Silver's Captive (4 page)

The woman in the kitchen came back to the counter with a tray with two bowls steaming and scenting the air with an enticing aroma and a plate with what looked like some kind of bread on it. Fresh food could be hard to come by in space. Synthesised food was the most common, but lacked the taste of anything fresh. For the ship to be serving fresh food and the crew not to be living out of a food synthesiser said a lot about the class of the ship. It said a lot about the kind of credits they had.

Tor’Arr took the tray of food and led me over to the end of one of the long rows of tables. He sat at the end, right next to me rather than opposite, close enough to touch.

“Do you have any customs that I should be aware of?” I asked before touching the food. Working in a restaurant, I’d seen a lot of different ways for people to pray over or bless their food before eating. It was respectful to ask.

“None I heed to anymore. You may eat without offending, Tarnee.”

His quiet words and the soft tone of his voice told me he was pleased I’d asked.

I picked up what looked like a spoon, though shaped a little strangely, and dipped it into the bowl. Small chunks of what I thought was meat and vegetables floated in a pale, creamy yellow liquid. I could have asked what we were eating before I tasted it, but I’d learned, living my whole life on a space station that frequently received supplies from exotic places, that the only way to really learn about what you were eating was to taste it. Sometimes, foods from alien planets tasted nothing like how you expected them to taste.

I breathed in the delicate aroma of the stew before taking a small mouth full. The delicate spices teased my tongue. It was slightly sweet with a hint of heat, and it reminded me of a dish my mother had made when I was a child.

“Tell me about your parents, Tarnee,”

Tor’Arr’s softly spoken command had me looking into his silver eyes. I looked down at my food, away from his penetrating gaze. I didn’t want him to see the pain I still carried inside me.

“They disappeared when I was ten. They were part of the station’s scientific exploration team. I was supposed to go with them, but I had an accident just before they left on their expedition and I had to stay behind to recover.”

“Were they looking for something specific?”

I lifted my eyes back to his, unsure how much I should tell him. My parents
had
been looking for something specific. They’d always talked about their work in our family quarters, and even at the age of ten, I’d understood what they were going to research would possibly have tremendous value.

“My father had picked up a faint energy signal from a small planet in one of the neighbouring solar systems. My parents both believed that they could harvest the energy. They’d already flown close to the planet and performed detailed scans, but this would be the first time they’d enter the planet’s atmosphere. It was the first time they’d been given permission to try and harvest whatever it was that was producing the energy.”

I returned my attention to my food and resumed eating. The small pieces of bread had a delicious nutty flavour that complimented the stew beautifully.

“Energy sources that can be harvested and mined are rare. What happened to your parents? It sounds like it was a reasonably straightforward mission of search and retrieve.”

I nodded my agreement, “Yes, it was supposed to be fairly simple. That’s why they were going to take me with them. My mother thought the experience would be good for my education. I was born on the station, and most children don’t get to spend much time on planets, so whenever the opportunity arose, my parents would take me with them.”

I was avoiding answering him, afraid that he’d be like everyone else and tell me I should give up the notion that my parents were still alive.

“What happened to them, Tarnee?” he asked quietly.

I took a breath and let it out slowly. “Staff at the station told me pirates got them, that everyone on the expedition died, but there were no bodies on the shuttle when they found it floating in space. There was no blood, no signs of a fight. The shuttle had been stripped, everything of value taken, but there was no proof that anyone had died.”

He looked at me intently, his gaze boring into mine. “What do
you
believe, Tarnee?”

I leaned towards him, all the conviction I felt about my parents’ apparent in my voice. “I believe they’re still alive. If pirates had captured them, they’d be dead. There would have been signs of a fight, blood or something. But there was nothing and...” I looked away. This was where most people looked at me with compassion and gentled their tone before telling me it wasn’t possible for my parents to still be alive after all these years.

“And what, Tarnee?”

“I’d feel it if they were dead. I know they’re still alive because they’re still alive inside me.”

Before he could respond, a voice came clearly across the ship’s communication system.

“Captain to the bridge.”

“
Gratck,
” Tor’Arr uttered, his voice sounding close to a growl.

I stared at him wide eyed. He was the captain? This was his ship? I had suspected from the spacious quarters that he was high up in the ship’s crew, but the captain?

“I need to return you to my quarters, Tarnee.”

“I can find my own way if you need to go,” I told him. I didn’t think I’d get lost, since all I had to do was go back the way we’d come.

“I can’t leave you alone. Most of the crew doesn’t know you’re here. It’s not safe for you to be walking around the ship on your own.”

I frowned at him, confused by how dangerous he thought it was. It was his ship, so surely he knew his men well enough to know that a lone woman would be safe.

“I can find my way,” I insisted.

He studied me for a long minute before saying, “My men are accustomed to taking what they want, Tarnee. Until they all know that you are mine, you are not safe from any of them.”

He was being serious. He honestly believed I wasn’t safe on his ship. What kind of crew did he have that they would take a woman against her will? What kind of crew did he have who were used to taking what they wanted?

I could only come up with one answer that made sense. I jerked up from my chair and backed away from him, my heart in my throat.

He slowly stood, but made no move towards me.

“Don’t look at me like that, Tarnee. I’d never do anything to hurt you.”

I shook my head at him. I didn’t know whether I could believe him. All my muscles tensed as fear surged through me.

“Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you’re not pirates,” I demanded.

“I can’t do that, Tarnee.”

Chapter Five

I turned and ran away from Tor’Arr, who was the captain of a pirate ship. Away from the man that had kidnapped me. I didn’t know where I was going—I just needed to get away from him. I wanted to run from the reality of my situation.

I didn’t get very far. Strong hands grabbed me as I reached the doors to the dining area.

“Let me go!”

“Tarnee, calm down,” Tor’Arr growled in my ear.

I struggled against his hold, twisting and turning, trying to get away. He shuffled me out of the dining area and into the corridor.

“Damn it, let me go,” I demanded.

But he didn’t. He bent and hoisted me over his shoulder and started off down the corridor, his hard shoulder pressed against my stomach making it hard to breathe. I wiggled as best I could, pushing against his back, kicking my legs, my anger at his actions starting to outstrip the fear I felt at finding out he was a pirate.

A large hand landed with a hard slap on my backside, dragging a sound of shock from my throat.

“Behave, Tarnee. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Shock made me still.
He spanked me!
Holy hell, he’d actually slapped my backside. The smarting pain of the slap sent my anger rising up in my throat.

“I swear to all that’s holy, if you don’t put me down this second, you’ll regret it,” I told him.

He stepped onto the lift and the doors slid closed with a quiet hiss, but he didn’t put me down. I wiggled against his shoulder, pushing at his back with my hands, twisting and turning. His shoulder dug into my stomach painfully and then the doors to the lift opened again and he stepped out into another corridor.

“Tor’Arr, put me down.”

“I thought I told you to call me Arr.” His deep voice laced with anger echoed through the empty corridor.

I stilled from what I heard in his tone. I didn’t know this man. He was a complete stranger to me. I didn’t know what he’d do in anger, how much control he had over himself and his emotions. It was quite possible that he could hurt me in his rage, that he’d take his emotions out on me.

His long strides brought us to his quarters quickly. The door slid open and he dragged me over his shoulder to slide full length down his body, until we were face to face.

“You have no need to fear me, Tarnee—I will not hurt you. Stay in here and rest while I find out why my crew needs me. I will be back as soon as I can.”

He put me down on my feet and let me go. He was striding out of the room with his long legs eating up the floor before I had a chance to say anything.

I stared at the door, shocked that he’d just leave. He hadn’t even given me the chance to be angry with him over the way he’d treated me. And I
was
angry. How dare he spank me as if I was some errant child in need of discipline!

His assertion that he wouldn’t hurt me did nothing to alleviate my concern over what he would be like to deal with angry. After all, he’d spanked me. What else would a pirate be prepared to do to me to get what he wanted?

The station had occasionally had ships come in that had had a run-in with pirates. Stories abounded in space of what pirates were prepared to do to take what they wanted, the lengths they would go to to secure a cargo that they had decided was valuable or worth their time and effort to take.

Most merchant vessels hired mercenaries to protect them, especially those carrying something of value. And there were parts of space no sane person travelled because the risk of being attacked was too high. Bloody and brutal, pirates were the dregs of society. They were men and women who were criminals and had escaped their planets’ justice systems or been liberated from one of the space jails.

These were the kinds of men on Tor’Arr’s ship, and he expected me to live this kind of life. Always in
fear
of my life. Always in fear of being caught.

I moved to the couch and sat down. Too many emotions were running around inside me. I took a deep breath trying to find some calm, trying to find something good in what had happened to me. There had to be some way, something in everything that had happened, in everything I’d discovered that I could see as good. I had to have hope that the situation would get better.

My thoughts turned to the man who had kidnapped me and the kiss we had shared, what he made me feel. He confused me so deeply I didn’t know how to make sense of all the feelings he raised in me. Yes, I was a little afraid of him. Yes, I found the strange sense of calm that descended over me when we were together to be confusing, but apart from spanking me, which made my anger boil, he hadn’t hurt me. In fact, he’d been quite gentle with me. And he made me feel things with his kiss that no man had ever made me feel.

Everything he’d said to me so far—everything he’d done—led me to believe he wanted a relationship with me, which was something I hadn’t been ready for. My goal of finding my parents had always taken priority over my personal life. Now, maybe I was in the position to do something about both.

Tor’Arr was the captain of this ship. For all I knew, it belonged to him. If he wanted to, he could help me search for my parents. If I could find out one way or the other if they were alive, I could move on with my life. I didn’t know if I could be the partner of a pirate or if he’d even be willing to let me go if things didn’t work out between us, but I now had an objective firmly in my mind.

My objective was to ask Tor’Arr if he’d be willing to search for my parents. After that, well, we’d just have to see.

Hours passed in which I paced nervously around his quarters until the doors opened to admit Tor’Arr, or rather, what I thought was him. I’d heard the deep sound of the ship docking with another and then the deafening silence that followed.

He stumbled into the room and dropped to his knees. He looked nothing like the man I was accustomed to seeing, but I knew it was him because he had the same silver eyes—silver eyes that looked into mine.

Silver fluid leaked from gashes on his face and his clothes were torn and burned in places. That same silver liquid seeped from the cloth, almost like it was bleeding. Alarm slammed through me when I saw the state of his condition. I leaped off the couch and rushed towards him just as he toppled over and fell to the floor with a thud.

Dropping to my knees beside him, I hesitated to touch him. He looked hurt all over. His back was covered in wounds that included knife slashes and burns. He had tears in his clothing that showed the tough skin underneath that was a mottled green and looked almost scaled.

“Tell me how to help you,” I said.

A deep groan came from him, a sound of pain.

“Arr, tell me how to help you. What do you need?” I touched him gently on a spot that wasn’t injured.

One slitted eye opened to look at me, the silver of his iris swirling in the soft light of his quarters.

“I need to shift,” he told me in a rasping voice.

I turned to look at the strange tub he’d been in when I first woke in his quarters.

“Come on, then. I’m going to need you to help. I can’t lift you.”

He pushed up with his arms, a hiss of pain coming from him. I grasped him under the arm and helped him as best I could without touching any of his wounds. Slowly, I managed to get him to his feet.

Holy hell he was heavy.

We staggered over to the tub, his weight over my shoulder pressing down on me, pushing down heavily on my body. He dropped gracelessly into the tub, almost pulling me in with him. One of his arms and a leg hung out of the tub. Carefully, to avoid hurting him any further, I lifted his limbs into the metal tub.