CHAPTER 24

Alexander

I wanted to kill him. I wanted to wring that scrawny fucker’s neck ‘til his head popped off. Let’s see him shout at my woman again then .

I had followed Addy to her workshop to ensure she got there safely, the overwhelmingly masculine urge to keep her safe from harm riding me hard. She kept trying to placate me and take responsibility for the young cadet’s actions, but I wasn’t having it. She hadn’t done a thing to deserve it. She was just trying to be a good friend, and I was struggling to see what she saw in him.

‘He makes me feel the same way you did when we first met,’ she had informed me, and did that fucking twist the dagger in my gut. Not only was I worried about how he treated her, but I apparently needed to worry about her falling down the same rabbit hole she had with me. Would she fall in love with him, too? Would I be forced to share the woman I loved with a ticking bomb?

No. I couldn’t allow that to happen. I wouldn’t let her put herself in such a dangerous and vulnerable position.

When I’d dropped her off, she had changed from placating to berating me. Her anger was misplaced, I knew that, so I didn’t take it to heart. Instead, I snuck a kiss to the top of her head, bid her farewell, and made my way to the bridge.

Except as soon as I entered the familiar hustle and bustle of my crew piloting the ship, I received an S.O.S. from the princeling of all people. I quickly checked in with the crew on the bridge to ensure everything was running smoothly, and only when I was satisfied did I make my way down to the training deck.

I didn’t even make it inside before I discovered the problem. I should have known .

I bumped into Arthur Mercer as he stormed from the room. He almost bowled me over in his single-minded focus to get as far from the training room as possible. I heard Corporal Stanson calling for everyone to get back to their training and decided that they had it handled in there enough for me to confront Mercer.

I took a few deep breaths in an attempt to ground myself before I caught up with him, knowing that not only could I face disciplinary action for assaulting a cadet, but Addy would never forgive me if I hurt him. No, I’d just have to let him dig his hole deep enough for others to finally see what I saw: he was a threat and a menace, and I needed to find a way to get him off my ship before I lost the woman I loved to him.

Later, I would be able to understand that my jealousy was a driving factor in my current state, but in that moment I was unable to see past my own emotions to act appropriately.

‘Mercer!’ my voice whipped through the corridor. He physically stiffened as the sound reached him, as if it had actually managed to land a physical blow.

‘Go away, captain. Not now,’ he ground out without turning to face me.

I took the option away from him by stepping around his statuesque form and taking up his view.

‘No, now , cadet. Start talking,’ I demanded.

‘Corporal Stanson told me to cool off, and that’s what I’m trying to do,’ he bit out through clenched teeth. His whole body was tense and coiled, ready to strike. His fists were clenched into white-knuckled fists, and he exuded don’t fuck with me vibes that I blatantly ignored.

‘What did you do now?’

His face turned a rather alarming shade of purple. ‘I broke a punching bag.’

‘You did what?’ I was momentarily taken aback. Those things were damn expensive because they were virtually indestructible, made from a material that was almost impossible to tear. If he had managed it, that meant he was either the strongest man alive or I’d been duped by the seller.

I was going to have to make some calls…

‘So not only did you verbally assault a superior officer but you destroyed this ship’s property and got thrown out of class for your behaviour. You’re coming with me,’ I said, reaching out to grab him so I could drag him to a holding room. I didn’t want to think about how I’d already done so once with another member of his team, or how the only holding room I had available thanks to the influx of passengers was the one down the hall. Or that it was currently occupied by the very people who had dragged us all into stars-damned mess.

This was a very bad idea.

The thought struck me so harshly it halted me in my tracks. Addy’s words and protests rose up, and for the first time they penetrated through the cracks in my narrow-sightedness and I heard her.

Adara may have been… less than adept when it came to social situations, but she had always been an incredible judge of character. If she said there was something worthwhile in Mercer then the only logical action would be to believe and trust in her. That’s what she’d been asking of me all this time. She didn’t need me to protect her against a threat, she needed me to help her neutralise Mercer’s outburst to bring him back to us. Whatever was going on that had triggered this behaviour in him, he needed some time alone to process it and, as Corporal Stanson so eloquently put it, cool off .

What he didn’t need was all of us crowding him and turning him into the bad guy when he’s told us multiple times, through both actions and words, that he needed space.

When we reached the deck containing our rooms, instead of taking him back to the suite I’d turned into the ship’s swanky new holding cell, I geared him towards my quarters instead.

He followed, rigidly tense, and I knew then that Addy had been correct in her assessment of the situation. I had been letting my emotions get the better of me and instead of helping a man in need, I was ready to condemn him.

The same shame I felt when I’d arrested Hastings reared up within me, but I pushed it back down. Even though the situations were vastly different, I had learned from my mistake and I wasn’t about to make it a second time.

When we were safely secluded away in my room, I released his arm and stepped away.

‘You can stay here until you’ve calmed down and you can think straight again,’ I told him, backing towards the door. ‘Take as long as you need. You’ll be locked in here for the time being since I need to get back to the bridge, but I’ll have food sent to you in case you get hungry. I’ll come check on you when I have a free moment.’

And then I left him there.

I didn’t go back to the bridge. Instead, I followed the familiar passage to Addy’s workshop, eager to talk to her and assure her I was seeing things her way now. And to ensure I was, in fact, doing the right thing. After all, just last night I had promised her I would help her with Mercer, not to mention my vow to make things up to him after I had falsely accused him of a despicable crime he hadn’t even committed. I couldn’t believe I had forgotten it all so quickly, my own insecurities and emotional overload wiping it away without a second thought.

I owed it to both of them to do better, be better.

The workshop was really coming along. Mercer and his crew had started a long-needed process that had become the cadets on maintenance duty’s primary objective. I was impressed that each of them had stuck it out and put up with the overwhelming clutter enough to keep sorting through it, and I hadn’t had any complaints.

It was still nowhere near done, as I spent a good long while searching the stacks of junk that wasn’t really junk to find the woman I was searching for.

I found her near the back, surrounded by growing piles of gadgets as the cadets under her command for the week rifled through a pile and sorted what they uncovered. She perked up when she saw me, knocking over one of the newly made piles in her eagerness to reach me.

‘Sorry! Sorry, I’ll clean it up. Sorry,’ she called back to the cadets that were groaning in dismay at her clumsiness. I couldn’t help but chuckle.

‘Xander!’ she shouted unnecessarily when she faced me. She wore a great grin the spread across her cheeks from ear-to-ear, her sharp pointed teeth gleaming and glinting under the artificial lights. On another Griknot I might have found it menacing, but on Addy it was simply adorable. She was a dinky little thing and the farthest thing from dangerous that I could imagine. Sure, she could defend herself if she needed to, but that wasn’t her style. Gadgets and weapons were where her fatalities lay.

She was definitely a long-range threat under all that gleeful, bouncing pinkness.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.

‘I came to talk to you.’ I looked up at the cadets. ‘Take the rest of the day off. You’re dismissed.’

That was followed by a chorus of happy exclamations as they ran out of there before I could change my mind. It was a nice break from the sombre and strained mood of the past few days.

‘What’s going on?’ Addy asked as she led me to the now empty chairs I had forgotten were even here under all the mess.

I held her hands as we sat down. ‘I owe you an apology,’ I began, and knew I was correct when she didn’t try to interject.

‘I didn’t listen to you this morning, and after I promised I’d help you with Mercer, I went back on my word almost straight away. Well, almost. ’

‘Almost?’ She frowned. ‘Something else happened.’

‘He broke a punching bag and got kicked out of combat training,’ I said, jumping straight into the thick of it. ‘Found him as he was coming out because the princeling called me down for an S.O.S. He’s in my room.’

‘He broke a punching bag? One of those super fancy, super expensive, unbreakable punching bags?’

‘Yup.’

‘Huh.’

‘Right?’

‘What’s he doing in your room?’

‘Cooling down. I don’t know what happened, but it’s clear he needs a space to just breathe and work through it without us all jumping down his throat- Yes , you were right.’

‘I’m always right,’ she shot me a smug smile that quickly turned down again. ‘Is he okay?’

I huffed out a sigh. ‘I don’t know. I think he will be. He just needs a minute alone and none of us were giving him that today.’

‘Well, good. Thank you for pulling your head out of your ass,’ she snarked. Then she batted me away when I ruffled her hair.

‘All right, missy. Enough bragging from you. I just wanted to let you know what was going on because he’s your friend and give you the apology, but now I’ve gotta get back to work.’

‘What about me?’ she asked, gesturing around the room now empty of cadets. ‘You ran off my helpers.’

‘Right. I almost forgot,’ I smiled sheepishly. ‘I figured you could help me keep an eye on Mercer today. Get him some food or something, check in on him now and then.’

She jerked her head down once. ‘I can do that.’

‘Thank you, my love.’

She beamed at me, her eyes soft and full of affection. ‘Thank you , Xan. I know you can’t see what I see yet when it comes to Arty, but I promise you will. He’s gonna be a work-in-progress, but he’s worth it.’

That ugly, antsy sensation of churning envy reappeared, but I didn’t let it out. She didn’t need to see that from me. We’d been together (even if it was unofficial) for years without this level of possessiveness from me. It might have been because I was so used to having her all to myself compounded with the confirmation that she reciprocated my feelings and made things real between us. Either way, I needed to get my own head screwed on right again and remember that she was mine.

However that played out, I would make damn sure that remained true.