Sail

The Vicio seemed like a different ship now. Part of that had to do with nothing chasing me through the hallways with murderous intent. That was always helpful in making a home away from home feel cozier, even more so than comfort food. Shocking, I know. But it felt different too—warmer and brighter and livelier.

It smelled the same though. Traces of tobacco lingered in the air, and when I walked through an invisible cloud of smoke, I’d stop to see if Red was around. I was sure she was somewhere, and I had a lot of questions for her. One of those questions included why she didn’t feel the need to cross to the other side through me. Was she waiting for something? There was also the enigma of why she’d helped me in the first place. Was it because she knew it would help me find out the truth about the Saelis and myself? No ghost in the history of ever had helped me, and I felt I owed her some kind of acknowledgment for it.

The kitchen smelled the same too. Well, almost the same. Okay, it smelled much better because Randolph wasn’t burning everything he touched.

As soon as I pushed through the double doors, I shot toward him. He faced the stove and didn’t see me coming when I wrapped my arms around his bulging gut. I pressed the side of my grin into his back so he could feel how happy I was to see him again.

He’d spent one week on top of the elevator shaft armed with nothing but river beans. Something had happened our first night here, but he refused to talk about it. If I had to guess, I’d say it had to do with the Saelis ghost who’d taken residence inside his quarters. Other than his slight dehydration and some symptoms of post-traumatic stress, Ellison had given him a clean bill of health.

“You’re late,” he grumbled.

“No, I’m not. My sister released me from the infirmary less than two minutes ago.”

“That’s two minutes too late,” he said, but I thought I could sense a hint of a smile in his voice. “Are you going to get to work, or are we just going to stand here all day while you hug me.”

After I reluctantly released him, I turned to the small table where he’d laid out all the ingredients for heatherberry shortcake, the first dessert I’d ever made on this ship. The first dessert I’d ever made period.

“You remember what to do?” Randolph asked, eyeing me over his shoulder while he stirred.

“Oh yeah,” I said and got to work.

* * *

After dinner when our stomachs were filled with white hen chowder, green salad with roasted lilypod seeds and honey dressing, and of course heatherberry shortcake, Captain Glenn set his fork down and turned toward me.

“Absidy,” he began, and it was strange to hear my real name coming from him. “I’m happy you’re on the mend, but we need to decide what to do now.”

There was that word again—we. I wiped my mouth on my napkin and cleared my throat while I scrambled for a way to correct him. “Captain, you don’t have to do any—”

“You’re on my crew. This is my ship,” he said, leaning forward. “I’m already involved.”

I nodded since the tone of his voice made it sound like his decision was final. But did he resent me for putting him in the sticky situation of carting around a fugitive? Did he resent Mase for not telling him? Because I didn’t think I could handle it if he did.

Across from me, Ellison pushed away her plate with deliberate care. “Absidy, there are more things you should know.”

I narrowed my eyes, not at all sure I was ready to hear them. Things had been tense between us for a number of reasons, partly because my whole image of her had shifted. And unlike her, I wasn’t an addict anymore. She kept biting the iron in her mouth when I was still in the infirmary, and I had to wonder if it was a deliberate ploy to make me give in so I could be protected once again. Which was hard to resist because the brand new parasites swimming through my bloodstream craved it with a passion that took every ounce of control to contain.

“Like what?” I asked.

“Like the Ring Guild,” she said as she leaned forward on her elbows. “Josh used to work for them, and that was where he stole the parasite from to begin with. He said the Guild’s space station he worked at had storage spaces filled with cases of it.”

Mase twisted his second glass of milk to make a string of circles across the gurney. “And it’s because the rings are made of iron.”

I sat back in my seat, my head suddenly spinning, and squeezed my eyes closed.

“Absidy?” Ellison said, alarm sharpening her voice. “Are you all right?”

“Vicious,” I whispered, and I almost expected to hear ghosts screaming when I said it.

“What?” Ellison asked.

“This ship used to be called Vicious. Hundreds of Saelis females died here, murdered, before they were drained of their parasites.” It all made sense. But most of the rings had been built hundreds of years before the Black War. Which could only mean one thing: “The Saelis didn’t start the Black War by blowing up Earth. They finished it. Their species wouldn’t survive if all their females had been taken. And killed.” Oh, Feozva. It made me sick.

Mase nodded at the circles he made. “We must have discovered the Saelis and the parasite a long time ago and took what wasn’t ours to take.”

“Like the female half of the whole Saelis race,” Ellison added. “If hundreds of thousands of parasites covered a large ring of iron, it could harness that energy into something powerful enough to bend space.”

Captain Glenn crossed his arms. “There isn’t any record of a ship called the Vicious ever existing, which means my ownership papers have been faked. If the ghosts hadn’t…explained that to you, I’m not sure we would have ever known that piece of the puzzle.”

I glanced at Ellison who quickly looked away. She wasn’t thrilled to hear that I I’d allowed Saelis ghosts into me to pass to the other side. Since she’d risked her life sailing to The Black to keep me safe from ghosts, I couldn’t blame her for being upset. But if I had known everything all along, things would be a lot different.

“And the Ringers won’t be too happy we know they wiped out half an alien race to power their rings,” Mase said. “Things could get messy if we start running our mouths.”

Captain Glenn fingered the photo album bracelet on his wrist. “There is also the matter of the artificial intelligence the Saelis have been manufacturing. I should have known something was strange about Daryl and Nesbit when I tried to contact their families about their deaths. They didn’t have family.”

“The A.I.’s have integrated with humans, and no one can tell the difference,” Ellison said. “All of the men have varying levels of intelligence, diverse personalities, and normal-looking appearances.”

“Unless someone with parasites bleeds around them,” I said. “Then it’s pretty clear.”

Ellison nodded. “Which is why I think they’re all men for a reason. The parasite has no effect on women, other than to make them crave solid iron. The Saelis are now producing artificial parasites to keep the human workers addicted to help them, and since their female population has been wiped out, I would imagine the Ring Guild has also figured out a way to artificially produce the parasites.

“They’d have to if the parasites die out after three years,” Captain Glenn added. “If the Saelis want to wipe us all out, to really end the Black War, they could use the parasites as a biological weapon. Imagine if one of their A.I.’s was programmed to dump the parasite into the water supply.”

“All the other A.I.’s would go mad and go on a killing spree,” I said. The memory of all those A.I.’s sitting up from their tubes at the same time flashed through my head, and my next thought crept a chill through my bones. “Daryl and Nesbit both had Mind-I’s. Do you suppose that’s how the Saelis are controlling their A.I.’s?”

As soon as the words left my mouth, I immediately thought of Moon. She couldn’t be a Saelis spawn because she’d mopped up all my blood without losing her mind my last night on Mayvel. Still, she had a Mind-I. Were the Saelis making their own or… Oh, Feozva.

“Anyone know who invented the Mind-I?” I asked.

Ellison must’ve seen something in my expression because she leaned back on her stool and took a deep breath. “It could be the Saelis, but an A.I. took credit for it. If so, they could control everyone with a Mind-I.”

Randolph attempted to pour himself more wine but ended up slopping most of it on the gurney. “I tol’ you Mind-I’s were trouble,” he growled.

“You called it,” I muttered. “But how do we know this is what they might do? Why haven’t they done it already?”

“Josh has been on The Black for about two years,” Ellison said. “He said the Saelis have been kidnapping more and more people to bring back with them. They need more workers to mine the iron tunnels and deliver the A.I’s to habited planets. And they’ve just recently been loading ships with crates of the artificial parasite.”

“So it could happen at any time,” Mase said, his eyes narrowed.

“Mind control, biological warfare…” Captain Glenn helped steady Randolph’s hand and poured enough to fill a fourth of his glass. “The human race’s finale, the true end to the Black War, could be quite a show if we don’t do something to stop it.”

That “if” rang loudly between my ears. Humans had their problems, sure, but they didn’t deserve to be wiped out forever. Not all of them were nasty, and not all of them would support the Ringers for what they did to the Saelis. Like Pop. He would never agree to killing half a population just to power the space-bending rings. He was too good, and so were Moon, Franco, and sweet Jezebel who wasn’t human but could sense people’s decentness. None of them could die at the hands of the Saelis, and I refused to even let them come close. The thought of their deaths dropped an iron anchor onto my chest, and I reached out to Mase to hook my pinky through his so I could breathe again. He squeezed and I smiled gratefully at him.

“Honestly, Captain, I’m not sure what any of us can do,” I said. “I’m just a fugitive ghost magnet who’s kind of handy with an ice pick and a spatula.”

“I’m an enabling older sister with an iron addiction who recently turned my back on the human race in some people’s eyes,” Ellison said.

Mase grinned. “I’m a recovering addict who’s on the run from my past and who has also turned his back on humans.”

“An’ me. Ye also half me, a recovering alcoholic,” Randolph slurred before he tipped the last of the wine into his mouth.

“Thanks, Randolph,” I said, patting him on the back. Whether he meant it or not, it warmed my heart to hear him say it.

Mase leaned in to skim his fingers down my thigh, which made me jump in my seat, and nodded to the captain. “We also have him.”

“I don’t have any addictions other than my family,” Captain Glenn said with a wistful smile. “But I know I could help with a thing or two. Besides, the Saelis must be stopped from wiping out humanity.”

I swallowed hard on the knot lodged in my throat. This was so much bigger than any of us could’ve possibly known. We had to do something, but what?

Over Mase’s shoulder, Esmerelda the Space Vixen watched over us while holding a planet that looked like Earth. How convenient. Well played, Esmerelda.

“Whatever we decide, we’re going to need an engineer before we do anything,” Captain Glenn said. “This ship won’t go without a good one.”

Mase leaned back in his chair as he combed a hand through his hair. “I’ll help with that, but I’d also like to stay alive. How do we not get killed by Saelis or the Ringers?”

“Copies,” I breathed, my gaze still pointed at Esmerelda. Nesbit had said she was played by several women. Maybe we could make that idea work for us. “We’re going to need a lot of people who look like Mase, Ellison, and me. We can scatter them all over several planets to throw those who will want us dead off our tail.”

Mase lifted my hand from his lap to his lips and said, “That’s my college girl.”

“That could be really dangerous. Are we going to pay them?” Captain Glenn asked.

“I have money,” Ellison said, and a proud smile lit up her eyes when she glanced at me.

“Well, for people who’ve never tried to save the universe before, I’d say this is as good a start as any,” the captain said, nodding.

* * *

“You. Me. Cockpit,” Mase whispered in my ear after dinner. His warm breath feathered over my skin, shuddering fiery currents straight to my center. I bit back a moan and sat at the dinner gurney again to control my erratic breathing.

He followed Captain Glenn out of the dining room, leaving me to wonder if he’d really just said those words or if my whorish subconscious was messing with me. It had to have really happened, though, because that man could play so dirty. How did he expect me to walk to the cockpit with the throbbing between my legs?

Ellison paused her dish stacking to rest a hand on my shoulder. “You okay? You’re all flushed.”

“Fine,” I said, squirming in my seat. “Great. Just a little warm is all.”

Ellison narrowed her eyes and sat in Mase’s chair. “You like him, don’t you?”

Playing dumb would only irritate her, so I decided to give her whole-hearted honesty. “I love him.”

Her eyes fell closed, and I couldn’t tell if that was a bad sign or not. “He hovered around like an annoying bee while I was trying to sew you back together again.” She opened her eyes, and they sparkled with tears. “You deserve someone who accepts you.”

“He does,” I somehow managed to say. My stoic sister who always kept her composure during the worst of times had cried more than me these last few days. It scared and comforted me at the same time to know she had functioning tear ducts, but it also hurt to see.

“Then go after him and never let him go,” she said as she wiped at her tears.

I wrapped her in a hug and breathed in her flowery smell that reminded me so much of the happy parts of childhood. Between all my nightmarish encounters with ghosts, she and Pop had made the rest of it bearable.

“I’ll cover for you with Randolph. Honestly, I don’t think he’ll know the difference anyway,” Ellison said, pulling away. “And we have got to do something about your hair when we land, okay?”

“You don’t like it?” I asked as I rubbed a hand through it. It had grown out some and I kind of liked the lightness without all my chains, but I missed their soft clinking. It was a comforting reminder of who I used to be.

“No. Now go.”

Smiling, I kissed her on the cheek then rushed into the hallway. It was after seven o’clock in the evening, and I’d declared the ship safe even though Red was still here somewhere. Randolph refused to sleep alone, so Ellison had offered to make him a bed in the infirmary with her.

It would be nice to sleep next to a certain man without pretending to be a boy in a small room full of other men. I could be me, a fugitive ghost magnet, snuggled against a man I loved. Unless we didn’t have time for sleeping…

The Vicious door was open when I neared, and frigid air and tobacco wafted around me in overpowering waves. A sweaty stink laced through it that spiked my heartbeat.

I peered inside the darkened room that didn’t emit as much gloom as it used to, yet I couldn’t see if the light that had crashed to the floor had been repaired or not. After I crossed Nesbit’s ghost through me, a screw had fallen from the light in that room, and it had seemed like all my spilled blood had rushed for it. Had that been the dying parasites? Was that the reason the Saelis didn’t kill me when I was bleeding all over this ship? Ugh, so many questions!

“Red?” I called.

Shadows shifted deeper into the room, but I refused to face what I couldn’t see even if it was Red.

“I’ll be right here if you need me,” I said.

A man’s face appeared a breath away, and I leaped back with a yelp. He stared at me with midnight eyes, and his thick lips stretched into a sneer. Sweat dripped from the top of his balding head down his jowls. He was the same man I’d seen in the Saelis’s memories, the one who’d ordered Red to hang them.

She stood to his side with her hand clenching his shirt collar, her head hanging away from him on her broken neck. She swung him toward me. He charged, his intent clear in his malicious growl and swinging fists.

“Enter,” I said with a glare.

He evaporated into black smoke and tunneled inside my mouth. His ghost stabbed down my throat while flashing images of thousands of dead Saelis, not just on this ship but others too. So many murdered, and for what? So humans could bend space to travel faster? How did that justify murder of half a species?

I popped in an iron cube from my pocket, which was put there for this reason only, to wash the man and all the rest of it away with tears in my eyes. We would handle it, or at least try to. I swallowed the iron down quickly so I wouldn’t have to taste its sweet tartness, and my insides lurched with a vigorous burst of energy.

“Happy now, Red?” I asked.

Around the corner, the elevator dinged open. That answered that.

“Thank you,” I said to the empty hallway and headed for the third floor. “For everything.”

As soon as I opened the cockpit door, soft lips devoured mine. Instantly breathless, I pulled away, and he pushed me against the closed door.

“You came,” he said between nibbles at my neck.

“Not…yet,” I said, gasping.

“All in good time. Especially since you didn’t bring any potatoes.” He lifted his head to brush his grin against my cheek. “I’m clean, by the way.”

I buried my nose into his jawline to breathe his sensual, musky scent. His smell was almost as addicting as his kisses. “I’m not. I have parasites.”

A deep, rumbling laugh reverberated through his chest and into mine. “Parasites are so damned sexy.”

I smiled against his mouth, inhaling his exhales. For the first time in my life, I’d faced my fears and survived. I’d found my sister, and in the process, a man who understood me. Yes, I’d unearthed terrifying things about the Saelis and the Ringers, but with my sister and Mase at my side, I felt sure I could face that, too.

“Mase,” I asked against his lips.

“Mmm?”

“You once said ‘What are you doing here?’ to something you saw in the hallway. Who was it?”

A frown tugged at his mouth as he pulled away. “Someone who looked like the drug baron. Why?”

“Was he bald?” At his nod, I said, “You won’t be seeing whoever that was anymore.”

“You’re amazing.” He traced the curve of my lips with his tongue, and it triggered a white-hot arousal.

“Please don’t stop,” I breathed.

Pushing me back into the door, he peeled my sweatshirt off then crushed his lips to mine with one swift movement. I had scars from the Saelis and ghosts’ attacks, but Mase didn’t even flinch. Just like him, I wore my scars on the outside now. Our emotional and physical baggage matched.

Blood roared through my veins, filling me with a need so intense, I broke away from Mase’s fevered kisses with a loud moan.

Between his devouring lips and tongue and his hands tugging off the rest of my clothes, he whispered, “Never.” He pulled back to look at me, eyes bright with a passionate craving that I was sure equaled my own.

Fingers twined with mine, he led me to a small bed to the side of the cockpit and underneath the spray of stars that winked magic. He settled me underneath him and roamed his gaze over every part of my exposed body, seeming to enjoy how much I squirmed under his hungry expression.

“I’m no expert,” I breathed. “But don’t you have to get naked too?”

I’d never seen anyone take off their clothes as fast as he did, but then he lay next to me, his head propped in one hand while his other lovingly traced a scar near my belly button. I drank him in deep to savor the taste of what would come—his sculpted torso streaked with scarred memories, thick, corded arms dotted with a different type of memory, and his well-endowed erection. He was stunning.

“Beautiful,” he said as he lowered his lips to mine.

I started to nod, thinking he was talking about himself, then realizing he wasn’t, and then not caring about anything but him and the way he was kissing me. Every flick of his tongue, every slide of his hands over my flesh burned a powerful need right to my center. He rolled his knees between my legs and posted one arm over my head so he wouldn’t crush me while the other palmed my breast. I arched my back into his touch with a low groan. My hips gyrated against his with a will of their own, pulling a growl from deep inside him that vibrated into my chest. My erratic gasps mingled with each of his, but that didn’t stop our tongues from their thorough explorations.

But when his fingers slipped south between my legs and eased inside me, all coherent thought leaped ship. I threw back my head from his lips, my body bending into his while he worked his fingers. He glided his kisses down my neck, across my breast, and to my nipple, which he sucked into his mouth and licked every inch. His fingers inside me picked up rhythm. I raked my hands through his hair and clamped my thighs against his sides as the pressure between my legs built to a maddening crescendo and teetered on the precipice of bliss I’d known only once before.

Mase pulled back before I reached it, a wicked gleam in his eye and a sly smile on his lips. “Tell me if I hurt you,” he said softly.

“You won’t,” I said, and I’d never been more certain of anything in my life. I trusted him in every way possible, and that feeling threaded around my heart with an unequivocal pleasure. I shuddered at its snug knot, at Mase entering me, inch by slow inch, his brow creased with concentration.

Or maybe worry, though he had nothing to be concerned about. I felt deliciously filled, so I reached up to smooth away all his doubts with my lips. He closed his eyes at my touch and trembled as he sank in deeper.

“I love you, Absidy Jones.” He stilled, biting back a gasp, and then eased himself out.

“I love you, too, Mase Ryan,” I whispered.

A moan parted his lips as he plunged gently back in again, but I captured the rest of it with my mouth on his.

I matched his every thrust, every slide of his tongue, urging him on. He sighed my name between kisses as he pumped faster, harder, gifting me the promise of a coming release. But then he’d slow and graze his hands gently over my hips or to thumb my nipples, but the promise only multiplied in strength. I could explode just from his tender touch alone.

Light tremors that started in my lower belly rocked through my body, drawing pleas from my mouth. “Mase. Yes.”

With a groan, he drove faster, lifting me higher.

“Oh.” I reached around him and grabbed his ass to grind him deeper into my bucking hips. “Yes!” Then I sailed into the stars for several long moments as ecstasy pulsed through my body.

He soon met my release with his own and threw back his head with a loud moan. His glazed eyes locked on mine, and with a dreamy smile, he slowed his thrusts until he pulled out and collapsed next to me.

“That made me feel like I could save the universe,” he breathed as he pulled me into his arms.

I pressed a kiss to his damp forehead and inhaled the musky smell of our bodies still wrapped around each other. “Me too.”

We lay there for a long time, gazing up at the stars, while we caressed each other’s bodies. It felt right in every sense of the word.

“I like your definition of sail the best,” I said when my eyelids began to droop.

“What do you mean?” he asked, lazily tracing circles on my hip.

“During the Black War, it meant to turn your back on humans. To the Saelis, it means Saelis Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. To you, it’s being free enough to accept who the universe wants you to be.” I brought our clasped hands to my lips. “I want to be that person.”

He propped himself up on an elbow to look at me with one eye the color of my metallic past and the other a beautiful blue I hoped could be my future. “Solid plan, my fugitive ghost magnet.”