeah. Between upgrades and breakdowns, I guess I wouldn’t want to rely on that more than I had to.”

“I’ve tried to never rely on anything more than I have to.”

She was silent for a moment. “That seems sad. And I bet your crewmates would be peeved you said that.”

He tilted his head consideringly. “You’re right.” After all, wasn’t that why he was finally succumbing to Gre-Gre’s ultimatum, because he wanted to provide for the crew—the friends—he’d come to rely on? “They are the brothers I wish I had.”

“I can’t wait to see that group hug.” She squeezed their joined clasp. “Oh, I didn’t notice your ring earlier.”

“What?” He stared at their hands. Around his middle finger, a thick band of
singilt
glinted in the glaring white light. “Hells.”

“What’s wrong?” She started to push up but the scanner chimed a warning.

He eased her back. “Lie still. It’s nothing.”

Her brows slashed inward on a frown. “You didn’t have the earring or the tongue piercing either.”

Unable to retreat with his hand still in hers—and since he was going to erase the knowledge anyway—he growled in frustration. “It’s
singilt
.”

“Sin… Like your name?”

He shook his head. “I was named for it. There’s no translation in your language. It’s a heavy metal alloy endemic to my homeworld.”

“Looks like gold.” She brushed her thumb over the band, and the reverberation zinged through the matching
singilt
in his ear and tongue.

“In its raw form, it’s lethally toxic,” he said. “But as a Jaxian metal-lord, my body chemistry transforms it.”

She smiled. “Metal-lord? Sounds badass. And you make your own jewelry. Cool trick.”

“The
singilt
channels are carved into our flesh in a coming-of-age ceremony. The
singilt
flows when we find our mates.”

“Carved? And you say Earthers are less sophisticated?” Her eyes widened, then narrowed. “Wait, why did you need a dating agency if you have a built-in bride detector?”

“Because I didn’t think it would happen for me. I thought the
singilt
would go dormant when I left the Jaxian homeworld.”

“Then why is it…” Her eyes popped wide again. “Not because of me?”

He wanted to wave away her question, but his hand was still caught in hers. Caught by the third
singilt
mating ring. “Don’t worry. You said you aren’t dating or mating.” He forced a smile. “And I grew up with too many brothers to ever be easy with coercion.”

A laugh from the doorway bounced around the room. “Is that why the
Sinner’s Prayer
only takes merc jobs where we fight for the aggrieved righteous? To make up for the scars inflicted by your brothers?”

“No, we take the sides of the underserved because the long odds make the payout higher.” Sin gave Honey an arch stare. “That’s how I won the
Sinner’s Prayer
after all.”

Honey grinned. “Your luck continues to be questionable. I tracked the other ship until it left the EM dome and was able to remodulate its shroud, then I lost it. But it was heading higher into the mountains, likely to make repairs from our cannon. If they want to stay below these primitive Earther scans, they’ll have to run at low power.” He licked his lips. “I can find them if we go after them.” He looked at Zoe and tilted his head. “Although perhaps you have more important matters at hand.”

Zoe stared at the drakling with fascination. “You have scales.”

“When I get excited.” He gave himself a shake that lifted the red quills of his hair before laying them down more smoothly. The visible scales on his cheeks and neck faded, although the sky runes on his bare arms were still flushed crimson. “So you are the Earther who came after our captain.”

She squinted at him. “I didn’t know that’s what I was doing at the time.”

“And now that you do know?” He squinted back at her. “Captain Sinclarion Fifth-Moon Jax is considered quite the catch.” Honey slanted the sly glance at Sin. “He’s rich, young, almost as beautiful as me.”

Sin snorted. “And only half as arrogant.”

“With three-fifths the fire.” Honey’s red-sparked gaze flicked from the
singilt
in Sin’s ear to his finger.

Sin resisted the urge to stick out his tongue too. Three of his five rings… “Zoe, this is Honey—and no, it doesn’t mean in his language what it means in yours. He’s my drakling first officer. Soon to be pulse cannon fodder if he doesn’t get back to work. I want a damage report and repairs list now,” he said sternly.

Honey nodded. “I can tell you why the loss of the shield tile didn’t trigger a warning,” he said. “Sabotage.”

The med scanner pinged another warning and Sin pointed at Zoe. “Lie still unless you want that energy slicing into your brain.” That wasn’t quite how it worked, but he wanted her compliant. He marched Honey away from her. “Sabotage?”

“Likely after Anglorn when we put in at the Intreidis waystation for our overhaul.” Honey glanced down at the
singilt
ring. “Along with your hand and the message from your Gre-Gre. At some point, internal warnings were disabled. Would’ve been easy to do with all the techs crawling around the ship and anything to be had for enough credits in that larf-hole.”

Anything including a new hand and the possibility of a new life.

Sin scraped that hand through his hair. “Go over the waystation repair logs. See if you can pin down who had access to the sensors. Not that I really care as much about who pulled the plug as who paid for it.”

Honey watched him, his pupils dilating to slits. “And you already know who it was.”

Sin tightened his fist. “My brother.”

Zoe held her breath, partly because she didn’t want her brain swiss-cheesed by an alien ray-gun, but also to hear what Sin was saying.

He’d mentioned a rough relationship with his brothers, but…sabotaging his ship?

The red-haired Honey—a drakling, Sin had called him—growled, a low, animalistic noise that raised her hackles. “Are you sure?”

“Herril disapproved of me becoming a merc even more than Gre-Gre did, but he’s never been above hiring them for his own uses.” Sin let out a harsh laugh. “I told you to fire on the aft compartment because as much as Herril would want to witness my demise in person, he’d wouldn’t want to actually risk his life so he’d hide in the back.”

“As if only part of the ship falls out of the sky when it’s shot down?” Honey shook his head. “I’ll leave the disciplining of your brother to you, but I want a bite of that other captain.” He stretched up onto his toes. “Maybe I’ll even take that ship for myself.”