Chapter 11.

She had seen people die before. Many of them. In her Coalition career she had been responsible for more deaths than she cared to think about now. She had seen shipmates die, sometimes before her eyes, sometimes in the seemingly distant explosion of a dying vessel. She had even faced death herself, more than once.

So, she told herself sternly, there was no excuse for this silly shaking. Dax was dead. He'd died heroically, if foolishly. His sacrifice had enabled his ship and crew to escape, to live. So get on with it.

Don't waste the gift.

She heard the muted sound of voices, very subdued now, as the crew went about the business of putting distance between theEvening Star and the Coalition vessel. And the scene of Dax's death.

She tightened her arms around herself, hoping to stop the tremors that gripped her. Get on with it, she repeated silently. Even though Dax's sacrifice had not been intended to keep her, personally, alive, it had. The fact that in saving his ship from a Coalition attack, he had also saved a former Coalition officer, he would no doubt have found reason for cynical amus.e.m.e.nt.

And his mouth would have curved into that wry, mocking smile he so often turned on her.

She bit her lower lip, trying to stop the annoying quiver that had overtaken it. But then all she could think of was the feel of his mouth, the way his tongue had caressed her lip where her teeth were now digging in. The way that caress had sent ripples of heat through her, the way her body had surged in response with a swiftness she'd never known was possible. The way his low groan had made her think, just for an instant, that he might be as out of control as she was.

She shivered again. The only times she had ever felt anything even remotely like that were under the power of the controller. Yet she was certain he hadn't been using it, had never used it; his shock at the blue system and its purpose had been genuine. That was something for which she supposed she should have been grateful; had she been in the hands of someone who knew the system, she would no doubt have been his controlled wh.o.r.e for days now.

But not Dax. Perhaps she was a fool, but she couldn't convince herself that, even had he known what power he held over her when he held the controller, he wouldn't have used it. Not that way.

But how could these sensations, so powerful and frightening, so much more than simple desire for a physical mating, be real, when she had never, ever felt them before? Had she so changed? Or had they done something to her, along with the collar, something to make her susceptible to such feelings?

Or was it, simply, Dax?

The thought sent another shiver through her. A year ago, she would have laughed at the absurdity of that idea. Laughed at the idea that any one person could rouse such feelings in another. Just as she had, smug in her superior knowledge, laughed at Shaylah's belief in bonding.

The whole idea of one man, one woman, bonded for life was nothing more than a foolish myth from a destroyed world. The few couples she knew of who had been together for years, Shaylah's parents for one, she wrote off merely as settling for the familiar as one grew older.

She understood l.u.s.t. She had seen it around her every day, had, as everyone in her world did, indulged in it on occasion, although not nearly so often as some thought. She had never believed there was more.

Until she had seen Shaylah look at Wolf.

The sound of the voices coming over the comlink was suddenly too much. The absence of one voice left a gaping hole, and she couldn't bear to listen anymore. She ran to the panel and shut it off. Then she sagged against the bulkhead, her brief burst of strength fading away.

Eos, had she been right, in her joking a.s.sessment? Was there something about the men of Trios that brought women to this pa.s.s, to this foolish wondering? Was it the knowledge that these men believed that there was one woman meant to be their bonded mate that was so tempting? Was it a need to prove them wrong, that mating should be done freely, between anyone who wished, whenever they wished, as Coalition law stated? Was it a matter of pride, a wish to be a woman so enthralling that they forgot their own beliefs in their need to have her? Or was it more subversive, some hidden wish to believe in such foolishness, and to be that one woman?

Perhaps it was some oddity, some quirk affecting only Arellian women such as Shaylah and herself. Some quirk that That didn't matter anymore.

She sank down to sit on the top step. Dax was dead, and how he had made her feel was less than meaningless now. She had to shake off this ridiculous freeze that had overtaken her. She had to face the immediate future. And what would happen to her now, in the hands of a crew who would wish her dead, without Dax to control them.

Without Dax.

She bit down harder on her trembling lip, bringing tears to her eyes. She knew the pain was what had done it; except for the night they'd collared her, she hadn't cried since she had been nine, and had realized the truth about her mother. And she certainly wasn't crying over the death of a c.o.c.ky, arrogant, suicidal skypirate.

With the self-discipline learned in her years in the Coalition, a trait put to unexpected use when she had become their slave, she tried to steady herself. She blinked rapidly to sweep away the excess moisture that was making her eyes sting. She drew herself up straight, taking deep breaths, to stop this preposterous shaking. Then she stood up.

She knew she was facing death. The crew wouldn't hesitate to kill her once Roxtonor Rinatold them who she was. She didn't doubt that the first mate would. Rina? She wasn't sure anymore. But even if the girl was able to forgive her, Rina couldn't stop the crew if they were bent on murder.

She wasn't, Califa realized numbly as she walked back to stare out the observation port, even sure that she cared. What did she have to look forward to, were she to escape? A life on the run, forever trying to hide, when the collar that marked her as slave made it impossible? When Dax had been here, it had been something to worry about in the future; she had been so distracted by him that it seemed unimportant. But now, when the days stretched out emptily ahead, it loomed larger.

She sank into a chair, her eyes fastened not on the stars and planets that dotted the expanse, but on the black nothingness between them. She sat there for a very long time, trying to make her mind as blank as that darkness, as unfeeling as the vacuum she stared at. She sat until her body began to protest the long stillness. She ignored it, forcing herself to embrace the numbness she'd felt before, to expand it, to welcome it, until what was left was a vague feeling of thankfulness that she had not had to watch Dax die.

"Why did you do it?"

She whirled, her hand going up to press against her chest as if it could calm her startled heart. For an instant she stared, disbelieving. Then she leapt to her feet, pure joy flooding her, a sensation she had never known in her life. She wanted to run to him, but couldn't seem to get her frozen legs to move.

"Dax," she whispered helplessly.

He stood at the top of the stairs, his gaze fastened on her intently. She wondered briefly, inanely, how long he'd been there this time, watching her. She'd been so lost, it could have been hours.

He wore a black flight suit that fit him like a second skin, molding the taut, leanly muscled body. The belt with its disrupter and dagger was gone, but the businesslike knife was still in his boot. A small but nasty gash marked his temple, but it had been cleaned, and had stopped bleeding.

"Why, Califa?"

She was so stunned by his sudden appearance that she barely registered that he had used her name.

"I...Eos, Dax, what happened? They kept calling...I thought you were dead!"

"Sorry to disappoint you," he said in mock apology.

She drew back, stung. For a moment, in her joy, she had forgotten how things had been left between them. At her reaction to his mocking words, his eyes narrowed, and then, to her surprise, he seemed to relent.

"The cruiser captain's nerve broke at the last moment. He dodged to starboard. Gave me enough room to slide by."

Room he wouldn't have had had the Coalition captain been as blindly determined as most of them were, Califa thought, her knowledge based on long experience with the by-rote tactics of the officers the Coalition favored with promotion.

Room he wouldn't have had had the Coalition captain possessed the same boldness and courageor the same death wishas the skypirate.

"Why didn't you tell"she stumbled over the word "me" and then went on hastily"Roxton? That you were alive? I'm sure everyone thought what I did."

"She took a hit that wiped out my communications."

She. That amazing ship. "That fighter," she began. "I've never seen anything like it."

Suddenly, unexpectedly, he grinned. Instinctively, Califa recognized the remnants of the adrenaline high she'd once known so well.

"I should hope not. She's one of a kind."

"I've never heard of a fighter that small carrying a photon gun. The kind of power that takes"

"She's got it, little snowfox. And more."

She suppressed a shiver at the name he'd given her; when he said it, it was as if there was something intimate between them. And she was not a tiny woman; she wasn't used to being called a little anything.

But if everything was relative, then next to Dax shewas little, she supposed. In strength if not in sheer size. Yet now, he was more like a youth with his first air rover, she thought. And never had he looked more smugly male. But she was so thankful he was alive at all, she couldn't find it in her to care.

"Where did you find...her?"

"I didn't. She's mine, mine and Larcos's. He helped me build her."

Califa gaped at him. "You built it? Yourself?"

"Every bit. That's where we've been for nearly a year. In a storehouse on the back side of Alpha Two."

"Alpha Two? Except for the outpost, and the Legion Club, that planet's practically uncivilized. And the back side is virtually uninhabited."

He gave her that crooked grin again. "Exactly. And n.o.body bothered us. Got some repairs and modifications done to theEvening Star, and built the fighter." He shook his head. "Larcos is a fabrication wizard. And he came up with some materials...I didn't dare ask how or where."

"Larcos is a designer, as well as an engineer?" The lanky young man hadn't impressed her as the kind who could conceive of such a ship. No, dream it; that was the only way a triumph like that fighter could become reality.

"No." His voice seemed to cool suddenly.

"Then who?" she asked, wondering what had brought on the chill; he'd seemed happy enough to talk about the fighter. When he looked away, the obvious answer to her question struck her. "You?"

"I...helped design it." She'd been right; the softening she'd sensed was fading, the harshness returning. Even the fighter was suffering in the change, Califa thought. No longershe but.i.t. She tried again.

"You should be proud," she said, even as she wondered who had helped him in the design. "It's an incredible ship."

"It held together."

But it had been hit. As he had been hit. Her gaze flicked to his temple, where some traces of blood still remained, then back to his face. "Communications wasn't the only thing damaged."

He saw her glance. "Piece of debris caught me."

She cringed inwardly at his words; they gave rise to b.l.o.o.d.y images of how much worse the damageto ship and to pilotcould have been.

As if he'd read her thoughts, Dax's mouth curved into that wry, mocking smile she'd thought never to see again, and for a moment the softer Dax was back. "I was a little dizzy for a while. Drifted around out there a little. That's what took me so long to catch back up with the'Star."

Something tightened inside her at his casual dismissal of his own near death. Drifted around. With a Coalition cruiser still in proximity, and now with an even bigger reason to hunt him down; no Coalition officer would take being outflown and outwitted by a skypirate with any kind of grace. That Dax had survived the attack itself was a wonder. That he'd survived the aftermath was a miracle.

"That run you made was..."

She hesitated. Crazy, demented, suicidal, all the words she wanted to use were sure to destroy whatever there was of that leniency she had sensed in him, and it was tentative enough as it was. But at the same time, she wanted to shake some caution into him.

"A calculated risk," he said with a shrug, sounding so casual that Califa felt that knot inside her tighten further.

"And if you had...miscalculated?"

"TheEvening Star still would have made it."

That knot was becoming unbearable. Did he not care at all for himself? He seemed to get such amus.e.m.e.nt from life, did he not feel any urge to preserve his own?

The words came out incredulously, and almost against her will. "And you would be dead."

He shrugged again. "I thought he might break."

The knot snapped, unraveling with all the ferocity of her tangled emotions.

"You thought he might break!" she exclaimed. "And on that piece of absurdity you risked your life?"

He blinked, as if startled. He opened his mouth, but Califa wasn't about to let him spout some other piece of lunacy. As happened far too often with this man, the emotions she usually kept tightly under control broke loose, tumbling out in a spate of words.

"Do you think your crew would have welcomed your sacrifice? Do you truly believe they would think it an even trade, their lives for the life of the man they esteem above all others?"

Amazingly, Califa saw a tinge of color stain his cheeks. But she didn't, couldn't stop.

"What about Roxton? That man loves you like a son! And Nelcar? Why else would such a gentle man commit himself to the life of a skypirate, if not out of reverence for the man who leads him, the man who saved him from a life too grim to be borne?"

He found his voice then. "The men understand"

"Understand? That their captainand no matter how you deny it, thatis what you arewill take any opportunity to risk his life? That he takes insane chances that he calls'calculated risks ?'"

He folded his arms across his chest, as if in protection against her tirade. Califa's mind skated briefly over the fact that he could have stopped this at any time, simply by walking away, or ordering her locked up again. She would think about that, later, but right now she was too incensed to think at all.

"So you think the men understand, do you?" Her voice dropped to a low, cutting sound. "What about Rina? Do you think she understands?"

He paled, and Califa knew her thrust had struck home. She had a hunch it had been Rina who had cleaned the wound at his temple, and had no doubt peppered the doctoring with her opinion of his recklessness. For all his fierceness, for all his bravery, Rina was the one person Dax could not defend against. Roxton he held a deep affection for, and perhaps others, but that pixie of a girl, that determined imp...that rarest of all beings, a child of his own world, a Triotian, held the one weapon he could not fight: his own heart. Califa felt her anger begin to fade.

She stood watching him, all the while her treacherous mind wondering what it would be like to be the recipient of such unfaltering devotion. All her doubts that such a thing existed were shaken by the evidence before her eyes; Dax loved Rina. And Califa had no doubt that he would continue to love her, for his lifetime. With no blood relationship between them. With no l.u.s.t between them. With no bond between them except the most tenuous; that of survivors of the same destroyed world. Yet he would have died to save her.

"She worships you, Dax," she whispered.

He shook his head sharply, an instantaneous disavowal of the words. Did he truly not see it? Califa wondered. Or did he not want to see it, to believe it? Because he felt he didn't deserve it? She wasn't sure where that idea had come from, but something in her responded to it as if she were certain it was true.

"She does," Califa insisted. "And I don't know if she could survive another loss like that of her parents."

"Roxton would take care of her." He sounded as if he were trying to convince himself as well as her. "She'd be fine."

"As fine as you would be, if something happened to her?"

Her question made him wince as if she'd sliced him with the razor edge of his own blade. But he recovered quickly.

"Nothing's going to happen to her."

His stubbornness rekindled her ire. "That," she bit out, "is a promise you'll not keep. Not if you continue to indulge in the kind of insanity you did today."

He stiffened. "Insanity? We're both standing here, aren't we? TheEvening Star is intact, barely damaged, and we're putting distance fast between us and that cruiser."

"Only because you have the luck of the G.o.ds."

"I gave up believing in G.o.ds. You make your own luck."

"By daring fate to strike you down?"