Page 367 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Arianna

Not in a rush, I perched on the edge of one of the workbenches and pulled out my datapad. I couldn’t get over the footage we had of Akri and the mystery woman. I was just so dang curious about who she was. Had our AI-turned-flesh-and-blood found himself a mate?

“Prrr?” Babbit said at my elbow, having popped up from behind a pile of cables on the bench.

His thick, fluffy coat was standing on end from static electricity, and dust bunnies clung to his back and plumed tail.

Reaching over, I rubbed him along his back to get rid of the stuff, and he eagerly bent his agile body into my palm, purring loudly.

There was a bonk, and then Da’vi straightened from the panel, rubbing one of his horns. “Arianna… when did you get here?” he asked gruffly, but I knew it was because he was embarrassed to be caught hitting his horn on something again.

Smiling, I crossed my legs and swung them back and forth.

“Oh, just now. Did Babbit’s purring give me away?

” I laughed when Da’vi narrowed his amethyst eyes at his wayward pet.

He crossed the room, one hand reaching out to scratch Babbit under his chin, the other curling around the back of my neck so he could angle my mouth up for a kiss. Hmmm. Always so demanding, my mate.

“What are you watching?” he asked when he finally let me up for air.

I turned my datapad over to show him a still image of Akri and the woman as they leaped from a seedy bar.

Everything about Akri’s posture screamed protective, and I kept puzzling over who the woman was.

There was a pain collar around her throat; was he rescuing her?

“Hmm,” Da’vi said as he eyed the image along with me.

“Akri’s wearing that damn amulet… I figured he’d hide it, since it’s a data device.

” He froze in place, and then he hunched over, grabbing the datapad from my hands to peer even more closely at the image.

“You remember how facial recognition led us to assume that the body Akri occupies is Brake—a former gladiator also once owned by Drameil, until he mysteriously vanished?”

That was bad news. See, I shouldn’t have been so fixated on Akri’s love life.

Real shit was going on. I had heard that he was in the body of Brake, a prime gladiator who vanished forty years ago without a trace.

“What are you saying, Da’vi?” I asked him, because he sounded very serious, even for him.

“That amulet is a data storage device that likely belonged to Drameil. If he sees the footage—just like we did—Ov’Karal is his favorite location to stay at, and it’s the twin planet to Ov’Korad, where Akri is.

” We shared a very grim look at those words.

Drameil might be much closer to Akri than we were, even with Da’vi’s super engine running to give us an extra edge.

“We need more speed,” I said. “You can make that happen, can’t you?” Da’vi could build anything he set his mind to, so I wasn’t surprised at all when he gave me a nod, followed by a slight grin.

“You inform the crew, and I’ll get to work,” he said, already turning away, rubbing his prosthetic hands together in anticipation of the work ahead. I nodded, leaping off the table and nearly going ass-over-teakettle when my soft moccasins didn’t get the right traction on the slick metal floor.

I heard his gruff laugh and stuck my tongue out at his back as I attempted a more graceful glide out of the engine room.

“Hey, Ari, I’ll be back in our bunk in time tonight.

Make sure you’re ready,” Da’vi called out behind me, and my body flushed, my nipples perking up immediately.

I knew what he meant. Since we’d gotten mated, he very rarely lingered in the engine room, not when he knew I was waiting for him in bed.

“You bet. Hurry up. I’ll be waiting.”