19. Jovi

nineteen

Jovi

E ssa is staring daggers at Alik and me, and I know I fucked up. I should've pulled my sleeves down when she came into the room. Really, I shouldn't have pulled them up at all, even if I thought we were alone.

Sloane just looked so scared, and I didn't want to have to hide them, so I might've maybe pulled my sleeves up just enough for both of us to see, and it seemed to relax her. Until it didn't anymore because Essa about lost her damn mind.

I'm sure she's coming up with all sorts of scenarios where Alik and I forced our teeth into Sloane, but we were gentlemalely about it. Or as gentlemalely as someone can be when fucking a female with his best friend. Okay, so we could've been sweeter about the whole thing, but Essa doesn't know that.

"Preparing for docking," Holoth says as he watches the screens of the navigation pit.

We're all trying to stay as nonchalant as we can right now since we're trying to get onto their ship and secure the files and the human female before they realize we're not who we say we are. It's hard to be nonchalant when Essa is trying to murder two of us with just her eyes. Alik opens his comm tablet, the epitome of calm, cool, and collected, as he watches the screen.

"Three are preparing to dock. The human is still in the same place she was when we did the first scan." Alik turns to Phial and gives him a once-over. "Are you ready?"

Phial's feathers ruffle, and then he's shaking out his limbs. He's only wearing a pair of boxers right now, and only because Essa hates it when he walks around naked. Not that we can see anything unless he's aroused since his kind has weird pockets where they keep all their bits.

Still, pants are necessary, according to Essa. Well, they're necessary until Phial's scales begin to vibrate as he camouflages. His species comes with a neat little ability to go nearly invisible, and so that's why he's one of the best crew members we have.

Phial pulls his boxers off and then flings them at Essa, who lets out a shriek of horror as she ducks.

"I'm going to murder you!" she screams at where Phial was standing but isn't any longer. He's probably standing by the airlock, ready to enter it as soon as the other crew comes onto our ship. He's nimble and quick and able to contort his body in ways I don't want to even think about.

"Airlock engaging," Holoth says, ignoring the death threats that are thankfully being directed at someone else now instead of mentally being thrown at Alik and me.

The airlock makes a soft hissing sound as the two ships connect with one another, generating stable gravitation and steady air pressure before opening so we don't all die by the air pressure exploding the docking space and sucking us all out into the cold depths of space.

I hold my breath, the same as I do anytime we dock out in space. We've never once had an accident, but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen. It would take a multitude of fuck ups, but it's not an impossibility. It's what makes this my least favorite part of any mission we go on and the reason I make Phial check the airlock any time we make station stops.

When the door begins to swing open, and I'm not being forced out into the abyss of space, I let my breath out and feel my muscles relax. I keep my eyes focused on the door. Two of my hands are on the blasters at my waist, and the other two are crossed over my chest. We're all ready for this to go sideways, just in case.

The smugglers we're meeting with have been low-level runners for a human smuggling group for a while now. There's been no indication of them being openly hostile. Instead, they make deals with opportunists like we're pretending to be. We just have to hope Alik has made a decent impression on them, so they're more likely to come into this with little tension.

By the time the door has swung about halfway open, we know Phial's successfully slipped in. He doesn't need much space and is good at contorting his body around others, so they don't know a lanky Sytharan male is sneaking through their airlock and into their ship.

He'll ping Alik's comm when he's found the human female, and then we get the honors of deactivating their ship's navigation system. We've been told to use our own discretion on how to deal with the smugglers. This means the Intergalactic Alliance will come to pick them up if need be, or we can use our own judgment to be judge, jury, and executioner. When it comes to sentient creature smugglers, I know which choice I prefer.

Holoth is out of his pilot's seat, blaster drawn and held up to the opening airlock door before any of us can process what he's doing. His whole role in all of this is to sit in the navigation pit and not look like a threat. The tension in the air was already thick, but now it feels like it's all about to crack and splinter in a fight.

Alik and I both step forward to block Essa from the entry point, much to her disapproval. I'm pretty sure she's cursing us out under her breath, but I can barely hear anything over the sound of blood rushing in my ears as I try to figure out why Holoth is looking like he wants to kill right now.

His blaster is still trained on the airlock door as the smugglers come into view. Holoth's lips pull back, a growl vibrating loudly through the navigation pit. This is not at all going to plan.

"Calm down, friend," Vyron, the captain of the smuggling ship, says as he steps through the docking point with his hands held up in surrender. He's the Rytharian male Alik's been communicating with for the last couple of months to set up this whole meeting.

His eyes are locked on where Holoth is holding his blaster up. Holoth's hands don't shake. His finger doesn't twitch. If it weren't for the fury in his eyes or the growl still filling out ears, he'd look perfectly calm holding the other male at blaster point.

"Calm, we have blockers. I never disclosed what we were doing to the human. I didn't realize any of you would be affected. Strange you would be here but not have any blockers. Especially when transporting a female. Surely, you must deal with ruts even if there is no female in heat."

Holoth's eyes are a burning fire of anger and something else, something that's even more worrying because his kind is very much ruled by what's in their pants, especially when there's a female in heat. Vyron's implying they did something to the human they have on board to make her go through heats, and if that's true, transporting her is going to be rough on Holoth.

I take a step toward Vyron, taking up the space in the entry point. He's blocking the two other members of his crew, knowing that he's probably the only one able to talk to Holoth right now since he knows what he's going through.

Vyron is a Rytharian male, probably hailing from the same region as Holoth, considering their physical similarities. He wears furs just like Holoth does. His long blond hair is tied into a bun with a leather strap, much like Holoth's, and his stature is large and menacing, again, much like Holoth.

The only reason Vyron doesn't startle me is that I have two more arms than him and a couple of inches in height. Even if our sizes are similar, I can grab much more than he can. I've never tested my strength against a Rytharian, but I'm pretty sure I could take one.

"Blocker." I hold my hand, hoping Vyron will hand over the small device that hooks into a male's nostrils and blocks out pheromones from the air.

Blockers are necessary to have when males and females who have cycles are near one another, but Holoth is the only one on our crew whose species does that, so we've never needed blockers. Now, I think we will need to stock up at the next port we stop at so this situation never has a chance to occur again. I don't know how we got lucky enough for it not to have happened in the last six years.

Vyron places the device in my hand, and I give him a small nod of thanks. Holoth still has the gun aimed at the smuggler, but he doesn't snap his teeth at me when I move closer to him. His lips twitch as he takes deep, hard breaths through his nose. If there really is a female in heat right now, he's only making himself more upset by breathing so hard. Thankfully, it'll all be fixed as soon as I get this blocker on him.

"You good?" I ask in a whisper as I move to place the blocking device on his septum.

Holoth jerks his head once in an affirmation but keeps his eyes on Vyron like he's one twitch away from blowing his head off in our navigation pit. Essa and Alik have shifted their bodies closer to him. If a fight happens, we want to be in position.

The blocker slides into place, and a soft beep sounds as it locks into his nostrils, purifying the air as it enters his system and keeping more hormones from filling his lungs.

"It will take him a while to adjust. The human female's system was modified, and her heat just ended when you arrived at the rendezvous point. It's why we needed more time. She was making me lose my mind. I wasn't safe to be around," Vyron says as his muscles relax.

He steps into the navigation pit, his hands loose on his hips as he steps aside and lets the other two come through as well. Both are Unaran males. They're about two heads shorter than their leader and much more twitchy than he is. Their kind are thin and spindly, their pink skin always looking slightly wet. Their eyes are too big for their faces, but their mouths are filled with razor-sharp teeth they're not afraid to use in a fight.

"Why was her system modified?" Alik asks, feigning disinterest as best as he can.

They're here to take our female off our hands, so it shouldn't matter to us what they're doing to the other female they're smuggling, but we do care. She's about to be a part of the crew while we get her to safety, which means we need to know what was done to her to make sure we don't traumatize her even more.

"Alik," Vyron offers a hand to Alik that he shakes as though it's no issue. It's only clear to those of us who know Alik that he's unhappy to even be near the other male. "We've discussed so much via comms, but I'm always surprised when I actually meet peers."

I'm surprised Alik doesn't attack the male on the spot. He hates being likened to the smugglers in any capacity. "Yes, I don't think I realized you were Rytharian "

"Not something to mention often," Vyron says as he rubs the back of his neck. "It's easy to take us down. You saw how your pilot reacted to just lingering scents of heat. I don't like others knowing, so they can't use it against me."

"Human females don't have heats." Holoth finally seems to calm his raging hormones and holsters his blaster. His hands flex and fist next to his side over and over, but that's better than holding a gun to the other male's head. "Is that how you modified her?"

"Our buyer wanted a female with the anatomy of our species but didn't want to deal with all of the paperwork and training he'd have to go through if he applied through the embassy." The leader shrugs as though it's a decent answer. "I didn't even know it was possible, but human DNA is easier to adjust than other species. It helps that their wombs are compatible with most species so long as adjustments are made."

Holoth growls deep and low in his chest again, but the other male doesn't pay much attention to it. There's an understanding among Rytharian males, as far as I know. Holoth has never told us much about where he came from, but we looked it up a little when he joined us. His species is more physically aggressive in general. Right now, that's fine because it means the male thinks Holoth's still adjusting to the blocker and hormones rather than struggling not to disembowel him.

"Are you planning on doing the same with our female?" Alik asks.

The word 'our' is loud in my ears as he says it. It's a small thing he's doing to make sure I remember that we're not going to let anything happen to Sloane. He needs to ask to make sure all of this seems like a normal trade.

"Where is the female?" one of the little Unarans asks as he looks around the navigation pit.

His eyes narrow as though he's just now realized there are only four of us here when we definitely have five crew members and a human. Maybe they're more intelligent than their captain, or maybe just a little more observant.

"She's locked up in my room," Alik says with a smirk. "You never made a specification that we couldn't sample the product before selling it."

The rage that bubbles in my chest is hot and grating as I try my hardest to swallow it down and not let it get to me. Essa's lip pulls up as well, her tail lashing back and forth in irritation as she, too, tries to keep herself from blowing the mission before we've even found the other female.

The three smugglers don't seem to notice our reactions because they're staring at Alik like they're both impressed and a little disgusted with him. Who would've thought he'd be able to make human smugglers uncomfortable?

"Our buyer doesn't allow us to touch his product, but seeing as you didn't know this, we can just not tell him," Vyron says, a hint of uncertainty filling his words. His brows furrow, and then he opens his mouth to ask another question. "Before we take her into our custody, might we each have a turn with her? It's been a while since we've had a female, and the heat hormones have been making our lives difficult."

Alik's face turns into an icy hellscape as soon as the male's question is posed. The only saving grace is that this male doesn't know any of us, so he doesn't realize that Alik's deciding how much of our oxygen we're willing to waste on him.

"His kind do not share females while they're still being serviced by them," Essa says with a wave of her hand and a flick of her tail. She uses her singsongy voice, the one that lures in prey.

It's an enticing sound usually accompanied by her scary eyes and lengthened fangs. Those are both put away for now because she's trying to draw the smugglers' attention away from Alik, who's about to murder them.

Her plan works, and all three males turn their attention to her. It leaves Alik to seethe without an audience. His fingers play over the daggers strapped to his chest, and I know we're one bad statement away from a bloodbath in the navigation pit.

I don't realize my hands are on my daggers until Holoth is next to me, stilling my fidgeting with a hand on my upper shoulder. The smaller males don't seem to notice how close Alik and I are to losing it, much like their leader, because they're too focused on noticing that Essa is a female. So much for them being more observant.

"And what's your role on the ship, then?" The male's voice deepens, a smirk spreading his lips as his muscles flex taunt.

It would be hilarious—no, it is hilarious—and something we'll rib Essa for endlessly once this mission is over. Right now, though? Right now, I'm even more furious because first, this male thought of bedding my mate, and now he wants to bed my friend.

"I work for a pleasure crew company that indulges a more diverse clientele." Essa gives him a sharp smile. It looks more like she'll murder him if he thinks of getting his cock anywhere near her, but he seems to like it, which has my stomach turning even more.

I want to interject, to find a different way to distract the males until Phial can find the human female and download the files from their main comms. I don't like Essa putting herself this close to them even though she's perfectly capable of taking care of herself.

The plan was to get them into the living area and away from the airlock. Worst case, we hold them at gunpoint until Phial finishes, but right now, they're too close to just running back onto their ship.

Essa has a plan, though, a plan that absolutely none of us like.

"You ever seen one of these?" Essa asks, holding up the pendant I gave her after taking it from Sloane a few days ago.

I didn't like Sloane keeping it when we marked her as ours. That night she did make a good argument for us to steal it back and pretend she's still our pleasure crew who has to do anything we want, but we haven't gotten to enact that fantasy just yet. Good thing, too, because Essa has the prop to make her lie more believable.

All of us watch the pendant dangle from Essa's fingers. Alik, Holoth, and I are watching it in horror and fury while the three smugglers are watching it with pure, unadulterated lust. These are males not allowed the services of more reputable pleasure crew companies, and the ones less reputable cost more or only allow their pleasure members out on brief trips if they let them leave the stations at all.

The only reason these males believe we have one is because they want to believe it. Our ship is made to look like a junker. Our backgrounds, if they searched us up in any database, say that we're petty criminals. There's no way we'd be able to afford a long-term pleasure crew, especially not one as beautiful as Essa.

My stomach knots as Essa's smile grows. She raises her other hand to switch the pendant through its array of colors before settling on the green. Alik takes a step toward her, not wanting her to do this as our distraction any more than the rest of us want it.

But the green glow of the pendant is too enticing and has Vyron moving too fast. He steps in front of Essa, grabs the pendant, and cocks his head to the side. He's asking, which is better than just trying to take her here in the navigation pit in front of all of us. If he does that, we'll all pull our blasters.

We haven't stopped this yet because Essa seems so calm about all of it. Even her tail is lazily sweeping back and forth in its relaxed state, meaning she knows what she's doing and thinks she can handle this.

"Let's go to my room," Essa murmurs as she leans into Vyron's chest.

She's easily taller than the male. With her horns, she's taller than even Alik and me. Vyron doesn't seem to mind her height even though Rytharian females are drastically shorter than the males.

Her nails scrape against his bare chest, grabbing the leather strap that holds his outermost fur over his shoulders. He doesn't look at any of us, his attention so fully focused on Essa that we could probably murder his companions right now, and he wouldn't notice. It makes me wonder how long he's been without a female.

Vyron allows Essa to wrap her fingers in his fur and drag him through the navigation pit, out the door, and presumably down to Sloane's old room, the pleasure crew room. Alik follows them, mumbling something under his breath about making sure our property isn't damaged as an excuse to watch out for Essa.

"Is she really?"

"Will she offer?"

The two Unarans talk amongst themselves, watching the three of us with wary eyes like they aren't sure what to do with themselves. It only takes them a moment to remember why they're here.

"Will you show us to the female?" the darker pink of the two asks. "We'll fit her with her collar and remove her translation device."

Holoth squeezes my shoulder tighter, making me force myself not to lose control right now. I plaster on a fake smile, one that makes the two males cringe when I look at them. I'm white- knuckling one of my daggers like I'm ready to unsheathe it and dig it deep into their chests, but I can keep myself under control. Just a few more minutes, hopefully, and this will all be over.

"Follow me," I say, a bite in my voice that makes them flinch.

They should be happy. It is just a bite in my voice and not the bite of my dagger ripping into their flesh. I lead them down the hall to the living area and gesture them inside. They don't sit, which is good because I'm not in the mood to be throwing perfectly good furniture out into space, but that's what I'll have to do to anything they touch.

"Holoth will go grab the female. Show me the collar you intend to put on her."

Holoth eyes me like he's not too sure it's a good idea that he leaves me right now. I give him a soft nod that I hope he understands to mean that he needs to be watching the comm feeds to see when Phial gets here and to make sure that Sloane isn't found. He can't do that if he's in here babysitting me.

"I'll be back shortly."

One of the Unarans pulls a pack off his back and begins to dig through its contents before pulling out a thick metal collar with wires. He then pulls out a second device that resembles a metal spine with even more wiring. He passes the spinal column over to his companion before holding up the collar for me to inspect.

"It's an older model, but it's standard attire for prison planet inmates. Our boss has added adjustments to make them more painful to remove and lend to more harsh punishment. It stops there from being very many attempts at escape or disobedience." The male points at various points on the collar and then presses a button. Thin needles pop up all along the top and bottom lining of the collar. "These sink into the female's neck, and then." He presses a second button so the end of the needles split into four sharpened barbs. "They're impossible to remove without causing immeasurable pain and usually death."

I want to squeeze the device between my hands until it's broken and shattered into millions of pieces, but we need to make sure the other female is safe before I start beating the life out of these males. We need the data so we can find out more about this ring and how to stop them.

Right now, we're stopping the smuggling of one female, and that's worth it. We could help stop an entire operation, though, and that's what keeps me from slipping into the beast that wants to take out all of my anger on these males.

"The spinal column?" I ask, passing the collar back to the male and opening another palm to the other.

"It has the same barbed needles, but the barbs in the spinal column allow us to keep the females docile if needed. We've only had to use it on one who was annoying with her crying. Most females are scared of the punishment shocks enough that we never need them incapacitated."

"Interesting," I manage to say. I'm surprised I'm not snarling, growling, and throwing things right now, but I'll take it. "The female you have now. She has one of these?"

"Yup," the male pops his lip at the end of the word, and for some reason, it only adds to the ever-growing list of why I'm going to enjoy killing him. "She's the one we've had to make docile. I'll be glad to be rid of her. We're dropping her off on Zelarix VI after we pick up your female, and then we can wipe our hands of this mess."

The second male hits the other one with the back of his hand, a wide look on his face as he mouths something that my translator picks up as "Shut up."

"Sorry," the first male rubs his arm and frowns. "Weren't supposed to tell you that part. Don't tell Vyron, or I'll get thrown out the airlock before we even disconnect from your ship."

I don't have the heart to tell him he's going to be drifting off into the inky blackness of space whether or not I tell his captain of his little slip-up. So I just shrug my shoulders and hand back the spinal column. The males twitch awkwardly as we wait for Holoth to return, even though he won't.

They shift their weight from side to side, mess with something in their pack, and eye the door. Nothing they do is going to make Holoth appear, though, and the more time that passes, the more they realize that they may have messed up by following me into this room.

The first one digs through his pack again, but his tells are so obvious he doesn't even get the blaster out of the pack before I have both of mine pulled and aimed at each of them. My upper arms are still crossed over my chest as I shake my head in disapproval.

"I really thought we could get through this civilly before I killed you. Then you had to go and almost pull a blaster on me."

"Sorry!" they both shriek at the same time, their arms raised in surrender. I don't hear more of their begging before my wrist comm dings with a notification. The alert tells us all to meet back up in the navigation pit and not to kill the males.

Phial's back, with the human and with our data. I'm not happy about not killing them, but there will be a reason. It just better be a good one.

I tilt my head to the side, cracking my neck as I reholster my blasters. If I can't kill them, I'll need to make sure they're not a threat in a different way.