Page 172 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

The woman touched his face, stroked the horns on his forehead, and proclaimed something, and then the pilot was back to looking just like any other ordinary guy.

Da’vi was yelling some kind of criticism at the pilot from across the table, rating the shapeshifter’s ability to shift into a Kertinal, which I assumed was what Da’vi was.

In all that chaos, it wasn’t surprising that it took me a moment to spot Fierce in a corner, sitting quietly with a baby in his arms. A pink and blue baby.

My breath stalled for a moment, what the hell?

He had a kid? He could have mentioned that the moment we could finally understand each other.

I wasn’t sure at all what to think now. If he already had a kid, did that mating drive even mean anything?

Had I misunderstood him down on the planet?

I was so sure he was claiming me, with the way he’d marked me, the way he’d talked in his gruff and growly language.

With how hurt I felt over such a huge secret, I knew I was in far deeper with him than I had expected myself to be.

It was a bit of a wake-up call. Had I really already ended up having feelings for him—this quickly?

That was nothing like me. I was always the rational scientist, so much so that I’d been called a cold fish by more than a few dates.

I’d forgotten he was next to me, but when Jakar leaned in closer and Snarl rumbled a warning, I realized the young alien had noticed where my eyes had lingered.

“Fierce often watches Novalee for Tori when she cooks,” he said, undeterred by the nasty sound Snarl was making.

“Tori makes the best food, but she’s all alone with her kid.

I’m glad he helps out. But then, that’s Fierce, he’s always been good with animals and fragile things. ”

For the first time, he said something that made me realize that Jakar knew Fierce, better, maybe, than some of the other males aboard this ship.

I looked at him in question, my heart racing a little at the implications in his words, that the baby was not Fierce’s, but that he was just helping…

“You have a history with him?” I asked, instead of the more urgent question about that baby’s parentage.

Jakar eyed Snarl, who’d fallen silent and was watching him with a very intent stare.

Then, he darted a look over his shoulder at Fierce, who was still tucked in the corner, baby curled against his chest. Now I spotted the fluffy porcupine-badger mixture in his lap.

It was a ball of white and black fur, the transparent but firm cast on its broken front paw sticking out at a slightly awkward angle.

“Yeah, Fierce and I have pretty much been slaves our entire lives. We’ve been in the same stables at many different times.

I can still recall the way he’d always save a bit of food to share with whatever stray animal he’d discovered, even if he risked getting punished if it were discovered.

” Jakar’s eyes turned a little distant as he recalled some other memory. “Fierce used to look out for me too.”

My heart warred with emotions, sad at the kind of horrible, difficult lives these males had endured.

But I felt warmth and pride, too, at hearing about Fierce’s kindness.

For a male so wild and feral, who liked to eat his meat raw and crunch through bones like they were matchsticks, he was such a good man.

“Not anymore?” I asked, my eyes going back to Snarl, who’d settled down on his haunches. He was no longer protesting Jakar’s nearness, as if he understood that what the male was saying was doing Fierce favors.

“Not since I stopped needing it,” Jakar answered, his four arms crossing over his chest, puffing it up a little with pride.

“Not in a long time,” he added, to be sure I understood he was badass in his own way.

I smirked, noticing the long glance Fierce sent my way when he thought I wouldn’t notice.

Then he got up, two tiny bundles in his arms, the two kept carefully apart so the now-awake baby couldn’t yank on the poor little man’s fur.

Fierce walked across the mess hall, meeting up with a tiny, blonde-haired female, barely out of her teens, she looked too young to already be a mom.

She was thin and small, with dark circles beneath her eyes, but she smiled radiantly at the tiny baby when she took it from him.

Though I could tell—even from a distance—that she probably thanked Fierce, she never even looked at him.

A moment later, Fierce strode along the table and plunked himself into a chair, one wedged between the Kertinal, Da’vi, and Luka, the Doc.

That left no room for me to sit down next to him, and I wondered if just the fact that I’d been startled at hearing about his mating drive meant he was now keeping his distance. Or was something else at play?

“Hey, Jakar, who’s Novalee’s dad?” I asked, hating how nosy that sounded but needing to make absolutely sure.

He confirmed what I had already figured out—it wasn’t Fierce; it wasn’t anyone, in fact.

Poor Tori had apparently woken up from stasis a few months ago, already heavily pregnant.

The Doc had confirmed it was a test-lab baby, with many different genes combined with her own.

Feeling bad about having leaped to conclusions, I searched for an empty seat, found one next to Abby, and hurriedly sat down.

I did my best to remember everyone’s names as they introduced themselves, then tried to quietly enjoy Tori’s fantastic food.

But my eyes kept straying to Fierce, who sat quietly between two of his brothers, hunched over his food but barely touching it.

Compared to the raw meat and bones he’d eaten down on the planet, a plate of cooked vegetables and some kind of alien potato, along with a big roast, possibly from the animal Fierce had killed—just didn’t seem like the kind of food he preferred.

He didn’t talk either, and no one tried to engage him in conversation.

If not for the little rodent he’d rescued, tucked in his lap, whom I watched him feed bites of veg to, I would have thought he’d completely disengaged.

And if not for Fluffy in my own lap, begging for her own scraps, I would have gotten up right then and there and tried to talk to him.

Abby was doing her best to engage me, to help me navigate the rowdy bunch at the table.

I liked seeing the camaraderie and enjoyed the big family vibe.

It would have been even better if it hadn’t felt like Fierce was checking out completely, withdrawing into himself.

I even felt a little angry on his behalf that no one was trying to talk to him.

Was this normal behavior for Fierce? Was he just not the talking type?

I didn’t know for sure, because down on the planet we hadn’t been able to talk much at all.

I wanted to find out, though; this didn’t seem like it was entirely normal, not even for Fierce.

Halfway through the meal, with his plate still nearly full, he just suddenly got up and stalked from the mess hall.

No one commented, though I saw several people stare after his retreating form.

Ziame included the huge, intimidating male who sat at the head of the table next to Abby. I nudged Abby, interrupting what she was about to say. “Why is nobody talking to Fierce? Are they upset with him?”

Abby’s eyes went to the door Fierce had just left through before she settled them back on me with a sigh.

“Look, I know he rescued you, that you feel a bond with him. But… Fierce is a secretive male; he’s often quiet and withdrawn.

He’s been through a lot, so that’s not strange.

” This didn’t explain anything, those were all things I already knew.

When I gestured at her to continue, it was Ziame who offered the explanation.

“This ship belonged to pirates. They tried to take on one of Drameil’s ships.

Drameil is the crimelord who previously owned us.

They lost, but they damaged Drameil’s ship, so we ended up being transported on this one, only we rebelled and took over.

” I struggled to understand the exact logistics, but I understood the most important part: this was a pirate vessel once, and now the gladiators owned it.

From the soft way Abigail and Ziame shared a look, I had a feeling that part of their story was how they’d gotten together.

“A few weeks after we took over the ship, we discovered the body of one of the pirates. He’d died after we’d freed ourselves, which meant he’d hidden on the ship somewhere.

” Ziame’s flexible ears drooped a little, as if his next words were harder for him to say.

I was grateful for those expressive ears, because the expressions on his scaly face were otherwise pretty hard to read.

“We didn’t know Fierce could camouflage; he’d hidden the ability, just like he hid the Riho,” he gestured at Fluffy in my lap.

“Thorin had actually tasked him with finding the animal. When you two came back from the planet, he admitted it was he who killed the pirate. We’re a little upset that he’s been keeping all these secrets. ”

“You didn’t know he could camouflage?” I asked in shock.

How had they not known? He’d shifted his skin tone at the drop of a hat down on the planet.

For the longest time, I hadn’t even been certain what his actual skin tone looked like.

Then again, if you could make your skin look like anything, did you even have a base color?

Maybe he just liked being blue, or that happened to be the color he’d had when they’d captured him and he’d stuck with it.