Born of Ice

A puzzled look crossed her face. “Don’t you want some credentials or references?”


He shrugged. “Most people don’t have any for this kind of work. You spotted the stabilizer with hardly any effort. Hell, I’ve wasted almost half an hour looking for it.” He looked back at his crew. “And don’t get me started on how long Team Worthless over there spent with it. You obviously know something about ships.”

Sway made an obscene gesture at him.

Alix smiled, and he became entranced with a dimple in her left cheek.

Devyn braced himself as his own hormones fired. What was wrong with him that she could affect him so easily? Especially given how much she favored a woman who made his blood run cold and his fury run high.

Maybe Sway was right and he needed to get laid. “We’re getting ready to launch, so if you have any gear or good-byes jus—”

“Just this gear.” She shrugged her backpack off her shoulder. “And no good-byes.”

Devyn frowned at the catch in her voice. “None?”

She clenched her teeth, and he had the strange sensation she fought against tears, but her eyes betrayed nothing except the fiercest of spirits. “My father died very recently. I . . . I don’t have anyone else.”

He nodded in sympathy. He’d never lost anyone close to him, but he could imagine how hard it would be to lose one of his parents. “I’m sorry.”

She looked around the bay as if his words embarrassed her. “Don’t worry. It won’t interfere with my work.”

“Well, then, uh . . .” Devyn paused in an effort to remember her name.

“Alix,” she supplied with an odd half-smile. “My dad wanted a son.” She looked down at her body and pulled at the loose material over her breasts. “I guess he didn’t miss by much.”

Devyn noted the bitterness in her voice, and a strange surge of protectiveness ran through him. “You don’t look like a boy to me.” Her smile returned and sent a wave of heat straight to his cock.

Yeah, he definitely needed to get laid.

Before he could comment, his link buzzed.

Sway snorted in utter disdain. “Let me guess. Mom?” His tone rang of ridicule.

“Shut up, Sway.” Devyn checked the ID and flipped off his friend. Yeah, it was his mother . . . probably because his heart rate was elevated.

Sighing in frustration, he put the silver link on his ear, but didn’t answer it. “Alix, meet our first mate, Sway Trinaloew.”

Sway shook her hand. “Nice meeting you, Alix.”

“Vik is our—”

“Man-bitch,” Sway inserted with an evil grin.

Vik gave him a lethal, cold glare.

Devyn ignored his interruption. “Security and techspert.”

Instead of shaking her hand, Vik kissed it. “I’m enchanted by your beauty, my lady. Welcome aboard. You make a most welcome addition to our acerbic company . . . a lovely-smelling one, too.”

“Thank you, Vik.” Stepping back, she took her cap from her head. She brushed her hand through her damp bangs and tucked the cap into her back pocket. “Don’t let me stop your normal routine. Consider me a ghost.”

Devyn inclined his head as his link buzzed again.

Sway laughed.

“I better take this.” He gave a menacing glower to his first mate. “Sway, show Alix where to bunk. And you”—he indicated Vik—“get the ship ready to launch.” He tapped his ear to open the channel. “Hi, Mom . . . No, you’re not bothering me at all. It’s always good to hear from you.”

Alix scowled as he walked into the ship while politely talking to his mother, of all people. How strange. It seemed so incongruous that a man so feral would be that respectful of his mother.

Sway grinned at her. “You’ll get used to it. Dev’s his mother’s only child and she’s extremely protective where he’s concerned. For that matter, his dad’s even worse. He lost his oldest son and panics every three seconds Dev’s out of his sight.”

“Don’t they know what he does for a living?”

“Yes, which is why they call all the time to check on him. Hell, I’m surprised he’s not backjacked.” Backjacked was a slang term used for the chip inserted into pets, League soldiers and slaves so that their owners could locate them.

A chip she had embedded in her own arm, which was one of the reasons she had to do what Merjack said. There was no running from a back chip. So long as Merjack knew her frequency, he could find her.

If only she knew some way to dig it out, but they’d made a mistake when they put hers in, and it was now embedded in her bone.

Sway glanced askance at her as he led the way into the ship. “You completely horrified by us?”

“Not . . . completely.” But she was scared of this gruff crew. While there was a playfulness to their caustic barbs, there was also an aura of “I’ll kick your ass back to the Steel Age if you so much as breathe my air the wrong way.”

So she wanted to be careful until she either knew them better or had them in custody.