Max kept waiting for the glitch. With each hour that passed, hope scraped a little closer to the surface of his psyche. Inrit had remained by his side through the entire painful night, eventually falling asleep beside him once his system fully booted. But when morning came, they were both called to their duties.

There was just one more day until they made landfall at Vrinli II and could claim nearly a full day to themselves. And Max planned to make the most of it. She’d provoked him after all.

Catch me.

You’re mine.

Keeping his cock under control was nearly as difficult as keeping the hope at bay. But Max threw himself into planning. Weapons needed to be inspected, guard rotations confirmed, and the map memorized. Symes would be acting as his second for the mission and she vibrated with excitement and unspent energy. After a week on the ship, everyone was looking forward to a little ground time.

The young woman came up to him, her hair pulled back and her dark uniform impressively crisp after a week in space. “Captain called down, sir. Said he wants to go over final prep three hours before set down.”

Max did the mental calculations; that gave his people about twelve hours to get everything together. “Is everything loaded into the boat?” The main ship was too big to break atmo and Vrinli II didn’t use space stations like Tarni. They’d be forced to leave the ship in orbit with a skeleton crew and sail down in a smaller vessel.

Symes grimaced. “Not yet. The mech just got here to do final inspections.”

“Inrit?” he asked. Engineer and mechanic seemed to be interchangeable terms on the ship. He hadn’t seen his denya in hours and he missed her like a lovesick schoolboy. But when he asked after her, he kept his tone professional, or tried to. Symes didn’t seem to read his desires.

How so few people on the ship realized it, he couldn’t understand. Then again, both he and his mate were discreet by nature and most of their interactions were private. If they hadn’t been sharing a room, who knew what would have been discovered.

“Yes, it’s Inrit,” said Symes. “She got here about five minutes ago.” Symes drew in a breath to continue, but cut herself off and looked behind Max.

There was no one back there. His senses were sharper than ever and he knew the exact distance to everyone in the room. No one had entered while he and Symes talked. “Was there something else?”

“Morvellan asked me about the two of you the other day,” she confessed, biting her lip and looking stricken. “He told me to tell him if I saw anything untoward.”

“Untoward?” Max almost laughed. Was Inrit some fair maiden that needed protection from the hulking, inhuman cyborg who wanted to make her his queen? She would sooner punch him than curtsy. But even as mirth settled in, he realized what Symes was really telling him. “Do you think you’re the only person the captain asked?”

Max wasn’t concerned with what Morvellan could do to them. At worst, he’d made things a bit uncomfortable. But Max would spare Inrit any embarrassment. She deserved better.

Symes shrugged and didn’t offer anything else.

“Thank you for telling me. Now go dole out the weapons assignments and keep out of my way for the next hour.”

Max didn’t need to look at Symes to sense the smile on her face, but he didn’t care. He nodded to a few of the security crew and exited the weapons station, went into the hallway, down twenty paces, and turned down an even narrower hallway that led to the boat. All hallways on the ship narrowed as they got closer and closer to the airlocks. It was a security measure to force any invading force to attack in small groups that could be picked up by an even smaller defense force.

Max had to stoop as he got closer to the open airlock that led to the boat. He could hear a musical recording blasting out of the skiff and followed his ears. The boat was moored outside of the ship, connected through the airlock and several anchor points along the hull. As soon as Max stepped through the airlock, he descended a flight of stairs and followed the music all the way to the pilot’s seat. Unlike their ship, the boat contained only two sections, the control deck and a small storage section that could be jettisoned in case of emergencies.

Inrit wasn’t visible at first, but Max saw legs sticking out from under a control console, and he’d become an expert in the shape of the hips he saw disappearing into the shadows. Walking on quiet feet, Max stealthily crossed the pilot’s seat and crouched down. He placed his hands on either side of her hips and held himself centimeters above her, his body planked out and completely rigid.

Completely.

The faint smell of some kind of oil clung to her clothes, doing nothing to mask her alluring feminine scent. Max wanted to bury his head into the crux of her thighs and feast on her for days until she was writhing and screaming on top of him. He tried to be satisfied with brushing his head lightly against her abdomen, rubbing up against her like an affectionate cat.

“You know, if my mate sees you, he’s going to rip you limb from limb,” Inrit said playfully, arching her hips up a fraction. “He gets so jealous.” Her voice echoed strangely, coming from underneath the console.

Max dropped a knee between her legs so it was easier to maneuver and brought his hands up to her sides, gliding over the sensitive flesh. “Does he now?” Max asked, playing along. It thrilled him, the thought of stealing these moments away while everyone thought they worked. In his previous life, he’d never have chased a woman or played a secret lovers’ game. “If he’s such a jealous bore, why do you want him?”

Inrit gasped as Max’s hand found the opening in her overalls and sneaked under her undershirt. Metal clattered against a tool, scraping against something he hoped wasn’t important. Max’s fingers played against Inrit’s stomach. He couldn’t do much more than rub her in circles from this angle, not unless he removed her clothes.

Tempting thought, but his mind was still hyper aware of the hatch open to the rest of the ship. Music blared around them, blocking out the sound of their conversation, but he could hear his mate perfectly due to some trick of the acoustics in the little cave they’d created away from the rest of the crew.

“Why do I want him?” Inrit repeated his question thoughtfully. He wished he could see her face, but the mystery was part of the fun.

“You know all about my race,” she said, shifting her hips under him. “We’re doomed to die because of some stupid biological mating urge. So fate or the gods or evolution intervened and now we get stuck to someone who scrambles our brains with a decade’s worth of lust. I just can’t keep myself away from him.”

Despite the light tone, Max’s blood turned to sludge. With his mind sharper than it had been in years, he went back over every moment that he’d spent with Inrit, looking for any excuse that made what she’d just said in jest untrue. He pulled back and knelt, no longer hovering over her, no longer touching. His skin iced and he would have shivered if something like a hot gust of anger wasn’t brewing.

“Do you really think that?” he asked so quietly that he wasn’t certain she’d hear him over the music.

The sound cut off and then it was just the two of them and the hum of the ship’s energy field. Max’s ears rang in the silence. Inrit slid out from her spot under the console and Max shifted to the side to let her move. In one smooth move, she rolled up from her back until she was crouched on her feet, ready to spring at an unseen enemy.

Now that he knew to look for it, he could see the deeply embedded pirate. Even though she knew that he would never hurt her, he couldn’t hurt her because of their bond, she was ready to run, to fight, to kill, on a second’s notice. Sitting on the floor would have left her in a vulnerable spot. For a moment, he wondered why she’d been fine lying without eyes on the rest of the room, but that got pushed aside when she narrowed her flashing red gaze at him.

“If this was just about fate, I would have fucked you five minutes after we met and been done with it,” she scowled. Her claws weren’t out, but Max kept darting his eyes down to make sure they stayed that way. She was pissed and ready to have at it.

Good. Stress, anger, and a healthy dose of fear all crashed over him, and Max suddenly wished that they were already on the ground so he could get away from it all and take ten fucking minutes to think for himself.

He didn’t think he was angry at Inrit, not quite. But his blood was up and she’d just as good as told him that she only wanted him because her stupid fate. He was a man, no matter how much machine was in him, and he had his pride.

“So I’m not just some fuck,” he said, one degree short of slipping into a sneer. “How nice. Would you have even given me a second look if it weren’t for your damned biological urge?” He stood up, tired of crouching, and Inrit followed.

Her face was a wash of horror and something he couldn’t define. He realized he couldn’t define most of her emotions. They’d only known one another for a week. How could he expect to know everything so quickly? Or ever.

“I. Don’t. Know,” she said, her lips curling around every word. She got up in his face, finger pointed at him and digging into his chest. “And I don’t give a damn.”

Max bent over until only a few centimeters separated them. “I know,” he said, answering his own question. He hooked his arm around her and dragged her close. Her hands clamped on his shoulders but she didn’t even pretend to push away. “Fate or no, I couldn’t stop looking at you.”

Time hung in a frozen moment between them, and then his lips were crushing hers and he felt the slightest pinpricks of claws in the muscle of his shoulder. It didn’t hurt. No, if anything it only made the kiss sweeter, hotter.

Max’s cock was an iron rod in his pants and he was so desperate to be inside of her, to touch her, to be one with her, that he feared he’d lose control as soon as he was seated in the wet heat of her sex.

Even with the heated weight of the kiss whipping them on, he took his time, tasting where he wanted to devour, unbuttoning where he wanted to tear. A distant part of him remembered that they were both still working, that someone could walk through the airlock at any moment. He didn’t care what they saw of him. But he would protect Inrit’s reputation with everything he had.

The edge of their spat—it hadn’t gone on long enough to be called a fight—gave the kiss a roughness that rubbed against Max’s skin, grinding him down until it nearly chafed, and yet he kept going back for more.

Max kissed down her neck and over the dark splotches of flesh she called clan markings. He took his time, kissing around the edges of each of the nearly square marks, and held her close as she shivered under him. Her fingers dug into his arms hard enough to bruise, but Max would take any amount of pain as long as it meant kissing her, tasting her for even one moment longer.

With a final flick of his fingers, he bared her to the cool air in the room, her full breasts on display through the gap in her top. Gods above, she was magnificent. He’d seen her fully nude in the shower, but somehow this was even more powerful, more erotic.

Dark lines dotted out from her clan markings and covered her breasts, but her nipples were an even darker ruby than her skin, and when he took one into his mouth, it was as sweet as a cherry. She moaned beneath him and clenched a hand on the back of his head when he swirled his tongue around the hard-pebbled jewel.

Her hand dug into his short hair and Max remembered the claws she had hidden away, claws that could do all kinds of damage if she lost control. He blazed at the thought, sucking on her even harder and trying to bring her to the edge just by playing with her breasts. He would give his life to her if only she could find her peak.

Her fingers dug harder, but she tugged up, urging his head toward her own, and when he let go, she kissed him again. This was teeth and tongues and feral mouth fucking, his tongue piercing her in a preview of what he planned to do with his cock. He could go all night, never resting, never pausing, and still need more time to exhaust himself on the first round of forever that he wanted so hard to demand.

He pushed Inrit back against the console and her hand shot out to steady herself before she ended up lying flat against the delicate equipment.

Static crinkled in the air and Inrit jerked her face away from him. It took Max a moment to realize that the sounds he was hearing weren’t just the ambient noises of a ship, nor was it anything strange coming from inside him. He listened for a moment and felt Inrit stiffen beneath him. She pushed him away and turned, fiddling with a dial on the communications console and holding an old pair of headphones to her ear.

She didn’t bother to button the top of her overalls, but there was nothing sexual about her position. Her eyes were narrowed and her shoulders straight and tight, all business. Worry formed a line between her eyebrows, and her skin lost some of its hue, going from rich ruby to washed out scarlet.

Max leaned beside her on the console and picked up the other half of the headphones. Even with the receiver flush up against his ear, all he heard was static. He let his processors run wild, analyzing the noise for anything out of the ordinary, but it just sounded like static.

And then Inrit shifted another knob and flicked a switch and the static turned into a low rumbling that gave way to a language he could almost understand. He made out the shapes of the words and could even recognize a few, but none of it made any sense.

Inrit tugged at the headphones and put them down, turning off the transmitter with a few practiced flicks. When she looked up at him, her eyes were almost black, the red completely drowned out by her pupils.

“What is it?” Max asked. Inrit didn’t do scared. If anything frightened her, Max was sure she’d punch it in the face and then kick it once it was down. But right now, she shook and he thought he saw tears welling. He placed a hand on her arm, trying to offer what little comfort he could. “You’re with me,” he said. “You’re safe.” He’d kill anything that touched her.

“We’re not safe,” she whispered, voice quavering. “I don’t know what they said, or what they’ve already heard, but we are so far from safe that we might as well already be dead.” She stood statue still, which worried Max even more. When Inrit was frustrated, she moved, her energy all bottled up and ready to burst. Until now, he hadn’t seen anything stop her in her tracks.

She’d seen a lot of the universe, and remembering what she’d told him while she worked to make him whole, Max knew what the problem had to be. “Those are pirate signals, aren’t they?”

Inrit nodded her head once.

Max rolled up his sleeve and stepped past her, placing his hand on a rectangular pad beside the main console. “Turn the transmitter back on,” he told his denya. “If they’re still broadcasting, I can analyze the signal.” That was, if they weren’t speaking in code. All Class Cs were equipped with standard cryptography upgrades. Max couldn’t break every encryption, but he was still better than nothing.

“I didn’t mean to tune in,” Inrit said as she flipped the switch back on and turned the dial. “My fingers are just tuned that way. I’m still used to it.”

Max flinched as the connection to the transmitter sparked. Older cyborgs would have needed to physically plug themselves into the system to access the data. Luckily, he wasn’t that old. A simple spark and he was in. Data flowed too fast for him to make sense of. His eyes rolled back as he pushed everything to his analytics center. As the seconds wore by, the heat on his hand grew, but he disregarded it. Not even the singed smell of flesh was enough to deter him.

His entire being narrowed to focus on the stream of data. Distantly he remembered the reason he so rarely joined with data pools. It was far too easy to drift and drift and lose oneself in the beauty of the streaming numbers and symbols. The ship could have exploded around him and Max would be none the wiser.

He heard a faintly whispered yell as something tugged at his arm, but he clung to the stream, opening his mind to filter more and more data. His eyes flickered and the room dimmed around him, his senses too dulled. This was why Max didn’t interface with machines. It made him useless for his normal work. But that thought was barely more than a whisper.

Blinding pain seared his arm and Max yanked back from the sensor, cutting the connection with disorienting swiftness. He clamped his hand down on the wound that leaked bright red blood and looked around to find his attacker, muscles primed to rend limbs from bodies. Instead he found Inrit standing beside him, a thin green knife in one hand, eyebrows crinkled and lips thin.

“What in all the hells, Max?” she demanded as she wiped down her weapon and slid it into an unseen holster. “That was worse than a glitch!”

The healing factor in his machinery was already stitching the wound together. Max shook his arm to further speed his healing as his mind worked to decode and decrypt everything he’d just accessed. “It wasn’t a glitch,” he said. “I did that on purpose.”

“Well don’t do it again,” she commanded. Her hands curled into fists and he saw that her own claws were out and ready to fight.

“Why the knife?” he asked. She had something much deadlier built in.

She flashed her claws up at him and they slowly retracted back into her hands. “Too much damage otherwise. I just wanted to get your attention.”

“I’m sorry I scared you,” he said. “I’ll warn you if I have to do something like that again.” He was a cyborg and he had a job; he couldn’t just promise his mate that he’d give up all his talents for her peace of mind.

She understood, the cluttered emotions beginning to clear. “The signal seemed pretty degraded,” she said, back straightening and color returning. Now she took the time to carefully button her top and put her hair back in order. “If any ships were near, we’d know it.”

“I’ve barely begun, but what I’ve decrypted so far seems to be simple chatter. Nothing about attacking us, nothing about spotting us, nothing that sounds remotely like code.” Now that he was no longer connected to the data stream, he could designate only a small part of his capacity to focusing on the signals.

“Don’t notify the captain until we know if they’re watching us,” said Inrit. She had both of her hands planted on the console and looked out into the dark boundless space visible through the window in front of them. “If they’re not watching us and we poke at them, we’ll make ourselves a target.”

“We’re too small to be worth the effort of hijacking,” Max said. On Nina Station, he’d heard of plenty of narrow misses with vessels of similar size to Morvellan’s ship. They just weren’t profitable enough.

“Do you know how many times people said that just before I boarded them?” Inrit asked, reminding him that he had stories and she had experience. She would always understand pirates far better than he. “And we’re still not safe. If we’re not worth the effort to rob, they could simply blow us to bits.”

As the former commander of a station, keeping security information like this from the captain didn’t sit right with Max. But as the current head of security and, more importantly, Inrit’s mate, he saw her point. He hadn’t known the captain long enough to predict his reaction to the possible danger. “Alright,” he agreed. “I’ll let the analysis run and keep quiet for now. We can scan again after our time on Vrinli. That might give us a better idea of if there’s a threat.”

“Thank you.” She took a deep breath and then sat back down on the ground. “I’ll finish up my checks within the hour, then the boat is yours.”

If he hadn’t seen her on the edge of panic, he wouldn’t have realized what she’d just gone through. She was one hell of a woman. “Less than a day until our date,” he reminded her.

Inrit tilted her head up and studied him for several seconds. “I’m glad it’s you,” she said. “I’m glad that you’re my mate. If I had a choice, it would have been you.” Before he could respond or even react, she lay down and shimmied back under the console.

Max studied her legs for a long moment, trying to figure out what to say. In the end, it was obvious. “I would have chosen you too.”