Page 31 of Stealing Mercury (Arena Dogs #1)

Chapter Sixteen

Samantha sat cross-legged and barefoot in a patch of grass on the slope down from the cargo-drop campsite.

The breeze rustled in the trees and some sort of insect provided a concert of clicking noises.

They’d arrived back at their original campsite early the day before.

Lo had continued on, to check on Drake and Resler.

Mercury and a still limping Carn had disappeared into the woods at sunrise.

It seemed impossible Carn had been able to hike on that knee so quickly—genetic engineering at work.

They’d been gone for hours, but she wasn’t worried. Once the urgent need to stop the low frequency pulse had been met, they’d become more interested in exploring this new world and she knew they wouldn’t be so far that they couldn’t get back if she ran into trouble.

She studied the collection of objects she’d pulled together—a scrap of thermal material, a small emergency toolkit with a cutter and a sealer, and packaging from supplies they’d already used.

She’d never had a need to make shoes before, but she wanted something besides her deck boots to wear around camp.

Samantha tugged the tool-case open and peered inside.

She had the cutter in her hand when she realized she was no longer alone.

Lo stood like a living statue under the nearest tree.

Only his chest moved. He had one hand pressed on the trunk of the tree, the other against his belly.

The muscles of his arms and chest were sharply defined in the dappled sunlight.

He stood there, watching her, even after he knew she’d seen him. His teeth hid behind his lips, but the tip of his tongue peeked out.

Sometimes he took her breath away.

What did that say about her? Her feelings for Mercury had grown so strong she could barely contain them.

She shouldn’t even be noticing Lo. She’d grown fond of them all.

How could she not? But that didn’t mean she should get hot and bothered by two of them.

She wasn’t her father. Stars, she couldn’t be that faithless and weak.

Something broke the spell and Lo strode toward her in long, fluid movements. He crouched in front of her but kept nearly a meter between them. “All is well, little Sam. I’m no threat to you.”

She reached out and waited for him to put his hand in hers. “I know, Lo. I know.”

His touch burned hot against her palm. His claws were barely visible. His presence dominated her field of vision. So close, it was impossible not to notice his raw sexuality, but she refused to acknowledge her reaction.

It had been a mistake to touch him.

She slipped her hand free and wiped her sweaty palm against her thigh.

Lo followed the movement and she considered trying to explain, but he tipped his head back and howled.

“Calling the guys,” she guessed.

He nodded, then tilted his head to the side and twitched his ears. “They’ll be back soon.”

“Great,” she said with more enthusiasm than she intended. “I wasn’t making much progress on my shoe project, anyway.”

He looked down at her collection of materials and frowned. “Is that what you were doing?”

Samantha sighed. “I hadn’t really started yet.”

He pushed to his feet but didn’t offer her a hand to stand and she didn’t ask for one.

They walked in silence back to the cluster of boulders. Samantha tucked away her supplies and took a seat on one of the containers. Within a few minutes, first Mercury and then Carn jogged back into camp.

The men greeted each other with small touches—a clasp of an arm, a pat on a back, a brush of shoulders—as if they needed the physical contact to reassure each other that they were all together again.

When Lo and Carn found spots to sit, Mercury settled on the ground near her.

He pressed his arm against her leg, instantly making her feel like one of them.

She hadn’t realized until he did it that she’d been envying them as she watched the small ritual. She put her hand on Mercury’s shoulder, and something tightened in her belly then eased in her chest.

“They remain in their camp,” said Lo. “But I saw the whip-master speak into a panel on the escape-pod.”

Mercury peered up at her. “Could he be trying to call for help?”

“No.” Samantha shook her head. “He couldn’t use the pod to contact anyone. It doesn’t have that kind of range.” She tried to think, but she was certain the Roma men didn’t have the skills to rig up a relay with the Dove .

“What’s the range?” asked Carn.

“Pretty good in deep space. Not so good with the interference of a solar system close by. From planet surface, it wouldn’t reach beyond a high orbit.”

Lo bent forward to rest his forearms on his thighs. “He didn’t look as if he was repeating a message. Seemed more like a conversation.”

Carn made a sound, something like a whimper, and his eyes widened. “Could it be the rendezvous ship?”

“Or,” said Mercury. “Someone responding to your distress call.”

Samantha refused to calculate the odds someone helpful would respond. “If anyone is out there they would’ve found the Dove . They might have moved into orbit to look for survivors.”

Mercury frowned. “In which case they could be more help to the whip-master than to us.”

“I was hoping,” she said. “That the call might draw help from the Gollerra system.”

Mercury blinked slowly. She could see the possibilities turning in his brain. “Could someone from that system have reached us?”

“Yes. There are transports that could make it in about three days, if there was someone willing and ready to respond right away.” Willing to cross the border, too.

She’d sent her distress call on the main shipping frequency and included her indie call-sign hoping someone friendly might hear it.

The problem was, she didn’t know how many friends she had left among the indies.

“But it’s also been long enough that someone could have made it from Roma.

I’d have thought two more days-but if they had a fast enough ship… ”

“Then we have to be prepared that it might be them,” concluded Mercury. “If it is someone friendly, can you make contact from the cargo pod?”

She thought about it. “Yeah. Damn it. I should have thought of this before. I’ll have to rig something. The thing is only equipped with a beacon, but I can make it work.”

Mercury’s nose flared and she knew he was trying to read her scent.

Good luck to him. She wasn’t even sure what she was feeling herself.

Letting herself care for him was crazy when she’d been confused by her reaction to Lo less than an hour before.

Thinking about the future, their future, seemed like a really bad idea.

She was startled by the fingers that tugged on the fist she’d tightened around the cloth of her shirt, right over her heart. She hadn’t been aware of doing it, but he’d seen it and the determination on his face as he pulled her to her feet, promised he wouldn’t be pushed away.

He sent Carn to patrol the perimeter around them and told Lo to get some sleep, then he led her to the cargo-drop.

He observed, intent, as she worked on the transmitter.

It wasn’t easy without the proper tools, but she wired up a simple receiver and got to work altering the beacon transmitter to meet their needs.

“Do all pilots have such skill with modifying systems?” His voice broke into her thoughts.

“Hardly.” She laughed at the thought, more than a little pleased to see him looking as interested and intent on her work as when she started. “Most pilots are too arrogant to get their hands dirty.” And most men were too easily bored to sit around watching her work.

He moved closer, propping against the side of the drop. “Then how did you learn to do this?”

He was close enough to touch, making it harder to keep the emotional distance she’d been aiming for between them.

“My father had a small freight hauling business. Strictly indie, that means independent—not part of a large company, but he had a good reputation.” At least with clients.

“He taught me to pilot, but before that, his crew taught me to work on the ship.”

“Why would you seek out this skill when your father could teach you the other?”

She tried to keep her face blank. “It was never a sure thing that he’d let me on his ship, let alone teach me to fly. Mom and I lived in a refugee camp, Haverlee. My folks never actually married.”

“I don’t know this word.”

She looked up at that. “Married? It’s a commitment when two people decide to share their lives, be with only each other.”

His lips thinned and his tongue slipped out to briefly flick across them. “It’s like mates then.”

The Arena Dogs probably didn’t have any legal options, she realized. They’d been slaves with no hope of anything better. They’d made the best of their situation.

“Your father and mother had a child together, but weren’t mates,” he said. “Were they forced to breed?”

Samantha’s stomach twisted. He looked so grim. “Have you ever been forced to father a child?”

“Forced breeding is something they started only recently, and no children have been conceived.” His face blanked as he spoke, all signs of emotion gone. “Hera was sent to us, but Carn wanted her.” He shook his head as if he thought he could shake away the thought.

A knot formed in her stomach, as she considered what might have happened if Carn hadn’t wanted Hera. “I’m glad you weren’t forced.”

“What of your parents?” His tone rang with a demand to move the conversation forward.

She turned her attention back to her work, connecting the power circuit to the voltage regulator.

“My parents weren’t forced either. They wanted to share sex.

I think having me was a mistake. Dad had women in every port he worked.

He wasn’t awful about it, though. He brought my mother funds when he came around. And he did come around.”