Crank left his room in a foul mood. That mood did not improve as the day went on.

For one thing, the secondary power core required more maintenance than expected. They discovered a tiny fracture in the diamond chute, which meant repair involving more than a simple exterior patch. To fix it, they’d have to evacuate all the energy. Not a rapid process given they couldn’t waste any power and had to wait for it to drain naturally. Only once they’d used up all that energy could they weld the crack shut, sand the unit smooth, then do a full cleanse before refilling it. All that meant they basically had only one power source for the next week or so. Not ideal on a ship this size with an upcoming mission.

That put him in a bad mood.

The fact that Solanz saluted him and stuttered, “Ss-s-ir,” when he stomped into view aggravated him.

But the biggest reason for his ill humor was in his cabin.

Doing nothing.

At all.

Ghwenn sat on the bed. Knees pressed, hands on her thighs, eyes closed, meditating.

Probably trying to take over the mind of some unsuspecting sap nearby.

Never mind he wasn’t even sure she was capable of doing that, it made the most sense. Why else act so serene? Why else wasn’t she looking for a way to escape?

Why the fuck did he spy on her?

Captain said to keep an eye. That didn’t mean he had to do it literally. He could just as easily rely on the monitoring systems in his room that kept track of a few things—motion, voices, heart rate. If something happened, he’d be notified.

Nothing did, though. So he kept tuning in, checking for himself. Spending more time than he liked staring.

He shut off the video feed and tried to concentrate on real work. Real things that mattered. Instead, he found himself toying with the ring on his finger.

Not the original one Sky had given him when they married. That one was long gone, along with his arm.

A day he couldn’t forget. The day his life went to shit.

The planet had appeared benign by all reports. Sandy beaches, warm waters, no large predators. A lovely place for a meeting between feuding rulers.

“I can’t wait to hit the water.” His wife twirled in their room, dressed in her uniform but dangling a skimpy bathing suit from a finger.

“You think the talks will go that well?” he asked, buckling his belt, feeling naked without a weapon in the holster

Sky scrunched her nose. “A girl can hope.”

Hope was all they had for these peace negotiations. Captain Jameson and the Moth had been in charge of picking up the Rohmayo contingent while Jameson’s wife, a captain in her own right—of the Yellow Spacemachine—had ensured the Juelyette group made an appearance.

Feuding families that would meet for the first time in centuries and broker a peace for the sake of two galaxies.

The two parties met under a pavilion to protect them from the burning rays of the sun. Everyone arrived unarmed, even the captains and their crews. These were peace talks. They weren’t about to allow any misunderstandings to mar the outcome.

The two suns wobbled across the sky. Refreshments were brought and replenished numerous times as the two parties haggled.

Standing just outside the tent, Craig—because he’d yet to become the machine-man of the future—laced his fingers through Sky’s and tugged.

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

“I thought you wanted to go for a swim.”

“But we’re supposed to stand guard.” She bit her lower lip.

“From who?” No one else was around. The ship would notify them if anyone approached.

To a man only recently married, those were reasons plenty to abandon his post. He was enamored with his wife. From the moment they’d met to the whirlwind courtship. He’d never been happier.

Leaving the pavilion behind them, he pulled her into the hidden shadow of a dune only paces from the rolling waves of the ocean and kissed her. The taste of the gloss on her lips sweet. The touch of her hands on him sweeter.

Engrossed in her, he never heard the shifting of the sand or the splash of water. Never even knew of the threat that emerged.

Sky saw them first. “Beware. Attack!” She yelled the warning that day that saved the lives of many. Except the most important one.

“Fuck.” He eyed the dunes for a weapon, anything to protect them.

He should have been watching the enemy.

“Craig!” Sky shoved at him and lunged, weaponless, at the amphibian creature who’d marched out of the waves. Brave. Stupid.

She took the long spear in the chest. It went through her. Punched out her back. He stared in shock at the sharp point. Then even more disbelief at the fist-sized hole left behind when the frog creature pulled it free.

It was a killing blow. But for a moment, Sky staggered, and her head turned. Her mouth opened. She whispered, “I love you.”

Then hit the sand.

“No.” The word whispered from him. “No. No!” The most terrible cry emerged from Craig as he barreled toward the spear holder. He batted aside the long tip, and when it swung back up, he grabbed it, and heaved, ripping it from frogman’s grasp, flipping it, and driving it through its chest.

But the mercenary hadn’t come alone. Five in total emerged from the waves that day. Or so the computer informed him later when he asked for details.

Five mercenaries hired by the Juelyettes, who had no interest in peace.

And the only reason they didn’t succeed that day? Because a stupid man wanted to make out with his wife.

Craig threw himself at them, roaring in rage and grief. Hoping one of the attackers would strike the killing blow. Searing agony sliced at his shoulder, leaving it no better than a hunk of meat. He still had his other fist. He used it. He threw all his emotions at the mercenaries, but they didn’t do him a favor and kill him.

They did hurt him though. Smashing him in the face.

The ribs.

Each blow welcomed. Each hit brought him closer to Sky.

He fully expected to die.

Wanted to die.

Craig sank to his knees on the sand. His vision clouded by blood. His body throbbing from numerous injuries. He toppled over onto the gritty grains, his face only inches from Sky, with her eyes still wide open in surprise.

“I’m coming, Sky.”

It was what he’d hoped for.

Instead he awoke in the infirmary. Apparently, Jameson had saved the day. Sky’s warning meant the captain had time to hustle the clients to safety, get rid of the remaining mercenaries, and emergency evac Craig’s ass to the ship. When the doctors on board couldn’t fix the damage, Jameson had Craig put in stasis and jumped to a galaxy that could.

The keepers of the tech, glorified nurses who had only one purpose—to dip applicants into the pool of nanobots seeking a host—saved Craig, even though he didn’t want saving.

And Crank told Jameson that the first time he visited. “You should have let me die.” He felt dead.

His heart was gone. Literally. The broken ribs had damaged it. He now owned a metal organ. A metal arm. Even a metal plate in his head. He lost all his hair, too, which, oddly enough, was the thing that made him break the mirror when they showed him how well they’d managed the scarring.

What did he care how he looked? He’d lost Sky, and he blamed Jameson. After all, it turned out it was Jameson’s wife’s ship that relayed their coordinates to the mercenaries, who then laid the attack.

He didn’t care Jameson lost his wife that day, too. She escaped after her perfidy. But at least she lived.

While Sky didn’t even get a decent burial. He never knew what happened to her body. Jameson hadn’t stuck around to sort the dead because he wanted to save Crank.

Asshole.

The ring on his finger, that he twirled round and round, he had made the first year anniversary of her demise.

Years later and it hadn’t left its spot.

But of late, he’d been toying with it.

It didn’t help that Ivan, the ship’s biologist, kept saying, “How long you going to keep holding on to the past?”

Used to be the answer never wavered. Forever.

Now…now he had a hard time picturing Sky’s face.

But he had no problem seeing bright purple eyes.

Fucking mind control shit. Ghwenn had obviously done something to him. Why else would he be thinking of that stowaway?

He pushed himself up from the console where he monitored, startling Zane and Solanz.

“Sir? Is something wrong?”

“Stop fucking calling me that.” He stomped away from his crew and didn’t know where he was going until he stood in front of the door to his room.

Have you done something to me? Did she even now poison his thoughts?

He closed his eyes and listened, not with his ears. He checked for any kind of waves coming from his room. Scoured for even the faintest hint of a signal being broadcast.

Nothing.

He glanced at his wrist comm again.

Again! Dammit. Why would she not leave his mind? Did he have a virus? As a cyborg, he was capable of running a diagnostic. The tenth one emerged just as clean as the first.

Could his nanobots even recognize mind control? He certainly had before when it was directly aimed at him. However, searching for it now, he didn’t feel a single tremble at the edges of his mind. That didn’t mean she’d not done something to him.

And it needed to stop.

He entered his room, making no effort to be silent about it. She didn’t move. Didn’t open her eyes. Didn’t acknowledge him in any way.

It bothered. He stomped some more.

She remained primly positioned on his bed.

“What are you doing?” he barked. Weaving a spell? Subtly influencing the crew to do her bidding? Deviously inserting herself in his head to make him forget his vows?

Her eyes opened, their vivid color striking him anew. “I was meditating. Something you should try, given your temper.”

“Ain’t nothing wrong with my sparkling personality.”

“If you say so.” Spoken calmly without a hint of disdain and yet he felt it. Unbidden admiration filled him. It irritated the fuck out of him. He didn’t want to like anything about the elf.

“Why haven’t you eaten?” he barked, gesturing to the empty table. “You haven’t had a thing since breakfast.”

“How would you know? Have you been spying on me?”

“It’s my job as your jailor to keep track.” A great justification for his stalking.

“Why do you care whether or not I partake of a meal?” It’s not as if you like me.

The words weren’t spoken aloud, and yet he felt them brushing across his consciousness.

“I don’t care. But I am in charge of you, and I won’t have the captain accusing me of starving your scrawny ass.”

Scrawny? Ha. That certainly didn’t describe her perfect figure. The view of her, denuded for the shower, had burned itself on his retina. A lithe frame, handful of breasts, trim waist.

“When I require sustenance, then I will imbibe. My metabolism was slowed during my escape to stretch out my supplies.”

She could do that? He’d thought that was only a trait those carrying nanobots enjoyed. Cyborgs weren’t restricted to simply eating organics. They could refuel themselves with just about anything.

Curiosity made him ask, “Did you really think you could stay in that crate until our next docking?”

She tilted her head. “It was worth a try.”

“What are you running from?” he asked suddenly.

“An untenable situation.”

He made a leap of intuition. “Daddy wanted to marry you off?”

“Of a sort.”

“Why not just say no?”

“One does not just say no to my father. He takes it rather poorly.”

“Then get someone else to tell him for you.”

“You make it sound so easy, but none would defy him.”

“Because he’s a bully. I know all about bullies.”

“I am sure you do.” Her glance let him know she assumed he spoke of himself.

He did. He knew how to push and shove and bark to get people to do as he asked. But he also never made them do something they couldn’t or really didn’t want to do.

“Who’s the guy he wanted you to marry? Is he chasing you as well?”

“Does it really matter? I am hunted and so I hide.”

“Do you think hitting a new planet and getting a new identification will stop them?”

“No. Nothing short of my death or marriage will stop them from searching. This”—she tapped her head—“is too valuable to leave loose.”

He moved around the room noting nothing out of place. “You didn’t try and escape the room.”

“Who says I didn’t?” was her reply, followed by a soft laugh. “Let’s say I did, where would I go? I know no one on your ship. There is nowhere to flee. You, at least, are a known, if rude, quantity. With you, I am relatively safe.”

She thought herself safe with him? How little she knew. Crank had a very thin hold of his control at the moment. Worse than the possibility of him strangling her, though, was his urge to sweep her against him.

A protective instinct kept rumbling within. Trying to emerge.

He squashed it. “Don’t think I’ll be putting my life on the line for you, pixie. I really don’t give a rat’s ass what happens to you. I’d hand you over in a fucking instant if it would help my ship.”

“Your language is rather vulgar.”

“Says the woman who pokes at people’s minds. I wouldn’t be casting stones.”

His communicator buzzed at his hip. He barked, “Listening.”

The speakers embedded in the very ceiling of his room came to life. “Crank, we’re heading down to the Nexus. You joining us for a drink?” Karson asked almost every night. Had been trying for years. Used to be he said yes, he and Sky going for a few cups with his friends. Crank had stopped going when Sky died.

He opened his mouth to say no, but Ghwenn beat him to it.

“I’m afraid your Mr. Abrams is occupied at the moment. Guarding a most vicious threat.” And yes, she mocked him as she said it.

How dare she reply for him?

“Actually, I will join you for that drink. Down in a few. Close communication.”

Ghwenn still smirked. “That’s it. Run away.”

“Who says I’m going alone? Better get changed, pixie.”

“I am not going.”

“And I say we are.”

She lifted her pert nose. “You may leave. I will remain here.”

“Now who’s scared?”

Her lips pursed. “Why are you doing this?”

Why, indeed. It only occurred to him as he marched her down the halls—after an invigorating wrestling match he won—to the heart of the ship where the forbidden bar was hidden, that he was feeling something he’d not felt in a long time.

Alive.