Objects in Motion (3/4)
Objects in Motion
part one ~ part two
Everyone - with the sole, notable exception of William - was ready when Gabe joined them in the lounge, grim-faced and waiting. “Everyone knows the drill,” Gabe told them, appropriating his white leather holster from the tangle of gear on the table and fitting it beneath his coat. “Strap on.”
Victoria was dressed to kill, as always, a vision in silk as dangerous as she was beautiful. “Six guns?” she asked, arching an eyebrow in Gabe’s direction.
“You have to be fucking kidding,” he responded, pausing in the act of tightening a buckle. “The goal is to get out of this alive, not get taken out by one of our own before we leave the boarding ramp. And no knives, either,” he added before she could ask. “I’m going to have him on a leash; the first thing he’ll do is slit my fucking throat with it.”
Victoria had the cool look that he knew from experience meant she didn’t approve of his decisions, but he was the fucking captain, after all, so she just slid the sixth pistol back into the weapons rack. She left his on the far edge of the table, further evidence that she was put out with him, but Gabe wasn’t going to start a debate over this now. In his opinion, it wasn’t negotiable.
William appeared before anyone could say anything anyway, with the kind of convenient timing that made Gabe wonder how much of the previous conversation he’d overheard. Ryland whistled, somehow appreciative without sounding lecherous, and said, “Looking good. I like the shoes.”
“He likes the shoes because he bought the shoes,” Gabe said, sliding his pistol into its holster and double-checking the safety. “Are we all set? Let’s do this.”
Ryland coughed discreetly, as if Gabe had forgotten. As if he could forget. He cursed Ryland’s sense of the theatrical and held out a hand to William, palm up.
“If you please,” he requested. William’s eyes darted around the group before settling on Gabe with an all-new level of simmering resentment, but he provided the looped end of the leash regardless, which Gabe curled loosely in his hand. “Now,” he resumed, clearing his throat. “As I was saying. Shall we?”
They didn’t make it ten feet from the ship before being intercepted by a runner, which Gabe had half-expected. Enough people would know by now what they were rumored to be dealing that the usual suspects would have been watching the docks. He knew this particular runner, as well, or at least the colors she wore, which made her message less than surprising.
“The Painted One seeks an audience,” she informed him, hands clasped behind her back in formal stance.
“I’m charmed,” Gabe responded, although he was really nothing of the sort and didn’t bother trying to pretend otherwise. “Tell her I’ll join her shortly.”
“Just the person we want to deal with,” Alex put in as the runner took off again, stepping up next to Gabe’s elbow.
“Could be worse,” Gabe replied, watching the runner weave through the crowds milling around the edge of the dock. “She has the funds and she’s not likely to piss us about.”
“She’s a slave dealer,” Victoria spoke up, and Gabe tried to reconcile the lack of censure in her voice with her words until he realized she was speaking for William’s benefit. “We try to avoid dealings with her whenever we can.”
“Unless by ‘dealings’ you mean cutting the ground out from under her ring of operations, in which case we try to do that as often as possible,” Gabe added. “She doesn’t know that part, though.”
“We hope,” Ryland remarked mildly.
“If she did, I have a feeling we’d already be dead by now,” Gabe said honestly. “All right, let’s split up. We’ll send for you guys as soon as the deal’s made.”
Nate nodded acknowledgement and steered his hover-lift toward the other side of the dock, peeling off in the direction of Travis’ ship. Alex followed behind him, and Victoria and Ryland closed ranks around Gabe like an honor-guard, his very own armed escort to The Painted One’s favorite place to hold court; the gambling den known as The Domino.
The games were in full swing when they arrived, faux-ivory tiles clicking together and scraping over the surface of tables as players cast wagers and dealt new hands. Gabe gave the tables a cursory glance as he passed; tiles weren’t his game of choice, but it never hurt to see who was playing and how well. Obtaining knowledge was rarely a waste of effort.
Madame Cali, better known to many as The Painted One, was awaiting them on a crimson divan when her bruisers waved them through the beaded curtain into the back room. She had two more men flanking her, bodyguards whose faces had changed over the years but whose clothing did not. One in black from head-to-toe, and one in white, with a splash of opposing color at their breast pockets in the form of a handkerchief square. Yin and Yang.
Madame Cali herself was not nearly so monochrome. The crimson of her divan was echoed in her rouge, and her eye shadow was streaked in vivid shades of blue, green and purple. Her dress was made of layered silks, bright as the plumage of a tropical bird and overlapping in layers that made her look like a living watercolor. According to rumor, all of the dye made it harder to see the occasional blood spatter.
“Captain Saporta,” Yin the bodyguard said after Gabe had entered and stopped a few prudent feet away from Madame Cali’s divan. “What a pleasure. The Painted One has heard you may have business to conduct.”
“The pleasure is all mine,” Gabe lied through his smiling teeth, sketching a brief bow for the sake of courtesy and addressing the woman lounging on the divan. “And I believe that is the case, yes. Six standard crates of unmarked gold from Persephone, full weight and pure.”
“You’ll want close to market value, surely,” Yin said, as Madame Cali shifted, reclining on one elbow. “With an understandable deduction taken for fence charges and the little matter of it appearing in an officer’s government report.”
“I’ll want full market value,” Gabe corrected, still smiling, “as you don’t need to fence gold unless you don’t have the facilities to melt it down, which I believe you do, and that report has no bearing now that I’m here. No one in the official ranks will know where it went, and it hasn’t been tagged or interfered with in any way.”
Madame Cali considered him, and her finger lifted slightly from its nest of cushions. “Ninety percent,” Yin offered, “since The Painted One suspects you want to get rid of it in a hurry.”
“Ninety-eight,” he countered. “It’s a big planet, and I’m not in that much of a hurry.”
Madame Cali’s hand lifted again, two fingers this time. “Ninety-four,” Yin bargained.
“Done.” It was better than he’d been willing to settle for, and still more than enough to cover the expense of this trip. He held up a hand and she mirrored it, the traditional exchange of a deal agreed upon and secured. “My people will have the crates delivered to you right away.”
“The Painted One’s people will have to inspect it first, of course,” Yin reminded him. Madame Cali’s brightly-painted eyelids flashed as they dipped in a slow blink. “You understand the necessity.”
“Of course,” he agreed. “At your leisure; we’re in no rush.”
She nodded, and he turned his head just enough to jerk his chin slightly toward the door. Victoria and Ryland melted back into the other room, the faint tinkling of the beaded curtain his only confirmation of their departure.
William didn’t move, but Gabe was keenly aware of him holding himself tense at Gabe’s side, the length of chain dipping slack between them. With their business concluded and Yin handling the transfer of funds, Madame Cali’s attention unfortunately turned there as well, her eyes roaming over William with obvious appreciation.
She beckoned her bodyguard, and Yang stepped in and bent to let her whisper in his ear. When he straightened again, there was a small smile playing over Madame Cali’s face.
“The Painted One would like to commend you on your latest acquisition,” Yang said. The chain twitched slightly as William tensed; Gabe willed him to stay calm even as he pasted on another false smile.
“He is something, isn’t he? I confess I haven’t had much of a chance to show him off yet, so I’m glad he hasn’t gone unnoticed.” Gabe wrapped another loop of chain around his fist, taking up the slack and drawing William’s leash taut. William belatedly took the hint, edging a step closer to his side where Gabe spent a moment pretending to look him over fondly. “The compliment is doubled coming from you, of course. You have a professional’s eye.”
“Perhaps,” Yang said, “this could be an opportunity to conduct further business.”
Gabe kept his smile in place with effort, to hide the flash of uncertainty. “I’m not sure what other business we might have,” he replied honestly. If she was looking to sell, he might have enough money with him to buy, but he’d never tried to take on two or more slaves at once. It was too risky by far, and they didn’t have the space for it. Not to mention, for security reasons they tended to keep liberated slaves from making each other’s acquaintance. There was too much of a threat to Pete’s network otherwise.
“The Painted One has developed an interest in your toy,” Yang said, in a matter-of-fact tone that made Gabe’s blood turn to ice water. “She offers you one and a half times fair market value for him, with the understanding that you may have formed a sentimental attachment and a material bonus in kind.”
William jerked; Gabe tightened his hold on the leash automatically, tugging slightly to keep William from trying to bolt. If he did, neither of them would make it out of here in one piece.
“With apologies,” he said smoothly, keeping his eyes on Madame Cali, “he’s not for sale.”
Madame Cali glanced sideways at Yang, her eyes slits surrounded by the bright paint of her makeup. “The Painted One says that everyone has a price,” Yang told him. “She wishes to know yours for the slave.”
“Sorry,” Gabe said, looping the chain around his fist again. William was forced to follow it, although the stiff way he was holding himself meant he clearly didn’t want to do anything of the sort. Gabe bared his teeth in a smile for Madame Cali. “I’m afraid I have a…sentimental attachment.”
“You misunderstand,” Yang said. “The Painted One is asking for your price. If you do not offer one, she will accept him as a gift.”
Gabe’s grip tightened further, and he felt William fighting it, straining against his hold. He could say something wildly outrageous, of course, name a number so high it would be folly to accept, but Madame Cali had resources well beyond his knowledge, and the means to entertain a whim. She might very well accept whatever he offered, and then he’d be bound to it. He couldn’t take the chance.
On top of that, and he knew it was stubborn and foolish of him; he couldn’t bring himself to put a price on William’s life. Not even one stratospherically high.
“The Painted One will have to accept my sincere apologies,” Gabe said, stalling now for all he was worth. They were outnumbered at the present time, but once Ryland and Victoria returned with Nate and Alex, it would even out the score. He was starting to regret not going along with Victoria’s preference and giving William a gun. “He really is not for sale. And not to be given away, either.”
Yang’s expression didn’t change, nor the tone of his voice, but he suddenly seemed a great deal more threatening. “The Painted One offers you one last chance to change your mind.”
Gabe had a bad, bad feeling about where this was going. He looked Madame Cali in the eye and said clearly, “No deal.”
Her eyes flashed, almost as bright as her silks, and that was really all the warning he had before the bodyguards were moving. Yang caught William by the arms and tried to pull him away, and Yin was right behind him on the other side, raising a fist to convince Gabe of the error of his ways.
Gabe tossed William the other end of his leash just in time to dodge Yin’s punch, ducking under his arm to swing his walking stick around and smack Yin solidly in the ribs. William yelled something, kicking out as Yang dragged him back, his arms twisted up behind him. Gabe reversed his hold on the walking stick and brought it around to clock Yang solidly with the gold cobra head.
Yin caught him around the chest, pinning his arm and elbowing him in the side of the head hard enough to make his ears ring. Gabe headbutted him and broke free, spinning around for another shot at punching Yin in the face. He heard Yang yelp, and had to grin at the memory of just how unforgiving William could be in a fight. He hit Yin twice, got a punch to the stomach in return that made him gag, and held on to his walking stick with a death-grip when Yin tried to break his hold and his wrist all at the same time.
Gabe kicked his leg out from under him, swung the stick and took out Yin’s kneecaps with one clean blow. Yang tried to intervene, pulling an arm back to punch him in the face again, and Gabe dodged that one as well, sidestepping clear of Yin on the floor. Yang followed him around, which unfortunately brought him back in range of William.
William wrapped several feet of chain around Yang’s neck and hauled back on it, planting a knee in Yang’s back to force him down to his knees. Yang choked, scrabbling at his constricted airway, and William wrapped the chain around his fists on both sides and grimly yanked it back even harder.
As inclined as he currently was to let William just kill the bastard, their lives would be a lot harder running from a murder charge. Gabe hit the catch on his walking stick and held the blade to Yin’s throat. “We can still walk away from this,” he said, stepping on the back of Yin’s neck to keep him from going anywhere. “Let’s not be stupid.”
Madame Cali’s scarlet lips thinned, and she pulled a demi-pistol from beneath the cushions of her divan. It looked like she was going for stupid, then. And Gabe didn’t have enough time to go for his own gun.
“Hold up,” a new voice said behind them, and Gabe nearly cut Yin’s throat by accident when he jerked in surprise. Yin gurgled, a red line appearing on the side of his neck, and Gabe shifted his weight to put more pressure on Yin’s spine. The newcomer appeared in his peripheral vision a second later, gun-first with the barrel pointed at Madame Cali, and Gabe nearly sagged with relief.
“Travie,” he said, voice shaking slightly in the aftermath of adrenaline, “fancy meeting you here.”
“The inspection business was getting boring,” Travis told him, gun still trained on a fiercely scowling Madame Cali. “I thought I’d poke my head in and see if you could use a hand.”
“Glad you did,” Gabe said honestly. “Everyone else is outside?”
“Ready and waiting,” Travis confirmed. “You got the money in the bag?”
A glance at his data pad, stolen carefully once he was certain Yin wasn’t moving, confirmed the transaction had gone through. “I think it’s safe to say our business here is concluded.”
“In that case,” Travis said, “I think it’s best if we leave now.”
Madame Cali glared at them for a few more seconds before slowly lowering her demi-pistol. Gabe lifted his foot off of Yin’s neck, stepping back slowly. William seemed reluctant to release his own captive, but finally uncoiled the chain and kicked Yang forward onto the floor in a gasping heap.
“Sounds like a plan,” Gabe agreed, very gently untangling the looped end of the chain from William’s grasp. William fought him for a moment, but gave in when Gabe squeezed his hand, surrendering control of his leash. Gabe saluted Travis with the chain and said, “I think I could use a drink.”
-
“I hope there wasn’t any trouble on your end,” Gabe said as soon as they were up the boarding ramp and onto the ship, “because I created enough for all of us.”
“Not a bit,” Ryland replied. “Smooth as silk. Largely, I believe, thanks to our armed escort.”
“I take it we’re leaving in a hurry?” Alex inquired, already heading to the navigation station.
“Get us the fuck outta here,” Gabe confirmed. “We may have company if we hang around too long; I pissed off Her Paintedness in a big way.”
“Let us take point,” Travis said, looming over Victoria’s shoulder at the radio. “We’ve got more guns.”
“Speaking of which,” Victoria commented, arch, “shouldn’t you be on your ship giving orders?”
“I thought I’d hang around with you kids for a while,” Travis answered. “Kick back, enjoy the many toasts in my honor, being the hero of the day and all. We can rendezvous later.”
“You have my sincere gratitude for saving our asses,” Gabe told him. “Your timing is perfect as always.”
“Anytime,” Travis replied. “Although I don’t mean that literally. I would actually like to keep a few business contacts who aren’t after my head.”
“We have clearance to depart,” Alex called down.
Nate’s voice echoed up from the engine room. “She’s good to go.”
“Ready, set, blast the fuck off,” Gabe ordered. The engines roared underneath his feet, and then there was the familiar half-second of vertigo as his stomach dropped while the rest of him floated upwards, only to meet with a jarring thump as the artificial gravity kicked in.
“No sign of pursuit,” Alex reported after a few minutes. “For whatever that’s worth. They don’t really need to track us to be able to find us again later.”
“Let’s hope they’re not looking,” Gabe said. “And if that’s settled, then I’m fucking serious about that drink.”
Travis joined them in the lounge, claiming their sixth chair at the end of the table, which left William hovering watchfully in the doorway. Travis looked him over through mellow, half-opened eyes. “New guy. I like your style. Choke ‘em with their own fucking chains.”
“Actually, that was my chain,” Gabe said, pulling out their most expensive bottle of swill from the cabinet. “And his style’s not nearly as much fun when you’re on the receiving end.” He grinned at William, uncorking the bottle and setting it with a solid thunk in the middle of the table. “Nice to finally fight on the same side with you.”
Travis gave William an impressed look. “McCoy,” Travis introduced himself, holding out a fist. “Anybody who gives Gabe a black eye is a friend of mine.”
William eyed him cautiously, then stepped forward and raised his own fist to give Travis’ a tentative bump. “Beckett.”
That was certainly unexpected information, but not unwelcome. Gabe made a mental note to do some homework later on, and caught Ryland doing the same thing. He took a long swig from the bottle, skipping over the pleasantry of a glass, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Here,” he said, circling the table to approach William. “Let me take care of that for you.”
William went very still when Gabe stepped into his space, but he didn’t flinch back, holding steady and letting Gabe unclasp the chain fastened to his collar, his breath soft and distracting on Gabe’s neck.
“Got it,” he announced, more flustered than he could account for after one brief drink, holding up the clasp as evidence. William just watched him levelly, unmoving, the heat of his body practically radiating through his silk shirt. Gabe stayed where he was, for just long enough to imagine that he could count William’s eyelashes from here, fanning out to frame his eyes, warm hazel with flecks of green and gold.
William stared him down, and Gabe blinked first. He took a step back, reaching for the fraying threads of his composure, and turned back to the table. Travis was watching him, lazily curious, and so was Victoria. Gabe ignored them and stole the bottle out of Nate’s hand.
“To surviving another fucking run on that hellhole Shiva,” he toasted, coming up with a glass and splashing a liberal amount into the bowl. “And to Travis motherfucking McCoy.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Travis seconded. “And then we’ll break out the first aid kit, because my momma taught me it’s not polite to go bleeding at the dinner table.”
Gabe dabbed at the side of his face, surprised. That bastard Yin must have been wearing a ring. He glanced automatically at William, looking him over for injuries, and saw a glimpse of reddened skin peeking out from beneath his shirt cuff. “You too,” he said, pointing at William. “Shirt off.”
Travis’ eyebrows jumped, but he merely looked amused when he said, “Or you could just roll your sleeves up. C’mere, take a seat. You get the hero treatment too; these other lazy bastards just pushed a few crates around.”
Victoria set the first aid kit on the table, and Gabe dug out a few antiseptic swabs. “How bad is it?” he asked, looking up at William with a roll of bandages in his hand.
Travis waved him off. “You take care of your own pretty face, I’ve got this. Sleeves,” he told William, who seemed off-balance enough by the attention to comply without a fuss. He rolled up his sleeves, letting Travis take hold of his wrists and turn them over to inspect the damage done by chain digging into softer flesh. Travis made a few humming noises, thumb rubbing over a thin pink line on William’s forearm, and William - still looking undecided, but not raising any objection - sat meekly and submitted to his ministrations.
Gabe wasn’t aware he was staring until Ryland elbowed him discreetly in his bruised side and cleared his throat. “Do you want help with that?” he asked, and Gabe couldn’t remember what the fuck he’d been doing a minute ago.
He looked down at his hands, at the bandages and antiseptic swabs, and said, “No, I got this.” Then he left for the toilet before he did anything stupid like fight Travis for the privilege of holding William’s slender, delicate wrists and touching all of that soft bare skin.
He really was losing it. There was only one thing for it, he decided, and that was to get totally shitfaced on piss-sour wine until he stopped thinking about the way William had looked at him when Gabe had threaded a finger through his collar to unclasp the leash.
His crew was happy enough to go along with that plan. In grand style, too, because having Travis aboard made it a party, and they had enough to celebrate today just being alive. It didn’t seem to soften Gabe’s awareness of William, his sleeves still rolled up to expose the chafed red rings around his wrists, and his shirt left unbuttoned at the top to expose the fine gold chain encircling his neck. Even when Gabe was so drunk the room was spinning, William’s face didn’t so much as blur at the edges.
Travis stayed up with him long past the time the others had passed out or gone to sleep, with Nate’s gentle snoring a lullaby in the background. William had fallen asleep on the deck, curled up in the corner with his head pillowed on one of his arms, face obscured by strands of tousled hair.
Gabe looked away and saw Travis watching him, lips quirked up into a knowing smile. "You want to fuck him," Travis said wisely.
"Fucking hell," Gabe replied tiredly, although not in disagreement. Their number one rule was don't fuck the sex slaves. It was too much past trauma, too many fucked-up head-games, and all-around bad karma.
They’d all been tempted at some point, doing what they did. Pretty boys and girls in tight clothing who looked up to them as heroes, who were willing to do anything for them and often made that quite clear. It was hard to turn down that sort of offer, unless you constantly reminded yourself that it was really fucking wrong to take advantage of these kids, that they’d already been through hell and deserved someone who gave a damn and showed them an ounce of respect for once in their miserable lives. Gabe and his crew watched themselves, they watched each other, and they didn’t fuck it up.
William was different, though. His spirit wasn’t broken; he didn’t look at Gabe with hero-worship in his eyes or keep his gaze downcast. He didn’t ever help to remind Gabe that he’d been a slave, and that some part of him might look at Gabe as his master. He’d never had sex twisted into an obligation, or a form of currency that he could use as a bargaining tool.
That had to be why Gabe was so fucking tempted now. That had to be the difference.
"He's a virgin," Gabe said. "That makes it different, right?"
Travis just shook his head at Gabe’s creepy-ass perversion and lack of moral fiber. “Totally, bro,” he replied. “I’m sure that means no one’s ever touched him without his consent or fucked with his head. Besides that chain around his neck, he’s practically a free man.”
Fucking Travis. “I fucking hate you sometimes,” Gabe said. He dropped his wine-addled head onto the table and mumbled, "Fuck my life."
-
They saw Travis off sometime around mid-afternoon, when their collective hangover had waned enough to be able to work the docking controls. “Send my love to Pete,” Travis said by way of farewell, and Gabe reached out to bump fists with him before he ducked through the hatch.
“You look remarkably happy for someone who claimed earlier to be dying of an alien insect invasion through his eyeballs,” Ryland commented as Gabe helped himself to the greasiest late lunch he could manage on a ship filled with food that was almost entirely frozen, freeze-dried or powdered.
“What’s not to be happy about, really?” Gabe answered, dumping vegetable cheese onto the mess he’d concocted. “The sun is shining on some planet somewhere, we’re a few days out from Pete’s base, and no one’s shooting at us.”
“And Travis just left,” Ryland pointed out, crossing his infernally long legs - and Gabe should know, all right - as he leaned back against the counter.
“We’ll see him again soon,” Gabe said magnanimously. “I mean, I’m a little bummed, but…wait.” He turned around to face Ryland, squinting suspiciously. “What?”
Ryland’s puppy-dog innocent face was no match for Gabe’s powers of intellect, which was why when he said, “I’m just saying, our dear friend William seemed rather taken with him,” Gabe knew exactly where this was headed.
“Don’t say it,” he warned, and Ryland did the wide-eyed, pursed-mouth thing that Gabe hadn’t fallen for in over a year now.
The bitch of it was that Ryland was right, and as much as Gabe loved Travis like a brother, it was slightly frustrating to watch William open up to him like a flower turning its petals toward the goddamn sun. Travis had a way of treating slaves like they were exactly the same as everyone else, and while it confused a lot of them at first, it also tended to put them at ease. Gabe wasn’t jealous, exactly, because he knew Travis’ type, and he didn’t think the vibe William was giving off where Travis was concerned was in any way romantic, it was just…all right, maybe he was jealous.
He stuck his thumb into his mouth and sucked off the veggie cheese stuck to it in a decidedly cross fashion. Ryland reached out and patted his arm sympathetically.
“There, there,” he said. “Just because he likes Travis more than he likes you…”
“And Lynz,” Gabe reminded him, wagging his wet thumb. “The mechanic back at the station. He liked her, too. Am I doing something wrong?”
“Maybe it’s not what you’re doing,” Ryland said with exaggerated kindness. “Maybe it’s that he genuinely dislikes you.”
“Fuck off,” Gabe told him, but without any real venom in it. He was too sulky to be vengeful. Ryland had clouded that theoretical sunshine right out of some unknown planet’s sky.
“You did buy him from a brothel,” Ryland pointed out. “That has to create some trust issues.”
“If I can get over him trying to gouge my eyes out with his fingernails,” Gabe retorted, “he can fucking get over me saving his ass from slavery.”
Ryland hummed his annoying wise, thoughtful hum. “It could have something to do with what you’re trying to get into,” he suggested, “his head or his pants.”
Gabe straightened, suspicions returning. “Did Victoria put you up to this?” he demanded. “Did she say something?”
Ryland laughed his annoying wiseass laugh and pushed off from the counter. “I’m going back to bed,” he said. “Call me if anything interesting happens. Anything I would deem interesting,” he clarified. “Otherwise I will mutiny, eject you from the waste chute and appoint myself captain.”
Gabe grumbled something uncomplimentary about Ryland, Ryland’s parentage, and Ryland’s mom, and then settled in to eat his sandwich.
The sandwich did a lot to restore his mood, as well as beating back the last vestiges of his hangover. He was almost back to being positively cheerful by the time he headed down to the crew cabin, whistling along the way, which was when the door to the captain’s cabin opened and William appeared.
Gabe never knew whether to chase these opportunities or give their passengers more space, but he felt as though he’d been giving William plenty of space lately, so he settled for, “Hey.”
“Hey,” William replied, with a quick, shy smile that Gabe had never seen before, and which instantly caused his stomach to do something flippy and roiling that he couldn’t blame on the greasy sandwich. William ducked his head a little, looking almost self-conscious, and caught Gabe’s eyes looking up through his lashes. “Would you come in?”
Danger, danger, the smart part of Gabe’s brain warned. The part that controlled his mouth said, “Yeah, of course.”
William smiled again and stepped back, fingers trailing down the side of the doorframe before dropping away. Gabe followed him in, still making a cursory attempt to be vigilant, especially when William stepped around him and leaned back against the door until it clicked shut.
“What’s going on?” Gabe asked, trying to sound sympathetic and attentive and all that other bullshit Alex was so good at.
William took a deep, slow breath. For the first time, Gabe registered that he was half-dressed. Enough for strictest propriety, perhaps, but his shirt was untucked and loose over his hips, and he wasn’t wearing a vest or jacket. Or an undershirt, Gabe noted, as part of his brain made a faint popping, fizzling noise. Gabe could see his skin through the white fabric; the dark circle of a nipple.
“I want you to do something for me,” William said, bracing himself with his arms behind him against the door. The position pulled his shirt taut across his chest, straining the first fastened button. Gabe’s eyes located the other nipple, and then he yanked them back up again, to William’s face.
This was almost certainly a trick, or a request for something completely outlandish, like asking Gabe to blow up a space station because the bastards who’d forced William into slavery were on it. Gabe couldn’t do that. Well, he could, conceivably, but he wouldn’t. Probably. It might depend on who else was on the station.
“How can I help?” he asked, to forestall the part of his logical thought process that was currently plotting out ways to make such a thing happen. Hopefully it wouldn’t be that drastic.
William somehow melted back against the door, his head rolling lightly on his shoulders so that he was looking at Gabe through heavy-lidded eyes. His hips cocked forward, just enough for Gabe’s eyes to go straight to them, like a pin to a magnet.
“I want you,” William said, “to go to bed with me.”
This was clearly a dream. Or, more likely, Gabe was still drunk. That had to be it. “What?” he said anyway, like a dope. Possibly it would make more sense the second time around.
William pushed away from the door, hips-first, and his center of gravity was low, low and seductive as he walked forward. “I want you to go to bed with me,” he repeated, and reached out to touch Gabe’s waist.
Gabe might have been half-addled by lust, but he wasn’t stupid. He caught William’s wrists and twisted them away from him to each side, which brought William stumbling a half-step closer, pressed against Gabe’s chest.
“I’m charmed,” he said. “Really, you have no idea. But I’m not going to let you play that game on me, no matter how well you play it, so you can drop the knife.”
William twitched; trying to spread his hands. “No knife,” he said, quiet and serious. “You can check. You can strip-search me, if you want.”
Oh, fuck. Gabe did want, as a matter of fact, and certain portions of his anatomy agreed heartily with that plan of action, but he told them to shut up and keep quiet. “Is it hidden in the bed?” he murmured, twisting William’s wrists back a little farther so that he could brush William’s sides with the backs of his hands, check his waistband and side seams for a thin blade. “Is that why you’re so willing? Did you hide it under the pillow?”
William turned his head slightly, closed his eyes. “We can go wherever you want,” he said. “You pick the place.”
There was tension in his face, the origin of which Gabe couldn’t determine until he shifted again and William gave a little hiss, pain drawing his features taut and making his breath catch, and Gabe belatedly remembered the gashes around his wrists from the wrapped length of chain.
“Sorry,” he murmured, releasing his hold. His hands skimmed over William’s silhouette, tracing his edges with the lightest touch until he was satisfied William was telling the truth, and there was no weapon hidden on him that Gabe could find. William stood still and let him do it, waiting patiently until Gabe let his hands fall away and asked, “Why?”
William took a step forward, and with no room between them Gabe was forced to take one back or end up falling on his ass. William’s hands smoothed up over Gabe’s shirt, sliding in a barely-there caress over the muscles of his chest. “That woman,” he said, and Gabe had to wrack his brain to remember who the fuck that woman might be, “she wanted me as a bedslave, didn’t she?”
Pieces fell belatedly into place. “The Painted Bitch?” Gabe reached up to stop William’s wandering, distracting hands from sliding over his chest, but avoiding his wrists meant settling his hands over William’s, their fingers tangling together. “She won’t come after us. She might be pissed, but there’s no way she’ll go charging across space after you just because I ticked her off.”
“And if you’d been arrested and I’d been auctioned,” William said, “the same thing would have happened.”
William was so close Gabe could smell him, the fresh, clean scent of his skin and the hint of fading soap in his hair. He was having some trouble remembering what they were talking about. Pleasure slaves, shit. Focus. “We wouldn’t have let it happen,” Gabe assured him, trying not to notice the way William’s hips were nudging up against his. He took another step backward, but William moved with him, staying pressed up close.
“And if we get stopped again,” William continued. “If something happens, and you lose me.”
Gabe caught William’s hands, curled them gently but firmly in his. “We won’t,” he promised. “Nothing will happen. We’re only a few days out.”
“I’m valuable because I haven’t done this yet, aren’t I?” William pressed, swaying forward and forcing Gabe another step back. “That’s why you picked me up. If I’m not registered as a virgin anymore, I’ll lose my value. They won’t want me as much.”
“Woah, woah,” Gabe interrupted. He’d meant it to sound much more firm, but the scent of William’s hair was going to his head and it came out soft, soothing. “At least you’re protected by that right now. The only thing that would change if we fucked is that instead of being held for someone with money, you’d be thrown straight into the workforce to take fifteen or more clients a day.”
He hadn’t intended to scare William, necessarily, but he was at least going to be upfront about it. William’s eyes were wide and liquid, and Gabe was hanging onto his convictions by the skin of his teeth.
“If you want me to change your registry, I can,” Gabe murmured. His thumbs had somehow begun rubbing gently over William’s knuckles in slow, erratic figure eights. “What the fuck determines virginity, anyway? Handjobs, blowjobs? You fucking someone? Someone fucking you? It’s not like there’s a test you’ll have to pass.”
William had taken advantage of his distraction - soft skin, hazel eyes, parted lips - to move him one more step backward, and Gabe realized his mistake a second before his calves hit the edge of the bed. He locked his knees, staying upright through sheer force of will, and cradled William’s hands between their chests with one hand while the other encircled William’s waist to help him keep his balance. Well, mostly to help him keep his balance.
“Gabe,” William said softly. “I don’t want my first time to be in a brothel.”
Fuck. Fuck. “I’m not going to let that happen,” Gabe said, or at least that was what he was going to say, before William took advantage of his mouth opening to surge forward and kiss him.
He knew what kissing was, at least, Gabe noted with a very distant part of his brain, one that was still taking notes and drawing conclusions while the rest of him gave in and focused on kissing. William wasn’t all that experienced, perhaps, but he was a quick learner, his tongue following Gabe’s and mimicking his motions.
Gabe finally made himself pull away, stopped rubbing the soft material covering the small of William’s back and forced his eyes open. “William,” he murmured, with longing so thick he could practically taste it, but William didn’t let him get any further, pushing forward just enough to knock Gabe off-balance and bring them both down on top of the pallet.
“You can check the bed first, if you want,” William breathed against his mouth. “Search it for weapons. I’ll wait.”
“William,” Gabe groaned, both arms circling William’s waist and accidentally pulling him closer instead of pushing him away.
William’s mouth opened over his again, warm and insistent. “Please,” he whispered before sliding into another kiss, suckling Gabe’s tongue and cradling Gabe’s face in both hands.
If this was a test, he was failing it. “Stop,” Gabe meant to say, but it was lost in William’s mouth as he bore them both down, landing softly on his back with Gabe half-on top of him. And then there was more, there was the cradle of William’s hips and his chest arching up against Gabe’s, there was his hair fanned out over the pillow and his eyelashes fluttering as they kissed, there was the soft catch of his breath when Gabe gave into temptation and bit down on his lip so, so gently.
“Fuck,” Gabe whispered, his mouth drifting down the side of William’s face, nuzzling in against his throat. The gold slave collar was cold against his chin when he stopped, took a deep breath and tried futilely to memorize the scent, the feel, the taste of this moment.
He sat up, and William’s eyes opened wide.
“I can’t do this,” he said with sincere regret. “Although I fucking wish I could. But I’m not going to be the reason you can’t look at me anymore, after you’re free.”
William was frozen still, staring up at him. Gabe damned himself a little more; reached out and brushed a stray lock of hair from where it had fallen over one eye, caressed William’s cheek with his knuckles.
“Sorry,” he said quietly. “But if you really want to do this, you’re going to have to find someone else.”
It took every ounce of willpower he had to pull away from the heat and promise of William’s body, to tug his shirt back down and tear his eyes off of the bare skin showing at William’s hip above his waistband. William still hadn’t moved, although his eyes followed Gabe as he moved to the door, wide and shocked.
“Sorry,” Gabe repeated, and closed the door behind him.
-
Breakfast the next day wasn’t nearly as awkward as Gabe had feared. He’d half-expected William to avoid him, or start skipping meals, or call him out with false accusations in front of his entire crew. Instead, William joined them at the table, conversed quietly when addressed by someone, and only caught Gabe’s eyes once with a lingering look that Gabe wasn’t sure how to interpret.
He saw Victoria making up her mind to corner him, but Gabe wasn’t in the fucking mood to defend himself, so he headed up to the radio room. There was a computer in there with a search function and access to more databases than Gabe could even count. It was more than likely he’d come up with several dozen possibilities, but he had enough information to narrow it down. High-class, probably upper-tier society if he’d been saving himself for marriage, late teens or possibly early twenties, no children, missing within the past month. It probably wouldn’t be a long list.
He got as far as Beckett, Wi before he stopped and dropped his head down onto the console. Fucking fuck. He couldn’t do it. He could, but he wasn’t going to. Damn him for being such a moral bastard, anyway.
He deleted the letters from the search box and called Pete instead.
“Gabey,” Pete said when he answered, grinning. “How’s my favorite slave master today?”
“It’s been a whole day since the last crisis and nothing’s gone wrong yet, so I can’t complain,” Gabe responded.
“Looking forward to getting back?” Pete asked.
“You have no fucking idea,” Gabe told him seriously.
Pete’s head cocked, and his smile slid into something poorly approximating a leer. “Miss me that much?”
Gabe snorted. “I miss showers with real water,” he said. “And beaches. I’m turning into a fucking albino up here.”
“We’ll try to save you some sand,” Pete said. “What about our guest? Holding up well?”
Gabe didn’t know how to answer that. Yes, if you don’t count the fact that he tried to seduce me last night? Nearly killed a bodyguard on Shiva and quite possibly wants to do the same to the rest of us? Adapting well, good in tight situations, you might not want to let this one get away? He wasn’t even sure if that last one was a fair assessment, or just wishful thinking because it would mean William might not just disappear after he got his papers. Not many slaves stuck around after they were freed.
He was still pondering the answer when Ryland’s voice echoed down from the navigation station. “Gabe, we’ve got trouble.”
“I’ll call you back,” Gabe told Pete, cutting the connection before Pete could do more than open his mouth to demand information. He crossed to the navigation station in a handful of steps, leaning over Alex’s shoulder. “What is it?”
“We’re being called by a ship claiming to be local law enforcement patrol, asking us to halt and prepare to be boarded,” Alex reported, busy watching several screens full of blips and scrolling code. “But we haven’t been flagged on the scanner, and they haven’t sent us their credentials for authentication.”
“Have they stated a reason for wanting to board?” Gabe asked, reading through as much of the code on the screen as he could absorb in a few seconds.
“They’ve hinted at suspicion of smuggling, but they haven’t said anything outright,” Alex answered.
“We don’t have anything on board,” Gabe said. “What are the chances they’re really a patrol ship?”
“They’re flying an old-fashioned model skiff and it looks like they’re running heavy for a ship that size,” Alex told him. “I’d say not good.”
“Fuck,” Gabe said succinctly. “I can’t fucking fire on a possible law enforcement ship, and we’re not the best equipped for a fight.”
“Especially not against a hauled-over skiff,” Ryland put in. “I count four guns and a fighter dock.”
“Get them on radio,” Gabe ordered, and put his game face on. “This is Captain Saporta of the Cobra,” he announced. “What can I do for you?”
“This is Commander Smith,” a dour-faced - and very young - man replied on the monitor. “Halt your course and prepare to be boarded.”
Gabe leaned against the console and gave Smith his best public affairs smile. “As strange as this sounds, I have been boarded by a patrol ship before. This very week, in fact. So I know the drill, and I’m going to need a badge number and a direct transfer feed with your ship’s credentials before I let you come aboard.”
Smith’s eyelid twitched. “I won’t tell you again,” he said. “Halt your course immediately and prepare to be boarded.”
“Sorry,” Gabe said with false cheer, “not going to happen.” He cut the transmission and snapped his fingers. “Ryl, gun turret, you know the drill. Alex, stay here. Victoria, do a sweep of the area, see if there’s any chance we can pull in backup. Nate,” he bellowed down toward the engine room, “it’s going to get a little bumpy.”
He himself swung into the chair he’d just evacuated in the radio room, typing in the command codes to lock down every asset they had and delete the codes and transmission logs from the computer files. If the ship was taken, they weren’t going to get Gabe’s funds, and they weren’t going to get Pete.
The ship rocked with an impact to the starboard side, and Alex called down unnecessarily, “They’re firing.”
“Shit,” Gabe said. He finished wiping the ship’s logs and yelled back, “Ryl, try to take out their engines, let’s see if we can outrun the bastards.”
He spun around from the console and found William in the doorway clutching one side of the frame, face pale. Gabe stepped forward without even thinking about it and cradled William’s cheek in the palm of his hand.
“I said I was setting you free,” he told William. “I’m not breaking that promise.”
William didn’t say anything, and Gabe didn’t have time to linger.
“Nate, how are we doing?” he called down.
“They’re trying the same thing we are,” Nate answered after a moment, and the rattle-and-shake of another impact. “One more hit and they’ll cripple us.”
“Fuck,” Gabe said again. “Can we…?”
“They’re aiming for the gun turret,” Alex said sharply, and something over their heads snapped into a shower of sparks, half the lights flickering out.
“The turret’s been hit, the casing’s cracking,” Ryland called down.
“Ryland, get the fuck out of there,” Gabe yelled, just as another volley of gunfire sent them staggering sideways and plunged the ship into darkness.
“Engines are gone,” Nate called up as the emergency lights came on, casting eerie blue highlights over all of their faces. “I need at least twenty minutes to get them back up.”
“We don’t have it,” Gabe answered, lunging forward to help Ryland seal off the gun turret as the low groan of metal increased dangerously in volume. There was another collision, but this one was almost gentle in comparison; the impact of another ship lining up to manually dock. “Everyone prepare to be boarded.”
“What do we do?” Alex asked, and Gabe was about to snap at him for asking such a stupid question when he saw Alex standing meaningfully next to William.
Hiding him wouldn’t do any good, not if they took the ship. Nor would trying to claim him as a refugee or a captive. Gabe joined Victoria at the weapons rack, checking one of the heavy-caliber pistols for ammunition before tossing it into William’s hand.
“This time,” he said, “you get a gun.”
“Gabe,” Nate warned sharply, and Gabe could hear it now too, the low, grating screech of metal being forced on the other side of the docking hatch. He grabbed another pistol from the rack and mirrored Nate on the far side of the hatch, gun aimed and ready. Out of the corner of his eye he saw William taking up position a few feet away, hands shaking but weapon held level and aimed squarely at the sealed hatch.
The noise level increased, banging and loud metallic clangs echoing from the other side of the hatch, but Gabe’s didn’t see any sparks yet from someone cutting their way through, and the seal hadn’t been broken. “What…?” he began to ask, and then he heard something else, much fainter; the whisper-hiss of the gunnery turret hatch opening.
He swung around, pistol raised, but two men had already dropped from the hatch into the corridor, and each of them had a gun pointed at Alex and Ryland. A third dropped through as Gabe watched, swinging his gun up to aim at Victoria even as she locked her sight on him. The fourth man through was Captain Smith, and he didn’t even bother raising his gun.
“Let’s do this without bloodshed,” he suggested, addressing Gabe calmly and directly. “You lower your weapons, we put you in the emergency pod and leave you for the nearest patrol ship to pick up.”
Gabe highly doubted there was a patrol ship anywhere close to here, if they’d chosen this moment to attack. They could be stuck for quite a while before someone came along. More than that, though, these assholes wanted his ship.
No one else had come through the hatch, which made it four against six. “Not fucking likely,” he returned evenly. “We’ve got you outnumbered and outgunned. How about you just back it off and we all forget this ever happened.”
“Not gonna happen,” one of Smith’s men said, in a tone so flat it practically lacked inflection. “You might be able to take us, but we’ll have killed half your crew first, and you can’t fly this ship without at least three.”
“Neither can you,” Gabe pointed out. “You want to make this a numbers game? How many do we have to shoot before you’re marooned here as well?”
The bearded man who was covering Alex suddenly straightened up, and his attention, Gabe noted with a sinking feeling, was on William. “Ross,” he said insistently.
He’d gotten the attention of the man who’d spoken up before, and who looked to now be focused very intently on William. “We thought you might have a slave on board,” he said, lips curled in disgust. “You seem to have selective taste in traveling companions.”
Gabe edged slightly to the right, trying to block William from the line of fire. Ross’ gun fixed on him almost at once, but Gabe kept moving slowly, putting himself between them. “Is that what this is about?” he asked. “You’re working a slave ring? Taking ships and valuable human cargo?”
“Hardly,” Ross said, half-sneering. “We’re here to liberate a fellow human being.”
Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me, Gabe thought, and tried belatedly not to let too much of that show on his face. “I hate to disappoint you,” he said as lightly as possible, “but I’m not willing to give this one up. What’s your idea of liberation, treating him as an equal as long as he’s legally yours on paper?”
“We’re not going to keep him,” the fourth man spoke up suddenly, dark eyes filled with a fire and passion that Gabe fervently wished wasn’t currently aimed at him from the opposite side of a loaded firearm. “No one should be kept in chains.”
Gabe paused a moment, stunned into disbelief. “You’re planning to cut his collar?” he asked incredulously. “The alarm trigger isn’t a myth. You’ll have ships chasing him within minutes, hunting him down as a runaway.”
“At least he’ll have a head start,” Ross said, voice filled with disdain. “And a chance.”
“No fucking way,” Gabe stated flatly. He’d seen, several times, what happened to those caught as runaways. He knew what the punishments could be, what sort of rehabilitation they’d put William through if they didn’t kill him outright. “You want him, you have to go through me.”
“We will,” the bearded man said, with an edge to his tone that Gabe didn’t like at all. He twitched the pistol in his hand currently aimed at Alex’s chest and said, “We’ll just go through them first.”
Fuck. Victoria would be able to take the zealot, if she got a clean shot, and Ryland was good enough to drop Ross. That left Alex with half a chance at the one with the beard, and Gabe and Nate to try for Smith before he got the drop on one of them. The odds weren’t good that they’d all make it out alive, but even if they turned William over and surrendered, there was a chance they’d all end up floating corpses anyway. Gabe couldn’t trust these people any farther than he could throw them.
He didn’t factor William into his equations; highborn and sheltered, there was every chance he’d never even fired a gun. That made it five against four. Gabe had played worse odds.
“I can see you planning something,” Smith said, frowning. “Don’t be stupid.”
“Sorry,” Gabe replied. “I’m not letting you take him.”
Smith raised his gun and aimed at Gabe’s chest. “If that’s what you want,” he said. Gabe’s shoulders tensed, and he tightened his grip on the trigger.
“Drop it,” William said, and when Gabe glanced reflexively toward the sound, he saw William’s pistol pointed straight at his head.
Shock left him wordless for a critical second. “Don’t do this,” he said. “It might look like an easy way out, but I swear to you, it’s not.”
“Put the gun down,” William said, and his hands were still shaking and he might not have ever fired a gun before, but he knew where the trigger was. He swallowed and added, “Please.”
Gabe’s eyes jumped back to Smith and his people, but the situation hadn’t improved since his last evaluation of their chances. It had gotten worse, in fact. He could tell by the way her grip had changed, though, that Victoria wasn’t planning on going down without a fight, and that she was a second away from firing and quite probably getting herself killed.
Gabe held William’s eyes for another long moment, and then flipped his pistol up above his head, finger clear of the trigger. “Everybody lower your weapons,” he ordered.
Nate followed him at once, and Ryland and Alex a reluctant second after that. Victoria was the last one with her gun still raised, and now her hands were shaking too, but it wasn’t from fear.
“Victoria,” Gabe said, willing any trace of worry from his voice and setting it with steel. “Put the gun down.”
A nerve-wracking heartbeat later, she did, and gave him a glare that could have killed when she did it. She was still alive, though, so Gabe could take it. Now, if only they stayed that way.
“This way,” Smith said, jerking his gun to the side. “Everyone into the emergency pod.”
It was a tight fit for five, although they didn’t have any gear, any supplies, any food or water, so it wasn’t as tight as it could have been. “Are you at least launching a beacon to tell someone we’re here?” Gabe asked as he wedged himself in between Ryland and Victoria.
“Someone will come along,” Smith said, unconcerned. “You have enough air to last a few days. We’re not giving you the chance to catch up with us that easily.”
Nate was the last in, and as he got settled, Gabe caught William’s eyes through the open door. “William,” he said, low and serious. “Don’t do this.”
William held his gaze, but his expression didn’t change. “I’m sorry,” he said, and closed the hatch.
part four
part one ~ part two
Everyone - with the sole, notable exception of William - was ready when Gabe joined them in the lounge, grim-faced and waiting. “Everyone knows the drill,” Gabe told them, appropriating his white leather holster from the tangle of gear on the table and fitting it beneath his coat. “Strap on.”
Victoria was dressed to kill, as always, a vision in silk as dangerous as she was beautiful. “Six guns?” she asked, arching an eyebrow in Gabe’s direction.
“You have to be fucking kidding,” he responded, pausing in the act of tightening a buckle. “The goal is to get out of this alive, not get taken out by one of our own before we leave the boarding ramp. And no knives, either,” he added before she could ask. “I’m going to have him on a leash; the first thing he’ll do is slit my fucking throat with it.”
Victoria had the cool look that he knew from experience meant she didn’t approve of his decisions, but he was the fucking captain, after all, so she just slid the sixth pistol back into the weapons rack. She left his on the far edge of the table, further evidence that she was put out with him, but Gabe wasn’t going to start a debate over this now. In his opinion, it wasn’t negotiable.
William appeared before anyone could say anything anyway, with the kind of convenient timing that made Gabe wonder how much of the previous conversation he’d overheard. Ryland whistled, somehow appreciative without sounding lecherous, and said, “Looking good. I like the shoes.”
“He likes the shoes because he bought the shoes,” Gabe said, sliding his pistol into its holster and double-checking the safety. “Are we all set? Let’s do this.”
Ryland coughed discreetly, as if Gabe had forgotten. As if he could forget. He cursed Ryland’s sense of the theatrical and held out a hand to William, palm up.
“If you please,” he requested. William’s eyes darted around the group before settling on Gabe with an all-new level of simmering resentment, but he provided the looped end of the leash regardless, which Gabe curled loosely in his hand. “Now,” he resumed, clearing his throat. “As I was saying. Shall we?”
They didn’t make it ten feet from the ship before being intercepted by a runner, which Gabe had half-expected. Enough people would know by now what they were rumored to be dealing that the usual suspects would have been watching the docks. He knew this particular runner, as well, or at least the colors she wore, which made her message less than surprising.
“The Painted One seeks an audience,” she informed him, hands clasped behind her back in formal stance.
“I’m charmed,” Gabe responded, although he was really nothing of the sort and didn’t bother trying to pretend otherwise. “Tell her I’ll join her shortly.”
“Just the person we want to deal with,” Alex put in as the runner took off again, stepping up next to Gabe’s elbow.
“Could be worse,” Gabe replied, watching the runner weave through the crowds milling around the edge of the dock. “She has the funds and she’s not likely to piss us about.”
“She’s a slave dealer,” Victoria spoke up, and Gabe tried to reconcile the lack of censure in her voice with her words until he realized she was speaking for William’s benefit. “We try to avoid dealings with her whenever we can.”
“Unless by ‘dealings’ you mean cutting the ground out from under her ring of operations, in which case we try to do that as often as possible,” Gabe added. “She doesn’t know that part, though.”
“We hope,” Ryland remarked mildly.
“If she did, I have a feeling we’d already be dead by now,” Gabe said honestly. “All right, let’s split up. We’ll send for you guys as soon as the deal’s made.”
Nate nodded acknowledgement and steered his hover-lift toward the other side of the dock, peeling off in the direction of Travis’ ship. Alex followed behind him, and Victoria and Ryland closed ranks around Gabe like an honor-guard, his very own armed escort to The Painted One’s favorite place to hold court; the gambling den known as The Domino.
The games were in full swing when they arrived, faux-ivory tiles clicking together and scraping over the surface of tables as players cast wagers and dealt new hands. Gabe gave the tables a cursory glance as he passed; tiles weren’t his game of choice, but it never hurt to see who was playing and how well. Obtaining knowledge was rarely a waste of effort.
Madame Cali, better known to many as The Painted One, was awaiting them on a crimson divan when her bruisers waved them through the beaded curtain into the back room. She had two more men flanking her, bodyguards whose faces had changed over the years but whose clothing did not. One in black from head-to-toe, and one in white, with a splash of opposing color at their breast pockets in the form of a handkerchief square. Yin and Yang.
Madame Cali herself was not nearly so monochrome. The crimson of her divan was echoed in her rouge, and her eye shadow was streaked in vivid shades of blue, green and purple. Her dress was made of layered silks, bright as the plumage of a tropical bird and overlapping in layers that made her look like a living watercolor. According to rumor, all of the dye made it harder to see the occasional blood spatter.
“Captain Saporta,” Yin the bodyguard said after Gabe had entered and stopped a few prudent feet away from Madame Cali’s divan. “What a pleasure. The Painted One has heard you may have business to conduct.”
“The pleasure is all mine,” Gabe lied through his smiling teeth, sketching a brief bow for the sake of courtesy and addressing the woman lounging on the divan. “And I believe that is the case, yes. Six standard crates of unmarked gold from Persephone, full weight and pure.”
“You’ll want close to market value, surely,” Yin said, as Madame Cali shifted, reclining on one elbow. “With an understandable deduction taken for fence charges and the little matter of it appearing in an officer’s government report.”
“I’ll want full market value,” Gabe corrected, still smiling, “as you don’t need to fence gold unless you don’t have the facilities to melt it down, which I believe you do, and that report has no bearing now that I’m here. No one in the official ranks will know where it went, and it hasn’t been tagged or interfered with in any way.”
Madame Cali considered him, and her finger lifted slightly from its nest of cushions. “Ninety percent,” Yin offered, “since The Painted One suspects you want to get rid of it in a hurry.”
“Ninety-eight,” he countered. “It’s a big planet, and I’m not in that much of a hurry.”
Madame Cali’s hand lifted again, two fingers this time. “Ninety-four,” Yin bargained.
“Done.” It was better than he’d been willing to settle for, and still more than enough to cover the expense of this trip. He held up a hand and she mirrored it, the traditional exchange of a deal agreed upon and secured. “My people will have the crates delivered to you right away.”
“The Painted One’s people will have to inspect it first, of course,” Yin reminded him. Madame Cali’s brightly-painted eyelids flashed as they dipped in a slow blink. “You understand the necessity.”
“Of course,” he agreed. “At your leisure; we’re in no rush.”
She nodded, and he turned his head just enough to jerk his chin slightly toward the door. Victoria and Ryland melted back into the other room, the faint tinkling of the beaded curtain his only confirmation of their departure.
William didn’t move, but Gabe was keenly aware of him holding himself tense at Gabe’s side, the length of chain dipping slack between them. With their business concluded and Yin handling the transfer of funds, Madame Cali’s attention unfortunately turned there as well, her eyes roaming over William with obvious appreciation.
She beckoned her bodyguard, and Yang stepped in and bent to let her whisper in his ear. When he straightened again, there was a small smile playing over Madame Cali’s face.
“The Painted One would like to commend you on your latest acquisition,” Yang said. The chain twitched slightly as William tensed; Gabe willed him to stay calm even as he pasted on another false smile.
“He is something, isn’t he? I confess I haven’t had much of a chance to show him off yet, so I’m glad he hasn’t gone unnoticed.” Gabe wrapped another loop of chain around his fist, taking up the slack and drawing William’s leash taut. William belatedly took the hint, edging a step closer to his side where Gabe spent a moment pretending to look him over fondly. “The compliment is doubled coming from you, of course. You have a professional’s eye.”
“Perhaps,” Yang said, “this could be an opportunity to conduct further business.”
Gabe kept his smile in place with effort, to hide the flash of uncertainty. “I’m not sure what other business we might have,” he replied honestly. If she was looking to sell, he might have enough money with him to buy, but he’d never tried to take on two or more slaves at once. It was too risky by far, and they didn’t have the space for it. Not to mention, for security reasons they tended to keep liberated slaves from making each other’s acquaintance. There was too much of a threat to Pete’s network otherwise.
“The Painted One has developed an interest in your toy,” Yang said, in a matter-of-fact tone that made Gabe’s blood turn to ice water. “She offers you one and a half times fair market value for him, with the understanding that you may have formed a sentimental attachment and a material bonus in kind.”
William jerked; Gabe tightened his hold on the leash automatically, tugging slightly to keep William from trying to bolt. If he did, neither of them would make it out of here in one piece.
“With apologies,” he said smoothly, keeping his eyes on Madame Cali, “he’s not for sale.”
Madame Cali glanced sideways at Yang, her eyes slits surrounded by the bright paint of her makeup. “The Painted One says that everyone has a price,” Yang told him. “She wishes to know yours for the slave.”
“Sorry,” Gabe said, looping the chain around his fist again. William was forced to follow it, although the stiff way he was holding himself meant he clearly didn’t want to do anything of the sort. Gabe bared his teeth in a smile for Madame Cali. “I’m afraid I have a…sentimental attachment.”
“You misunderstand,” Yang said. “The Painted One is asking for your price. If you do not offer one, she will accept him as a gift.”
Gabe’s grip tightened further, and he felt William fighting it, straining against his hold. He could say something wildly outrageous, of course, name a number so high it would be folly to accept, but Madame Cali had resources well beyond his knowledge, and the means to entertain a whim. She might very well accept whatever he offered, and then he’d be bound to it. He couldn’t take the chance.
On top of that, and he knew it was stubborn and foolish of him; he couldn’t bring himself to put a price on William’s life. Not even one stratospherically high.
“The Painted One will have to accept my sincere apologies,” Gabe said, stalling now for all he was worth. They were outnumbered at the present time, but once Ryland and Victoria returned with Nate and Alex, it would even out the score. He was starting to regret not going along with Victoria’s preference and giving William a gun. “He really is not for sale. And not to be given away, either.”
Yang’s expression didn’t change, nor the tone of his voice, but he suddenly seemed a great deal more threatening. “The Painted One offers you one last chance to change your mind.”
Gabe had a bad, bad feeling about where this was going. He looked Madame Cali in the eye and said clearly, “No deal.”
Her eyes flashed, almost as bright as her silks, and that was really all the warning he had before the bodyguards were moving. Yang caught William by the arms and tried to pull him away, and Yin was right behind him on the other side, raising a fist to convince Gabe of the error of his ways.
Gabe tossed William the other end of his leash just in time to dodge Yin’s punch, ducking under his arm to swing his walking stick around and smack Yin solidly in the ribs. William yelled something, kicking out as Yang dragged him back, his arms twisted up behind him. Gabe reversed his hold on the walking stick and brought it around to clock Yang solidly with the gold cobra head.
Yin caught him around the chest, pinning his arm and elbowing him in the side of the head hard enough to make his ears ring. Gabe headbutted him and broke free, spinning around for another shot at punching Yin in the face. He heard Yang yelp, and had to grin at the memory of just how unforgiving William could be in a fight. He hit Yin twice, got a punch to the stomach in return that made him gag, and held on to his walking stick with a death-grip when Yin tried to break his hold and his wrist all at the same time.
Gabe kicked his leg out from under him, swung the stick and took out Yin’s kneecaps with one clean blow. Yang tried to intervene, pulling an arm back to punch him in the face again, and Gabe dodged that one as well, sidestepping clear of Yin on the floor. Yang followed him around, which unfortunately brought him back in range of William.
William wrapped several feet of chain around Yang’s neck and hauled back on it, planting a knee in Yang’s back to force him down to his knees. Yang choked, scrabbling at his constricted airway, and William wrapped the chain around his fists on both sides and grimly yanked it back even harder.
As inclined as he currently was to let William just kill the bastard, their lives would be a lot harder running from a murder charge. Gabe hit the catch on his walking stick and held the blade to Yin’s throat. “We can still walk away from this,” he said, stepping on the back of Yin’s neck to keep him from going anywhere. “Let’s not be stupid.”
Madame Cali’s scarlet lips thinned, and she pulled a demi-pistol from beneath the cushions of her divan. It looked like she was going for stupid, then. And Gabe didn’t have enough time to go for his own gun.
“Hold up,” a new voice said behind them, and Gabe nearly cut Yin’s throat by accident when he jerked in surprise. Yin gurgled, a red line appearing on the side of his neck, and Gabe shifted his weight to put more pressure on Yin’s spine. The newcomer appeared in his peripheral vision a second later, gun-first with the barrel pointed at Madame Cali, and Gabe nearly sagged with relief.
“Travie,” he said, voice shaking slightly in the aftermath of adrenaline, “fancy meeting you here.”
“The inspection business was getting boring,” Travis told him, gun still trained on a fiercely scowling Madame Cali. “I thought I’d poke my head in and see if you could use a hand.”
“Glad you did,” Gabe said honestly. “Everyone else is outside?”
“Ready and waiting,” Travis confirmed. “You got the money in the bag?”
A glance at his data pad, stolen carefully once he was certain Yin wasn’t moving, confirmed the transaction had gone through. “I think it’s safe to say our business here is concluded.”
“In that case,” Travis said, “I think it’s best if we leave now.”
Madame Cali glared at them for a few more seconds before slowly lowering her demi-pistol. Gabe lifted his foot off of Yin’s neck, stepping back slowly. William seemed reluctant to release his own captive, but finally uncoiled the chain and kicked Yang forward onto the floor in a gasping heap.
“Sounds like a plan,” Gabe agreed, very gently untangling the looped end of the chain from William’s grasp. William fought him for a moment, but gave in when Gabe squeezed his hand, surrendering control of his leash. Gabe saluted Travis with the chain and said, “I think I could use a drink.”
-
“I hope there wasn’t any trouble on your end,” Gabe said as soon as they were up the boarding ramp and onto the ship, “because I created enough for all of us.”
“Not a bit,” Ryland replied. “Smooth as silk. Largely, I believe, thanks to our armed escort.”
“I take it we’re leaving in a hurry?” Alex inquired, already heading to the navigation station.
“Get us the fuck outta here,” Gabe confirmed. “We may have company if we hang around too long; I pissed off Her Paintedness in a big way.”
“Let us take point,” Travis said, looming over Victoria’s shoulder at the radio. “We’ve got more guns.”
“Speaking of which,” Victoria commented, arch, “shouldn’t you be on your ship giving orders?”
“I thought I’d hang around with you kids for a while,” Travis answered. “Kick back, enjoy the many toasts in my honor, being the hero of the day and all. We can rendezvous later.”
“You have my sincere gratitude for saving our asses,” Gabe told him. “Your timing is perfect as always.”
“Anytime,” Travis replied. “Although I don’t mean that literally. I would actually like to keep a few business contacts who aren’t after my head.”
“We have clearance to depart,” Alex called down.
Nate’s voice echoed up from the engine room. “She’s good to go.”
“Ready, set, blast the fuck off,” Gabe ordered. The engines roared underneath his feet, and then there was the familiar half-second of vertigo as his stomach dropped while the rest of him floated upwards, only to meet with a jarring thump as the artificial gravity kicked in.
“No sign of pursuit,” Alex reported after a few minutes. “For whatever that’s worth. They don’t really need to track us to be able to find us again later.”
“Let’s hope they’re not looking,” Gabe said. “And if that’s settled, then I’m fucking serious about that drink.”
Travis joined them in the lounge, claiming their sixth chair at the end of the table, which left William hovering watchfully in the doorway. Travis looked him over through mellow, half-opened eyes. “New guy. I like your style. Choke ‘em with their own fucking chains.”
“Actually, that was my chain,” Gabe said, pulling out their most expensive bottle of swill from the cabinet. “And his style’s not nearly as much fun when you’re on the receiving end.” He grinned at William, uncorking the bottle and setting it with a solid thunk in the middle of the table. “Nice to finally fight on the same side with you.”
Travis gave William an impressed look. “McCoy,” Travis introduced himself, holding out a fist. “Anybody who gives Gabe a black eye is a friend of mine.”
William eyed him cautiously, then stepped forward and raised his own fist to give Travis’ a tentative bump. “Beckett.”
That was certainly unexpected information, but not unwelcome. Gabe made a mental note to do some homework later on, and caught Ryland doing the same thing. He took a long swig from the bottle, skipping over the pleasantry of a glass, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Here,” he said, circling the table to approach William. “Let me take care of that for you.”
William went very still when Gabe stepped into his space, but he didn’t flinch back, holding steady and letting Gabe unclasp the chain fastened to his collar, his breath soft and distracting on Gabe’s neck.
“Got it,” he announced, more flustered than he could account for after one brief drink, holding up the clasp as evidence. William just watched him levelly, unmoving, the heat of his body practically radiating through his silk shirt. Gabe stayed where he was, for just long enough to imagine that he could count William’s eyelashes from here, fanning out to frame his eyes, warm hazel with flecks of green and gold.
William stared him down, and Gabe blinked first. He took a step back, reaching for the fraying threads of his composure, and turned back to the table. Travis was watching him, lazily curious, and so was Victoria. Gabe ignored them and stole the bottle out of Nate’s hand.
“To surviving another fucking run on that hellhole Shiva,” he toasted, coming up with a glass and splashing a liberal amount into the bowl. “And to Travis motherfucking McCoy.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Travis seconded. “And then we’ll break out the first aid kit, because my momma taught me it’s not polite to go bleeding at the dinner table.”
Gabe dabbed at the side of his face, surprised. That bastard Yin must have been wearing a ring. He glanced automatically at William, looking him over for injuries, and saw a glimpse of reddened skin peeking out from beneath his shirt cuff. “You too,” he said, pointing at William. “Shirt off.”
Travis’ eyebrows jumped, but he merely looked amused when he said, “Or you could just roll your sleeves up. C’mere, take a seat. You get the hero treatment too; these other lazy bastards just pushed a few crates around.”
Victoria set the first aid kit on the table, and Gabe dug out a few antiseptic swabs. “How bad is it?” he asked, looking up at William with a roll of bandages in his hand.
Travis waved him off. “You take care of your own pretty face, I’ve got this. Sleeves,” he told William, who seemed off-balance enough by the attention to comply without a fuss. He rolled up his sleeves, letting Travis take hold of his wrists and turn them over to inspect the damage done by chain digging into softer flesh. Travis made a few humming noises, thumb rubbing over a thin pink line on William’s forearm, and William - still looking undecided, but not raising any objection - sat meekly and submitted to his ministrations.
Gabe wasn’t aware he was staring until Ryland elbowed him discreetly in his bruised side and cleared his throat. “Do you want help with that?” he asked, and Gabe couldn’t remember what the fuck he’d been doing a minute ago.
He looked down at his hands, at the bandages and antiseptic swabs, and said, “No, I got this.” Then he left for the toilet before he did anything stupid like fight Travis for the privilege of holding William’s slender, delicate wrists and touching all of that soft bare skin.
He really was losing it. There was only one thing for it, he decided, and that was to get totally shitfaced on piss-sour wine until he stopped thinking about the way William had looked at him when Gabe had threaded a finger through his collar to unclasp the leash.
His crew was happy enough to go along with that plan. In grand style, too, because having Travis aboard made it a party, and they had enough to celebrate today just being alive. It didn’t seem to soften Gabe’s awareness of William, his sleeves still rolled up to expose the chafed red rings around his wrists, and his shirt left unbuttoned at the top to expose the fine gold chain encircling his neck. Even when Gabe was so drunk the room was spinning, William’s face didn’t so much as blur at the edges.
Travis stayed up with him long past the time the others had passed out or gone to sleep, with Nate’s gentle snoring a lullaby in the background. William had fallen asleep on the deck, curled up in the corner with his head pillowed on one of his arms, face obscured by strands of tousled hair.
Gabe looked away and saw Travis watching him, lips quirked up into a knowing smile. "You want to fuck him," Travis said wisely.
"Fucking hell," Gabe replied tiredly, although not in disagreement. Their number one rule was don't fuck the sex slaves. It was too much past trauma, too many fucked-up head-games, and all-around bad karma.
They’d all been tempted at some point, doing what they did. Pretty boys and girls in tight clothing who looked up to them as heroes, who were willing to do anything for them and often made that quite clear. It was hard to turn down that sort of offer, unless you constantly reminded yourself that it was really fucking wrong to take advantage of these kids, that they’d already been through hell and deserved someone who gave a damn and showed them an ounce of respect for once in their miserable lives. Gabe and his crew watched themselves, they watched each other, and they didn’t fuck it up.
William was different, though. His spirit wasn’t broken; he didn’t look at Gabe with hero-worship in his eyes or keep his gaze downcast. He didn’t ever help to remind Gabe that he’d been a slave, and that some part of him might look at Gabe as his master. He’d never had sex twisted into an obligation, or a form of currency that he could use as a bargaining tool.
That had to be why Gabe was so fucking tempted now. That had to be the difference.
"He's a virgin," Gabe said. "That makes it different, right?"
Travis just shook his head at Gabe’s creepy-ass perversion and lack of moral fiber. “Totally, bro,” he replied. “I’m sure that means no one’s ever touched him without his consent or fucked with his head. Besides that chain around his neck, he’s practically a free man.”
Fucking Travis. “I fucking hate you sometimes,” Gabe said. He dropped his wine-addled head onto the table and mumbled, "Fuck my life."
-
They saw Travis off sometime around mid-afternoon, when their collective hangover had waned enough to be able to work the docking controls. “Send my love to Pete,” Travis said by way of farewell, and Gabe reached out to bump fists with him before he ducked through the hatch.
“You look remarkably happy for someone who claimed earlier to be dying of an alien insect invasion through his eyeballs,” Ryland commented as Gabe helped himself to the greasiest late lunch he could manage on a ship filled with food that was almost entirely frozen, freeze-dried or powdered.
“What’s not to be happy about, really?” Gabe answered, dumping vegetable cheese onto the mess he’d concocted. “The sun is shining on some planet somewhere, we’re a few days out from Pete’s base, and no one’s shooting at us.”
“And Travis just left,” Ryland pointed out, crossing his infernally long legs - and Gabe should know, all right - as he leaned back against the counter.
“We’ll see him again soon,” Gabe said magnanimously. “I mean, I’m a little bummed, but…wait.” He turned around to face Ryland, squinting suspiciously. “What?”
Ryland’s puppy-dog innocent face was no match for Gabe’s powers of intellect, which was why when he said, “I’m just saying, our dear friend William seemed rather taken with him,” Gabe knew exactly where this was headed.
“Don’t say it,” he warned, and Ryland did the wide-eyed, pursed-mouth thing that Gabe hadn’t fallen for in over a year now.
The bitch of it was that Ryland was right, and as much as Gabe loved Travis like a brother, it was slightly frustrating to watch William open up to him like a flower turning its petals toward the goddamn sun. Travis had a way of treating slaves like they were exactly the same as everyone else, and while it confused a lot of them at first, it also tended to put them at ease. Gabe wasn’t jealous, exactly, because he knew Travis’ type, and he didn’t think the vibe William was giving off where Travis was concerned was in any way romantic, it was just…all right, maybe he was jealous.
He stuck his thumb into his mouth and sucked off the veggie cheese stuck to it in a decidedly cross fashion. Ryland reached out and patted his arm sympathetically.
“There, there,” he said. “Just because he likes Travis more than he likes you…”
“And Lynz,” Gabe reminded him, wagging his wet thumb. “The mechanic back at the station. He liked her, too. Am I doing something wrong?”
“Maybe it’s not what you’re doing,” Ryland said with exaggerated kindness. “Maybe it’s that he genuinely dislikes you.”
“Fuck off,” Gabe told him, but without any real venom in it. He was too sulky to be vengeful. Ryland had clouded that theoretical sunshine right out of some unknown planet’s sky.
“You did buy him from a brothel,” Ryland pointed out. “That has to create some trust issues.”
“If I can get over him trying to gouge my eyes out with his fingernails,” Gabe retorted, “he can fucking get over me saving his ass from slavery.”
Ryland hummed his annoying wise, thoughtful hum. “It could have something to do with what you’re trying to get into,” he suggested, “his head or his pants.”
Gabe straightened, suspicions returning. “Did Victoria put you up to this?” he demanded. “Did she say something?”
Ryland laughed his annoying wiseass laugh and pushed off from the counter. “I’m going back to bed,” he said. “Call me if anything interesting happens. Anything I would deem interesting,” he clarified. “Otherwise I will mutiny, eject you from the waste chute and appoint myself captain.”
Gabe grumbled something uncomplimentary about Ryland, Ryland’s parentage, and Ryland’s mom, and then settled in to eat his sandwich.
The sandwich did a lot to restore his mood, as well as beating back the last vestiges of his hangover. He was almost back to being positively cheerful by the time he headed down to the crew cabin, whistling along the way, which was when the door to the captain’s cabin opened and William appeared.
Gabe never knew whether to chase these opportunities or give their passengers more space, but he felt as though he’d been giving William plenty of space lately, so he settled for, “Hey.”
“Hey,” William replied, with a quick, shy smile that Gabe had never seen before, and which instantly caused his stomach to do something flippy and roiling that he couldn’t blame on the greasy sandwich. William ducked his head a little, looking almost self-conscious, and caught Gabe’s eyes looking up through his lashes. “Would you come in?”
Danger, danger, the smart part of Gabe’s brain warned. The part that controlled his mouth said, “Yeah, of course.”
William smiled again and stepped back, fingers trailing down the side of the doorframe before dropping away. Gabe followed him in, still making a cursory attempt to be vigilant, especially when William stepped around him and leaned back against the door until it clicked shut.
“What’s going on?” Gabe asked, trying to sound sympathetic and attentive and all that other bullshit Alex was so good at.
William took a deep, slow breath. For the first time, Gabe registered that he was half-dressed. Enough for strictest propriety, perhaps, but his shirt was untucked and loose over his hips, and he wasn’t wearing a vest or jacket. Or an undershirt, Gabe noted, as part of his brain made a faint popping, fizzling noise. Gabe could see his skin through the white fabric; the dark circle of a nipple.
“I want you to do something for me,” William said, bracing himself with his arms behind him against the door. The position pulled his shirt taut across his chest, straining the first fastened button. Gabe’s eyes located the other nipple, and then he yanked them back up again, to William’s face.
This was almost certainly a trick, or a request for something completely outlandish, like asking Gabe to blow up a space station because the bastards who’d forced William into slavery were on it. Gabe couldn’t do that. Well, he could, conceivably, but he wouldn’t. Probably. It might depend on who else was on the station.
“How can I help?” he asked, to forestall the part of his logical thought process that was currently plotting out ways to make such a thing happen. Hopefully it wouldn’t be that drastic.
William somehow melted back against the door, his head rolling lightly on his shoulders so that he was looking at Gabe through heavy-lidded eyes. His hips cocked forward, just enough for Gabe’s eyes to go straight to them, like a pin to a magnet.
“I want you,” William said, “to go to bed with me.”
This was clearly a dream. Or, more likely, Gabe was still drunk. That had to be it. “What?” he said anyway, like a dope. Possibly it would make more sense the second time around.
William pushed away from the door, hips-first, and his center of gravity was low, low and seductive as he walked forward. “I want you to go to bed with me,” he repeated, and reached out to touch Gabe’s waist.
Gabe might have been half-addled by lust, but he wasn’t stupid. He caught William’s wrists and twisted them away from him to each side, which brought William stumbling a half-step closer, pressed against Gabe’s chest.
“I’m charmed,” he said. “Really, you have no idea. But I’m not going to let you play that game on me, no matter how well you play it, so you can drop the knife.”
William twitched; trying to spread his hands. “No knife,” he said, quiet and serious. “You can check. You can strip-search me, if you want.”
Oh, fuck. Gabe did want, as a matter of fact, and certain portions of his anatomy agreed heartily with that plan of action, but he told them to shut up and keep quiet. “Is it hidden in the bed?” he murmured, twisting William’s wrists back a little farther so that he could brush William’s sides with the backs of his hands, check his waistband and side seams for a thin blade. “Is that why you’re so willing? Did you hide it under the pillow?”
William turned his head slightly, closed his eyes. “We can go wherever you want,” he said. “You pick the place.”
There was tension in his face, the origin of which Gabe couldn’t determine until he shifted again and William gave a little hiss, pain drawing his features taut and making his breath catch, and Gabe belatedly remembered the gashes around his wrists from the wrapped length of chain.
“Sorry,” he murmured, releasing his hold. His hands skimmed over William’s silhouette, tracing his edges with the lightest touch until he was satisfied William was telling the truth, and there was no weapon hidden on him that Gabe could find. William stood still and let him do it, waiting patiently until Gabe let his hands fall away and asked, “Why?”
William took a step forward, and with no room between them Gabe was forced to take one back or end up falling on his ass. William’s hands smoothed up over Gabe’s shirt, sliding in a barely-there caress over the muscles of his chest. “That woman,” he said, and Gabe had to wrack his brain to remember who the fuck that woman might be, “she wanted me as a bedslave, didn’t she?”
Pieces fell belatedly into place. “The Painted Bitch?” Gabe reached up to stop William’s wandering, distracting hands from sliding over his chest, but avoiding his wrists meant settling his hands over William’s, their fingers tangling together. “She won’t come after us. She might be pissed, but there’s no way she’ll go charging across space after you just because I ticked her off.”
“And if you’d been arrested and I’d been auctioned,” William said, “the same thing would have happened.”
William was so close Gabe could smell him, the fresh, clean scent of his skin and the hint of fading soap in his hair. He was having some trouble remembering what they were talking about. Pleasure slaves, shit. Focus. “We wouldn’t have let it happen,” Gabe assured him, trying not to notice the way William’s hips were nudging up against his. He took another step backward, but William moved with him, staying pressed up close.
“And if we get stopped again,” William continued. “If something happens, and you lose me.”
Gabe caught William’s hands, curled them gently but firmly in his. “We won’t,” he promised. “Nothing will happen. We’re only a few days out.”
“I’m valuable because I haven’t done this yet, aren’t I?” William pressed, swaying forward and forcing Gabe another step back. “That’s why you picked me up. If I’m not registered as a virgin anymore, I’ll lose my value. They won’t want me as much.”
“Woah, woah,” Gabe interrupted. He’d meant it to sound much more firm, but the scent of William’s hair was going to his head and it came out soft, soothing. “At least you’re protected by that right now. The only thing that would change if we fucked is that instead of being held for someone with money, you’d be thrown straight into the workforce to take fifteen or more clients a day.”
He hadn’t intended to scare William, necessarily, but he was at least going to be upfront about it. William’s eyes were wide and liquid, and Gabe was hanging onto his convictions by the skin of his teeth.
“If you want me to change your registry, I can,” Gabe murmured. His thumbs had somehow begun rubbing gently over William’s knuckles in slow, erratic figure eights. “What the fuck determines virginity, anyway? Handjobs, blowjobs? You fucking someone? Someone fucking you? It’s not like there’s a test you’ll have to pass.”
William had taken advantage of his distraction - soft skin, hazel eyes, parted lips - to move him one more step backward, and Gabe realized his mistake a second before his calves hit the edge of the bed. He locked his knees, staying upright through sheer force of will, and cradled William’s hands between their chests with one hand while the other encircled William’s waist to help him keep his balance. Well, mostly to help him keep his balance.
“Gabe,” William said softly. “I don’t want my first time to be in a brothel.”
Fuck. Fuck. “I’m not going to let that happen,” Gabe said, or at least that was what he was going to say, before William took advantage of his mouth opening to surge forward and kiss him.
He knew what kissing was, at least, Gabe noted with a very distant part of his brain, one that was still taking notes and drawing conclusions while the rest of him gave in and focused on kissing. William wasn’t all that experienced, perhaps, but he was a quick learner, his tongue following Gabe’s and mimicking his motions.
Gabe finally made himself pull away, stopped rubbing the soft material covering the small of William’s back and forced his eyes open. “William,” he murmured, with longing so thick he could practically taste it, but William didn’t let him get any further, pushing forward just enough to knock Gabe off-balance and bring them both down on top of the pallet.
“You can check the bed first, if you want,” William breathed against his mouth. “Search it for weapons. I’ll wait.”
“William,” Gabe groaned, both arms circling William’s waist and accidentally pulling him closer instead of pushing him away.
William’s mouth opened over his again, warm and insistent. “Please,” he whispered before sliding into another kiss, suckling Gabe’s tongue and cradling Gabe’s face in both hands.
If this was a test, he was failing it. “Stop,” Gabe meant to say, but it was lost in William’s mouth as he bore them both down, landing softly on his back with Gabe half-on top of him. And then there was more, there was the cradle of William’s hips and his chest arching up against Gabe’s, there was his hair fanned out over the pillow and his eyelashes fluttering as they kissed, there was the soft catch of his breath when Gabe gave into temptation and bit down on his lip so, so gently.
“Fuck,” Gabe whispered, his mouth drifting down the side of William’s face, nuzzling in against his throat. The gold slave collar was cold against his chin when he stopped, took a deep breath and tried futilely to memorize the scent, the feel, the taste of this moment.
He sat up, and William’s eyes opened wide.
“I can’t do this,” he said with sincere regret. “Although I fucking wish I could. But I’m not going to be the reason you can’t look at me anymore, after you’re free.”
William was frozen still, staring up at him. Gabe damned himself a little more; reached out and brushed a stray lock of hair from where it had fallen over one eye, caressed William’s cheek with his knuckles.
“Sorry,” he said quietly. “But if you really want to do this, you’re going to have to find someone else.”
It took every ounce of willpower he had to pull away from the heat and promise of William’s body, to tug his shirt back down and tear his eyes off of the bare skin showing at William’s hip above his waistband. William still hadn’t moved, although his eyes followed Gabe as he moved to the door, wide and shocked.
“Sorry,” Gabe repeated, and closed the door behind him.
-
Breakfast the next day wasn’t nearly as awkward as Gabe had feared. He’d half-expected William to avoid him, or start skipping meals, or call him out with false accusations in front of his entire crew. Instead, William joined them at the table, conversed quietly when addressed by someone, and only caught Gabe’s eyes once with a lingering look that Gabe wasn’t sure how to interpret.
He saw Victoria making up her mind to corner him, but Gabe wasn’t in the fucking mood to defend himself, so he headed up to the radio room. There was a computer in there with a search function and access to more databases than Gabe could even count. It was more than likely he’d come up with several dozen possibilities, but he had enough information to narrow it down. High-class, probably upper-tier society if he’d been saving himself for marriage, late teens or possibly early twenties, no children, missing within the past month. It probably wouldn’t be a long list.
He got as far as Beckett, Wi before he stopped and dropped his head down onto the console. Fucking fuck. He couldn’t do it. He could, but he wasn’t going to. Damn him for being such a moral bastard, anyway.
He deleted the letters from the search box and called Pete instead.
“Gabey,” Pete said when he answered, grinning. “How’s my favorite slave master today?”
“It’s been a whole day since the last crisis and nothing’s gone wrong yet, so I can’t complain,” Gabe responded.
“Looking forward to getting back?” Pete asked.
“You have no fucking idea,” Gabe told him seriously.
Pete’s head cocked, and his smile slid into something poorly approximating a leer. “Miss me that much?”
Gabe snorted. “I miss showers with real water,” he said. “And beaches. I’m turning into a fucking albino up here.”
“We’ll try to save you some sand,” Pete said. “What about our guest? Holding up well?”
Gabe didn’t know how to answer that. Yes, if you don’t count the fact that he tried to seduce me last night? Nearly killed a bodyguard on Shiva and quite possibly wants to do the same to the rest of us? Adapting well, good in tight situations, you might not want to let this one get away? He wasn’t even sure if that last one was a fair assessment, or just wishful thinking because it would mean William might not just disappear after he got his papers. Not many slaves stuck around after they were freed.
He was still pondering the answer when Ryland’s voice echoed down from the navigation station. “Gabe, we’ve got trouble.”
“I’ll call you back,” Gabe told Pete, cutting the connection before Pete could do more than open his mouth to demand information. He crossed to the navigation station in a handful of steps, leaning over Alex’s shoulder. “What is it?”
“We’re being called by a ship claiming to be local law enforcement patrol, asking us to halt and prepare to be boarded,” Alex reported, busy watching several screens full of blips and scrolling code. “But we haven’t been flagged on the scanner, and they haven’t sent us their credentials for authentication.”
“Have they stated a reason for wanting to board?” Gabe asked, reading through as much of the code on the screen as he could absorb in a few seconds.
“They’ve hinted at suspicion of smuggling, but they haven’t said anything outright,” Alex answered.
“We don’t have anything on board,” Gabe said. “What are the chances they’re really a patrol ship?”
“They’re flying an old-fashioned model skiff and it looks like they’re running heavy for a ship that size,” Alex told him. “I’d say not good.”
“Fuck,” Gabe said succinctly. “I can’t fucking fire on a possible law enforcement ship, and we’re not the best equipped for a fight.”
“Especially not against a hauled-over skiff,” Ryland put in. “I count four guns and a fighter dock.”
“Get them on radio,” Gabe ordered, and put his game face on. “This is Captain Saporta of the Cobra,” he announced. “What can I do for you?”
“This is Commander Smith,” a dour-faced - and very young - man replied on the monitor. “Halt your course and prepare to be boarded.”
Gabe leaned against the console and gave Smith his best public affairs smile. “As strange as this sounds, I have been boarded by a patrol ship before. This very week, in fact. So I know the drill, and I’m going to need a badge number and a direct transfer feed with your ship’s credentials before I let you come aboard.”
Smith’s eyelid twitched. “I won’t tell you again,” he said. “Halt your course immediately and prepare to be boarded.”
“Sorry,” Gabe said with false cheer, “not going to happen.” He cut the transmission and snapped his fingers. “Ryl, gun turret, you know the drill. Alex, stay here. Victoria, do a sweep of the area, see if there’s any chance we can pull in backup. Nate,” he bellowed down toward the engine room, “it’s going to get a little bumpy.”
He himself swung into the chair he’d just evacuated in the radio room, typing in the command codes to lock down every asset they had and delete the codes and transmission logs from the computer files. If the ship was taken, they weren’t going to get Gabe’s funds, and they weren’t going to get Pete.
The ship rocked with an impact to the starboard side, and Alex called down unnecessarily, “They’re firing.”
“Shit,” Gabe said. He finished wiping the ship’s logs and yelled back, “Ryl, try to take out their engines, let’s see if we can outrun the bastards.”
He spun around from the console and found William in the doorway clutching one side of the frame, face pale. Gabe stepped forward without even thinking about it and cradled William’s cheek in the palm of his hand.
“I said I was setting you free,” he told William. “I’m not breaking that promise.”
William didn’t say anything, and Gabe didn’t have time to linger.
“Nate, how are we doing?” he called down.
“They’re trying the same thing we are,” Nate answered after a moment, and the rattle-and-shake of another impact. “One more hit and they’ll cripple us.”
“Fuck,” Gabe said again. “Can we…?”
“They’re aiming for the gun turret,” Alex said sharply, and something over their heads snapped into a shower of sparks, half the lights flickering out.
“The turret’s been hit, the casing’s cracking,” Ryland called down.
“Ryland, get the fuck out of there,” Gabe yelled, just as another volley of gunfire sent them staggering sideways and plunged the ship into darkness.
“Engines are gone,” Nate called up as the emergency lights came on, casting eerie blue highlights over all of their faces. “I need at least twenty minutes to get them back up.”
“We don’t have it,” Gabe answered, lunging forward to help Ryland seal off the gun turret as the low groan of metal increased dangerously in volume. There was another collision, but this one was almost gentle in comparison; the impact of another ship lining up to manually dock. “Everyone prepare to be boarded.”
“What do we do?” Alex asked, and Gabe was about to snap at him for asking such a stupid question when he saw Alex standing meaningfully next to William.
Hiding him wouldn’t do any good, not if they took the ship. Nor would trying to claim him as a refugee or a captive. Gabe joined Victoria at the weapons rack, checking one of the heavy-caliber pistols for ammunition before tossing it into William’s hand.
“This time,” he said, “you get a gun.”
“Gabe,” Nate warned sharply, and Gabe could hear it now too, the low, grating screech of metal being forced on the other side of the docking hatch. He grabbed another pistol from the rack and mirrored Nate on the far side of the hatch, gun aimed and ready. Out of the corner of his eye he saw William taking up position a few feet away, hands shaking but weapon held level and aimed squarely at the sealed hatch.
The noise level increased, banging and loud metallic clangs echoing from the other side of the hatch, but Gabe’s didn’t see any sparks yet from someone cutting their way through, and the seal hadn’t been broken. “What…?” he began to ask, and then he heard something else, much fainter; the whisper-hiss of the gunnery turret hatch opening.
He swung around, pistol raised, but two men had already dropped from the hatch into the corridor, and each of them had a gun pointed at Alex and Ryland. A third dropped through as Gabe watched, swinging his gun up to aim at Victoria even as she locked her sight on him. The fourth man through was Captain Smith, and he didn’t even bother raising his gun.
“Let’s do this without bloodshed,” he suggested, addressing Gabe calmly and directly. “You lower your weapons, we put you in the emergency pod and leave you for the nearest patrol ship to pick up.”
Gabe highly doubted there was a patrol ship anywhere close to here, if they’d chosen this moment to attack. They could be stuck for quite a while before someone came along. More than that, though, these assholes wanted his ship.
No one else had come through the hatch, which made it four against six. “Not fucking likely,” he returned evenly. “We’ve got you outnumbered and outgunned. How about you just back it off and we all forget this ever happened.”
“Not gonna happen,” one of Smith’s men said, in a tone so flat it practically lacked inflection. “You might be able to take us, but we’ll have killed half your crew first, and you can’t fly this ship without at least three.”
“Neither can you,” Gabe pointed out. “You want to make this a numbers game? How many do we have to shoot before you’re marooned here as well?”
The bearded man who was covering Alex suddenly straightened up, and his attention, Gabe noted with a sinking feeling, was on William. “Ross,” he said insistently.
He’d gotten the attention of the man who’d spoken up before, and who looked to now be focused very intently on William. “We thought you might have a slave on board,” he said, lips curled in disgust. “You seem to have selective taste in traveling companions.”
Gabe edged slightly to the right, trying to block William from the line of fire. Ross’ gun fixed on him almost at once, but Gabe kept moving slowly, putting himself between them. “Is that what this is about?” he asked. “You’re working a slave ring? Taking ships and valuable human cargo?”
“Hardly,” Ross said, half-sneering. “We’re here to liberate a fellow human being.”
Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me, Gabe thought, and tried belatedly not to let too much of that show on his face. “I hate to disappoint you,” he said as lightly as possible, “but I’m not willing to give this one up. What’s your idea of liberation, treating him as an equal as long as he’s legally yours on paper?”
“We’re not going to keep him,” the fourth man spoke up suddenly, dark eyes filled with a fire and passion that Gabe fervently wished wasn’t currently aimed at him from the opposite side of a loaded firearm. “No one should be kept in chains.”
Gabe paused a moment, stunned into disbelief. “You’re planning to cut his collar?” he asked incredulously. “The alarm trigger isn’t a myth. You’ll have ships chasing him within minutes, hunting him down as a runaway.”
“At least he’ll have a head start,” Ross said, voice filled with disdain. “And a chance.”
“No fucking way,” Gabe stated flatly. He’d seen, several times, what happened to those caught as runaways. He knew what the punishments could be, what sort of rehabilitation they’d put William through if they didn’t kill him outright. “You want him, you have to go through me.”
“We will,” the bearded man said, with an edge to his tone that Gabe didn’t like at all. He twitched the pistol in his hand currently aimed at Alex’s chest and said, “We’ll just go through them first.”
Fuck. Victoria would be able to take the zealot, if she got a clean shot, and Ryland was good enough to drop Ross. That left Alex with half a chance at the one with the beard, and Gabe and Nate to try for Smith before he got the drop on one of them. The odds weren’t good that they’d all make it out alive, but even if they turned William over and surrendered, there was a chance they’d all end up floating corpses anyway. Gabe couldn’t trust these people any farther than he could throw them.
He didn’t factor William into his equations; highborn and sheltered, there was every chance he’d never even fired a gun. That made it five against four. Gabe had played worse odds.
“I can see you planning something,” Smith said, frowning. “Don’t be stupid.”
“Sorry,” Gabe replied. “I’m not letting you take him.”
Smith raised his gun and aimed at Gabe’s chest. “If that’s what you want,” he said. Gabe’s shoulders tensed, and he tightened his grip on the trigger.
“Drop it,” William said, and when Gabe glanced reflexively toward the sound, he saw William’s pistol pointed straight at his head.
Shock left him wordless for a critical second. “Don’t do this,” he said. “It might look like an easy way out, but I swear to you, it’s not.”
“Put the gun down,” William said, and his hands were still shaking and he might not have ever fired a gun before, but he knew where the trigger was. He swallowed and added, “Please.”
Gabe’s eyes jumped back to Smith and his people, but the situation hadn’t improved since his last evaluation of their chances. It had gotten worse, in fact. He could tell by the way her grip had changed, though, that Victoria wasn’t planning on going down without a fight, and that she was a second away from firing and quite probably getting herself killed.
Gabe held William’s eyes for another long moment, and then flipped his pistol up above his head, finger clear of the trigger. “Everybody lower your weapons,” he ordered.
Nate followed him at once, and Ryland and Alex a reluctant second after that. Victoria was the last one with her gun still raised, and now her hands were shaking too, but it wasn’t from fear.
“Victoria,” Gabe said, willing any trace of worry from his voice and setting it with steel. “Put the gun down.”
A nerve-wracking heartbeat later, she did, and gave him a glare that could have killed when she did it. She was still alive, though, so Gabe could take it. Now, if only they stayed that way.
“This way,” Smith said, jerking his gun to the side. “Everyone into the emergency pod.”
It was a tight fit for five, although they didn’t have any gear, any supplies, any food or water, so it wasn’t as tight as it could have been. “Are you at least launching a beacon to tell someone we’re here?” Gabe asked as he wedged himself in between Ryland and Victoria.
“Someone will come along,” Smith said, unconcerned. “You have enough air to last a few days. We’re not giving you the chance to catch up with us that easily.”
Nate was the last in, and as he got settled, Gabe caught William’s eyes through the open door. “William,” he said, low and serious. “Don’t do this.”
William held his gaze, but his expression didn’t change. “I’m sorry,” he said, and closed the hatch.
part four