Epilogue
Three months later…
Peyton watched Ellie shuffle slowly into the officers’ lounge. It must have been obvious to him that she was mentally tired from learning the Swarii language, because he probably was too, even though she had gotten much more fluent than he had after three months. But any sort of meeting took its toll on her.
It was the middle of the afternoon but, even though Ellie had mocked Graham when he suggested she should start taking afternoon naps, there she was, hitting the sofa in the officers’ lounge like it was a featherbed.
“Hey, kitten,” Peyton said, surprisingly in Swarii. Her brain ached when she listened to it.
“Hmmph…” she grumbled back dreamily, crossing her arms under her chin as a makeshift pillow.
“Kitten?” Peyton prompted her gently.
“Yes?” she said, annoyed.
“The boss is coming down here. Supposedly he’s got big news for you,” he said quietly.
She rolled over and stretched her arms wearily underneath her head. “I don’t know about you, but it seems like whenever I get ‘big news,’ it means Fie just wants to shove something up my ass. So excuse me for not bouncing with excitement.”
“Well, this is gonna be far from a shot in the ass. Your mechanic command test scores just came in…” Peyton acknowledged. “So, respect should be forthcoming.”
Her eyes shot open wide. “Test? I didn’t take any engineering tests.”
“Yeah, well, didn’t Thorton ask you to change the radiator with only a masstedion and a pair of tweezers?” Peyton asked with a shrug.
“He didn’t ask. He mentioned the radiator needed to be fixed, and bet me his dessert portion for a week that I couldn’t fix it with just a masstedion and a pair of tweezers,” she replied, her brow crimped in confusion. “I think that’s why I’m so tired. I cannot eat cake for lunch, man. Puts me in a coma, especially after I’ve been speaking Swarii all morning—my brain hurts right now…” She shook her head and tried to focus. “But that was a test?”
“Thorton’s idea. He really wants you as his assistant…” Peyton said cheerily, as if he figured Ellie would be flattered.
Instead, Ellie snorted. “He should be my assistant. I invented the damn Fledge system, didn’t I?” Why the Swarii had decided to call her system for intercepting Frian signals the ‘Fledge’ was completely beyond her, but in any case it had been a sensation. However, the fact that the spy device was created by a mostly human had definitely been kept out of the spotlight, and therefore Ellie felt that she hadn’t gotten the proper amount of pats on the back.
“I think the fact you did it in a way that would make a boy scout drool was more impressive than the actual invention to them.”
“That’s weird, though. Isn’t it? To regard the process more than the invention?”
“Well, it was a pretty simple invention, Ellie,” Peyton shrugged. “I mean, look at the simple stuff that has changed our lives, like can openers. Did you know people used tin cans for fifty years before somebody thought of the can opener? Until then, they just went at it with a big hammer to get the damn food out. You did that—you created the can opener—faster, better, more efficient, and when the Swarii looked at what you made, they couldn’t believe they didn’t think of it themselves. And that’s what they’re impressed by: you created somethin’ they didn’t. They have a really strange way of lookin’ at things… And doin’ things…”
Ellie grinned, knowing what Peyton was thinking. He was amazed that he was held in such high regard. He felt a little out-of-place at first—he wasn’t the mountain of a man he was at home; in fact, he was on the short side compared to the rest of the Swarii, but the Swarii weren’t quite built for wars like humans were. None of their history had involved much hand-to-hand fighting, and so it wasn’t emphasized in their training. They acted like they thought Peyton was an actual beast of some kind, just because he was a skilled fighter. Peyton saw his own faults—he was getting into his thirties, now. He was getting a little slower than he was when he was twenty-five and in ‘the bush.’ He was out of practice. The Swarii, however, just saw him as a killing machine.
“You’re telling me,” she replied, unable to keep from smirking. “But you look hopeful about Graham offering me a position on his ship…” She lifted her eyebrows, obviously expecting a compliment.
Peyton shrugged, plopped his body down next to her on the sofa, picked up a tablet from the table in front of them, and clicked it to newspaper mode. “Yeah, well,” he said while he fiddled with the device and then slowly deciphered the foreign language squiggled in front of him. “I miss it when you’re not a constant pain in my ass, as it turns out. You spendin’ so much time with the admiral… those classes he makes you take, those engineers he makes you hang out with… I suppose it’s creating a bit of separation anxiety in Mary and me.”
“I come here in the evenings…”
“Yeah, to sleep,” Peyton grumbled. He rounded his shoulders as if she had hurt his feelings somehow.
“So sue me. Jack’s the big boss. Where he says to go, I go. When he says jump, I jump. He’s the one that’s working me after hours in his section of the mothership. I don’t personally like it. They make this chicken dish in the cafeteria that is really dry… And I swear, the more I complain to the staff about it, the dryer it gets. By next week, I’ll be eating jerky,” she grumped.
Peyton grinned. “I forgot you were a picky eater.”
“I just like things I put in my mouth not to be too disgusting,” she said loftily.
But then her expression became serious. “Graham’ll never offer me a position,” she said, obviously more to herself than to Peyton. “Jack won’t either. Jack would tie a leash around my neck if he was allowed. I noticed that he doesn’t like me out of his sight.”
Peyton laughed. “He’s just about as interested in your safety as your guy. But hey, at least he’s not slapping your butt and sending you to the kitchen to make him a pie.”
She coughed with laughter. “Because what a gross pie that would be,” she guffawed, but then she quieted and shrugged. “But you know that’s what Graham’s wanted. He doesn’t want me working. He puts up with it. Hell, it’s not like he’s used to seeing women work.” She shook her head. “I figure I’m making leaps and bounds for Swarii women. And I’m not even that feminist. I would never trust my own car to a chick.” She smiled as she tried to make a joke that would betray her own sex the most. “Her boobs might get in her way when she’s working on the transmission.”
“Do your boobs get in the way?” Peyton laughed.
She thought about the truth in her own joke. “More often than you might think,” she finally decided. She shrugged. “Graham likes them, though, so I guess I’ll keep ‘em around.”
“Thank you.” Graham’s tall figure appeared in the door behind them, crossing his arms over his chest.
Ellie spun around in her seat so she could look at him. Yep—he was perfect. There was something about his captain’s uniform that she didn’t tire of even though he had been wearing it for three months straight. He looked so powerful, so confident, so drop-dead sexy. She was excited to get it off of him that evening. They hadn’t gotten a chance to make love for a whole week now. They had been too busy; they would come together at night too tired to do anything but fall face-down on their pillows and conk out. But he was in the mood—she could see his eyes settle on her chest, then climb up her long neck to her ponytailed head.
“Well, well. Thank Thorton for his never-ceasing campaign to make you an engineer, second class, Mrs. Masterson.”
Her head cocked to the side as if she had trouble processing the information. “Second class?” she finally peeped, looking hurt.
“Second class is higher than fifth,” Peyton reminded. “Which is entry level…” He looked at Graham with a confused expression.
Graham sighed grumpily. “Thorton reminded me that there’s no such thing as a fifth-class engineer that can fix a radiator, let alone with a pair of tweezers… I mean, that ‘test’ was a joke, Ellie! For God’s sake, you weren’t supposed to actually do it! It’s just something made up to get engineers thinking about resourcefulness…”
Ellie smirked at how incredulous Graham was about this whole thing. Somehow, and completely by accident, she had put Graham very much against the wall when it came to hiring her on. He could no longer say she didn’t have the experience. He couldn’t claim that she wasn’t resourceful. He couldn’t say that she wasn’t the most promising engineer in the fleet. But he really, really didn’t want to admit it. Still, facts were facts. She was in.
“So, you’re going to let me work with you? You mean, you’ll have to deal with your mate on a twenty-four-hour basis? How will you ever manage, Captain?” she teased, forcing a straight face although she was practically shaking with excitement.
He rolled his eyes. “It’s not that. I’m looking forward to more time with you. I mean, my father’s totally pissed up to the hilt about it—he wanted to keep you here, but he can’t argue with the fact that you coined the phrase, ‘human rigging,’ and that you might prove to be indispensable. Especially since Thorton wants to go into mothership command in the next year or two, and he leaves big shoes to fill.
“But,” he continued, stepping up to her and wagging his finger at her. “I’m in charge of your safety, remember, and if you think I’m a strict husband, think again. I’m a much stricter captain. I’m giving Thorton a strip of leather, and he’ll use it if you even think about doing anything even close to unsafe. And you do not want to cross me. Give me an excuse to use you as an example, and I will,” he threatened seriously. “You will have to learn to actually follow orders; cute’s only gonna get you so far. You are going to hate me as a boss.”
She climbed over the back of the couch and snuggled into his chest. “Well, I’m definitely not going to call you ‘boss,’” she admitted. “Not my style…”
He grumbled but then scooped his arms around her waist. “So you don’t mind having to submit to my authority both at work and at home, then?” he asked playfully, raising his eyebrows with amusement.
Her body cried, ‘Looking forward to it!’ and began to ache with need. But she comfortably shifted the thought from her mind. “Submit?” she snorted. “Don’t get cocky, now. I can start kicking up a fuss again anytime, you know.”
“And I can spank that ass at any time,” he responded, this time his grin properly cocky. He liked spanking her, she knew this. At least he liked the sex they typically had right after.
“Well, since you’ve introduced the idea… Maybe I should get in trouble more often. I haven’t had any of this ‘bad-girl’ sex you’ve spoken about,” she reminded mischievously. She had only earned short spankings recently—lots of them, but she hadn’t done anything serious enough to require anything beyond one more anal training session since her first day on the mothership.
“Oh, I’ll be sure to teach you all about it,” he assured, his voice a velvety rumble.
“This is gross. Where’s your decency, you guys?” Peyton asked, rolling his eyes toward the couple now wrapped up in each other and kissing.
Ellie couldn’t help but chuckle. She looked over at Peyton and said, “Payback’s a bitch, isn’t it?”
“Well, I was hoping you’d want to pay back the Frians by kicking butt on our next mission. Not by ear-raping me with your gory details,” admitted Peyton.
“Oh, I’ll pay back the Frians,” she assured, but then rolled her head back toward Graham and jumped playfully onto him, wrapping her legs around his waist. “But for now, I have a mission for Graham. Take us to our bedroom?” she giggled, loving how Graham was strong enough to carry her out of the lounge like she was a small doll.
“In what universe does an engineer second class order around a captain?” he asked her, smiling excitedly.
“In this universe,” she replied. “Hell, it’s not like you ever dreamed you’d have your own mate working as your engineer before we met. Face it, with me around, anything’s possible.”
“So it seems,” Graham replied with a laugh. “Can’t wait to see what tomorrow will bring.”
She shook her head. “Don’t worry about tomorrow—I’m focused on tonight.”
“And tonight’s going to last a long, long time,” he agreed as the couple disappeared into the bedroom and closed the door behind them. Yep—their next mission was going to be interesting, that Ellie knew, but having Graham in her bed every night was going to be worth the misadventures and war that ultimately lay ahead. In any case, as soon as they were alone in the bedroom together, she forgot all about it. She was finally beginning to feel free.
The End