Page 43 of Savage Union (Brutal Universe #2)

42

TURK

T o say I was angry was a fucking understatement. Jessina hadn’t just lied to me—she’d made a fucking fool of me in the process! I winced as I thought of all the excuses I’d made to myself for my feelings for her when I’d thought she was a male. I’d swallowed the idea that she was a Catamite whole and used it to justify letting her suck me. Goddess of the Four Faces, if Slade ever found out what I’d been up to with his little sister he would swear an Oath of Blood Vengeance against me and I wouldn’t blame him!

The thoughts went round and round in my head…but so did her words. She claimed we were Fated Mates, but that couldn’t be true—could it? I knew that Slade believed in the idea of finding the one person the Goddess had fated you to be with—he’d never had a doubt once he found his own mate, Aurora. But I had always regarded it as an outdated idea—one that not many people believed in now.

“It is outdated and I don’t believe it,” I muttered to myself, pacing the Bridge.

“Excuse me, Captain? What’s that you’re saying?” Yorrin asked, looking up from the ship’s controls. He’d had to do some fancy flying a few minutes ago, to get us out of reach of the Salashions’ Orbitary Patrol. Now we were on course for another planet in the Triplex Cluster—one I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to visit. But Jessina had ruined our trade agreement with the Salashions and I knew we’d never be welcome on their home world again.

She didn’t ask to come along to the bargaining, though, a little voice whispered in the back of my head. You insisted on bringing her. If you’d just let her stay in your room like she wanted to, none of this would have happened.

I tried to push the guilty little voice away…and couldn’t quite manage it. Jessina didn’t know anything about Salashion culture or the fact that they could apparently smell what sex a person was. Hell, I hadn’t known that last part myself! So she hadn’t ruined our trade agreement— I had.

I also understood why she’d turned me down as Cass when I had wanted to touch her and make her come. She’d been afraid that my wandering fingers would reveal her secret—which they no doubt would have. Unbidden, the idea of cupping her soft little pussy in my hand rose to my mind. I could imagine sliding my fingers into her wet depths and hearing her moan in my ear as she begged breathlessly for release…

“Captain?” It was Yorrin again and I realized I hadn’t answered him the first time. Also, I must look like a madman, pacing around the Bridge like this and muttering to myself.

“Sorry,” I said and turned to face him. “I was just?—”

“Captain Turk, we must turn back!”

Turning, I saw Frux coming up through the Gensen’s Tube.

“What are you talking about?” I asked irritably. Dealing with the irritating Union Rep was the last thing I needed right now.

“I mean, you left a man behind!” He pointed a trembling finger at me dramatically, as though I had done it on purpose with malice aforethought.

“And what man is that?” I asked, frowning.

“Crewman Jerx!” he exclaimed. “He’s still back there, somewhere, on a hostile planet! An alien world! And you left him!”

“Not by choice,” I said heavily. This was going to come out sometime, it might as well be now. I raised my voice so everyone could hear. “Crewman Jerx disobeyed orders and went to an unauthorized sex house.”

Before granting shore leave for most of the crew, I’d sent Snuffy out to research the local houses of ill repute. He’d found a decent one where the girls, boys, and bots were clean and which had security for the clients so they wouldn’t get robbed, drugged, or killed.

I had believed this place had enough variety, even for someone with a jaded sexual palate like Jerx, and the Crew had been informed that it was the only safe and acceptable place to visit. There had been some grumbling when I announced it, but not too much. It was right by the spaceport, meaning the men would have maximum time to enjoy the house’s favors before they had to get back for dinner in the Mess Hall.

But apparently it hadn’t been good enough for Jerx.

“So you left him just because he went to an unauthorized sex house?” Frux demanded, his eyebrows raising almost to his hairline.

“No,” I said harshly. “In fact, I ran into him on the way back from my negotiations with the Salashions.” I hadn’t told the Crew what had happened with the Salashions—and I wasn’t going to. I would tell my Chieftain if he asked, but if I was still able to get the goods he’d specified, I hopefully wouldn’t have to say anything at all.

“So you ran into him and told him not to bother coming back to the ship?” Frux demanded.

“No.” I glared at him. “Frux, you’re this close to landing in the Brig for the night. Let me fucking finish!”

His eyes narrowed but he held his tongue and simply made an elaborate hand gesture for me to continue.

“I ran into Jerx…or what was left of him,” I went on. “You see, he apparently refused to pay the sex worker he’d gone with and she set her pet spiker on him. Before I could intervene, it bit off his head.”

There was a collective gasp around the Bridge and I saw Crewmembers giving each other wide eyes.

“This is a heavy loss,” I said, though to be honest, Jerx had been an asshole and I certainly wouldn’t miss him. “I wish I could have reached him in time to stop what happened, but the fact is, I didn’t.”

Another lie. I’d been too busy being fucking terrified out of my mind that Jessina was going to get killed and eaten as well to worry about Jerx. As far as I was concerned, he got what he asked for. But of course, I couldn’t say that to the Crew.

“So that’s it?” Frux asked at last. “That’s your final word on the matter? What about his body? What about his family?”

“I’ll be speaking to his family when we get back home to Rigelis Nine,” I said sharply. “As for his body, there wasn’t anything left of it. The spiker ate him from his head down to his boots—in that order.”

Of course I hadn’t seen that, but it was reasonable to assume. The last look I’d had, the hungry beast had been busy consuming Jerx’s torso. I assumed that it had continued.

My words caused another gasp from the Bridge Crew but Frux was still staring at me with narrowed eyes.

“So we’re just supposed to take your word for it that Jerx is gone?” he wanted to know.

“If you’d like to go search for him, you can take one of the lifeboats,” I offered. “But since I saw him get eaten, you’re not going to find much. Unless you want to dig through a pile of spiker scat, that is.”

Frux’s mouth went tight and he sniffed.

“You realize, of course, that I’ll have to put this in my report.”

“Go ahead,” I said, shrugging. “I’ll be putting it in mine as well. You know I don’t like losing a Crewmember but Jerx was the one who decided to go to a sex house that we hadn’t vetted and approved beforehand. I can’t keep people safe if they don’t obey orders.”

Frux leaned close to me.

“This isn’t over, Captain,” he hissed in a low voice. “I know how you felt about Jerx—I know you whipped him for trying to get to your little pet Catamite!”

I wanted to fucking punch him, but that was beneath me as a Captain.

“What exactly are you trying to say, Frux?” I said in a normal tone of voice. “If you’re accusing me of something, you’d better put it in your report. Yes, Jerx attacked another Crewmember and yes, I punished him for it which is my duty as the Captain of this vessel. That’s all in my report as well and it has nothing to do with the way he died—which was a direct result of his own insubordination.”

Frux still looked furious but he had apparently exhausted his opinions and accusations—at least for now. I had a feeling I was going to have trouble with him later, though.

I decided that if I got out of this mission unscathed, I was going to give my Chieftain an ultimatum—I wasn’t going to do another mission with this sanctimonious asshole—I didn’t give a fuck who he was related to. It was going to be him or me and I had little doubt which one of us the Clan Savage Chief would choose.

I sat back in my chair and turned my attention towards the viewscreen, which showed the peaceful blackness of space.

“Set a course for Dovix Centra,” I said, speaking to Gurflug. “Let’s get this mission done so we can go the fuck home.”

“Yes, Captain,” he burbled. I frowned at the smug look on his face. I didn’t like not having Cass to check his work…

Then I remembered all over again that there was no Cass. There was just my best friend’s little sister who had tricked me into hiring her. But damn it, she really was an excellent navigator. I still trusted her a Hell of a lot more than Gurflug, even if she had been lying to me all this time. Her Cross-Dimensional Navigational skills were beyond amazing.

Against my will, it made me recall her words. She had the talent and brains to navigate a ship—why should she be stuck on Rigelis Nine, relegated to a miserable life Bound to a disgusting old lecher who would never let her rise to her full potential and would instead use her body as he pleased?

Just the thought of that—the idea of some disgusting old man pawing at her sweet, curvy body—made me sick. And so angry I ground my back teeth together and balled my hands into fists.

MINE! shouted the voice in the back of my head. She’s mine and nobody else had better fucking touch her!

But I couldn’t feel that way about my best friend’s little sister. She was off limits—as off limits as if she’d been my own sister by blood. I couldn’t betray Slade by doing something so unthinkable. I’d always had an affection for Jessina—she was my little bird, as she had tried to remind me. But I’d never felt anything sexual for her…until she came onboard as Cass and started getting close to me.

Against my will, I began to remember some of the facts I’d learned about Fated Mates. For one thing, when two Fated Mates started spending time together in close proximity, they started to crave each other sexually. Males developed what was know as “The Thirst” where they longed to taste their Fated Mate and drink her honey.

This brought to mind the way I’d been longing to taste Cass—to make him come…before I found out his real identity, that was.

I shoved the idea away. Surely that couldn’t be what was wrong with me. I didn’t have The Thirst. And I was certain that Jessina didn’t have any of the female symptoms, either.

At least, I hoped not. Because if she did, we were going to be in deep fucking shit.