The last three days of their journey passed in relative calm. Though a four day trip through hyperspace wasn’t long by any count, Ty hadn’t realized just how far away they’d been kept from where Dorsey was taken. Jaaxis was further away still. The path that put the two of them captured on the same ship at the same time made little sense so far, especially since they’d been the only prisoners.

The slave markets were close enough to the Jaaxis gate to explain the pirates’ presence, but why had they crossed half the galaxy to get there? If anything suspicious turned up regarding the Tarnian pilot’s death, then Ty was concerned that there was more to the situation then he realized. If there was foul play, then this was a Consortium issue, and Ty was unwittingly caught up in it.

If there was foul play, it meant that Dorsey was in grave danger.

“Strap in,” Dorsey patched through over the intercom. “We’re ten minutes from Nina Station.”

Ty sealed the tools he’d been working with in the cabinet. There were always spare parts that needed fixing floating around in a ship’s engine room, and it helped him to think when his hands were busy. The old emergency filter he’d been working on wasn’t any closer to being salvageable than when he’d started working on it, but at least the screws were properly fastened now.

He climbed out of the engine room and sealed the hatch behind him. Perhaps it would have been the proper thing to change into a fresh shirt or towel off the sweat that the heat of the room had brought out, but he wanted to sit next to Dorsey. Besides, he’d seen the way she looked at him any time he did a little heavy lifting. Her gaze did plenty of lifting where his body was concerned.

Ty slid into the co-pilot’s seat in the cockpit just as Dorsey engaged the landing system. Docking to a space station was easy enough work with a competent autonav, but it still required a great deal of attention in case something went wrong. Ty told himself what was the reason that she didn’t spare him a glance when he buckled in. 

It was difficult to avoid someone on a two passenger space ship. Now all he had to make sure of was that she couldn’t do it once they reached land. Ty wasn’t giving up on Dorsey, and he wouldn’t leave her to fend off danger by herself.

The view screen in front of them suddenly brightened as Dorsey punched out of FTL and Tarni and Nina Station came into view. Tarni took up most of the view, blue oceans covering wide swaths of the surface interspersed with clouds and large land masses. This close to the planet, Ty felt small and was reminded of just how tiny one person truly was in the grand scheme of things.

Nina Station was massive as well, but nothing compared to a planet after weeks of empty space. A new hope filled Ty. Jaaxis was meant to be his final stop, yet here he was, on the other side of the galaxy with the woman who’d saved him, even if she didn’t know it.

Finally, finally, she glanced his way, a genuine smile shining on her face. “It’s almost as good as home,” she said.

“You’re not from Tarni?” From all her talk of the Consortium, he’d assumed it was her home system.

“No, you’re looking at the real deal here.” She gestured to herself with a little laugh.

“The real deal?”

“Premium, Grade A Earthling. You don’t get that many of us this far out, but there are a few hundred of us planetside from the homeland and several thousand more who are only a generation or two removed.” She had to look away from him to engage the docking controls.

“If there are so few humans, who are Tarni’s people?” Jaaxis was full of different alien species, a land of refugees and travelers. Perhaps the Consortium was the same.

“Humans, Oscavians, Rogtanis, Neen, there’s tons of folks here. But it was founded by humans who were abducted from Earth thousands of years ago.” She paused for a moment and then tilted her head towards him. “If you stick around for a bit I can show you some of their history.”

Ty grinned. “I’m in no rush to leave you.”

She grinned back and hope bloomed. But at that moment, the ship finalized docking and their attention turned back to the matter at hand.

“Shuttles run to the Nina Base port every few hours,” she said. “Hopefully there’s no issue with station security and we can make land by nightfall. Worst case scenario, we stay the night up here and go down in the—”

“REMOVE ALL WEAPONS AND REPORT TO YOUR AIR LOCK FOR IMMEDIATE INSPECTION.” A booming voice over the loudspeaker cut Dorsey off.

“Is this…?”

“It’s not normal,” she said, eyes wide and worried. “Do as they say, this is probably just a misunderstanding.”

“Maybe this ship has been reported stolen?” he suggested. It was unlikely that the pirates had paid for it with honest money.

“Let me do the talking. Please?” She added the last as an afterthought, but Ty wasn’t about to contradict her, not here. This was her place, she knew the people and the consequences.

He wasn’t about to step on any toes out of misplaced masculine pride. Besides, seeing her confidently taking on anyone as authoritative as the men they were about to meet heated his blood and showed him just how formidable she was. His denya was no simpering maiden. But he kept all that to himself and simply said, “Of course.”

Dorsey grabbed a data crystal from the console and slipped it into her pocket. They both walked in silence to the air lock. They had no weapons to divest themselves of; with just the two of them on the ship Ty saw no reason to carry around the pipe he’d used on Lex’s shipwreck.

“I don’t think they’ll shoot us,” Dorsey said once they reached the air lock. “But be careful.”

On that reassuring note, she opened the door to reveal a unit of four station security officers, weapons in hand and pointed right at them. He and Dorsey both had their hands raised, palms flat. After a tense moment, the leader, possibly human based on his height, but impossible to tell since he was completely covered in black tactical gear, lowered his weapon. Shortly after, his people followed suit. He raised his hand and pressed a button on the side of his helmet, causing the whole thing to retract into the suit.

Ty’s hunch was right. The man was human, mostly. But the silver sheen of his eyes belied mechanical enhancements. He was a cyborg. Stronger, faster, and more ruthless than any human, cyborgs made up many of the top ranks of human military and police forces. Without similar enhancement or a vehicle, a person couldn’t hope to outrun a cyborg.

Luckily, this one seemed reasonable enough, and when he started talking, the knot in Ty’s chest loosened. “Dorsey? What the hell are you doing on a Granda Pirate vessel?”

Granda Pirate? Was that their name? They hadn’t bothered to introduce themselves when they’d captured him.

Ty stayed silent beside Dorsey and kept his back straight and eyes menacing. Maybe he couldn’t outfight a cyborg, but if any of those men tried to put a hand on his denya they wouldn’t see tomorrow.

“I haven’t turned pirate, Max,” Dorsey said with the exasperation of acquaintance. Ty leaned half a step closer to her, tempted to put his arm around her shoulders, but that would only set off the guards.

Max the cyborg eyed him with appraisal as Dorsey spoke, and Ty’s claws itched to shoot out and see what the man was made of. Had Max shown interest in Dorsey? Did he want her still? Worse, did Dorsey want him? It was easy to make plans for the future while alone on a ship, but when life came calling, things got complicated.

“You have skirted the edge of the law before, Dorse.” That the cyborg hadn’t holstered his weapon hadn’t escaped Ty’s notice.

Dorsey lowered her hands and crossed her arms, her foot tapping nervously. “We were both taken by pirates. Slavers, we think. Luckily, they were better at kidnapping then guarding, and we escaped and stole this ship from them.”

“And who’s your friend?” Now he turned his gaze full bore to Ty.

“Tyral NaRaxos,” Ty introduced himself with a nod. “Detyen pilot.”

Max’s eyes flashed and Ty realized that his eyes weren’t his only enhancements. “Detyen?” Max said. “How old are you?” To hone in on that he must have a database of alien characteristics wired into his mind.

There was no reason to lie. “Twenty-nine.”

Max glanced between Dorsey and Ty, his gaze too sharp. But he said nothing more and holstered his gun. “Beqk, take them to Quarantine One.”

“Wait!” Dorsey cried before they could be hauled off. She reached into her pocket and held out the data crystal. “We found the body of Lex Omacnaron, another freighter pilot, on our journey here. He’s in the medbay.”

Max snatched the crystal and nodded. “We’ll see to it.” Ty doubted that was the end of it, but one of the officers led them away and there was nothing to do but wait.

 

***

 

Quarantine One sounded much scarier than the reality. Dorsey had forgotten about the standard procedure of isolating anyone coming in from outside the system. If Max and his goons were able to verify her story, she and Ty shouldn’t be stuck in holding for more than a few hours.

One of said goons sealed her and Ty into the room and left them without a word. A bed just large enough for two people was shoved up against one of the walls and a two-person couch stood against the other. Bathroom facilities were behind a door and there wasn’t a kitchen, but a basket of snacks sat on the table in front of the couch.

“At least there aren’t any bars,” Ty said as he looked around.

“I know Max, he’s not going to hold us for long,” she said, hoping. She slipped off her shoes and flopped down on the bed. At least they’d fitted the place with a proper mattress. It felt like heaven and she had to bite back the moan that almost escaped.

“You know him well?” There was something that she couldn’t define, something almost dangerous in his voice. Why it sent a chill down her spine, Dorsey didn’t want to know.

“He’s one of Nina’s top officers. We’re not that close, but I suppose we know each other well enough.” She curled onto her side and watched as she slid off his shoes and stripped out of his top. “What are you doing?”

“There’s a shower in there with my name on it.” He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his pants and Dorsey did her best to look anywhere in the small room but at him. The man didn’t have a lick of shame and she knew exactly how good and hard those muscles of his felt up close to hers.

Thankfully, he closed the door to the bathroom behind him and after a moment turned the water on.

The sound of the spraying water was a lullaby, and after a minute, her eyes drifted closed, her body relaxing for the first time since she was taken. They weren’t home safe yet. Ty wasn’t even close to home at all. But once the quarantine was over, they’d make land, relatively safe in Nina’s territory.

And together for however long Ty decided to stick around.

That thought tickled at the back of Dorsey’s mind. Did she want him to go? Or stay? What did she want from him at all? Now that she’d had a little time to adjust to what they’d done together and get to know him, she wasn’t sure it had been a mistake.

Sure, sleeping with him had been a snap decision, but adrenaline and lust and something she couldn’t name had all knotted up and made it absolutely impossible to resist falling into bed—or, well, the cockpit, technically—with him.

She drifted, not quite awake, not quite asleep, the thoughts and wants turning over in her mind. Sometime later, the sound of the water turned off and Ty stepped out of the bathroom, releasing steam and warming up the room. A few minutes later, the bed dipped behind her as he slid in, wrapping his arm around her midsection and pulling her close.

Dorsey murmured something that didn’t quite resemble speech. Ty didn’t seem to mind. She lay there with his arm wrapped around her for a few minutes, but as good as he felt against her back, it wasn’t enough. She wanted to see him.

She flipped over and tilted her head up. It was still a bit of a shock to look at him, especially now. She ran her finger down from the top of his forehead and over his nose. They didn’t make them like this back home. At least not in blue.

Some aliens made it to Earth, but the planet was so out of the way that they were limited to a few species. Most of them were sort of gray and grew imposing horns out of their heads. Dorsey had never been allowed to go near them when she’d lived with her family. And by the time she’d left Earth, she hadn’t cared at all to meet them.

Ty didn’t remind her of those scary creatures. And he didn’t remind her of a human man, despite their similarities. There was something primal about him, something that pulled at her from deep within. She’d never been one to surrender easily to passion, except when she was near him.

She realized he was naked, which hadn’t been obvious with the sheets scrunched up between them. But it felt natural to be all tangled up with him like this. She regretted the sleep shirt she was wearing, her skin aching to be next to his.

Dorsey traced her hand down Ty’s arm, surprised to find it almost tough to the touch. It wasn’t scaly, but it felt slightly calloused, each of the dark markings on his skin raised from the rest of him. “Do you all have marks like this?” she asked. As soon as the words were out, she wanted to reel them back. What if what she said was super offensive? That was the problem when dealing with aliens, a girl just never knew.

But Ty shivered a bit as she traced the edges of one of the thick dark blue squares and she got the idea that they were more sensitive than they appeared. “They’re called clan markings,” he explained.

“You have a clan?” She couldn’t remember him mentioning family before. Maybe people like him didn’t organize themselves the same as humans.

“Raxos is my clan. My full name is Tyral NaRaxos. But the clans mostly disappeared a long time ago.” When his people had been destroyed.

Dorsey dipped her head down and ran her lips over the edges of his markings. There were too many to kiss them all right now, but she promised herself that she would learn every centimeter of him. The material of the bedding scratched against her naked legs, only emphasizing just how warm and alive Ty was next to her.

He had a taste all his own, almost sweet on her tongue with just a hint of something masculine and completely foreign to her. It should have been weird, but he was so achingly familiar, so destructively right, that she couldn’t resist.

He shifted, and suddenly there was more of him, all around her, drowning her senses.

His arms were heavy weights around her, and his mouth was on hers, tongues tangling as her senses exploded. Dorsey arched up, offering herself to him completely, practically begging for his touch.

And Ty obliged, his kisses more forceful, his hands everywhere, moving over her body like roving marauders. Sparks of pleasure trailed his caresses and Dorsey moaned around his tongue.

But then he pulled back, breathing heavy. They stared at each other, both wide eyed, and she felt some indefinable thing click within her.

Oh, it seemed to say, it’s you. What took so long?

It was like there was a cord stretching between her and Ty, a connection that couldn’t exist between two people. If she closed her eyes she could almost see it. It was exhilarating.

And terrifying.

Ty tightened his arms and Dorsey rested her head against his chest, his heart beating in her ear as fast as her own.

They didn’t say anything else, there was no need. And eventually Dorsey drifted off to sleep.