Page 305 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Eoin

Things were going much better between Tori and me than I thought they would at this point.

She’d been so soft and responsive beneath my touch last night, and while my body was clamoring for its own satisfaction, I was more than happy just to settle for hers right now.

We’d eaten together, played with Nova, and then, when we were about to settle in for bed—with Novalee in the middle, as we had no other options—someone had knocked on our door.

It had been the loudmouth of a pilot, the Asrai named Aramon, with a box in his arms big enough to suit as a cradle for the little one.

I hadn’t expected any kind of consideration from a bunch of mercenaries, but there it was, a safe sleeping spot for Tori’s kid.

They’d even kitted out the inside with a soft mattress and a blanket.

As soon as the Asrai had left, I’d used my Metallurgist skills to attach that metal crate to the wall next to where Tori would be sleeping. It was just a matter of thought and concentration to fuse the metal wall panel with the metal box, making them a single object.

I’d called the Vagabond to update them on our situation, and then I’d convinced Tori to sleep in my arms that night.

I felt like I could take on the entire mercenary crew that morning when the three of us left our safe little quarters to find food in the mess hall.

I still felt the urge to keep her as close to me as I could—I didn’t trust that the noisy Asrai wouldn’t try to flirt with her—but she had successfully protected herself, and me.

My mom would tell me to get my head out of my ass if she saw how I struggled to let Tori be, even if she was shy.

The mess hall was nothing like the one on the Vagabond, which bore the heavy stamp of Tori’s hand.

She might have been quiet, and she blushed as soon as one of my gladiator brothers spoke to her, but that place was indisputably hers.

Everyone knew that. Nobody would enter the galley without her permission, but it was still an open, accessible place—welcoming, even.

On the Varakartoom, the mess hall was just a gray room with several clusters of bolted-down metal tables and chairs.

One bay of viewscreens displayed what was streaking by outside the ship, the only saving grace of the room.

The wall where the galley should open up onto the mess hall was closed down.

The hatches slid nearly all the way to the bottom, leaving only a small crack through which plates of food were shoved, lined haphazardly up on the counter.

Tori and I shared a surprised look when we noticed it.

She always had the hatches opened all the way up, essentially making the galley and the mess hall a single room, separated by the counter.

Here, we could see the vague shadow of someone moving around behind the counter, the sound of pans clanking, even some muttered curses.

It just wasn’t visible. The food looked good, though, I couldn’t deny that.

Tori only made human-styled food, but this chef clearly knew how to make many of the delicacies from the Zeta Quadrant. My mouth watered at the sight of it.

“Ah, came out of your lovenest for some sustenance, did you? You lucky bastard,” Aramon exclaimed when he spotted us.

The Asrai was accompanied by his twin, but that one didn’t bother to get up from his seat.

“Come here, sit with us, grab food! Brace has been a genius in the kitchen, like always,” he added as he gestured at the food on display.

“You better grab some before the horde descends.”

I didn’t doubt that a crew of mercs would eat massive amounts of food, so I led Tori to the bar.

She wasn’t worried about the much more alien dishes, perusing them with curiosity and asking me pointed questions I didn’t know how to answer half the time.

The third time she asked me what was in a dish and I floundered, a gritty, husky voice snapped out the answer from behind the metal hatches.

Tori froze, her fair skin breaking out into a deep red blush, and I had to battle the urge to sling her under my arm.

“Thank you,” she stuttered out politely.

“I’m not asking questions to be rude. I love cooking and…

uh… well, it’s…” She floundered with her words, but whoever was on the other side didn’t rush her—though we couldn’t tell if he was actually listening.

“I am the chef on our own ship, but I’m not from this quadrant, so I’m not familiar with many ingredients and dishes. ”

I waited silently to see if the male on the other side would answer again, and I wasn’t the only one. The two Asrai had stopped their quiet conversation with the less quiet Rummicaron, who’d guided us to our room last night. They, too, were curiously waiting to see if their shipmate would reply.

“You should try the Gapari; it tends to agree with Alpha Quadranters well,” the husky voice huffed.

A wooden spoon appeared from the crack and tapped on the appropriate dish with a sharp rapping noise.

Then it disappeared, and the hatch snapped closed entirely.

Tori startled back into my side, but then she squared her shoulders and reached for that dish, a smile on her face.

“This does look good. Reminds me of pancakes, even if they’re purple!

” she exclaimed softly as she stacked her plate with several of them, inhaling greedily while she poured some kind of thick brown liquid over the stack.

“I bet you made these with that grain the Sune grow, what is it called again?” I was pretty sure Tori knew it was Haras wheat, which had purple seeds and was a staple in the quadrant.

Yet we both held our breath as we listened, sharing a smile when that gravelly voice grunted the answer through the hatch.

“Thank you, Haras! That’s it! Well, have a nice day, sir.

Thank you for breakfast,” she said politely.

I had to believe that the closed hatch—and her inability to see who she was talking to—was helping her to speak, because I’d rarely heard her string that many words together to a stranger.

It was pretty funny to me, as this chef was clearly as people-shy as she tended to be.

Plates filled, we sat down at the table next to the one where the three mercs were sitting.

They’d gone back to their conversation, Aramon talking loudly and with many hand gestures, while his twin sat quietly and stared into the distance.

As we ate our food, Tori making several exclamations over how good the Gapari was, more crew members came and went.

The mess hall filled with noisy conversations as many males and some females of various species sat down with their food.

That’s when Tori reached out over her empty plate, a last bite of her Gapari in her other hand, which she let Novalee nibble on.

Her hand landed on my wrist. “Please, Eoin, we have to try to convince them to help us rescue those humans! Their ship is fast, but if we have to meet up with the Vagabond first… I don’t want to think about what they’re going through as we speak. We have to help them now.”

She wasn’t wrong. Each day that passed while the buyer owned those two humans was a day too many.

I’d already called my parents to see if their extensive network of contacts could be of help, but nobody was close enough to make a meaningful difference.

These humans had been taken to a holding belonging to a rival Crimelord of Drameil’s; my intel told me it was a mining base on a desolate planet.

The Crimelord himself didn’t like spending time there, so there was a good chance those humans would be shipped on again if we didn’t get to them quickly.

I still didn’t think it was a good idea to get these mercenaries to do the rescue for us.

I’d have to pay them, and while I could make some fancy baubles, just enough gems to make them willing to ferry us to Rakex.

I could never make enough to pay the hazard fees required for asking them to expose themselves to actual combat.

Not with the stores currently available in my body.

“I know you want to save them, but we have no other option. Those humans will have to hang on until we can get there with the Vagabond.” My words made her mouth droop, and she looked away, her sharp little brows furrowed into a deep V.

She might have focused on Novalee now, getting the chubby seven-month-old baby to take an interest in the food, but I knew this conversation wasn’t over.

“They might not have that long!” she hissed at me. “We can’t risk their lives!” And I couldn’t risk hers. Alone, I would have tried to get there myself, with mercenary help or without. Tori and the baby were my main priority; however, I could never put them at risk.

“Risk? Humans? You have another job for us? How lucky! I was just getting bored!” Aramon suddenly leaned in between Tori and me, his deathmask pulled into a macabre grin, all his straight teeth on display. “What’s this job? Humans are a much better payment than some shiny little gems.”

Tori jerked to the side, away from him, heat spreading across her face in another of her deep red blushes, but the frown never left her face.

Maybe she felt put on the spot, but the irreverent way Aramon talked seemed to ruffle her feathers as much as I tended to do.

“Humans are not payment,” she said hotly, and she jabbed the merc in his shoulder with her pointer finger.

He grinned at her, then lifted his eyes to meet those of his brother, who’d dropped into a seat across from us as silently as a wraith.

“But they make good mates, no?” Aramon asked, wagging a finger between Tori and me as if that illustrated his point.

I wanted to laugh at the look on Tori’s face, it was even more indignant than before.

She forgot all about her shyness when her temper got hold of her. I loved that.