Born of Ice

But still . . .

Alix lifted her chin with a pride she really didn’t feel right now. “The Starfire. It was a freighter owned by my father, who died two weeks ago. He was a pathetic alcoholic who seldom did his paperwork. We lived off-grid because he was a League conspiracist who woke up one day from a four-day bender with a tattoo on his arm that looked like a bar code of some sort. He swore it’d been put there by a League soldier and that they were getting ready to round all of us up and enslave us. I personally think our gunner did it to screw with him, but my father didn’t listen. What else would you like to know?”

She wouldn’t have thought it possible, but Claria managed to look even more haughty. “Where did you go to school?”

“I didn’t. Again, my father didn’t believe in leaving a trail to locate us by and he didn’t believe in educating women.” Actually, that wasn’t true. He didn’t believe in educating property, but to him women were property, so . . .

“Then how do you know how to read?”

Devyn took a step forward. “Claire—”

“It’s all right.” Alix refused to blink as she met the senator’s penetrating glare that she was sure the woman used to intimidate people a lot more important than her. “I taught myself because I got tired of being called stupid. I used the voice search online to find the texts I needed and I went through them until I could speak and read in six languages, including Universal. I don’t have any degrees and I don’t have any formal training. I don’t have any savings or money. Nothing but a sack full of worn-out clothes to call my own.” She swallowed. “And it’s obvious you don’t think I’m good enough to be on this ship with your husband. I get it and it’s okay. My father never thought I was good enough to be on his ship, either.”

With those words spoken, she stepped past Claria and headed to her room so that the woman couldn’t see just how hurt she really was.



Devyn glared at Claria. “That was cruel.”

Claria refused to back down or apologize. “You don’t know anything about her.”

“And I told you I’d find out. You didn’t have to humiliate her like that.”

She looked at Zarina. “Would you help me out here?”

Zarina held her hands up in surrender. “No offense, but I’m on his side in this. I’ve just spent the afternoon with the woman and I really like her. She’s very sweet and unassuming.”

Claria curled her lip at them. “You’re both fools, and I’m not about to leave my kitty with you.”

Devyn sucked his breath in sharply at the term “kitty”—a derogatory Hyshian term for property. Had she even realized what a slip that was?

By Sway’s demeanor, it was obvious he’d caught it.

Claria snapped her head toward her husband and in a tone that was a serious mistake said, “Collect your things. I’m taking you home with me.”

Sway froze. “I’m not going.”

She closed the distance between them and whispered in his ear, but her fury was so great that Devyn easily heard her words.

“You will do as you are told and you will not argue with me. Now move!”

Devyn motioned for Zarina to follow him so that they could give Sway and Claire privacy. He knew his friend well enough to guess there was about to be one hell of a battle over this, and it would go worse on Sway if there were witnesses to it. Sway might fight to the death to defend his wife, but not even she could order him around like that.

Sway hated orders as much as he did. Probably more so, given the way Sway had been raised. It was why he didn’t stay with Claria’s family—something customary for husbands who had no children. May the gods help her female relatives if they thought they could get away with what she was trying.

On their planet, Sway would be beaten hourly for his insubordination.

As soon as they’d closed the blast door and were moving down the hallway, Zarina arched a brow. “What hostile parasite is tunneling through her sphincter?”

“No idea, but that wasn’t a wise use of her authority. Sway hates to be questioned even more than she does.”

“Should we have left them alone?”

“Definitely. He won’t hurt her and he might be able to defuse her temper if her authority over him isn’t being questioned before witnesses.”

Zarina shook her head. “I can’t imagine being owned by someone. It has to be horrible.”

“I can tell you from my League stint, it sucks. I hated being under someone else’s control.”

She passed a puzzled glance at him. “I still don’t know why you did that.”

He sighed as he remembered the stupidity of his youth. “I didn’t want to be locked inside a hospital, under the control of admins and bureaucratic bullshit. Your brothers joined and seemed happy with it, so I thought I’d give it a try.”

She scoffed at him. “My brothers were and are assassins, Dev. Big difference.”