Adiron (Corsair Brothers 1)

Bethiah gives an exaggerated shrug. "Okay, so technically it's a yes."

I breathe a sigh of relief.

"But!" she continues. "He might be dead now." When I give her a blank stare, she glances around the hall to make sure no one's listening and then leans in again. "We intercepted his pod. He was in there with the yellow-haired human. Kinda cozy if you ask me, but I suppose you didn't. Anyhow. We pulled in their pod but ran into a problem. The human had a sickness, and so we couldn't extract him from the pod in case it was contagious. We kept the pod in our bay overnight. I think Shaalyn wanted to keep him until their health could be cleared, because you know she's never met an opportunity she didn't like."

She's right. I don't know how I ever missed this before. Shaalyn has always been greedy and all about herself. I was just too dazzled by her to think it was a problem…until she turned on me, of course. Jade's nothing like her, and I couldn't be more thankful. "What happened, then?"

A ruthless little smile curls Bethiah's mouth. "There was an accident in cargo bay. They must have broken out somehow. Took down a perfectly attractive, completely inexperienced greenhorn, too. Such a shame that sort of thing keeps happening."

I breathe a sigh of relief. Bethiah had a hand in that, too, then. "Thank you."

"Like I said, though, the human was sick." She shrugs. "Don't know what happened after that, but it's Kaspar. He'll turn up somewhere, probably with the authorities from three different planets chasing his tail."

Truer words never spoken. "How do we play this, then?"

Her smile grows even more dangerous. "As brutally as we want."

67

ADIRON

I've got Bethiah on my side, and I almost feel bad for Shaalyn.

Almost.

"So when do we do this?" I ask Bethiah, leaning against the door. The noodles she brought are congealing slowly, as our conversation goes on for longer than anticipated, but I don't care. More important things are afoot. "Tonight, when everyone's sleeping? Tomorrow?"

She shakes her head and looks around again. "Our window of opportunity is right now, if you're ready to do this."

"Right now?" I echo, surprised. So fast? "Why right now? Not that I'm not ready, just curious."

Bethiah smirks, then straightens and types an access code into the control panel of the door. A moment later, it slides into the wall, sending the bowl of noodles tumbling to the filthy floor of my cell. "Poor, poor Shaalyn is nursing a busted nose and wounded pride."

Busted nose? Wounded pride? "Jade?" I ask.

"Jade. Your little human's a fierce one."

Kef yes, she is. I grin. "That's my girl. Where is she?" My heart thumps as I glance over at the next cell, but it's empty, of course. I knew it was, but…there's only so many places to hold someone on a cruiser like this. I turn back to Bethiah, a horrible feeling clenching in my gut. "Shaalyn didn't…"

Bethiah shakes her head, tapping away at the panel to the elevator off this floor. After a moment's frustration, she sighs and pulls out her blaster, then shoots the panel. A curl of smoke rises from it, an alert chirping. She ignores it and glances over at me. "Your human is safe, because she's worth a lot of credits. Shaalyn would have killed her otherwise. Instead, she just put her in stasis. Cold."

"Cold?" I shudder. Being sent into stasis cold is brutal. It's only happened to me once, when there was no time to administer the drugs to slowly ease me under. It's an awful feeling, of being closed in and trapped in the pod while your veins are fed liquid ice that feels as if it's freezing you bit by bit. You're awake while your limbs stop responding, and your brain is the last to go under. I know of weathered soldiers who don't bat an eye at the worst war has to offer, but panic at the sight of a stasis pod.

And she did that to my Jade? My soft, funny, loves-to-be-in-control Jade? "She did it to get back at me," I growl. "Keffing Shaalyn."

"Don't take all the credit," Bethiah says drily. "I'm pretty sure the fist to the nose had something to do with it, too."

Right. Doesn't matter. If I get my hands on Shaalyn…well, I'm going to see if Jade wants to kill her first. "Where's her pod at? Med-bay?"

Bethiah nods once, handing me a blaster. "No time to go play tongue-games with your human right now. We need to move. She left a blaster in the lavatory, you know."

I frown to myself, trying to follow Bethiah's line of conversation. "I want to see Jade and make sure she's all right. I won't wake her up yet." I want things to be completely safe before she opens those beautiful eyes again, just because I need her to know I can take care of her. That I've got her back. That I'll always look out for her. "And uh…who left a blaster in the lavatory?"