Chrystal Bones (Finding Home Book 1) (26 page)

Jayden opened his mouth to speak but shut it when Blue continued without pausing, “I mean a real conversation not a prelude to sex.” He said nothing and she gave a sharp nod. “I didn’t think so. She was happy, really happy to see you and when she saw me with you it hurt her. You were not just another roll in the sack to her. She cares about you.” She gave him a scathing look then turned and walked away.

Jayden rose to follow calling out, “Where are you going?” When she ignored him, he spoke telepathically,
“Blue come back here. You can not go wandering around on your own.”

She turned to glare at him through cold icy blue eyes that glowed slightly,
“Who do you think you are? You need to get it through your thick head that you don’t get to tell me what to do. Not now, not ever. How many times am I going to have to repeat that before it gets through your thick head?”

“I did not mean it the way it sounded. I just meant that the station is not the safest place to be wandering around at this time of turn.”

“Jayden if I don’t get some space from you right now, I will hurt you. I am going to leave. I will be back in an hour. I survived on my own before you and I assure you I will be just fine.”
She spoke calmly and in short sentences in that same cold voice.
“Leave me alone before I do something we will both regret.”
She slammed a door shut in her mind, closing him out as much as she could.

Jayden watched her stride from the bar and get lost in the crowd of aliens. He was not sure exactly how things had gotten out of hand so fast. He had not meant what he said to be an insult to her or to Sutcliffe.

Her life was about to change drastically and there were some things a princess just did not do. Hanging out with a stripper was just one of them. It did not have a thing to do with his past relationship with Sutcliffe or how nice she was.
And that was all just bull,
he thought with a sigh.

Blue was who she was. She was not going to change to fit anyone’s idea of a princess. Not for him and not for a planet full of people who did not even know she was alive. He loved her just the way she was and would not change a thing about her.

That thought hit him with an invisible hard punch to the stomach. He loved her. He had known for some time that he wanted to keep her. But now he had gone and fallen for her so completely that he could not imagine his life without her. She was stubborn, tough, standoffish, and her smile could cut a man off at the knees.

She was also caring, loyal, compassionate and had a slightly bent sense of humor. He now knew she also had a hell of a temper. It was not the fiery, throwing things kind of temper that burned itself out quickly. No, this was cold and sharp as a finely honed blade ready to slice a person to pieces before they even knew it was coming. Jayden sat back down to wait for either Blue to come back or Zee to show up so he could ask about Krakin.

Blue walked around the station until she calmed down. It seemed it did not matter whether a man was human or alien. They were all idiots at one time or another. Men had sex all the time without caring for their partners. For that matter she knew women did also. It was just distasteful to her. The way he had dismissed Sutcliffe as a stripper and maybe hooker made her so angry.

She did have an advantage in being able to read her. The woman was a little bit in love with him and he was clueless. To him she was just a body he had enjoyed for a brief time. She knew Jayden didn’t mean to sound so condescending. It had just come out that way. He wasn’t an elitist, concerned with appearance the way most men in his position would be. But if he thought she would let him get away with being a jerk he could think again.

Her steps slowed as a humming sound penetrated her anger. She looked around and saw she was in a dimly lit, deserted section of the station. The humming was coming from a small, dingy, cluttered shop hidden in the corner. She entered the dreary shop and walked to the back through a doorway to a pile of junk in the corner. She dug through and found a hunk of rock about the size of a baseball.

It wasn’t a chrystal just a flat grey rock with lines of silver running through it. It was warm to her touch though and humming. She sat back on her heels and listened to the pleasant sound. For once she was so caught up in something that she didn’t hear the man approach her until he spoke, startling her.

“What are you doing?” he asked in a harsh voice. Blue turned her head and found herself looking into his eyes even kneeling as she was.

He was short, maybe three and a half feet tall. His face was old and had so many wrinkles she could barely make out his features. Blue fought the insane urge to giggle at the picture of Yoda that popped into her mind, even though the only thing they had in common was the height and wrinkles. She could not prevent the smile that came to her lips.

“Hello. I am sorry if I am intruding but I couldn’t resist coming in when I saw your shop and heard the music from this,” she held up the chunk of rock. “What is it you do here?” she asked. As soon as Blue spoke the man’s face softened at the musical sound.

“I fix things,” he told her in a much softer tone. He cocked his head and twitched his ears. “You are from Shillidon,” he stated with assurance.

“That’s debatable at the moment,” she answered with a wry smile.

He grinned showing even white teeth. Blue saw a hint of the handsome man he had been in his youth. She knew, thanks to Dro, that some races lived longer than others and wondered how old he was.

“I am two hundred and eighty two years old,” he said.

“Are you reading my mind?”

“No. It is the first thing anyone wonders when they meet me,” he said and started laughing. “That’s not too old for some race’s but for mine it is ancient.”

Blue was thoroughly enchanted with this old man. The emotions coming from him were gentled by time. He was at the end of his relatively short life compared to some and he accepted it with grace. He wanted to spend the time he had left tinkering with his gadgets and being left alone.

When Blue left the shop thirty minutes later she had the humming rock with her. The old man had insisted she take it with her as a gift. He had also gained her promise to come back before she left the station. She made her way back to the bar and Jayden.

She may have over reacted just a bit. He was still wrong but maybe she shouldn’t have dumped whatever was in that glass over his head. The look on his face had been priceless though. Her steps slowed as she tried to figure out why she had reacted the way she did. She did not even know Sutcliffe.

There was the fact that when she and Riley were living on the streets a hooker had made sure that they had food every day, until she had gotten beaten up one too many times and died from her injuries. She had been young, not much older than they had been. Hers was the same story as hundreds of others. A runaway who got caught up in drugs and booze. She was always trying to get them to go home before it was too late. She never understood that there was no home for them to go to.

So maybe the memory of that plus the fact that she and Jayden had been together almost constantly for two weeks had her nerves a little frayed. She was a solitary person and she missed walking on her beach with the sound of the waves crashing on the rocks. But the truth was the closer they got to Shillidon the more unsettled she became.

Jayden’s remark about what was expected of a princess had just driven home how much she wasn’t a princess and didn’t want to be. Oh, she wasn’t stupid enough to believe that there wouldn’t be celebrations and a big deal made of her return from the grave. All of those people would be looking to get something from her. She could and would handle that.

She didn’t know if she could handle having a mother and father. What would they want from her? How would they expect her to act? Those thoughts and more had gone through her mind time after time and she still had no answers and would not until she reached her home world.

Home world, such a complicated concept for her. Would she feel a connection to the place she had spent her early years or would it be just another world she didn’t fit into?

In the midst of her musings she saw a tall dark haired man duck furtively into a darkened shop. Something about the way he moved grabbed her attention. She stopped and flattened herself against the wall. She crept closer until she was just to the side of the door. She heard murmurs but could not make out the words spoken by the two men inside.

This would be so easy if she could just go to her astral form. Then she could be in the room with them and they wouldn’t even know it, but she didn’t dare leave her body unattended here without protection.

Time to switch tactics she thought as she backed up. She put a vacant smile on her face and a sway in her steps. Pretending to be drunk, she hoped aliens reacted the same way as humans did when they had too much to drink. She stumbled her way into the shop. Feigning surprise she opened her eyes wide. “Whoops,” she giggled. “I didn’t see you,” she said right before she plowed into them.

Riley was so much better at this kind of stuff than she was. “I think I am lost,” Blue said adding another giggle as she leaned into the tall guy. He pushed her away with a look of distaste.

“Go away. We are closed,” he said. The emotions coming from him didn’t help her at all. He was feeling disgust and sense of urgency to leave. The brief glimpse of his thoughts she had gotten were the same. He wanted to get away from his companion. The disgust he felt was for the other man not her.

She tried an indignant look, “Well excuse me. You don’t have to be so rude.” She turned to the other guy who had not said a word since she stumbled in.

She kept the shock off her face by sheer force of will. He looked enough like Idris to be his brother. The only differences she could see was the color of his hair and his eyes were a watered down version of Idris’s bright blue color. This guy looked soft where Idris wasn’t. She recognized the type. Pampered and privileged, he probably had never done a day’s work in his life. Soft was not an adjective anyone would ever apply to her brother. The resemblance was so close though that there was no way this man wasn’t related to him, them, whatever.

Unlike the man next to him he was feeling a malicious glee mixed with satisfaction. It rolled off him in nauseating waves. He took a good look at her and lust filled his eyes and thoughts. It never entered his tiny little mind that she wouldn’t go to bed with him.

Blue fought the urge to show him just how wrong he was with a knee to the groin hard enough to put his balls in his throat. That was still the most effective way she knew to put most men down fast. Especially one like him.

He gave her what she was sure he thought was a charming, sexy smile before saying, “Let me help you find your destination.” He took her hand in his and told the other man, “I want that little matter taken care of within the next twenty turns. It is time I took my rightful place.”

“It will be done. You had better make sure that you can hold up your end of the bargain,” the dark man replied menacingly.

“You will have them as soon as the job is done,” the Idris look alike said before turning back to Blue.

They must think that she was stupid. Either that or she was really good at playing the drunk, clueless girl.

“Now what did you say you were looking for,” he asked her.

Blue let him lead her from the shop and down the corridor. She made sure to stumble every few steps to keep up the pretense and to keep him touching her.

His thoughts gave her no clues about what he was up to. They were all about getting her back to his ship for some wild sex. He was hyped up on adrenaline from the deal he had concluded. She was the perfect woman to help him work it off, or so he thought. She wished he would think about the stupid deal instead of the things he wanted to do to her.

When they had gone far enough from the shop Blue stopped abruptly. Slapping her free hand to her forehead she exclaimed, “I was looking for Pasha Daeco. He is expecting me to deliver a message.” She took the gamble that he would know the name and reputation of the man and not want to get on his bad side for detaining her.

“Of course, his office is on the next level up. I shall escort you,” he said eagerly.

Blue plastered a worried look on her face, “I don’t know. He might get a bit upset if he sees you.” She giggled again for effect. She really wished she could beat him up on principle, he was so sleazy. In a sultry whisper she said, “How about I meet you after I deliver the message to Pasha?” At least she hoped it sounded sultry. She had never actually tried to sound sultry before so she wasn’t sure she pulled it off. She named a restaurant she passed earlier that they could meet at.

He was irritated at the lost opportunity to meet Pasha and at the thought of having to buy her dinner before he got her back to his ship. He countered with, “Why don’t you meet me at docking bay sixteen and we can have a nice dinner on my ship.”

Blue pretended to think about it for a minute,“Sure, I’ll see you in few.” She turned and staggered off in the direction of the lifts.

Halfway there she turned to see him stride off in the opposite direction with a jaunty spring in his steps. He was feeling very satisfied with himself. The thought that when she didn’t meet him as planned would wipe a little of that satisfaction from him was satisfying for her. She dropped the drunken act and bypassing the lifts went to join Jayden. She was feeling like she needed a shower to wash the slime off.

Chrystal Bones Billie Jo Hanlin

Chapter 26

Jayden was sitting at the table with a petite woman. She was talking animatedly with her hands waving all over the place. Blue approached them and slid into the seat next to Jayden. He made the introductions. So….. this was the Zaheer, Krakin had mentioned in his message.

The woman looked like a Fae. Blue recognized the pointed ears and chin from pictures she had seen on Earth. Her skin was luminous with a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Her hair was pure white and tipped with silver. It flowed over her shoulders and down her back in a thick intricate braid. Her eyes were the first eyes that Blue could say looked truly alien to her.