CHAPTER 16

Alexander

M y announcement earlier had been necessary under the law, but that didn’t mean I was ignorant to the emotions it would stir amongst my crew. What I hadn’t accounted for was the blatant disregard to expected respectful behaviours from the cadets. They had not only attempted to assault their peers but had actively made the biggest mess I had ever seen in on my ship. Battles notwithstanding.

That was why I stood at the back of the room, flanked by Jorna who mirrored my stance while Markus watched from the door to the kitchens radiating disapproval. Arms crossed, brows drawn, lips pursed, angry glare. Complete and utter disappointment at the cadets under my command. They’d learn. By the stars, I would make them.

Everyone that was present during the incident was on their hands and knees, scrubbing at the mess they’d made. Moreover, since they thought it was acceptable to waste food in the middle of space would soon discover the extent of their idiocy when they wouldn’t have any. Well, it was illegal for me to withhold essential nutrients for those under my care, but that didn’t mean I had to let them like it.

Packed with essential nutrients, filling and cheap, nutrient bars were also bland, hard as a rock, chewy and difficult to swallow. Anyone who’d been on a covert mission or was running low on supplies knew the horror of living off Nutri-bars, but the newbies had yet to experience it. They were in for a shock, and I was looking forward to it.

My holo-tab pinged at my waist, alerting me of an incoming message. With one last glare at the pitiful excuse of cadets, I pulled it out to check. It was a request for an audience by none other than Arthur Mercer, and I had an inkling what it was about.

I turned to address my first lieutenant. ‘Jorna, I have something else I need to attend to. Will you be okay keeping an eye on these idiots with Markus?’

‘Of course, captain.’ She hadn’t always been aloof with me. After what she’d been through two solars ago she had retreated within herself and had yet to emerge. The only person she had really opened up to in recent solars was Markus, and that was only because he’d badgered her until she cracked. The change was slight but significant. He was good for her.

She saluted me as I walked by, and I ignored the formal gesture. I had stopped telling her off for it ages ago, my complaints bouncing right off her impenetrable walls. Instead, I just pretended like she wasn’t behaving as if we hadn’t studied and graduated the academy together or spent our entire military careers in one another’s company.

As I made my way down to the room I had embarrassed myself so thoroughly in only last week, I fought hard against the echoes of my emotions from that moment. It would probably haunt me forever, how I’d not only traversed the height of my ship in my underwear but exposed myself in such inappropriately informal attire in front of all those young men. Addy still laughed about it when we were together. I’m sure she had a little giggle to herself when we weren’t together, too.

Even so, I couldn’t help but double check my pants were indeed on my body before I knocked on their door.

No bare legs today.

It was lucky that it was standard issue for the doors on IU ships to revert into the walls, otherwise there wouldn’t have been any space for it to open. Crammed inside the small room were both teams. There wasn’t enough space for them all to sit, so despite the smallest boys sharing the bottom bunks and two more laying in the narrow space available on the top bunks, Foryk, Cadmus and Dorian remained standing. They separated to provide visibility for the others in the room, but there wasn’t any space for me to squeeze in. Instead, I stayed just outside, filling up the doorway with my own bulky frame.

I cleared my throat when no one greeted me. ‘Cadet Corporal Mercer, you requested an audience with me?’

The man in question leaned forward from his position on a bottom bunk, peering around the bodies but unable to stand. ‘Yes, sir, we wanted to request a different room. A larger one to fit us all, if there’s one available.’

Huh. That wasn’t what I had been expecting, but the concerns over their safety at night were one of the reasons I had assigned them a security detail. I hadn’t thought the situation would escalate to this degree already, though, and kicked myself for not thinking of it. ‘There aren’t many rooms on this ship with the capacity to house more than four people at a time, but I can try to find a solution. It’ll need some finagling, but it’s a good idea. Let me look into it,’ I agreed.

I still hadn’t gotten much further with it, but I had managed to apprehend that cadets that lied about Hastings’ involvement. I was keeping them in the room I’d originally used to hold Hastings, taking turns with Jorna to interrogate them. So far they had admitted that they lied about the unsub’s identity, but also that he had threatened them into silence. They’d refused to talk after that, too afraid of the real culprit to risk his wrath.

It was unfortunate and frustrating, their collective silence halting the investigation, but there was nothing else to do.

Another issue was the brother of the victim, Katira. He was afraid the unsub would attack her again. However, I got the feeling that the siblings knew him on a more personal level. Both of them far more afraid than if he were a stranger. I could sense they knew more than they were willing to tell, but I couldn’t force someone to talk when they didn’t want to.

Either way, the result was the same. No one was giving me any new information, and I was getting nowhere in my search for the truth.

What I could do was rehome the cadets that had somehow gotten caught up in this mess. It would at least give us all some peace of mind that no one would track them to these rooms, which if this evening’s events were any indication would occur sooner or later. If I could prevent it, or at the very least postpone the inevitable, I would.

Unfortunately, the only room I could have housed them in was the empty suite on my floor that was currently in use by my prisoners. The only other option would be to kick someone out or keep them in my own suite.

Actually…

I sent a message to the one person I trusted above all else and waited for her arrival.

She didn’t leave me waiting long. Addy came running down the corridor in a streak of bright pink as she skidded to a stop in front of me. She didn’t stop in time and ended up crashing into me, but I steadied us. I took the opportunity to enjoy the way she pressed against me for a beat before releasing her.

I needed her with me tonight, I realised when the tension bled from my body from her mere presence. She was the only one who could provide the comfort and peace of mind I so desperately sought.

‘What’s going on? What do you need?’ she asked.

‘I need to get these cadets to a different room… and I was wondering if I could borrow yours,’ I informed her, getting straight to the point.

‘Uh, duh. Am I moving in with you, then?’

I chuckled at her eagerness for the suggestion. I hadn’t realised that was something she wanted, but I wasn’t about to say no .

‘Of course. Where else would you go?’

She beamed up at me. ‘Who’s staying at mine and who’s staying at yours?’ she asked.

I groaned at the flaw she had just uncovered in my plan. The prospect of sharing my previously private space with so many people – and strangers, at that – was already causing me a stress headache. Unfortunately, it had to be done.

‘We’ll put together some sort of rotation schedule,’ I shrugged. We hadn’t worked out the details yet, but it shouldn’t take too long.

I turned back to the room of silent cadets that had been watching the interaction with a rapt attention. ‘Gather your belongings and follow me.’

Ten clicks later we were taking the officer’s elevator all the way up. With everyone’s luggage doubling the space needed, we separated the trips between the two teams to allow for more room inside. Soon enough everyone had congregated in the corridor outside Addy’s room. She pushed through the mass of cadets to scan her hand, her tiny frame utterly adorable against the backdrop of large male bodies. She would have made a fine Griknot companion back on Grik, and I lamented not for the first time over her lack of sexual tendencies. For me or anyone else. My fantasies would never be fulfilled, but I had come to accept that a long time ago. My imagination worked of its own accord, however.

She would turn feral if I ever said that to her face but that didn’t stop me from thinking it. The glare she aimed towards me when she noticed my smirk would have to suffice her. Without a sudden ability to read minds, she could prove nothing.

Her private quarters were a perfect reflection of her personality, just like her workshop. Items were scattered about the place, clothes strewn over every available surface, and there was no rhyme or reason to the way her personal effects were ordered. She simply placed an item down and decided that was its new forever home. Sometimes she even forgot she had an item until she tripped over it.

‘Ah, right. Let me just clean up a but before you settle in,’ she said, grabbing a heap of clothing and shoving them into my chest. I quickly raised my arms to stop them from falling, but she took that as an opportunity to keep piling more things into my arms.

My face was suddenly unblocked, and I worried for a moment that I was losing my hold on the clothing. But then I looked down. Skinny little Mercer of all people had grabbed some from the top to free up my vision.

‘Thanks,’ I huffed. It was getting surprisingly heavy, and I was struggling to avoid showing the strain.

When Addy began to pile onto him as well, I decided it was time to put them away in their new home and free our arms. After five trips, my arms were shaking – what was in those damn piles? – but Mercer was shockingly and annoyingly unperturbed. It was like he was taking a leisurely stroll while I was sprinting, despite the similar loads weighing us down. At first when I’d found the heaps of tools and other gadgets escaping pockets and such as I piled them into my room, I thought it was just my loads that contained surprises. But then objects started falling out of Mercer’s arms and I was starting to get irritated. And suspicious.

On the seventh trip, the rest of the cadets watching as we moved back and forth from their positions doing absolutely nothing to help as they leaned against the walls, I took it as a challenge. After a particularly muscle-straining load, I was starting to break a sweat. A glance over at Mercer showed that he was in much better condition than me, and it wasn’t adding up. I was easily thrice his size and most of it was muscle, so how was he acting like this was nothing?

At one point, Addy saddled him with what looked like a deconstructed engine. The thing was practically falling apart and almost the same height as him. Even Addy couldn’t lift it on her own, yet he hefted it to my living room as if it were nothing more than an oversized feather.

There was no way.

When I was sure no one was watching, I lifted the thing to assess its weight, only to promptly drop it back down. I could have managed it, sure, but I would have done it with a lot of grunting and cursing. Mercer had simply walked it over and placed in delicately down on the ground. His face didn’t flush with the strain, there were no beads of sweat dotting his brows, nor did he make a single noise to indicate the effort it must have – should have – taken.

I side-eyed his willowy frame in an attempt to size him up again, to make what I’d just seen him do fit with the image presented to me. All I managed to do was make myself feel incredibly inadequate, and it had been quite some time since I’d let those feelings pierce my thick shield.

When was the last time I’d done any weight training? Ah, that must have been it. It had been too long since I’d regularly attended the weight room and I was losing my touch. I would have to rectify that immediately.

Shown up by one of the skinniest cadets I’d ever seen. Fuck, no. Unacceptable.

My frustration and insecurities got the better of me and I barked at the others to start helping. There was a seemingly never-ending supply of stuff to move, and I wasn’t about to be made a laughingstock with my huffing and puffing. It made me feel marginally better when the others struggled as much as I did, and I wasn’t the only one who began to look at Mercer as if he were a freaking magician or something. The only one who wasn’t struggling as much as the rest of us was the Tornu, but that was no surprise. My own Tornu blood came in useful, but I was nowhere near as naturally strong as a pureblood. Especially since I was mixed with an array of other races, too.

Maybe Mercer wasn’t as pure-blooded as I’d assumed. There could have been a little Tornu blood in there somewhere, though the lack of muscle suggested otherwise. Genetics and anatomy weren’t really subjects I’d studied, so I figured there was an explanation out there and I just didn’t know it. I let it go.

When the job was done and my private quarters looked more like Addy’s workshop than my neat and tidy rooms, I collapsed against the doorframe. ‘Right, there is enough space to fit six of you in Addy’s quarters, which means two of you will have to stay in mine. We can figure out a system to rotate, but I’m too tired to sit here and work out the details,’ I admitted, and they agreed in a wave of relieved groans. ‘For now, pick a room and let’s get some rest.’

Mercer and his team chose to stay in Addy’s rooms, alongside the two Terran mutts from the other team. Ituk and the other mutt followed Addy into mine, and I quickly got them settled in the spare bedroom.

‘I’m gonna wash up before bed,’ I informed her, and she shooed me away, already stripping out of her clothes. I watched as she grabbed one of my sleep shirts and pulled it on, practically drowning in the fabric. The hem that would have rested against my hips almost dragged on the floor when she wore it, and it was so adorable I couldn’t help but lean down to press a gentle kiss to the top of her head.

She smiled up at me with sleepy eyes and then climbed into my bed, snuggling into my pillow. I took another moment to simply watch her, my fondness for her reaching pique levels. I then washed up as fast as I could manage so I could join her.

When I laid down beside her, she immediately curled into my side and rested her head on my chest. Her arm and leg stretched across me as far as they could reach, but I was much too wide for her reach the other side. She was so small, so delicate, so breakable . Even though I was well aware of her capabilities, it didn’t stop the protectiveness that swelled within me. She was mine, and I would keep her.

Always.