Page 70 of Rogue Starfighter

“This could be a problem.”

“For you, perhaps. I am enjoying your desire very much."

I lifted my head. He was smiling. An actual smile, not the tiny, almost-version. “You’re very pleased with yourself.”

“You are mine now.” He pressed his mouth to my forehead. “Sleep. We leave in two hours.”

“What if I don't want to sleep? What if I want to do that again?”

He looked at me, green eyes steady. "You need to learn to behave, bondmate."

“You just said we have two hours all to ourselves and you want me to behave? Now you sound like Captain Asshole.”

"How dare you?" He rolled onto his back and lifted me so my pussy lined up with his cock. One brush of my core against him and he was hard again. "You are going to be trouble."

I wiggled until he lowered me onto his hard length and made damn sure he knew exactly how much trouble I could be.

13

Vesh

The trap was waiting at the Gate. We cleared the last debris field and found twelve Scythe interceptors between us and Velerion space. Weapons hot. Formation spread wide enough to cover every approach. Waiting for us. Priya stared at the tactical display. “That’s more than three.”

“Twelve.”

“On a scale of one to we’re-definitely-going-to-die?”

“Eleven.”

She looked at me. “You made a joke.”

“No.”

“That was absolutely a joke.”

The lead interceptors began to move.

“Celebrate later,” I said.

The Wraith had no weapons, one damaged engine, and seven percent core power after the final run. We could not fight twelve ships. We could not even outrun one. More important, no one knew we would be approaching from this direction. Not command. Not Wroxxon. Not even General Aryk. This was my private detour through unmonitored space. The interceptors shouldn't be here.

“They didn’t get the route from the traitor,” Priya said. "This wasn't on any mission briefs. So how did they find us?”

"I don't know." I opened every transmission record from the last eight hours. The Wraith had remained silent. No active sensors. No navigation handshake. No contact with Alliance systems. Another encrypted pulse left our hull. It lasted less than a tenth of a second. The Scythes adjusted formation immediately.

“There,” I said.

Priya saw it. “We’re transmitting.”

“A command-frequency burst. Buried deep inside our systems.”

“Can you shut it off?”

I tried. The system rejected my authorization, which should have been impossible. It was my fucking ship. “No.”

“Then cut the transmitter out. Unplug it. Something."

“It is integrated into the ship's core computers. If I disable it, we lose everything. Engines. Navigational control. Life support.”