Page 176 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Fierce

Hina needed to rest—she’d been up far too long by now—but I was as eager as she was to find out what Thorin had discovered.

He was good at working with the ship’s AI, Akri, a skill that had previously scared me a little.

It had felt inevitable that he’d discover that it was me who had killed the pirate.

From the mess hall, I could hear the sounds of my brothers.

Even Thorin and Camila had already sat down at the table.

I paused in the doorway, my arm curled around Hina’s body.

At this point, I wasn’t sure if that was because it was instinct to keep her close and safe, or if it was because I needed to draw a little support from her.

All my brothers were seated around the table, with Ziame and Luka standing at the head.

I didn’t see the other women—just Camila—but it was already getting pretty late, so it wasn’t surprising.

Now that we had the AI running the ship, we didn’t take shifts anymore to make sure the bridge always had someone present. So, yes, all my brothers were here.

They looked at us as we arrived, Jakar waving eagerly at Hina.

I snuffed out the growl that wanted to rattle out of my chest, forcing myself to admit that what I was feeling was trepidation.

Like at the meal that evening, I felt judged for what I’d hidden from them.

I should have just been honest. They were trustworthy.

I should have realized they wouldn’t just throw me out the airlock.

“I’m sorry,” I made myself say. “I shouldn’t have lied and hidden what had happened. I should have come forward.” I made sure to look Thorin especially in the eye as I said it. The male raised his hand in a fist and then brought it down to thump at his chest. “Forget about it.”

When the others shrugged and nodded, I stepped into the mess hall.

My eyes sought out Ziame; it was he whom I needed to absolve me of the last shred of guilt.

He was standing with his arms crossed over his chest, his horned head tilted at an angle as he looked me over.

Then his ears twitched, and he gave me a slow nod.

Letting out a long sigh of relief, I looked down at Hina for a second to gather myself.

She’d observed the interaction and was smiling at me; I felt strengthened by that little sign of solidarity.

Then Snarl made a huffing noise, indicating he was more than done with my waffling.

He trotted into the mess hall and headed straight for the kitchen.

My stomach immediately rumbled in hunger at the reminder that I had yet to really eat.

“Go on, grab some food you can actually digest,” Hina told me, nudging me after Snarl toward the large freezer.

I noticed more than one set of eyes following me as I strode after the Ferai beast. Hina proudly headed over to one of the empty chairs at the table and said pointedly, “What? Didn’t know he can’t eat cooked food? ”

It was Luka, the doc who responded, “Well, now that you mention it, that does make sense. His digestive tract is very different from the average…” His voice trailed away, and I found myself grinning.

Hina was sticking up for me, and the doc sounded downright apologetic.

It wasn’t their fault, though; I hadn’t wanted to seem ungrateful to Tori when I didn’t eat her food.

Besides, Tori knew—she’d caught on—and she often made sure I had food earlier.

In turn, I watched Novalee while she cooked.

“I can eat some,” I offered as I hauled a chunk of raw meat out of the freezer and placed it in the defroster. I couldn’t read the buttons, but Tori had shown me the sequence enough times by now that I had it memorized. “I just don’t like it,” I said.

Normally, I just dug in with my bare hands, but as everyone was watching, I tried cutting the meat into smaller strips before eating those. Of course, Snarl had no such compunctions, and was noisily digging into his barely thawed hunk.

“Okay, I’ll be honest,” Jakar said. “That looks kinda tasty too.” He smiled widely as he said it, making me think it was a joke, but it was a peace offering too. So I smirked at him and flicked a cube of meat at him. He caught it and looked at it as if he were thinking: Yikes, now I have to eat it.

Hina was chuckling at my side, but it was Fluffy who saved my poor brother from eating meat raw when his stomach couldn’t handle it.

She stuck her head out of my bag, sniffed at the air, and then darted across the table to snatch it right out of his hand.

There was some surprised laughter and then cooing from Camila as she urged Fluffy over for some petting.

The Riho happily obliged, taking the spotlight off me.

“Silence! We need to get this business sorted so we can all get some rest,” Ziame announced.

My brothers immediately settled down, and Camila did her best to shush the squeaks and purrs coming from tiny Fluffy, smothering laughter as she did so.

“Luka, go ahead, tell us what you found,” Ziame added, indicating that the Doc had the floor.

Luka flung his long hair over his shoulder and appraised each of us at the table with his eerie black eyes.

He wasn’t a gladiator, but he’d been conscripted into service by Drameil’s henchmen, forced to heal us.

As a result, I knew his family had ostracized him, refusing to allow an Aderian who’d participated in something as heinous as the gladiator fights back into the fold.

“I talked with Thorin about the possible locations where the pirates could have gotten hold of a rare Riho to trade. We had Akri search the ship’s database and came up with a few possible locations.

” They had looked for more Riho? I couldn’t believe that Thorin and Luka had done that, that they’d cared enough about the animals to try and find the source.

“We think we’ve located the place where they likely bred these Riho.

It’s on an Aderian outpost not too far from here. ”

Ah, that explained why it was the Doc heading this.

He was an empath, sensitive to many feelings, both the physical and the emotional kinds.

I tended to avoid him for exactly that reason.

If the Riho had been bred on an Aderian planet, the Doc must have been feeling a kind of responsibility to make things right.

Akri spoke for the first time that evening.

“I have calculated a 67% chance that the people breeding these animals are still there. There is subsequently an 85% chance that we can raid and disable their operation successfully.” Those were good odds, but the fact that all my brothers were here meant we were about to take a vote on it.

Thorin butted in to explain more of the details, helped by Akri as he described the base and the intel we had. With Kitan, they discussed the length of the journey, which depended on the number of FTL jumps we’d take. That was always his call, as he made sure never to let us tax Chloe too much.

Ziame was the one who called for the vote.

“Are we stepping in to stop this? Or do we feel it’s not our business and we shouldn’t waste resources?

Those in favor, say aye.” Surprising no one, Camila was the first to eagerly shout, “Aye!” But then, she had Fluffy curled up in her lap, that probably had something to do with it.

Luka voted in favor, and then so did Thorin. I knew what I wanted, but I was sure that everyone here already knew that. Hina raised her hand. “Do I get a vote?” she asked.

Ziame immediately nodded. “Everyone on the ship gets a vote. Well, everyone except the baby.” That caused some laughter, but Hina immediately used her vote in favor, which was followed by one brother after another doing the same.

Da’vi eyed me with his vivid purple eyes, a frown wrinkling his forehead beneath his two black horns. Then, he planted his fist on the table and said, “Aye, I think I have a few ideas to help us breach that facility.”

So we had a full vote: everyone was in favor.

I couldn’t believe it. I’d been so worried about bringing on one animal after another, and here they were, wholeheartedly agreeing to rescue more.

I grinned hugely as I cast the last vote, and I kept grinning as Akri, Thorin, and Kitan discussed the FTL jumps ahead.

I was still grinning when Hina led me after my brothers into the corridor with our quarters.

When she brought me to a halt in front of my own door, I jolted out of my happy mood and looked down at her in shock. “We’re sleeping here?” I asked.

She nodded empathically. “You said you couldn’t stand sleeping alone. Well, you’re not, you’ve got me, Snarl, Fluffy, and Fellow with you. You can do it.”

For her, I’d try. We had three days before the raid; I could try to adjust to sleeping in a normal bed, in a normal room, in that time. I’d have to if I wanted Hina to stay with me. I couldn’t ask her to sleep in the brig with me, the thought alone made me cringe.

So, I squared my shoulders and followed her inside.