Romancing the Alpha: An Action-Adventure Romance Boxed Set (17 page)

“Mind you, I’m not offering to sleep with your hairy ass,” she added, her eyes narrowing, “but if you paid for the room, you ought to be able to use it.”

“I... understand,” Marat said and stepped across the threshold. The door whispered shut behind him. “Though I must inform you, since you won’t be seeing for yourself tonight, that my ass is not hairy.”

“No? You have it shaved? Or stripped?”

“No.” He gaped at the idea that a man might do either. “It’s just... I mean, I’m not hairy. Not overly so, anyway.” He flushed, wondering why he had responded to her comment.

“If you say so. White men always seem furry to me.”

And thus ended any fantasy he might have had of her dreaming of seeing him naked.

Ying hunted around the room, poking into drawers and closets, probably looking for a way to remove the cuffs. “I’m surprised there’s a kitchenette and some appliances. That’s more than I expected from a place like this.” She waved toward the oft-stained and threadbare carpet. A cheap, old-fashioned bed with no frills took up most of the room, rather than the energy-powered airbeds that nicer hotels had, complete with features such as adjustable heat, faux mattress firmness, and zero-g options. The corner of the blanket had been chewed on by something. Inviting. “Pots, measuring cups, and even a pressure cooker, huh.”

Marat scratched his jaw. “Given what else I’ve learned about you in the last hour, I assumed the fact that cooking was mentioned on your docket wasn’t right, but maybe it is.”

“I actually
do
like to cook. I made a lot of the meals for my father’s crew. And for enemies too.” She smiled wolfishly. “Hope it won’t distress you to know that’s how I deliver my poisons.”

Poisons? So that was how she assassinated people. “As long as it won’t distress you when I suggest we order delivery.”

Ying snorted. “There aren’t any ingredients here, anyway.”

Was it his imagination, or did she seem disappointed by that?

“I could get some,” Marat said before he could think wiser of it. Belated thinking was his theme for the day, after all. “I’d already been contemplating going up to the ship to get you a security camera to plant in front of that lift.”

“Had you?” she said, that wryness on her face again. Did she not believe him? Why not? It wasn’t as if he were promising gold and gems.

“Here.” Marat dug his tablet out of his pocket. “Make me a list. I don’t imagine the station has anything fancy, but there must be a hydroponics garden somewhere and something that passes for a grocery store.”

Ying stared at him for a long moment, not taking the tablet. Somewhere in that long moment, a possible reason for her wry doubt occurred to him. She didn’t think he would come back. If Striker had told the captain about Marat’s plans, and a squad of infantry men was waiting to beat sense into him, he supposed it was possible he wouldn’t be able to come back, but he wouldn’t have made up this whole ruse and gotten her a room if abandoning her was his intention. It surprised him that she would care, regardless, since she had so grudgingly accepted his help to start with.

Finally, she accepted the tablet and recited a list. Maybe he had been reading things into her hesitation that weren’t there.

“Spaghetti?” he guessed when she finished the list with pasta.

“Yes. Does that work?”

“Sure. I guess I was expecting something more...” Marat waved vaguely at her before he wondered if he shouldn’t have. Was that insulting? To imply he expected a Chinese woman to cook Chinese food? And why was he all of the sudden finding himself acting awkwardly? It wasn’t as if there weren’t Chinese men on the crew. They all ate the same dubious ready-made egg and meatloaf logs that everyone else on the ship consumed.

“Chinese?” Ying suggested. “Something more complicated might be asking a lot of this station’s supplies. Besides, you furry white men always seem to like spaghetti.”

“Yes, right.” Marat gave her another salute—why did it feel awkward, as well?—and fled toward the door.

“Azarov,” Ying said, stopping him.

“Yes?”

“If the spies are watching you, or anyone’s following you... Look, don’t bring back any trouble, all right? I’d rather not see you again than have the police or Wolf’s androids banging at my door before I’ve figured out how to handle them.”

Marat, hand on the door, tried not to feel stung by her command. Here he had been thinking that she was worried he wouldn’t come back when the opposite must be true. “I understand,” he said curtly and stalked out.

He wondered if she would even be there when he got back.

The laser scissors in the kitchen knife block weren’t the ideal tool for removing flex-cuffs, but an hour later, Ying was rubbing her wrists, relieved to be free. She had almost burned herself in the process, but having full use of both hands again had made the risk worth it. It had also given her something to do while time oozed past, and she pretended she was not annoyed that she had somehow ended up in a situation where she had to wait on a man.

Maybe Marat wouldn’t come back. Her brusque order as he had been leaving had certainly given him a reason not to return. Maybe she shouldn’t have said that, but this whole situation had her irritated beyond measure. She did not
want
to need his help, nor did she want anyone to feel obligated to risk himself out of some sense of guilt. Guilt, yes, that had been the expression on his face when she had explained what her plan had been and how he had wrecked it. She had caught him wearing a similar expression several other times after that. His plan was silly, and she doubted Wolf would buy it. The problem was that she didn’t have anything better.

Ying caught herself glancing at the door. She had done it numerous times. Did she
want
him to come back? She wasn’t sure why. She had been alone a lot since leaving the
Death Knot
, the ship that had been home for years and that had belonged to her father until his murder, so she ought to be used to her own company. But Marat’s company, however brief, had not been entirely unpleasant. It definitely wasn’t what she was used to. He was awkward, at least when discussing sex slaves and spaghetti, and utterly lacked that rough around the edges—and sometimes rough all the way through—character of a mercenary. She wondered how he had come to be one. He seemed more a man who had grown up, as she had imagined earlier, in a nice family on a nice planet with a nice future. The kind of person who wouldn’t look twice at a pirate and was only vaguely aware that pirates existed. What was he doing out here on the rim?

“More importantly,” Ying said, putting away the scissors, “what’s the plan if he doesn’t come back?”

If he didn’t, she needed a new way to get onto Wolf’s ship and to get close to him. The police gambit might still be her best bet. Accidentally run into an officer in the morning and hope the person looked up her “owner” and delivered her to him. She scowled at thinking of herself as a slave, even if, given her personal financial situation, there was the possibility she could find herself stuck in some dreadful cycle like that. With her mother and sisters long gone, victims of the destruction of the planet Grenavine, she didn’t have any other family to whom she could return. Oh, she could take care of herself—at twenty-five, she damned well better be able to by now—but that safety net, that family support that had always been so important growing up... She was keenly aware of its absence now. Keenly aware that her father had been the only person she had left in the universe. The rest of the pirates on the ship, many of whom she had thought of as friends... Well, she had seen how loyal they were in the end.

Ying leaned forward, resting her forehead on the cool counter, not bothering to blink away the moisture gathering in her eyes. She had thought she had mourned enough, but any time she took her eyes off the target, her vision seemed to blur with unspent tears. What would she do when she actually completed her mission? When she rid the galaxy of Captain Teneris Wolf? His death might bring peace to her father’s spirit, but would it bring peace to her? Would the way ahead grow more clear? Lately, she hadn’t been able to see the future through the mist.

A soft knock sounded at the door.

Ying jerked around, wiping her eyes. Her hand dropped to her waist, to the spot where she usually wore a laser pistol, but of course all she wore now was that stupid robe.

She pulled the biggest knife out of the block and crept toward the door. It might be Marat. He ought to have had enough time to go to a ship and come back by now. But why would he knock? He had paid for the room; the door would open for him. She waved at a sensor, lowering the lights so shadows would hide her if someone charged inside.

The door slid aside, and she tensed, her hand tightening around the handle.

“Ying?” came Marat’s voice.

She waited to see if he was alone before responding. It was always possible someone had apprehended him and forced him to point the way back to her.

He leaned inside, his broad-shouldered form framed by the light of the hallway. “Ying?” he asked again, a note of concern—or maybe disappointment?—in his voice.

“Are you alone?” Ying asked.

Marat straightened. “Yes.” He held a bag aloft.

She blew out a relieved breath, though a weird jitter of emotions filled her gut at his reappearance. He hadn’t abandoned her. He had come back. With groceries!

She rolled her eyes at the excited burble from the back of her mind, annoyed that his presence, or lack thereof, had affected her that much. Her emotions were wobbling on a tightrope tonight.

“Well, quit loitering in the hallway where someone’s going to see you, and get in here,” she said, her voice sharper than she had intended.

“Yes, ma’am.” He didn’t sound chagrined at her reprimand.

After the door shut behind him, Ying waved to bring back up the lights.

Marat handed her the bag. “Let me know if you want help with anything. I couldn’t mix peanut butter and jelly and keep them from coming out horribly, but I’m fair with cutting things.” He fished a security sphere out of his pocket and headed for the table. “But let me get the camera activated first. I stuck it behind the potted fern—those are plastic plants, did you know? Not surprising, but why even bother if they can’t recycle CO2?”

“I noticed that, yes,” Ying said, oddly pleased that he had. With a name like Azarov, he wasn’t from Grenavine, not unless, like she, he had taken a different name after the world had been destroyed. But she supposed there were people on other planets in the system who cared about plants and their usefulness. “Thank you for...”
coming back
, she almost said. “The groceries,” she finished with instead.

He blinked at her, as if surprised by the gratitude. Just because she didn’t simper all over a man didn’t mean she couldn’t appreciate favors.

“You’re welcome,” he said.

“Are you hungry or did you eat aboard your ship because you weren’t sure I’d make something safe for you to consume?” Ying removed the vegetables from the bag, impressed that he had found some fresh ones instead of all freeze-dried versions in need of reconstitution.

“I
am
hungry. I didn’t eat there because I trusted you wouldn’t poison me—especially since you presumably haven’t been able to go out and shop at the apothecary, or wherever it is one purchases poison ingredients. I also was busy skulking around and trying not to be noticed, both on the station and on the ship.”

“Why on the ship? And, for your edification, I usually shop at laboratory supply stores. Or I use common ship’s items. I’m more of a chemist than an herbalist.”

“Edification?” Marat had been programming the security device, but he looked over at her now. “I had no idea pirates used such fancy words.” He grinned, probably to let her know he was teasing, nothing more. She caught herself staring back at him—at the grin. It brightened his face so much that she hadn’t realized his normal expression was on the somber side.

“I wasn’t
always
a pirate.” Ying wished she could come up with something clever or witty to say, to encourage that grin of his to stick around, but nobody had ever accused her of being a comedian. The closest she came to wit was when she was angry and insulting someone, but that wasn’t the sort of thing that endeared a woman to a man. Not that she wanted to endear herself to him.

“No? I got the impression your family ran a ship and that you’d grown up in the life.”

“I’ve been with—I
had
been with—my father for ten years, but before that, I lived with my mother and my sisters on Grenavine.”

Marat blinked a few times. “You’re from Grenavine? I wouldn’t have guessed from—well, I guess you admitted Ying wasn’t your real name.”

“That’s been my first name for... long enough.” Ying pulled out the vegetables and began chopping them. There were a couple of automated dicing machines, but she had always preferred the tactile experience of preparing food by hand. “My mother was enthusiastic about education, wanted me to go to a university and become a chemist or pharmacist. I was more into adventure. I left home when I was fourteen to find my father, my real father, not the one she married after realizing
my
father was never going to give up his pirating ways. I wanted to see the stars and everything in between, not sit in some boring lecture field. At the time, I had no idea... Well, my wanderlust was the only reason I didn’t die with the rest of the planet, my mother and sisters.” She stared down at the tomato beneath her blade, wondering why she was sharing all this with Marat. She didn’t share her background with anyone. Was she truly that lonely for company after a few months alone?

“Sorry, that must have been hard,” he said. “Huh, you’d actually fit in better on the ship than I do.”

Ying frowned over her shoulder at him. “What ship?”

“The
Albatross
. My ship. Well, Mandrake Company’s.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because the captain is Grenavinian, and so is a lot of the crew, especially the inner core people that were there back when Mandrake formed the company.” Marat left the table and joined her at the kitchenette, picking up a knife and grabbing an onion. There wasn’t another chopping board, so he started cutting on the countertop. The knife probably couldn’t harm the puke-colored faux stone composite.