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“Lunch, then.” He opened a bright cobalt blue door, gesturing for her to enter first. “I can pick you up something else, if you’re still hungry.”
“Oh, I’m hungry. Just not for food,” she purred, skating a finger over his chest.
He growled and reached for her, but she dodged his hand with a sunny snicker as she sailed into the clinic.
13
NOX
His woman was trying to kill him, he was sure of it. Why else would she torment him like that when he had no recourse but to follow her into the clinic? As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t snatch her and run for the nearest bed or dark corner now. They were here. He stealthily adjusted his pants to accommodate the growing ache of his cock.
“Took you long enough. I’ve been waiting here forever,” Navi said, popping up off the bright blue couch in the clinic’s waiting room. He raised his eyebrows at the pair’s proximity to one another.
“Lis, this is Navi, my XO on Antana’s Luck,” Nox said. “Navi, Lis.”
Navi ran a hand through his dark curls and gave Lis a toothy grin. “Nice to meet you officially.”
“We’ve met before?” she asked, shooting a questioning glance at Nox.
“Yeah, well, you were unconscious when I met up with you all, but I helped the Cap here rescue you from those trolls.” He hooked a thumb at Nox.
Lis returned his smile. “Nice to meet you, then. And thanks for the hand with those assholes, by the way. I was a little stuck.”
Navi huffed out a laugh, leaning towards Nox as he gave her an admiring look. “This one’s spicy. I like her. Is she available?”
“Hands off, playboy. That’s my mate you’re talking about,” Nox growled, his hands clenching into fists.
“And I’m not a piece of meat to fight over.” Lis rolled her eyes. “Men.” She spun on a heel and disappeared deeper into the clinic.
“Oh-ho. Nice job, Cap.” Navi snickered. “She’s good for you. Don’t drive her away.”
“You’re such a dick, Navi,” Nox said, punching him affectionately in the arm. “No wonder your brother sent you to me rather than put up with you any longer.”
“Ooh, burn.” Navi flicked a curl out of his eyes.
“You get the crash site cleaned up?”
“Yeah, yeah. Working on it. Those trolls were more determined to find your woman than expected. They didn’t break camp until the early hours.” Navi stifled a yawn. “I left Anders and Bodhi to scoop up everything and sanitize the area. No one will know there ever was a crash there. And Channing’s digging through any recordings or sat images that might have captured the ship’s path.”
Some of the worry lifted. Navi might act like a flighty dingbat at times, but he’d proven himself to be a capable executive officer. Nox was lucky to have him. “Thanks for that.”
Navi gave a grunt of acknowledgement. “Better go find your mate before she decides she’s better off without you.”
Throwing up a rude gesture that made Navi splutter with fake indignation, Nox followed his mate through the clinic’s double doors.
“I still say we need to track this group back to their home base,” Tanl’n Maher, leader of the Kalin Territory, said to the group of people gathered around an oval conference table. “Bring down the entire gang at once, rather than with little nibbles around the edges.”
He was a formidable man, dressed in black leather armor similar to Nox’s, with broad shoulders, warm brown skin, and long black hair he kept tied back in a queue. Before he took over as leader, he ran one of the most successful mercenary groups on Cinzia. These days, he worked with his crew to make his territory one of the safest and most profitable on the planet.
Lis’s lips pressed together. She caught Nox’s eye and gave him a barely noticeable head shake. Other than that, she let him take the lead.
“They have captives,” Nox said, reiterating their original argument. “If we allow them to regroup with the rest of their gang, our chances of rescuing those people drop to nil.”
Lis and Navi were on the same page as him, but as head of the territory, Tan had the final say as to how this mission would go. Unless they planned to go rogue. Seeing Lis’s determined expression, Nox knew that was exactly what would happen if Tan chose to wait the trolls out.
“If they’re taking captives, they’re selling them somewhere. Slavery is absolutely unacceptable, and I want it out of my territory.” Tan rapped his knuckles on the table, making the water glasses rattle. “I want to know where they are, who’s buying, and I want to put a stop to it, once and for all.”
Sona placed a calming hand on her mate’s arm. “Tan, I understand your reasoning and agree that we need to eradicate these slavers. But right now, the captives should be our priority. I don’t want to be responsible for their deaths.”
