Adiron (Corsair Brothers 1)

My partner glares at me. "Pay attention! This is no time to moon over a human!"

I want to shake her with frustration. "I'm not mooning. But I'm also not doing this without knowing if she's safe or not." She's the most important thing in the universe to me, and I need to make sure she's all right. How Jade's been treated is going to determine whether or not Shaalyn dies fast or dies slow.

"Does it matter if she's safe or not? She's a human. She can't help us in this fight. Did you not hear the part where I said she left a keffing blaster in the lavatory? It fell onto the floor when I was taking a shit." Bethiah makes a face. "She's lucky I'm the one that found it."

My Jade snuck a blaster on board the ship? I know she didn't have it with her when she came out of the wall and Shaalyn took her captive. I thought she'd dropped it or left it behind. Instead, she smuggled it in somehow. My pride for my female raises a few notches. She's so smart and clever. I grin. "Atta girl."

Bethiah just rolls her eyes as if I'm an idiot. "Just…come on."

"Med-bay first," I insist stubbornly. "Then we kick everyone's asses."

68

ADIRON

Our plans to kick everyone's ass aren't going as, well, planned.

Since the elevator won't respond thanks to an impatient Bethiah shooting the controls, we take an emergency access ladder hidden away in one of the walls and climb up. Once we get on the main floor of the ship, though, we run into one of Shaalyn's greenhorns. He's sprawled on the floor, his blaster gone, a pool of blood cooling around him.

I nudge him with my toe, but he's dead. "You do this?" I ask Bethiah.

"No." She frowns down at him. "Come on. Let's just get to med-bay."

We head there and find another dead body in the hall. So much for kicking asses. Turns out the asses have already been kicked. I pat the dead male down anyhow, but he's very much dead and there's no weapon. "Another mutiny?"

"Shaalyn's idiots? Not likely." Bethiah snorts. "I'm starting to think she's onto us, though."

"Well, you DID shoot the control panel." A subtle partner, she's not. "They'd have to be unconscious not to notice something's up."

Bethiah just gives me an exasperated look. "Just come on already. The sooner we take over this ship, the sooner it's mine." Her expression turns toothy, and then she races down the hall, her blaster out.

Kef me. And I thought I was the dumb one. Maybe pairing up with Bethiah isn't the best idea, but too late to turn back now.

We find two more bodies along the way to the med-bay. "How many does that leave?"

"Two and Shaalyn," Bethiah replies, standing outside the med-bay doors. She peers in and then indicates it's clear. "Go lick your human or whatever it is they do with their mouths, and then let's go take Shaalyn down, all right?"

"It's called kissing," I tell her. I shove my blaster into the waist of my pants and head for the stasis pod that's lit up, the window fogged with the chill inside it. I run my hand over the glass, and I see Jade inside. She's unconscious, her full lips with a blue tinge to them. Her clothes are gone and she's naked, her hair a halo around her face. She's calm looking, though, and whole. Thank kef. I feel like I can breathe again. I stare down at her. She's so beautiful that my heart hurts just looking at her. "I'm going to take care of this," I whisper. "You can count on me."

I touch the glass one more time and force myself to turn away from her. I want to pry her out of there, but I can't. It takes time to recover from stasis, and I can't risk her being hurt. Shaalyn's not going to play fair, and me and Bethiah are used to space battles and backstabbing pirates. We can handle ourselves.

And if we can't…I don't want Jade to face the consequences.

"I'm ready," I growl as I storm out of the med-bay. Seeing my mate—because Jade is absolutely, positively MINE—laying there in stasis has flipped a switch in my head. Gone is carefree Adiron. In his place is an angry, protective male out to get revenge for his mate. Shaalyn's going to wish she never touched one single curl on Jade's head.

"Yay!" Bethiah cries, bounding after me. "Let's go take my ship!"

We storm through the halls, heading for the bridge. I'm not entirely surprised to find that when we get there, the doors are sealed, the control panel shot out, and yet another dead male on the floor in front of us. She's cannibalizing her own crew to save her hide. It's a foul move, but one I'm not entirely surprised to see. Of course Shaalyn cares only about Shaalyn. She can always find more idiot males to dance to her tune. If nothing else, she's good at convincing a male that she's in love with him.