In a half-dazed state, I considered my situation. I really had fallen hard for my husbands in a short period of time. Jordan thought we were destined to be together and seemed to really like me. Bo had made it clear the night before he wanted to keep me, too. I wasn’t so sure what River thought at that point, but I appreciated that he’d wanted to make this consensual and give us some time to get to know one another.

They were all such beautiful men I could hardly stand it.

Bo rolled over, putting one leg over mine. He exhaled on a long breath. “You make me want to be lazy.”

I smiled against his shoulder. Bo was like a heating pad, and I was usually so cold at night. Temperatures dropped below freezing every night on my planet. It wasn’t that cold on Malice, but that didn’t mean I didn’t love the way it felt to be completely warm in the morning.

“Hi.”

He stretched a little, and I cuddled into him. “Hi.” He kissed my cheek. “I’ve never had this before. A woman with a heart so big that she saves her brothers’ lives? How did we get so lucky?”

“Which one of you had the idea to save me from that man you hate?” I wanted to picture my wedding day—since I couldn’t remember it.

“Xavier.” He made a circle on the outside of my hand with his thumb. “The worst of the worst. He makes us look like we’re law abiding.”

I shook my head. “You don’t seem so bad to me.”

“Oh, ask someone sometime about Malice, they’ll shudder.” He laughed. “To answer your question, we all saw you go down. I was horrified watching it happen. Then when Xavier stepped up, it was Jordan who said we had to marry you instead. I expected River to object because he doesn’t like plans that he’s not involved in making, but he was right on board. So there we were, buying you from the slavers, signing marriage papers, and getting you onto the ship and into the med machine.” He grinned at me. “I didn’t know right then that you were going to turn out to be sweet, smart, and kind. I know we still have a million things to learn about each other. So far, I really like what I see.”

I leaned over to kiss him, lightly on the lips. “I like what I see so far, too.”

I measured the boards in the laundry room, humming to myself. A noise behind me sounded, and I whirled. River leaned against the door watching me.

I took a deep breath. He’d startled me. “Hi.”

“Hello. You’re humming. Bo is humming. Jordan is humming. Music all over the ship. What did I miss while I was sleeping?”

Heat found a place in my cheeks. “Nothing much. Are you feeling better?”

“Rested. Yes.” He stepped into the room. “I do that on occasion, stay up too long. Always have.”

I set the measuring machine onto one of the slanted shelves. “I do, too. Well, I suffer from insomnia sometimes. I used to go out and look at the moon. Can’t do that here, obviously.” I was rambling, and I had to stop. Why did River make me more nervous than Jordan or Bo?

An alarm sounded, and I jumped, colliding with the clothes processor. The tank jolted, and River yanked me off of it, which I appreciated because if it was anything like the one at home it could be really hot, really fast.

“It’s okay. We’ve spotted a ship. Jordan is going to move to take it on. That means I have to get in the shuttle to hang back and see if they unload anything.” That was right. They’d explained this idea to me. It was why they never missed anything. “I’d rather you come with me than stay here. Every once in a while, someone makes the mistake of firing on us. I’d rather you were on the shuttle in case we take damage.”

Alone on the shuttle with River. I gulped. “Sure.”

Nerves about what was going to happen made my spine stiff. I wasn’t concerned about time with River, I didn’t think. Oh, maybe I was. How could I both want to be with him and be terrified of it at the same time? How did that work? What was wrong with me?

I followed him to the shuttle. It took me a moment to orient, and then eventually, I figured out that I should sit in the co-pilot seat. River pressed a button on the console after he sat down. “What are we looking at, gentlemen?”

“It’s a Hansen ship.” Jordan came over the speaker. “You have Priscilla, right? I did a quick look, and when I didn’t find her, I figured you brought her with you.”

River ran a hand through his hair. “She’s here. Just about to get her to strap in. Hansen this time of year? Hmm. What could they have with them in this part of the quadrant if it’s not planting season?”

Bo’s voice answered. “Presuming they haven’t traveled a great distance to get here already. Maybe they are almost out of the quadrant and they might actually have real goods in there we could get serious amounts of gold for.”

River shrugged and winked at me. “Either way, we take a look. Get her lassoed, boys.”

“On it. Take care of Priscilla,” Bo answered.

In lieu of explaining anything to me, River punched on his keypad until the shuttle jolted forward, detaching itself from Malice. I leaned forward. This was the first time I’d seen her from the outside. She was as big as I’d imagined and painted in dark colors—black and dark green with a silver streak. I sucked in my breath. The word Malice was painted on the outside in big letters. She was really a beautiful ship. I hadn’t… expected that. The guys took care of her—well, her exterior.

River cut the lights on the shuttle. We didn’t fly so much as float away.

“Less attention,” he said without looking up from his pad. I hadn’t asked him anything, but he must have guessed.

“She’s lovely.”

This got his attention. “The ship?”

I pointed at her. I couldn’t see Malice all that well anymore. Without the false light of the shuttle, space had grown dark again. That was when an obvious truth dawned on me. “I can’t see her all that well. She’s lit up inside. Why can’t I see her light?”

River gave me a half-smile. “Jordan will love that you asked that question. The light refracts off an outside barrier. Pure energy. It surrounds the ship at all times, unless we turn it off. I couldn’t have gotten off Malice if it had been on. We would have blown up. Hit it enough times, and it goes down. It has two principal functions. The first is the one you noticed—it keeps us dark. The second—extra line of protection.”

“Is that standard?” I really knew so little about space travel. If I was going to make this work, I was going to have to learn quickly. I wondered if I could ask to borrow a tablet and read up on some basic ship information.

He outright grinned. “No, Jordan invented it about a decade ago. He could make a fortune selling the tech to the highest bidder and probably will someday. For now, it’s just ours. I’ve never heard Malice described either as a she or as lovely. I like both of those words when it comes to our ship.”

River leaned back. “Nothing to do for a minute. They’ll get themselves set up, and then we’ll pounce forward if the Hansen vessel dumps cargo. You’d think by now they’d have better methods.”

“Or they’d hide a bomb in it and blow you up.” I opened and closed my mouth twice after I spoke those words. I didn’t even know where they came from, and I certainly didn’t want River to think that I was suggesting that he—or in this case—we might get blown to bits

His laugh shocked me. “You have a bit of a dark mind, don’t you? I love it. Don’t worry on that regard. We have a scanner. I don’t bring it inside until I’m certain it won’t hurt us.

That was good. “I’m not usually so twisted.”

“Well, we get to be who we really are in space. Eventually, the endless expanse of it all wipes away the bullshit. All the conditioning fades away until we hone it to truth. Maybe you’re the kind of person who plots things—like blowing up ships.”

Maybe I was, because I had another question. “What about people? Has anyone ever shoved a person in the box?”

“A person?” He swiveled around, his attention now fully on me and not the board. “Why would someone put a person in there?

I rubbed the back of my neck. “If I was on a ship and some people were coming who I didn’t want there, the most important thing to me would be the people I loved. I’d put them in the box. If it wouldn’t kill them.”

He raised both his eyebrows slowly. “I’m sure someone could rig boxes that people could live in for a period of time, maybe in stasis, inside. We aren’t interested in their people. If everyone behaves, the whole thing is painless. Also, the crews of these ships aren’t in love with each other. I’m not robbing mom and pop ships. That ship we’re going to board? It’s a crew paid to bring things back and forth. I suppose it’s possible that some people on there have formed a relationship.” He waved his hand in the air. “I’m losing track of this. I could see expelling a person, or persons, if it were a small family ship. In this case? They want us gone as fast as possible. They’ll hide cargo.”

That made sense. I kicked my leg gently against the console. “Bo and Jordan won’t talk about you. Not really. I asked them if you were somehow related to Sandler space, and they said I would have to ask you, or something like that.”

He nodded. “Long story very short, I am the youngest brother of Garrison Sandler.”

River pronounced that as though I was to know exactly who that was. “I’m not sure…”

“You don’t know him?” He twisted his chair until he spun in a circle. “That’s a first. Well… Hold on. Time for work.”

River pressed some buttons, and an infrared picture of Malice appeared in front of me. My father had one for security at our house or I wouldn’t have known what I looked at. Malice rushed in front of another ship, almost colliding with it. I must have gasped, although I was transfixed and hadn’t realized, because River put a gentle hand on my back.

“That’s on purpose. Bo is a good pilot. We’ve dealt with this company before. The trick is to not take too much. Other pirates don’t realize that. We never make ourselves enough of a problem that they come looking for us when we’re not looking for them. Pirates like Xavier, they always have such a high bounty on them that it’s worth it for every jackass around to hunt them down.” River winced. “I’m sorry for the language. Once, I knew better.” He pointed at the screen. “And there it goes.”

Sure enough, the ship in front of us expelled something from a rear hatch. A container drifted away from the ships. River tapped furiously on his tablet. “Anything I can help with?”

I didn’t particularly love sitting around with nothing to do.

“Nope. I’m scanning for explosives. Maybe a little extra carefully.” He winked at me. “Tell you what you can do? You’re good with your hands.” He cleared his throat and shook his head. “Um, right. So when this thing comes in, the claw on this shuttle will drag it on board. We’re fine. There’s a separate room that will depressurize then re-pressurize. See? Right through that door. Don’t open it.

I raised an eyebrow. I might be new to all of this, but I wasn’t an idiot. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

“Good.” He was looking at his tablet again. “When I give you the all clear, go in there and get it open.”

I stood. “How do I get it open?”

“Figure it out.” He lifted his head, and I could only think that there was a challenge in his gaze. His clear blue eyes seemed to be searching me for something…

One second, River was charming and sharing, the next he dared me to fail. Figure it out? “I see what you’re doing. I’ve had too many siblings to not. My older sister was queen at this. Thing is, I’m going to do it, I’m going to figure it out, and not because you’ve thrown down a gauntlet to see if I can manage. I can. This is for me. Not you.”

A ding sounded, which I took to mean the cargo was now inside. A second boom must be the door closing. I walked over to the door. “Safe to open now?”

“Sure is.” He swung around. “I don’t trust people. I have good reason not to. I want to know how smart you are, how much we’re going to have to do for you.”

“It doesn’t make me smart, River, or not smart to not know how to use this equipment. I would guess that if I sat you down on my farm, you’d have no idea how to do a lot of things there. This is petty on your part. And beneath you.”

I kept my head high. I didn’t really know if this was beneath him or not. But he was being an asshole, and I’d been raised not to use that word.

The cargo looked quite different than the one Bo had been banging to pieces on Malice. This was a shipping container that looked similar to the ones my father used to get when he received medical supplies for the farm. They were sealed tight to let no oxygen in. I actually knew how to open it. At home, we had a device that suctioned the lid off the darn things.

Bo’s machine came down from the ceiling, and although I could be really off on this one, I had to believe that the system would work similarly. Sure enough, on the ceiling was a lever that looked like it could suck the top right off the box. The question was how to get it down. I suspected there was a simpler maneuver to lower it from the ceiling of this shuttle than to climb up there and ride the thing down like I might a horse.

I swung around, doing a quick scan of the room. There it was. A control panel. He wanted to know how smart I was? His completely disrespectful question left me seething. I took a deep breath. I was strong and steady, that didn’t, however, mean that I couldn’t get myself into a good temper. First, I was going to show myself I could handle this, and then I was going to shove the lever straight where the sun didn’t shine, to quote my father. He called it an old Earth expression. Some things, particularly anger, could span time and space.

I pulled open the panel and rolled my eyes. They’d labeled the damn thing. I didn’t even have to think about it. I chose the right one. It came down, and with another flick of the same button the machine took over the process. Soon, the box was open.

River leaned on the door watching. When the lid was off, he met me by the container to stare down at their new find. He examined the contents, a slight smile taking over his otherwise serious face. “It’s gems. Uncut. If we open them up, this is going to be a killing.”

“I’m so happy for you.” I passed behind him to head into the cockpit of the shuttle. “You’ll bring me back to the ship as soon as they’re done, yes?”

He turned to regard me. “I’m hard on people. I get it. My way isn’t for everyone. But we’re a family. I have to know if you can think your way through a problem. You obviously can. Feel free to challenge me anytime.”

I laughed, the sound was hard and very un-me. Maybe I’d had enough for the time being. “Don’t pretend that your so-called challenge wasn’t anything more than you feeling threatened because I dared to suggest that the box might explode. Or that someone could be in it. You don’t like being questioned, River. I get that, now. You’re right. We have to get to know each other. I just learned a ton about you.

Back stiff, I reclaimed my chair. I wasn’t wrong, but I was also stuck on this shuttle with him and didn’t know how he’d respond to my anger. Granted, he’d helped save me. But a smarter woman might have remembered he could easily put me in the room that decompressed and send me out to space to die in a horrible way.

River returned to the pilot’s chair. He hit some buttons, and we altered course back toward Malice. Although he wasn’t speaking to me, I at least got over the idea that he might kill me for not taking his attitude.

After we docked on Malice, he opened the doors. River remained entirely quiet. I could have kicked myself. I really liked Jordan and Bo, could even see myself with time coming to love them. I’d never expected that. Couldn’t I have just—I didn’t know—dealt with River a different way? They were a package deal. If River wanted me gone, and after this I was sure he would, then that was what would happen.

I had to find out about this place where they offered to drop me off and what my options were. I rubbed my eyes. It was really too bad. I had loved snuggling with Bo—getting to know him in the process. I had craved his kisses. Jordan made my heart flutter and my imagination soar with his words and his kindness. I could listen to him forever. And, before he’d turned sour, I’d wanted to make River smile.

A knock sounded on my door, rousing me from sleep. What now? After I’d left the shuttle, I had walked straight to my room and lay down in my bed. It was early and I’d skipped dinner. Only sleep was going to restore my equilibrium at this point.

I rubbed at my eyes on my way to the door. Coldness shot up from my bare feet all the way up my spine. I needed to make a mental note that the floors on Malice were chilly.

I opened the door. Shock, followed immediately by dread, settled in my stomach. River waited. Was this where he told me I was gone?

A million thoughts raced through my mind, the things I’d been wondering until I’d fallen asleep. Had he just brought up the consent thing as a means to get rid of me when his friends had wanted to try? Were they all playing with me? What did a person with nowhere to go and nothing to do end up having in their life? Would I ever have a family that actually loved me?

“Hi.” River ran a hand through his brownish-blondish hair.

I nodded. “Hello.”

He shifted his weight slightly. “Are you okay?”

“Sure, I was sleeping. Did you need something?”

He lifted his eyebrows. “Oh, I’m sorry to wake you. I, um, I owe you a really big apology.”

Well, I hadn’t expected that. “River, look…”

He shook his head. “Please let me give it. I’m so used to being at war with everyone. I have been since I was born. There were eight of us, all boys. My brother Garrison, he’s a maniac, trying to conquer the universe. After our brother Quinn died, he started throwing us out. I knew I’d have to make my way on my own. I always understood that. My brothers told me I was a burden and treated me as such. My mom and dad couldn’t have cared less. He kicked me out when I was eighteen. Took me two years to get here, and I only thought about the Dark Planets because all my other brothers had found their way to this sector. I’ve still never run into any of them.”

“That’s an interesting story, I’m not sure why it made you test me like that or be so rude.” I was interested in his background, but if he expected me to use it as some sort of explanation for what had happened. He was going to have to be more explicitly clear.

He was silent for several moments. “Good things don’t happen to me. They just don’t. I have to push and push. Even getting Jordan and Bo together with me to live this very unusual life took maneuvering. I’m having a hard time not believing you’re going to murder us in our beds.”

He couldn’t have surprised me more if he’d sprouted wings and taken to the sky. “River, I’m just a girl with the good luck to have been rescued by you. I’m not going to murder you in your sleep. If anything, I was concerned today you were going to put me out the airlock.

“I’m not a nice man. I make huge mistakes. I break the law every day. If they caught me and dragged me off to earth, they’d kill me. But I’d never hurt a woman. You’re safe with me. And, by the way, you were totally right. I don’t like to be questioned. It makes me feel… threatened. I had a hard time with Bo and Jordan at first, too. Now, it’s second nature. Forgive me. It won’t happen again.”

A piece of his hair fell over his left eye. He pleaded with me, his blue-eyed gaze begging me to forgive him. I could make him suffer, but I didn’t want to. I wanted peace and the chance to see if all of us might have a future together.

“I beat your test.

He grinned. “You really did. It didn’t even take you any time either. And I’d be lost on a farm. You’d have to save me.”

I took his hand in mine and squeezed it. “Okay, I forgive you.”

“Thank you, Priscilla.”

With our fingers joined, he tugged me to him for a hug. He was awkward at the motion, and his hands didn’t seem to know where to go on my back for the embrace. Still, we stood there together just breathing.

“Did you eat?”

“I didn’t. But I’m not hungry.”

He pulled back to look at me. “You never eat. You skip meals. That’s not healthy.

I stepped a bit away. “Do I look like I’m starving to you?

River furrowed his brow. “You look beautiful. I’m not sure what else you mean.”

Okay—River was definitely worth the effort.