His Mate to Keep by Ivy Sparks

15

Merrit

“Son of a bitch!”A spray of sparks erupted in my face, and I yanked my hand out of the pilot’s console. A plume of blue flame shot out of the hole and I barely reared back in time to avoid lighting my hair on fire. “Piece of shit!”

A broken laugh startled me from my left. I spun around to find Xavier poking his head through the hull breach. “Who knew you could be such a foul-mouthed desperado, Merrit?”

I humphed while I sucked the burn on my fingers. “Very funny. I am a pirate, aren’t I?”

Xavier laughed again and sauntered into the cockpit. He slumped on the other stool and surveyed the damage I’d already done to the runner. A day had passed, but he was looking a lot better. “How long have you been over here? You should have woken me.”

I shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d get an early start on the salvage operation. I’m harvesting everything that still works or might be repaired.”

He made a face. “Harvesting? Is that what you call it?”

“Don’t complain. One of these components could be the one that gets us off this rock.” I went back to work. “If I could just figure out this tracking configuration, I’d die happy.”

He gazed at me from the side. “You shouldn’t skip out on sleep for this. Your health is more important, and if you don’t rest, your arm won’t heal.”

“To hell with my arm.” I yanked another wire and got another fountain of sparks in the face for my trouble. “Bastard!”

Despite the fuss, I had succeeded in removing the wire and discovered the communications array underneath. A prickle went through me. This was our one chance to get help, but after what happened when I sent out that mayday call, I wasn’t sure if I should try to use the array again.

I had to remove it, though. I had to make it work. There might be a way to signal for help without alerting the experimenters or their allies.

I got to work, and lucky for me, I didn’t set my eyebrows on fire while I was at it. In fact, it proved to be a lot easier than the tracking configuration.

Halfway through the process, I smelled something savory and mouth-watering. I looked around me, but there was nothing to see. I almost went back to what I was doing when a cloud of smoke drifted through the hull breach. Where had Xavier gone, anyway? And how long had I been at this?

I hopped off my stool and peeked outside. Xavier squatted next to a small fire with a hunk of crispy meat hanging from a roasting spit. He grinned up at me while he fed sticks into the flames. “Hungry?”

I tiptoed over to the fire. “What’s this?”

He pulled over a piece of skin. Spotted fur on the sides and back answered for him. “It’s that creature that attacked us yesterday. I brought it back here, and the meat seemed good to eat.”

“Was I distracted for that long?” I shook my head. “You shouldn’t have done that. You could make yourself bleed again.” I glanced down at the meat and forgot for a moment that I was upset at him for taking off. “Could I… Could I have some?”

Xavier laughed again. “Of course you can, Merrit. I got it for you.”

He picked up a large, curved hunting knife I’d never seen before. He carved off several shavings of the most succulent meat I’d ever seen. He let them drop into a broad, glossy leaf and handed it to me. “You’re probably wondering where I got this knife.”

I nodded as I took a bite, my eyes closing in delight at the savory taste.

“I found it in the back of the runner. You were so busy working on the pilot’s station that you didn’t see me. I also took all the leftover supplies out and put them under the tent. I organized them so we can take them with us when we leave.”

I shook my head again, but I was too delighted with the meat to tell him again that he shouldn’t be pushing himself with his injuries. Though as we ate, I had to admit he looked a lot better than he did yesterday. Maybe we could make our journey sooner than I thought.

I wondered if he knew how much he meant to me. There were the two times he almost said something but stopped himself. He almost called me his mate. I knew it now. He didn’t have to say it out loud. Did he know I felt the same way?

Sure, humans didn’t have “fated mates,” but the two times I thought I had lost him since we crashed here, I could feel my soul being torn apart. If that didn’t mean something, I wasn’t sure what did.

A few people on the Starglider came from species who mate for life. They would do anything to protect their mates. They would tear anyone or anything apart that threatened their mate. Their mates meant more to them than their own lives.

Could something like that happen with me and Xavier? Was it already happening? Humans didn’t mate for life, but maybe Kavians did. He changed toward me after… after what we did.

What was it he said to the experimenters before we laid together? We have mating traditions that must be met before we… I didn’t pick it up then, but it made sense now. He wasn’t talking about himself and me when he said we. He was talking about Kavians. The Kavians must’ve had mating traditions, ones that surely meant a lot to them. He didn’t want to lay with me because he feared he would become mated to me for life, and that was exactly what happened.

I wondered if he would take it back if he could. Did I take something precious from him? Was it possible he could have been fated mates with someone else, or was I truly his one true mate?

Why couldn’t I just find the courage to ask?

Maybe I wouldn’t like the answer.

He looked up and spotted me watching him eat. He jerked his chin toward the runner. “Did you find anything salvageable in there?”

I took a moment to return to the present, then stuck my head through the hull breach and pulled out a crate of components I removed from the pilot’s console. “I don’t know how much of this is usable, but I could patch something together with parts from each. I tried the communications array, but it doesn’t penetrate this thick canopy, so we’ll have to find some high ground somewhere.”

His eyes shot open. “Was that wise? What if the experimenters picked it up?”

“I made sure not to signal into the atmosphere. I got a pinpoint on the respondent’s location. We’re nowhere near them, and I wanted to make sure it was still at least partially operational. The way I see it, if we got shot down on this planet, then it stands to reason other ships might have been shot down too. If we find a few more wrecks, we can scavenge more parts and maybe send a signal to a targeted location—one that we know is safe.”

“That’s a long shot, isn’t it?”

I made a face. “Our whole situation is a long shot. But we have to do something. We can’t just sit around and give up.”

I started pawing through the many components I removed from the runner. Xavier’s eyebrows arched again. “I had no idea you were doing so much. I would have helped you.”

“I didn’t want you to. I wanted you to rest, not go trekking across the country to bring me food. Your injuries are worse than mine, and I’m no stranger to survival situations.”

Xavier cocked his head. “How did you end up with the pirates, anyway? Were you born a pirate?”

“No. I was orphaned when I was seven years old.” I paused, finding it hard to face those memories. “Captain Wynter—he was the captain of the Starglider—he took me in, and the whole crew raised me. I must have done every job on that ship.”

“No wonder you know so much about technology.”

“What about you? Did you learn to fight from the mercenaries?”

Xavier shook his head. “No, no. I got the usual training growing up on Kavius. All young Kavian males go through the same training regime. It’s part of the rites of maturity. The mercenaries wouldn’t have looked sideways at me if I didn’t already know how to fight, and I wouldn’t have lasted a day in the lab if I couldn’t defend myself.”

“I suppose it’s fate then, that we both had the upbringing we did.”

He smiled softly, then turned back to his meal. “Yeah. Fate.”

Maybe someday we’d have the conversation about fated mates, but it seemed today we were both content to focus on the only thing that mattered right now: survival.

With that thought, I returned to my salvaging operations.