Page 44 of Stealing Mercury (Arena Dogs #1)

“You allowed it, Samantha.” Her mother’s voice socked her in the gut. “You let your anger at your father blind you.”

Samantha didn’t know whether to feel betrayed by her words or sad that she’d let this happen. “Did you know?”

“He never spoke of it, but I knew he’d never have left you with nothing.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“You needed to figure it out for yourself. You’ve never been able to see him clearly.”

“You’re right,” said Samantha. “My opinion was always clouded by the knowledge of how he’d hurt you.”

“I never complained,” denied Moira. “I never blamed him for not being able to stay with us.”

“You didn’t have to. I could see your pain every time he left.”

“Yes, I suppose any woman who loves a man is sad when he leaves. Maybe I should have talked to you about it more so you could understand, but you were so angry. You didn’t want to listen.”

Samantha searched her feelings for her father. There was such a jumble of love, respect, animosity. “I’m listening now.”

“I knew your father would never be one to settle on a planet when I met him.” Moira smoothed her hand over the packet. “I allowed myself to become involved anyway. That’s why I never blamed him for leaving. Space, his crew, his ship... they were all a part of him and I loved him as he was.”

“What about the other women? I know you knew about them.”

“Of course I knew,” she lowered her head for a moment, as if the weight of it bowed her spine, then she straightened.

“He asked me once to live with him on his ship, but I couldn’t.

It wasn’t the place for me. It was after I turned him down that he began seeing the others.

I can’t tell you it didn’t hurt. Your father wasn’t a perfect man, but he was a good man.

He did so much for others. For all of us. ”

“What do you mean, Mom?” Samantha’s heart rate accelerated.

Her mother squeezed her hand, then let go.

She lifted the packet in her hand and opened the seal.

“It was enough that he loved me. Made me feel for someone when the wars had made me numb.” She pulled a handful of encrypted stills.

She traced her fingers over the corner of one and the view sheet leaped to life.

The still showed younger versions of her father and mother standing close.

Her mother shimmered with gold. Around them dozens of people crowded together.

They all looked weary, but relieved. She could see transport bags on the ground at their feet and the Haverlee dunes stretched out behind them.

“This was the group I was in. We were no longer on Cerrillia by then, but the Alliance had bounty hunters out looking for us on the Alliance side of the border. They were afraid we were building an army.” She grinned and flushed more golden.

“We would have if we could, but there just weren’t enough of us.

When Aurilia—the planet where we’d been hiding—became too dangerous, your father smuggled us to Haverlee. ”

Her father truly had been a refugee runner. Emotion dropped on Samantha’s head like a confused mass of sand-cats, scratching and scoring her as they purred their way into her heart.

***

Samantha pressed her nose against Mercury’s neck. They sat on the side of a sand dune far enough out of the camp to guarantee a little privacy.

“I feel like my life has turned upside down in the last week. It seems I was wrong about everything.”

Mercury tipped her chin up and rubbed his thumb across her lip. “Tell me what I can do to make it better?”

She shook her head. “I’m not even sure I want to make it better—or at least not to change it back to the way things were.”

She could see he didn’t understand. He looked at her with those storm cloud eyes, letting her talk. Trying to give her what she needed when she had no idea what that was.

“A few weeks ago,” she explained. “I was alone. Yeah, there where people around, but I was still alone. I thought the indies, my father’s friends, had abandoned me as surely as his crew did when they left me on Sydney3. Now I don’t know what to think.”

“Chief Pillar was right about your father’s past.”

“Yes. I need to let it soak in, to figure out how I feel about it.”

Mercury frowned. “I thought it was a good thing.”

He might not understand the history and politics of the Earth Alliance, but he knew when things made her happy and sad. For him, that was all he needed to know and as far as she was concerned it was more than enough.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “That’s a good thing. It means he wasn’t as selfish as I thought. But he never told me. And it doesn’t make up for everything else he did.”

“Drake claimed your father was a friend of Grande Owens.” Mercury offered up the slight with no malice, but Samantha bristled at the thought of it.

“No way would he deal with that dune-slug.” That, she was sure of.

“I didn’t think so either,” he said. “I know his daughter and such a woman could not have been born to a man who accepted the suffering of others.”

She cupped his hand where he still held her. “It isn’t important what he did in the past. We have plenty to worry about in the present.”

“But your father—”

“Yeah.” She sighed. “I thought he was a complete bastard. Turns out it was my own insecurity that was the real problem.” She held his intense gaze for several minutes and he allowed it, letting her think her way through to what she needed to say.

That was Mercury. He always knew what she needed.

In his eyes there was complete acceptance.

Complete confidence of who he was. Stars, she didn’t want to lose him.

Not to Roma and not to her own fears. She looked down and studied her knees, unable to face him with fear choking her.

Her heart pounded and she couldn’t breathe.

“I don’t want to make the same mistakes with you. ”

He pressed his forehead to hers. “Don’t be afraid...”

She pushed back, needing to gage his reaction to what she wanted, no, needed to talk to him about. “I know you made a promise to Carn. But you’re going back, taking that risk, it’s about more than that isn’t it? You’re pack bonded with his mate.”

He turned her in his lap and wrapped both big hands around her face. “ You are my mate.” When she started to argue he silenced her with a look. “I know you don’t believe it yet, but it’s true.”

She pressed her lips together to stop the protests she wanted to spew out. She wouldn’t allow him to distract her. She needed an answer. “But you’re bonded?” This time she made it a clear question. Demanded an answer, even if she knew the answer and didn’t want the confirmation.

“I was bonded to her, but nothing comes before mates. Carn knows this. Hera knows this.”

She swallowed against the lump that formed deep in her throat.

“It was the one thing I swore, Mercury. That I’d never fall in love with a man who couldn’t give me his whole heart.

Who wouldn’t be with only me. I know it isn’t fair after I had sex with Lo.

.. but I couldn’t bear it if you were with someone else. I couldn’t.”

“We’re mated,” he said. “I’ll never touch another. Think, Samantha. Think of Carn. He’s my pack brother and he cares for you, but he doesn’t touch you. He can’t touch any female but his mate. This is our way. I need no one but you.”

She wanted to believe him and she was terrified to let herself believe.

Maybe if she didn’t believe now it would hurt less if— No!

She couldn’t think that way. She loved Mercury whether she wanted to or not.

He’d never lied to her. She had to trust him or end it and she knew she couldn’t leave him now.

“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “I’ve been wrong about a lot of things lately. Maybe there’s one more thing I’ve been wrong about.”

He sat quiet, waiting.

“Maybe I’ve been wrong about not having any way to help you get back to Hera. I think it’s time I go back to the port and make a few calls.”