It would have been an effective tactic if all the B’Kaar on board weren’t trall-scared of him already. Not only was his father-in-law the emperor’s champion and his brother-in-law the empire’s foremost assassin, but Jay himself had apparently stormed their ship and blown away some crazy scientist intent on bringing back a dead war commander. So his attempts at camouflage were utterly pointless with them and even more pointless against Cade. Any being who could wrestle with him was as tough as old ve’cichzen.
Berrick rolled his eyes at the snappy comment and Cade's grin grew broader. Jay had brought him up to speed on the mate program and the fact that Berrick’s match was Jay’s biological mother—a female he’d never met.
“He must be a blast at clan feasts,” Cade commented, eliciting a groan from Berrick.
“Lady goddess, kill me now,” Berrick growled, a scowl on his bearded face. “I hope he takes after his father.”
“Nope,” Jay replied cheerfully. “My father even called me a changeling at one point because I’m nothing like him. Always thought it was odd he didn’t accuse my mother of having an affair… But then, adopted brat. Makes sense.”
“Why do you even need a blood sample anyway?”
Cade eyed the archaic device with distrust, like it would suddenly leap out of Berrick’s hands and bite him. A scan was one thing but how was he going to fool a blood test?
“It’s more accurate. Allows us to look at all the markers and plug them into the algorithm for the new mate program.”
The breath left Cade’s lungs in a rush. “Oh, that’s fine. I’m not ready to be mated yet.”
He was… more than ready, but he couldn’t take the risk of them finding what hid in his DNA.
Berrick scoffed. “This from the male who did a victory lap with a bouquet?”
Cade shrugged, his arms folded across his broad chest. He glared at Berrick until he put the device away in his pocket.
“Fine,” he rumbled. “Plenty of others who want to be in the first round for the mate program.”
Cade didn’t move as the cyber warrior walked away, watching him until he left the training hall. Then he realized Jay was looking at him, confusion written on his face.
“It’s a proprietary thing,” he tried to explain. “They’re not my clan. I can’t trust them.”
“Oh it’s fine.” Jay pushed off from the wall as they both walked from the training hall. “It’s cool man. You don’t like needles. I get it.”
That wasn’t what bothered Cade, and Jay knew it. The unquestioning acceptance warmed Cade’s heart as they headed down the corridor, just far enough from Berrick in front of them that he couldn’t hear their conversation. Jay was about to speak again when the B’Kaar stopped suddenly and looked over his shoulder.
“Hey, human… The war commander is having a dinner tonight. You in?”
Cade registered the slight stiffening of Jay’s frame and answered before the human could. “He can’t. I’ve already got dibs on him and his mate tonight.”
Berrick’s expression didn’t change. He nodded before turning and clumping away.
“Thanks for that,” Jay muttered as they took the next left and headed down toward the guest quarters they’d been assigned.
Cade inclined his head. He knew the background between Jay’s mate and the B’Kaar… that she was a former AI and they’d like nothing more than to take her apart to see how she worked. Only the fact she was the champion’s daughter stopped them from actually doing that.
But that didn’t mean they couldn’t make things difficult for her and question her relentlessly during social interactions. No being deserved to be persecuted for being different or for the circumstances that had brought them into being, so he was happy to run interference.
“No problem,” he said as they reached the door to Jay’s suite and he turned to walk the other way.
Besides, Jay’s little mate wasn’t the only being aboard keeping secrets.
“This would be so much easier if you’d actually let me meet the damn aliens, you know?” Elise commented. She leaned back and eyed Cameron Murphy, president of Earth and all her colonies, over her coffee.
Even though it was barely 8 a.m., it was her fourth of the morning, and she was seriously considering sneaking some vodka in it from the decanter on the unit over on the other side of the office. Heaven knew she loved Cam to bits but sometimes he could be an utter asshole to deal with. Scratch that, he was an utter asshole which was why he’d gone through seven PAs before she’d stepped in. No one else could deal with her brother.
Their relationship wasn’t common knowledge, and they weren’t in fact biologically related. Nothing in either of their records hinted at any link between them. As far as the public record went, Cameron Murphy had picked out Elise Beaufort as his personal assistant from a list of viable applicants.
Cam gave her the "Murphy" look, the one that had even the most hardened generals pissing their pants and quaking in their boots, ready to do whatever he wanted them to. Normally he masked it with what she called his president suit—the Murphy persona—but he pulled out the big guns when he needed to intimidate somebody. The problem, for him, was it didn’t work on her. She’d known him since he was Campbell Shelby, she was Eleanor Walker, and they were both unwanted gutter rats in an Anselm Kids Home.
“You know why,” he said curtly, reading through the file in front of him on the desk. She watched him for a moment, his features as familiar as her own.
They actually did look a lot like each other, to the point that she’d harbored a little hope that genetic testing would reveal they were indeed related. Maybe the cast off by blows of the same guy.
She’d even fleshed their "father" out in her mind. Some up-society businessman or politician who had gotten his mistresses, or more likely a couple of house staff, pregnant. It wouldn’t have been street girls. Not that Elise had anything against sex workers. Everyone had to put food on the table after all.
However, a pregnancy would have put a street girl's earning capacity at risk, so there was no way any of them would have carried a baby to term. There were plenty of backstreet abortionists and other doctors willing to carry out the required procedure if you knew where to look.
She had a mental picture of their "father" in her mind. He would have been tall and leanly muscled like her brother, not short and sparse like her. He would have been handsome like Cam, with their shared pale eyes. That way of rolling their shoulders that both of them had, and probably the same dodgy right knee. No doubt he would have had a dangerous aura around him just the same as Cam had… The one that drew all the women to him like flies to the honeypot.
Although, from an adult perspective, she now realized that Cam had only developed that dangerous edge by protecting her in the group homes. Then he’d gone into the special forces. She’d like to say the man who came back—the harder, darker version—was a different man, but it wasn’t. All the training had done was cut the rough away and reveal the deadly diamond within.
Guilt washed over her and she let the fantasy slip away. Her brother had become a monster to save her and she would never be able to repay him. Especially as the full genetic tests they’d had as soon as they could afford them had revealed they weren’t related at all.