Immediately, he forced that thought away. He couldn’t keep her, and he knew that. The life he led wasn’t suitable for a male with a mate. Even though both Tal and Zero lived aboard with their mates, Tank, Zero’s female, was as much a warrior as any of them and Tal’s mate, Lizzie, was an imperial lady with balls of steel who’d followed him into a mercenary’s life. The sister of the Lord Healer’s mate, if anything happened to her the entire might of the Latharian Empire would fall on whoever was responsible.
Skinny didn’t have powerful links like that. He was a farm boy from a backwater planet and his entire family was dead because of him. Not only could he not protect a mate, but he didn’t deserve one.
“Thank you.” She smiled at T’Raal. “I can’t thank you enough. If there’s anything I can do—”
Sparky snorted. “Money’s not the be-all and end-all, darling… there’s always payment in kind.”
For a moment, Skinny just stared at the human. He couldn’t mean what Skinny thought he meant. Could he? The wink and the leer sealed the deal and he snarled, red washing over his vision as he pushed Marika to the side and launched himself at Sparky.
5
“No! Stop it!”
Within a heartbeat, Marika got between them, shoving at their chests with her delicate little hands.
“Please no, don’t do this,” she begged, fear and concern on her lovely face.
Altav sucked a hard breath in, anger on his face as he yanked her into his arms protectively.
“We’re not doing this,” he snarled at the other male. “No payment in kind. She’s mine. Understand?”
And with that, he threw her over his shoulder and strode from the room.
“What the hell are you doing?” Marika gasped in outrage. One moment she’d been standing there, trying to stop the two big men from killing each other, and the next Altav had growled and thrown her up over his shoulder like she was nothing more than a sack of potatoes.
She had a brief glimpse of surprised faces through the fall of her hair but then they were out in the corridor, his long legs eating up the distance as he carried her away.
“Hey! Asshole! Put me down now!” she demanded, her face and ears burning with embarrassment. She’d never been treated so coarsely and with so little respect, even by her own father. He was an evil bastard, but threats had been with words and fists. This was… something else entirely.
Altav growled. “Demand all you like, little mouse. It’ll do you fuck all good.”
“How dare you! You can’t do this!” she gasped.
This couldn’t be happening. She pounded with her fists on the broad expanse of his back, trying to make him let her go. But it was no good. Hitting him was like hitting a wall, solid and unyielding. She winced, the contact hurting her hands. He hadn’t even flinched. He had to be wearing body armor under his shirt to be so solid. She felt a little less guilty for hitting him if he was.
She tried wriggling instead, attempting to squirm her way off the broad shoulder that was digging into her stomach.
“Behave. Or you’ll fall,” he growled and reached up to swat her ass with a large hand.
Pain flared, white hot and insistent across her backside. She gasped in outrage, jerking in his hold as the burn spread to warm her skin. He’d spanked her—honest to gods spanked her.
“Put me down, now!” she hissed, trying to ignore his big hand on the back of her thighs. Just a little higher…
“And have you hit me with a pipe again?” he threw back, stopping in front of a door that slid open for him before he stepped inside.
She managed to get a fleeting glimpse of the room, which was little more than an impression of bunks and the smallness of the space, before he slid her down the front of his big body to her feet. The next moment he was crowding her, backing her up against the metal wall, with his hands on either side of her to cut off her escape.
“Been there, done that… I think I’ll pass.”
His voice was low and intimate, rough with the growl. She pressed back against the wall to avoid touching him, her eyes wide in her face as she looked up. His eyes glittered darkly, their expression tight with anger and… She swallowed nervously.
Thanks to her father she was intimately familiar with violence and the way men used their fists against a woman, but that wasn’t what she saw on Altav’s face. His big hands might be curled into fists on the wall by her head, but she didn’t think he would hit her. Not with the way his gaze tracked her lips like a raptor.
She was trapped in a room alone with a dangerous man, pinned to the wall by the cage of his arms and body. His chest heaved as he looked down at her.
“Never do that again,” he demanded tersely, the tension rolling off of him in waves.
“Do what? I wasn’t the one who picked someone up and freaking carried them off over a shoulder!” she snapped back, refusing to be intimidated by him. Her father had hit her all her life, and she was done with it. The moment she’d refused to marry Maxim and run, she was done being someone else’s punching bag.
His fist slammed into the metal and made her jump. She bit back the squeak as she compressed her lips and glared at him. Terror tried to wrap itself around her, cloying her breathing and making her heart hammer in her chest, but she ignored it and refused to let it show.
“Getting between me and Sparky!” he snarled, leaning in. “Putting yourself in danger. You don’t put yourself between two males like that. You could have gotten hurt!”
Common sense would have been to agree with him since… well, he was right. They were both bigger than she was, and either could easily have snapped her in two. But with her temper up combined with her newfound courage after being out from under her father’s boot, no one could accuse Marika of common sense.
“I didn’t though. Did I?” she hissed back and then poked him in the chest with a hard finger. “You wouldn’t have hurt me. Would you? And neither would Mr. Sparky. You were being the asshole, hauling me off and hurting me!”
“I didn’t hurt you at all. When did I hurt you?” His growled demand was ferocious as he grabbed her hand, baring his teeth as he kept it prisoner.
“Your stupid hard shoulder in my stomach!” She tried to wrench her hand back, ignoring the way his thumb stroked against the delicate skin on the inside of her wrist.
“And you spanked me! My…” She cut off, saying stubbornly. “Well, it bloody hurt!”
Heat flared darkly in his eyes, the blue rendered midnight.
“You need to leave. Now.”
She shoved at his chest with her free hand. “Why? You’re the asshole who brought me in here! Why do I have to leave?”
A savage smile crossed his full lips as he captured her other wrist easily, quelling her struggles by stepping in closer and using the weight of his body to trap her against the metal.
“Because, if you don’t, I’m going to kiss you. And I don’t think I’ll want to stop,” he admitted roughly, his voice low and intimate. “I’ll fuck you, right up against this wall… whether you want it or not.”
She caught her breath, heat washing through her at the threat. She knew he wouldn’t. He wasn’t that kind of man, but fuck if the threat of danger didn’t make her want to whimper and press her thighs together.