Stealing Mercury (Arena Dogs Book 1) (32 page)

“What do you mean, Mom?” Samantha’s heart rate accelerated.

Her mother squeezed her hand then let go. She lifted the packet in her hand and opened the seal. “It was enough that he loved me. Made me feel for someone when the wars had made me numb.” She pulled a handful of encrypted stills. She traced her fingers over the corner of one and the view sheet leapt to life. The still showed young versions of her father and mother standing close. Her mother shimmered with gold. Around them dozens of people crowded together. They all looked weary, but relieved. She could see transport bags on the ground at their feet and the Haverlee dunes stretched out behind them.

“This was the group I was in. We were no longer on Cerrillia by then, but the Alliance had bounty hunters out looking for us on the Alliance side of the border. They were afraid we were building an army.” She grinned and flushed more golden. “We would have if we could, but there just weren’t enough of us. When Aurilia—the planet where we’d been hiding—became too dangerous, your father smuggled us to Haverlee.”

Her father truly had been a refugee runner. Emotion dropped on Samantha’s head like a confused mass of sand-cats, scratching and scoring her as they purred their way into her heart.

Samantha pressed her nose against Mercury’s neck. They sat on the side of a sand dune far enough out of the camp to guarantee a little privacy.

“I feel like my life has turned upside down in the last week. It seems I was wrong about everything.”

Mercury tipped her chin up and rubbed his thumb across her lip. “Tell me what I can do to make it better?”

She shook her head. “I’m not even sure I want to make it better—or at least not to change it back to the way things were.”

She could see he didn’t understand. He looked at her with those storm cloud eyes, letting her talk. Trying to give her what she needed when she had no idea what that was.

“A few weeks ago,” she explained. “I was alone. I mean, there where people around, but I was still alone. I thought the indies, my father’s friends, had abandoned me as surely as his crew did when they left me on Sydney3. Now I don’t know what to think.”

“Chief Pillar was right about your father’s past.”

“Yes. I need to let it soak in, to figure out how I feel about it.”

Mercury frowned. “I thought that was a good thing.”

He might not understand the history and politics of the Earth Alliance, but he knew when things made her happy and sad. For him that was all he needed to know and as far as she was concerned it was more than enough.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “That’s a good thing. It means he wasn’t as selfish as I thought. But he never told me. And it doesn’t make up for everything else he did.”

“Drake claimed your father was a friend of Grande Owens.” Mercury offered up the slight with no malice, but Samantha bristled at the thought of it.

“No way would he deal with that dune-slug.” That she was sure of.

“I didn’t think so either,” he said. “I know his daughter and such a woman could not have been born to a man who accepted the suffering of others.”

She cupped his hand where he still held her. “It isn’t important what he did in the past. We have plenty to worry about in the present.”

“But your father—”

“Yeah.” She sighed. “I thought he was a complete bastard. Turns out it was my own insecurity that was the real problem.” She held his intense gaze for several minutes and he allowed it, letting her think her way through to what she needed to say. That was Mercury. He always knew what she needed. In his eyes there was complete acceptance. Complete confidence of who he was. Stars, she didn’t want to lose him. Not to Roma and not to her own fears. She looked down and studied her knees, unable to face him with fear choking her. Her heart pounded and she couldn’t breathe. “I don’t want to make the same mistakes with you.”

He pressed his forehead to hers. “Don’t be afraid...”

She pushed back, needing to gage his reaction to what she wanted, no, needed to talk to him about. “I know you made a promise to Carn. But you’re going back, taking that risk, it’s about more than that isn’t it? You’re pack bonded with his mate.”

He turned her in his lap and wrapped both big hands around her face. “
You
are my mate.” When she started to protest he silenced her with a look. “I know you don’t believe it yet, but it’s true.”

She pressed her lips together to stop the protests she wanted to spew out. She wouldn’t be distracted. She needed an answer. “But you’re bonded?” This time she made it a clear question. Demanded an answer even if she knew the answer and didn’t want the confirmation.

“I was bonded to her, but nothing comes before mates. Carn knows this. Hera knows this.”

She swallowed against the lump that formed deep in her throat. “It was the one thing I swore, Mercury. That I’d never fall in love with a man who couldn’t give me his whole heart. Who wouldn’t be with only me. I know it isn’t fair after I had sex with Lo... but I couldn’t bear it if you were with someone else. I couldn’t.”

“We’re mated,” he said. “I’ll never touch another. Think, Samantha. Think of Carn. He’s my pack brother and he cares for you, but he doesn’t touch you. He can’t touch any female but his mate. This is our way. I need no one but you.”

She wanted to believe him and she was terrified to let herself believe. Maybe if she didn’t believe now it would hurt less if— No! She couldn’t think that way. She loved Mercury whether she wanted to or not. He’d never lied to her. She had to trust him or end it and she knew she couldn’t leave him now.

“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “I’ve been wrong about a lot of things lately. Maybe there’s one more thing I’ve been wrong about.”

He sat quiet, waiting.

“Maybe I’ve been wrong about not having any way to help you get back to Hera. I think it’s time I go back to the port and make a few calls.”

The Mug and Grub, Haverlee, Krena

Gollerra Sector

2210.171

Mercury had walked proudly at his mate’s side all day as she’d worked amongst the Golley at the space port, contacted old friends, and called in old favors on his behalf. He’d thought he’d seen her strong and confident when he’d watched her through the bars of his cage as she took on the whip-master and his guard. He’d thought he’d seen her at her most courageous when she’d crawled down the side of a collapsed ravine and gone head-first down a dark hole to save Carn’s life. He’d thought he’d seen her clever and competent when she’d exhausted herself, single handedly flying the unfamiliar, low-on-fuel transport to Haverlee. But he knew now he’d been wrong.

The woman beside him was the one who’d snuck into the port as a child and changed her future. He suspected this woman was stronger, more confident, more courageous than he’d yet seen. The events of the morning had led her back to herself and a fierce joy for her wrapped around his heart, even as it fed the doubt in his gut. Doubt that he could keep her with him after they freed Hera. Doubt that she would accept his mate-claim. Doubt that she would ever find him worthy.

When they arrived at the backdoor to the Mug and Grub, a small crowd waited outside in the twilight. The humans all had mugs in their hands, several were propped against the exterior of the building. As they approached, the humans fixed their attention on Samantha. They all dressed alike in shades of pale blue and gray and wore heavy boots similar to the ones Samantha and the men of her father’s crew had worn.

“Do you know them?”

“Yes,” she said. “I haven’t seen them in years, but yes.”

He urged Samantha forward and signaled Lo with a low-sound bark. The command went unanswered, but Mercury knew Lo lurked in the shadows. “You should introduce them before Lo decides to shred them.”

Samantha hurried forward and he thought he heard her whisper the word
friends
under her breath as she approached them. Her voice sparkled with happiness as she called each of them by name, three males and two females. Mercury forgot Lo’s discomfort and bristled with his own when she allowed the males to hug her. He wanted to knock them away and then he wanted to strip her clothes off her and roll around with her on the silken bed sheets in her mother’s tent until she smelled only of him.

The hugs were over before his possessiveness got the better of him. He settled as she introduced them to him and to Carn and finally to Lo as he materialized out of the darkness.

As she spoke Lo’s name with her hand resting softly on his arm, Mercury realized he didn’t mind at all if she smelled of Lo. It was their way, but the more time he spent in her world the more he understood how she might have trouble making sense of things he accepted without question.

The humans turned out to be from the
Gwendella
, the ship she’d contacted that afternoon. Samantha had explained that she’d done some of her pilot’s training there. He’d only been expecting this meeting to be with the captain Samantha had asked to help them and he hadn’t been entirely comfortable with the idea. But this was her world and he had to trust her judgment.

The plain door into the building’s back room had no markings and had to be opened with a code. Samantha had explained that customers entered through the front, but the captain had arranged for a private meeting. Inside, dozens of dimly glowing, fist-sized balls lit the interior. Scattered across the tabletops and the counter that ringed the small room, their combined output left much of the room in shadow.

The chairs sat empty for the most part. Samantha led the way to a large table at the center of the room where the room’s only occupants, two females and a male, got to their feet. He recognized the man as Knock, the man who’d thought he had a right to walk into Samantha’s bedroom that morning. He bristled at the man’s presence.

The younger woman dressed differently from the others. She was the bar worker, he realized as she disappeared through an interior door, leaving only the older woman to greet them. The appearance of the woman, who had to be the captain, startled him. He’d seen dark skinned humans before, but none as dark as her. The resemblance to the blue-black skinned Mothers was undeniable, but also meaningless. She was clearly human. Her tightly curled silver hair covered her skull, unlike the Mothers with their slick skulls. And her figure registered as typical human. Her clothes seemed more formal than the others and she wore a shiny silver star on her collar.

“Mercury.” Samantha’s hand rested on his arm as she pulled his attention back to her. “This is Captain Amanda Artane, owner of the
Gwendella
.”

He lifted his chin in acknowledgement and the woman held out her hand. He knew what she wanted, but it was a gesture made amongst humans. She kept her hand out, unbothered by his hesitation, until he accepted the gesture. She shook the hand he offered and gave him a warm smile.

“Good to meet you,” she said.

Mercury released her hand and breathed deeply, subtly searching her scent for deception, but found none. “Samantha tells me you helped her gain her skills as a pilot.”

Lines crinkled at the outside edges of her eyes. “I suppose I did.”

“You have my thanks then.”

The captain’s mouth opened as if she would speak then closed.

Samantha motioned to his pack brothers, but didn’t move aside to allow them to approach. “This is Carn and Lo.”

They exchanged nods of recognition and then the captain sat back down and motioned to the chairs nearby. Her crewmembers went to the far end of the table where the young woman had returned with a pitcher of drink and began to refill their mugs.

“It’s good to see you, Samantha.” The older woman crossed an ankle over the opposite knee and rested one hand on her boot. “I was sorry to hear about your father.”

“Thank you, Captain.” Samantha’s spirits no longer darkened as they had before when her father had been mentioned. “And thank you for coming.”

The woman’s lips turned downward, making her face seem sterner. “We were about to leave Sedona when I got your call. Between my respect for your father and my affection for you, delaying departure by a day was an easy call. Especially since I’d seen this.” The captain slid a thin flexible sheet across the table. “This bulletin is bad news. You and your friends are in a heap of trouble, Sammie.”

Knock sat silent on the other side of the captain.

Samantha touched the corner of the sheet and it lit up with images of each of them and some text Mercury couldn’t read. Samantha huffed and her spine softened. She looked up to the captain. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do about this, but I have a more important favor to ask you.”

“The one you mentioned in your call.”

Samantha nodded.

“Okay, tell me. The whole thing. Even the parts you think I can’t help with. You might be surprised what I can do.”

“First, Captain. I’m sorry, but why is Knock here?”

The captain bristled as she turned and frowned at Knock. “He was waiting at the port when the shuttle brought us over from Sedona.”

Knock leaned forward. “I have almost as many connections in this port as you do, Sammie. I heard you were up to something and I’m here to help. If I can. And to warn you that Shred knows you’re here. He’s prepping the
Bucket
for departure first thing tomorrow.”

Samantha frowned, but she nodded then turned her attention back to the strip of flexible material. “It’s even worse than this, Captain. Even if I could clear this up, I’ll be losing my pilot’s license. They know I’m part Cerrillian.”

The captain slammed a fist against the table. “If it was that cretin, Shred, I’ll—”

Samantha gasped. “I didn’t know you knew.” She visibly shook off her surprise. “No it wasn’t Shred. Two of the Roma employees found out the old fashion way. Observation. And if they haven’t spoken up about it yet, it’s only because they haven’t had an opportunity. You can be certain they’ll speak up when they get the chance.”

“Well,” said the captain. “Looks like the only way to fix this is to get you a new identity and to get your friends here as far away from Roma as possible.”