Chapter 9

Chapter

Nine

R ixx eyed the small head in his hands, the bright-red hair flopping as he waved the limp body and tried to get the legs to move forward.

"Not like that!" Zala scowled at him and reached for the rag doll. "You're making her look like she's having a fit."

Rixx did not know what a fit was, but he guessed it wasn't good. "Apologies. I have never played with a doll before."

Zala blinked at him as she smoothed the yarn hair that he had mussed. "You don't have dolls on the sand planet?"

"There are very few Dothvek females and the ones we have do not play with dolls. They learn to survive with us on the sands or become a priestess."

The little girl wrinkled her nose. "That doesn't sound like fun."

They were sitting cross legged at the base of the bed that Myrria insisted he take since his strength was still low and climbing the ladder to the loft upstairs might open the wound on his side. He did not like the fact that his presence was relegating the woman and her daughter upstairs to a shared bed, but he also knew that he needed to regain his strength as quickly as possible. The faster he was back in fighting form, the safer they would all be.

"I have never thought about things being fun," he told the girl. "There are many things you do to survive, especially on a planet like mine."

Zala's lips turned down as she ran her fingers through the doll's hair. "And here. Mama always worries about us surviving on Kurril, especially since it's just the two of us."

Rixx's heart twisted hearing the pain in her small voice. "She tells you this?"

Zala started to shake her head, then she caught herself and gave her head a quick jerk up while clicking her tongue. "Sometimes she says she isn't hungry if we don't have enough food, but I know she's lying because her stomach growls. I hear her cry at night when she thinks I'm asleep. She doesn't know I can hear when she talks to herself after I've gone to bed. I'm supposed to be asleep but sometimes I hear her talking to herself." Her gaze darted to me with embarrassment. "Sometimes she's talking to my dad, but not nice things."

It did not take Rixx's empathic skills to feel her pain. She knew her mother worried and she knew that her father had left them in a precarious situation, but she could not bring herself to speak against him. Rixx pressed his lips to keep from saying what he thought. Any male who left his wife and child alone in a place such as the Den of Thieves deserved to be consumed slowly inside the belly of a sand worm forever.

Rixx thought again about how much Myrria had risked to save him. How long could she feed him and keep him hidden if she could barely feed her daughter? Resolve settled inside the Dothvek like alien steel that forged sky ships. He would not allow Myrria to go hungry because of him. He would not be the cause of her tears.

"Your mother is as strong as any of the females on my planet and any of the bounty hunters on my ship," Rixx said once he'd steadied his temper. "She has kept you both alive and safe all these years and she took me in when it meant inviting danger to her door."

Zala seemed only mildly interested in his words about her mother as she handed him back the fabric doll. "You have bounty hunters on your ship?"

He suspected she did not want to dwell on the cruel realities of her life when she could instead hear more stories of far-away adventures.

"My ship is a bounty-hunting ship." Rixx perched the doll on his knee. "It was an all-female crew of bounty-hunters when it crashed on my planet. Now the crew is as many male Dothveks as female bounty-hunters."

"A ship of all women bounty-hunters?" She cocked her head. "How is that possible?"

Rixx grinned at her. "These females are pilots and engineers and warriors and spies. They are as tough and smart as any male—just like your mother."

Zala didn't look convinced. Rixx could tell that she could not imagine her mother being as tough as a bounty-hunter pilot or spy, but he knew that the woman had the strength of a warrior even if she did have bad judgment when it came to picking husbands.

"Tell me what it's like to live on a ship with bounty-hunting women." Zala had all but abandoned her own doll as she leaned her elbow on her knees. "Do they carry weapons?"

He laughed. "Most of the females do not walk around the ship with weapons, but our security chief always carries a blaster and wears metal spikes in her hair."

Zala's dark eyes were round with wonder. "Even on Kurril, the women don't wear weapons in their hair."

"Tori is not a typical woman," Rixx said, shaking his head as he thought about his crew mate with wild brown curls. "She is also not human. She is Zevrian."

Zala straightened and furrowed her brow. "Zevrian? Like the ones hunting you?"

"Tori has abandoned her Zevrian ways." Rixx paused as he considered the truth of this. "Most of the mercenary ones, at least. There is no more loyal crew mate than her, and she would fight to the death for anyone on our ship."

Zala let out a sigh. "I would like to meet her one day."

"My ship will return for me, so I am sure you will." He did not say that he wished he could take her and Myrria far from the trials of Kurril. It was not his place to make such a promise when they were waiting for Zala's father to return. Even if it was obvious that the man had been killed or had abandoned them, Rixx could not say that. Not to a girl who still held out hope.

Talking about his ship and crew was yet another reminder that as soon as he was healed, he needed to find a way to communicate with them. He needed to tell them he was alive.

Rixx glanced over Zala's head to the scrubbed kitchen table and the heel of bread wrapped in a cloth on the cutting board. Even if he could not reach his ship, he would need to leave Myrria's cozy house before he was taking food from Zala's mouth and leading the Zevrians to their door.

Then the door flew open and Myrria bustled in, slamming it behind her and leaning on it as she caught her breath. She locked eyed on Rixx. "We must hide you."