Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

CARLA

Sunlight danced on the water. One sun dipped near the horizon, turning the water silver. The other sun was at least an hour or two from setting, setting the sky aflame in a riot of reds and oranges.

Carla sighed, leaning against the pier’s railing. The metal gave a little wobble but held. Good. She was too tired for any of the rusted railing’s drama.

“Explain the meaning of that noise,” Ari said. He stood a foot back from the railing, holding two to-go drink cups of something hot, judging from the steam from the top.

The sunset reminded her of home, but that felt too familiar. Confessing feelings of homesickness was something friends did, and Ari wasn’t a friend. He was a temporary business associate.

“Just tired,” she said, giving Ari an easier truth. Yesterday at this time, she and Poppy were getting ready for a dishonest night’s work hustling. “I’ve been up since yesterday, and, no, being knocked out for two hours doesn’t count as sleep.”

“This is for you. It will help.” He thrust a cup in her direction.

Carla cracked up the lid and sniffed. The brown liquid didn’t smell like tea, coffee, or their alien equivalents. “Is it a stimulant? Pass. I just need some shuteye.”

“It is a broth of fermented bean paste and mushrooms,” he said. She must have appeared skeptical because he added, “It will keep you warm.”

She accepted the cup and took a cautious sip. The broth was salty and not too rich. It reminded her of miso soup. “Thanks. It’s nice.”

The human-friendly settlement turned out to be a quaint seaside village. Well, at least during the day. Who knew what happened after dark? During the day, it might have been any small town on any law-abiding planet. The streets were filled with busy people going about their business and running errands. Vendor stalls were clustered in the village center. Shops had their doors open. Windows lacked bars and security glass. Carla saw exactly zero security. People were just minding their own business.

It was weird, like some village from a horror movie. Carla wouldn’t have been surprised if the villagers shifted into cannibal werewolves after dark and terrorized the streets in packs. Yeah, that seemed more plausible than a picture-perfect tourist-friendly village.

Even weirder was Ari. He was almost… nice. Bizarre, right? They spent the afternoon gathering the necessary supplies. For Ari, that meant fresh food for the kitchen and body armor. Not from the same place, obviously. A cheese and ammo emporium would be strange, but it would keep with the general vibe of the place. Nice on the surface, filled with fancy cheese, and then a touch murdery in the back room.

Necessary supplies for Carla meant a skimpy outfit. She didn’t mind—really—but it was kind of exhausting. She was bait, and bait worked best by showing a lot of flesh. On this world, humans were prized possessions, either sex toys or pets. If given the choice, she’d take being a pet over the alternative. Too bad no one interpreted that to mean dressing up their pet humans in cozy sweaters. No, it was all thermal bandages and thongs. Being bait also meant blending in, so she had to suck it up and deal with the thermal bandages and thongs, even if it was gross.

And chilly.

While being measured by the tailor to have the skimpy outfit altered to fit, Ari added a stack of sensible, comfy clothes. Carla refused on principle. She didn’t need him to do her any favors because favors weren’t free. There was always a cost. Ari replied that the jumpsuit was offensive to his eyes, and he was doing himself a favor.

So that happened. He was sort of nice but a complete ass about it, so that was on brand and didn’t concern her. Now, he brought her soup. Was Ari secretly a marshmallow? No. She found it easier to believe the ugly jumpsuit offended his dapper sensibilities. She found it even easier to believe he would renege on their bargain and keep her as a pet for real.

Yeah, that made sense. If that gargoyle thought he had her trapped, he’d better think again.

The long day weighed on her. The countdown on Poppy’s zombification was ticking down, she had to trust that a deal-making gargoyle wouldn’t turn all nefarious and betray her, and her mind felt sluggish. She really needed a solid eight hours of sleep.

She shifted her weight, the rusted railing groaning.

“I would not be so confident as to rest all my weight on the railing. It is rusted and does not appear to be secure,” Ari said.

Her lips twitched in a smile. His concern sounded almost genuine.

Probably doesn’t want his investment falling into the water.

“It’s fine,” she said.

“It is not fine. The water is hazardous.” His wings did a fluttery, shivering motion that looked uneasy. Huh. He stood a good two feet away from the railing, too. Maybe the concern was genuine.

“Are you afraid of the water?” she asked.

“No, I am not afraid. I am demonstrating a healthy respect for the water by keeping my distance.”

“I’m not judging.” She was. A little. “I’m just surprised that a fella who lives on a ship has such a pho—healthy respect for the water.”

His wings did that shivering flutter again, and now his tail was in on the action, lashing from side to side. “My people are not buoyant.”

“Is it because you are made of stone?”

Wow. Carla had never seen anyone throw daggers with their eyes before.

“I am not made of stone,” he said, sounding offended.

“I dunno. You felt pretty solid when I was wailing on you.”

He sighed dramatically, undoing a cuff and pushing the fabric of the sleeve up, exposing his forearm.

A really nice forearm. The sunlight hit him just right, shimmering purple over his stony gray skin.

“My skin is different from yours. Increasing the density offers protection.” He flexed his fingers. The skin grew darker, losing the purple sheen as it shifted into a charcoal gray.

She wanted to touch him, to see if his skin felt as solid and cold as it looked, but it was rude and inappropriate. You didn’t go around petting people. She stretched out her hand. “May I?”

“If you must.”

She brushed a finger along his forearm. The skin was more supple than she expected; not quite leather and definitely not stone. She glanced up. His violet eyes watched her intently. His tail brushed against her ankle.

Suddenly conscious that her curious touch was morphing into a caress, she jerked her hand away. “When I shot you, you were stone? That’s why the discharge didn’t hurt you?”

“Yes. I am skilled and can shift quickly,” he said with pride. “Although you did ruin a favorite suit.”

“Maybe learn to dodge a bullet rather than standing in one place, looking like a target.”

Ari made a huffing noise, sounding almost amused.

The moment felt…weird. Blame it on the sunset, the pushed-up sleeves and exposed forearms, or her utter exhaustion, but she felt an imbalance between them. Ari confided a phobia. No doubt he’d lord it over her about how fantastic and sophisticated he was, and Carla was just a stabby-shooty hooligan. To get back on an equal footing, she needed to share.

Sharing was the worst.

“I’m afraid of trees,” she blurted out.

“Pardon? Trees? Big things with leaves?” He gestured grandly with his arms, like that was supposed to represent a tree.

“I’m from the prairie. We don’t have a lot of trees. Just fields and cows, all the way to the horizon. If your car hit an icy patch in the winter and went off the road, the worst thing you’d hit was a fence post. Maybe a cow,” she said, face burning with embarrassment and also annoyed at herself. It was complicated. She could be complicated, all right? “When I moved to the city, the trees were everywhere. They crowd out the sky. Like, how do you know where you’re going? Also, what happens if there’s an accident? You hit a tree and die.”

“You are wise to be worried.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Carla said. “You’re scared of the water and live on a boat.”

“It’s a ship capable of space travel and is also waterproof.”

Oh, the sass in his delivery.

She opened her mouth for a snappy comeback but yawned instead. “Sorry. Humans do that when we’re tired. It’s not a sign of aggression or anything.” Unlike with some alien cultures. She found that out the hard way.

Concern flickered across his face. “It has been a long day. We will discuss strategies tomorrow.”

Fine, as long as there was a strategy to discuss tomorrow, and Ari didn’t double -cross her.

ARI

The female straddled his torso and held a knife to his throat.

The screen across the port window had been left open to enjoy the night sky. Now clouds obscured the moon. In the dim light, he could not read her expression—in so much as he could decipher human expressions—but her posture told him that she was upset.

The dagger was also a clue.

“I’ve awoken to worse predicaments,” he said, a purr in his voice. “That’s an ornamental blade, by the way. Gold is far too soft to damage me.”

“Shut up,” Carla snapped, pressing the tip of the knife into him.

He was not overly concerned. His skin hardened to stone in that area and the blade really was ornamental. It barely held an edge. To threaten him with such a useless object was pointless. He was taller, stronger, and could easily overpower her. Although he did not mind the way she straddled him. That was pleasant.

Was this Carla’s version of flirting? He approved.

“Whatever you’re thinking, stop it,” she said. “I wanted to make a point.”

“Intriguing,” he replied, tail thumping against the mattress. His hands yearned to touch her, to stroke her thighs and grip her hips. She wore the utility jumpsuit he printed for her. Shame.

The flat edge of the blade smacked him across the cheek.

“If you renege on our bargain or if you pull a tricky trick, just remember that you have to sleep sometime, and I got into your cabin without waking you.”

His tail stilled. “It’s a good threat but lacks flair. Brute force will not work against me. My skin can shift to stone in a heartbeat. You know this.”

To demonstrate his point, he grabbed the blade and squeezed with stone-hardened fingers, bending the metal. It really was an ornamental piece.

“Poison. Violent and sudden decompression. Lack of oxygen. Pushing you overboard and letting you sink to the bottom of the ocean.” She raised her fingers one by one as she spoke, as if ticking items off a list. “There are so many interesting ways for you to die on a ship.”

“I am far too heavy to simply push overboard, and I question your mechanical knowledge to implement the other threats.”

“Honey, my daddy was a mechanic, and breaking something is a hell of a lot easier than fixing it.”

There it was. Flare.

“You are not a murderer.” A thief, yes. A con artist, absolutely, but taking a life was vastly different from taking credits.

A grin broke across her face. The moon broke through the clouds, casting shadows across her face. She leaned in, her lips a breath away from his. “My dad was bigger and stronger than my mom, too. He thought just because she couldn’t hit him back, that he was safe.” She planted two hands on his chest and pushed herself upright. “You don’t have to be bigger or stronger to use rat poison. Think on that.”

The mattress shifted as she climbed off him. Ari watched, awestruck, as she left his cabin.

He was captivated.