I was on my back with my legs spread wide, wearing nothing but my black underskins. My armor, my constant companion, lay next to me in a dark little brick the length of my forearm. It had to come off in order for me to get into the crawl space.

My current ship, the Gorgeous Gorgon or Gigi as we called her, had been modjacked, but it still had the bones of the passenger transport. It was a ship essentially dressed in armor that didn’t quite fit. What once had been a solid work-a-day ship was now prone to tantrums and random outages of important functions, if it didn’t get a lot of attention. And of course, being pursued across interstellar space for millions of light years meant we had plenty of attention to give it.

Two roughened dirty feet appeared in my vision. It was bad enough without my armor, but seeing him so confident while being near naked made me feel even more vulnerable. I was annoyed at myself for feeling this way; it wasn’t like I hadn’t been in close quarters with plenty of good looking men during my time in the military. But there was something about the Prince that made me feel as if I needed to have all of my defenses up on full alert when dealing with him. If I didn’t know better, I would think he was trying to make me uncomfortable.

“There are shoes in the clothing set we gave you,” I said.

His feet didn’t move. “Have you heard from your superiors?”

“We’re in a blackout zone. Can’t send a message till we get clear.”

He made a guttural noise that sounded like swearing. “It’s a matter of life and death.”

“That’s what I specialize in. And right now, it’s yours and your sister’s that I’m charged with.”

That quieted him somehow, but not nearly long enough. He bent down and I could see him peering into the crawl space. I’m sure I was a paragon of beauty, sprawled on my back, one knee holding up a panel, a couple of picks stuck in my hair, and massive protective goggles on my forehead while trying to reinsulate some wires that had come loose. He tried to get in next to me, but he was too damn big. He settled for sitting cross-legged at my feet, where I now had a perfect view of carved abs…and the bulge at his crotch. Apparently he didn’t think the clothes I provided were good enough.

All it did was strengthen my resolve. If there was anything I had learned, it was that handsome men were not to be trusted. Impressive looks often came with equally impressive lies.

“How did you manage to evade not only the satellite defense systems, but the entire Tigrantine Space Force? Twice?”

He understood that it hadn’t been easy. Interesting. “It’s tough to patrol an entire planet.” I looked down over my belly to where he squatted between my legs. He looked good down there. “Since you’ve deigned to lower yourself to my level, can you reach into my toolbox and hand me that driver with the orange handle?”

Oddly enough, he did as I asked. And then he lay down on the floor next to me.

I pulled my goggles back on. “You must really want my attention.”

“Actually, I decided to rest my back.”

Goranshit. He wanted to annoy me.

He grinned at me. “When I truly decide to bring myself to your level, believe me, I will have your attention.”

Was he trying to flirt with me? I was not going to let my mind wander there. That was where sleeping dragons lay. I went back to what I was doing.

He slid closer to me. What was he doing? I tried to ignore him and his ridiculousness.

“I think you want to keep soldering the blue wire to the blue one, not to the red one.”

I looked at what I was doing. Oh, for solar flaring sake. The only thing to do was to fix it and keep my thoughts off his abs.

“Have you considered rerouting the spanning chargers through the shield stabilizers? It might cool down the engine core, maybe about 10 percent.”

There was beauty, and then there was reality: another man telling me how to do my job. “Oh, so now you know about the guts of a Star Serpent. Go on, advise me. Clearly my years of training mean nothing in comparison to the omniscient talents of your high and mighty royalness, While you’re at it, why don’t you fly the ship too?”

He reached forward, using huge hands to press back the tangle of wires I was trying to navigate between. Now he was shoulder to shoulder with me, his warm naked flesh pressing against mine, radiating heat through my underskins. “I apologize, Captain. You are a singular pilot.”

Wait, what? Did he just apologize AND compliment me? I tried to focus on the task in front of me, but it was hard when his mouth was so close to my ear.

He lowered his voice, his breath warm on my skin. “Zhang class ships all have a similar design. I wanted to be a starship engineer when I was a stripling. Memorized all the schematics I could get my hands on.”

A gearhead. He and Red could probably spend days debating the merits of variable pulse oscillators. The most annoying thing was that he probably had a point. “I’m not going to sacrifice mobility like that.”

Did he lick his lips? “You’re not afraid to run it fast and hot.”

I focused on unscrewing and rescreening things for a bit while he watched me. I tried to ignore him, but his gaze was physical, like he was actually touching my skin. What’s more, the tool I had asked him for originally wasn’t working.

I had to force the words out through gritted teeth. “Whatever gets the job done.”

“You should consider increasing the heat rate from the core to the ancillary thrusters then. That might compensate for the additional lag from the Saro fluxer.”

“Are you trying to see how I handle the heat?”

“You’re capable, Captain. It’s a matter of whether or not you’re afraid.”

A screw dropped on my forehead.

I pulled the goggles over my eyes and picked up the soldering iron.

“I need a pilot like you,” he said.

I nearly dropped my soldering iron on myself. Soldering clearly wasn’t a good idea right now. I put it down and reached across that gorgeous chest of his to snag a pair of pliers. It was like trying to reach over a mountain of muscle. “Sorry. Not for sale.”

“I wasn’t asking.”

“Is that supposed to be a threat?”

He smiled. “When I’m threatening you, you’ll know.”

“Yes, you are definitely convincing me to come and work for you.”

Something slammed into the ship. Alarms blared. I rolled into him and he wrapped himself against me as the hallway rotated around us, bouncing us like an uncontrolled ship in an asteroid field.

Good thing I hadn’t been soldering.

The ship stabilized and he was on top of me. I tried to shove him off, but he was immoveable.

His shoulders were distracting, and the shocking press of his cock against my groin, even more so. This was modjacking the definition of close quarters. If he weren’t a prince, I would have reported him for sexual harassment. He smiled down on me, clearly enjoying the position.

I gritted my teeth. “You like this too much.”

He grinned. His arms flexed and he propelled himself to his feet. He offered his hand to me. “I’m used to being on top.”

I snagged my exo-armor. It unfolded around me at my touch, encasing me, blocking me from his touch. In my exo-armor, I was as strong as he was, maybe even more so. The armor made me feel less vulnerable, more like my usual self.

I made my way to the cockpit. Unfortunately, he kept following me.

“What the stars was that, Red?”

“Blowback from a tracking drone I destroyed.”

“Son of a gorani-stag.”

Red silenced the disturbing alert with a wave of her hand. “Agreed. It knocked out the outer starboard shield.”

I looked up and took a deep breath. Without the outer hull hiding our power signature and transmissions signatures, weaponslock targeting systems would seek us out like scavengers to the dead. We had to find a habitable place to land. I could repair it, but I would actually have to get out and crawl around the outer hull.

“Gigi, what’s the nearest place suitable for landing and repairs?”

The ship responded with a floating star map. “Ashalla, an independent artificial satellite state aligned with the Tigrantine Protectorate.”

“Nope. Too many pirates there to sell us out. What’s the next one?”

“Ketu-7, a habitable planet unsettled by sentient species, 124 light years away. Claimed by the Tigrantine Protectorate.”

The Prince muttered, “The stars made it so.”

I made my decision. “Detour to Ketu-7.”

“My people – “ He stopped in mid-snarl. He suddenly seemed bigger, his teeth inhumanly sharp. He gripped a hand hold in the ceiling so tightly I thought he might rip it out.

I realized he was so angry he was trying to keep himself from shifting.

“We just escaped from Altai. No pilot in her right mind would disobey orders and bring you back to enemy space.”

“I left people behind,” he said. A knot twisted in my stomach. It was about one of the worst things a soldier could hear. You couldn’t leave teammates behind. “We need to go back to Altai and get them.”

I let out a breath, sympathizing. He wasn’t trying to dive back in a need for revenge or some other stupid male ego thing. Were they alive? Dead? Being tortured? I had to draw the line. I had to bring the prince and his sister to safety in Coalition space. I couldn’t risk their lives to rescue random people, even people he valued.

I hated that I was complicit in abandoning grunts like myself to enemy claws. But I couldn’t do anything about it. He was not my prince and I was not his pilot.

“The likelihood that the Tigrantines have a planetary defensive system for an uninhabited planet is low. They probably had a few standard issue research bases scattered across the continents in order to maintain their claim. As long as we steer clear of them, we should be fine.”

There was an angry inhuman rumbling sound suddenly in the cockpit. He picked up a wrench. Muscles bulged. He started bending it in his hands.

I couldn’t take my eyes off him and the wrench. All I could think was that I wasn’t sure I could do that even in my exo-armor.

Gigi chimed in. “This is a deviation from your proscribed orders. Are you sure you wish to override? All deviations will be recorded and forwarded to your superior officers for review.”

“Acknowledged. Override protocol Zeta Thau Alpha.”

The ship’s voice was calm. “Acknowledged. Setting new course for Ketu-7.”

He flung the wrench. It sailed through a floating screen and hit the bulkhead, leaving a dent.

The last thing I needed on my ship was an angry werewolf. “Please,” I said.

He turned toward me, his eyes practically glowing with fire.

“Please,” I said again to distract him. “Don’t give Gigi any more problems than she has.”

He seemed to…intensify before my very eyes. Was he suddenly…more muscled somehow?

I swallowed. Taking him in a fight wouldn’t be pleasant. I had to keep talking. “And how do you know I didn’t need that wrench?”

He pointed at the bulkhead, the nano-mites already flowing to repair the dent. Within moments it would be as good as gone. His voice was several degrees more growly than usual. “This is a Star Serpent disguised as a Zhang class ship. That wrench won’t work on bolts here.”

He punched the bulkhead, leaving a deeper dent, then turned and walked out of the cockpit.

I looked at my useless wrench on the ground and picked it up. There were claw marks in the metal.

I set it back in my tool kit, leaned in the doorway, and watched him walk away.

* * *

The center of the ship was a common area with a small kitchen that could be transformed into a dining, workout, or medical area with a single swipe. I stretched as I walked out of the cockpit and headed for the kitchen. I’d been on shift for hours and it was time to treat myself to some real food, not just the nutrit-bars and liquid meals I usually ate.

The princess sat at a large round table, one arm in a cast, eating a meal bar and watching something on the view screen embedded in the table. She had regained some color since the last time I had seen her, but she was still a lighter brown than I was, with a reddish undertone. The medbay had reported her injuries to be serious, but recoverable with time. Other than that, she was clearly a product of fresh air, heavy gravity, and real food that had once lived. Even in her tired, haggard state, she looked as if she could hunt, kill, and skin a tiger and carry the carcass home.

My job was to obey orders without question. But the dossier on Princess Seria begged for answers. Seria Callax-Smith had been a citizen of the United Coalition. Until a couple months ago, she had been a Librarian assigned to an out-of-the-way planet famous for cloud-surfing. And then a chance DNA screen discovered she was a daughter of the Alpha of Nightclaw, making her a werewolf princess, even if she was human.

I sat down next to her, swirling hot water into my cup of ready-noodles. “Your Highness.”

The princess looked at me with weary eyes. Her fingers tightened around her meal bar. “Please don’t call me Your Highness. The only people who have called me that lately are those that want to keep me imprisoned. Just Seria.”

I offered her my hand. ““Seria then. I’m Skye.”

Seria crumpled up her meal bar wrapper and shoved it into the garbage chute next to her. “Thank you for coming to our aid. I guess that’s why I pay my taxes, right?”

I tried to smile. “The Coalition doesn’t modjack ships for just anyone.”

She leaned back, as if my statement had deflated her. “I know.” She took a deep breath. “What does your dossier tell you about me? I know they must have given you one before you took the mission.”

You never knew what Librarians knew. I poked at my noodles with my chopsticks, waiting for them to soften. “A story that seems like it could have only come from a vid."

“The whole me-being-a-werewolf-princess thing? That’s something I never even fathomed in my craziest dreams.”

“You can’t help who your biological father is.” Believe me, I would know. I slurped my noodles loudly, trying to be as polite and appreciative of the salty spicy broth as my mother had taught.

“No. And I always wondered…” Her voice died, her lips tightening. She took a breath. “I never fathomed he would be such a crazy son-of-a-bitch. There is no way I am ever putting myself in his territory again.”

“He didn’t treat you well?”

“He treated me like a human fairy saga princess. A delicate, brainless creature incapable of protecting herself or her virtue from the evil tiger-shifters that lurk in the night. Even though he knew I was a Librarian.”

Librarians trained at the Universal Archives were tough bitches. Dedicated to protecting, preserving, and retrieving knowledge, some of them ventured into places no one in their right mind would ever go.

I took her hands in mine. Training Ops Rule No. 2. Touch instills trust.

“It’s okay. I know what it’s like to be away from friends and family for months and years at a time.” All too well.

“I can’t wait to get back to my place on San Chen,” she said.

How could I tell her that she probably wasn’t going to ever see her home again? That I was going to take her back to her father, the very person she had been running from?

I put Seria’s hands down and picked up my noodles. The thought sickened me. I couldn’t imagine being forced to live with my space pirate father. But orders were orders. I slurped up some more noodles then paused to wipe my mouth. “Did the tigers mistreat you?”

“No, actually. The commander of the Teeth was someone who Ral had previously captured and ransomed back. Ral had been ordered to execute all commandos, but he refused. The commander told me Ral said he didn’t butcher soldiers ordered to do their jobs.”

“His Highness refused an order of his Alpha? Isn’t that usually punishable by death or extreme torture?"

“I get the feeling that he does that a lot. He said his conscience is more important than orders.”

"I see." Well, he had the privilege of making those judgments and acting on them. Soldiers like me didn’t.

Seria gave me an appraising look. “You know, he uses the word ‘please’ with you. That’s not something a wolf does to anyone. In Ral’s culture, there is a command, and you obey. You only ask and thank those who are close to you. Or those with whom you want to be close.”

Had he said “please” without threatening me? I couldn’t remember. “If he does, I forced him into it. How do you know so much about the Prince if you only recently met him?”

“Being imprisoned in a room with nothing to do will let you get to know each other pretty well. If I learned anything, I learned no one forces Ral to do anything, not even the Alpha. Ral does what he wants.”

The Prince’s voice interrupted us. “Nobody really cares what the third son does.”

I was not going to react to his voice and look at him. I stared down into my noodles.

Seria’s voice took an exasperated edge, as if she'd had this conversation before. “I’m the fourth and only half werewolf. I can’t even change. So why does everyone care so much about me? I don’t want to be involved in werewolf politics.”

Ral’s voice was as calm as if he were explaining difficult concepts to a child. “It doesn’t matter what you want. The obligations and duties are the same.”

“I’m still a citizen of the Coalition!”

She wasn’t. At the Alpha’s request, the Coalition had revoked Seria’s citizenship. I didn’t even know that could be done.

I shoved the thought aside. I would take them to the remains of Dragonbelt at the edge of the known galaxy if that’s what it took to get back in my Starbolt.

Ral sat down next to her. “You’re blind if you think you can go back to San Chen, Seria.”

“Why can’t I? This is a Coalition ship heading for Coalition space.”

It was my cue to leave. I stood up.

She looked at me. “Isn’t it?”

Ral’s steady gaze trapped me. For a moment I felt frozen. But my training kicked in and I broke free with a forced smile.

I lightened my voice. “Of course. We’ll have you back where you belong in no time.”