Tail Dark and Handsome: Celestial Mates (Tail and Claw Book 3) Page 8

  Winter paused. He flexed his fingers, and his claws retracted marginally, not much but enough for him to regain control of himself.

  “It is not that,” he said.

  “I know you’re protective and stuff, but you can’t erase Mama’s memory. I like it when people talk about her. They miss her. I miss her.” The naked longing in Zero’s voice pierced through his fury, bursting it like a bubble.

  His kit was in pain.

  Would that he could erase every memory of Rebel and the pain she caused…

  “As you say,” he said with a sigh. “There is nothing wrong with missing your mother.”

  The transport vehicle pulled up to the curb. Winter felt reluctant to return to their ship. What had been their home for years now felt confining.

  “There is no point in continuing my work with faulty equipment,” he said. “Tomorrow, we should take the day off and have an adventure.” What adventure, exactly, he could not say, but something enjoyable.

  Zero perked, ears up. “Yes! I know exactly what I want to do. Can I bring a friend?”

  Winter suspected the identity of the friend, but acquiesced. If he argued, Zero would wear him down. His kit was skilled at manipulation, which he learned from his mother.

  Chapter 5

  Rebel Cayne delivers an underwhelming performance at a fundraiser for displaced Talmar refugees.

  -Tal Tattler

  Marigold

  A figure stood between her and the sun, casting a shadow over her. A sea breeze fluttered the brim of her hat, and the sand radiated with a comfortable warmth. The ocean created the perfect soundtrack to her lounging.

  “I like you.” Zero slung himself into the lounge chair next to Mari, limbs sprawling everywhere in that sullen, boneless way that only teenagers managed.

  “Okay? I like you, too.”

  “Which is why I need your help.”

  She set down her tablet and removed her sunglasses to get a better look at the kit. Reading in the sunshine was not going to happen.

  Two quiet days had passed since dinner with Zero and his thoroughly unpleasant father. She had done a network search on the singer Rebel and her reclusive mate, Winter Cayne.

  Researching publicly available information was not stalking, and it wasn’t weird.

  Stop judging her.

  With all the attention Winter’s antics generated, everyone seemed to be in the know except Mari, so she educated herself. Apparently, Rebel was a one-hit-wonder pop star just as the Talmar civil war heated up. Critics called her the voice of a generation and an advocate for the refugees who fled the violence on Talmar. According to the dates, Rebel was scarcely older than a child herself when she was the media’s darling. Her rockstar behavior of partying and making a spectacle of herself only seemed to charm.

  Her quick rise to fame was followed by a string of disappointments. Her sophomore release was universally panned by the critics, and sales tanked. Rebel, the voice of her lost generation, vanished. Her antics no longer charmed.

  Gallons of digital ink had been spilled about Rebel and her mate, Winter. Rumors swirled about infidelity, jealousy and public arguments. Mari found photo after photo of Rebel, always smiling and gorgeous for the camera. Sometimes, she was on the arm of the scowling man she met. Usually, it was a different man.

  Then Rebel vanished. There had been an accident, and it took six months to recover her body. Speculation swirled, as it did. Gossip claimed that Winter faked the accident before dumping her body, or that the body hadn’t been Rebel at all. The occasional sighting made the news once in a while, but quickly died down.

  Mari had a hard time believing that the protective man she met was the same man as the one in the media. Winter hadn’t been nice, per se, but a murderer? He was an overprotective dad and kind enough to help a lost tourist in a storm.

  And yet…

  She kept going back to a photo of Rebel and Winter at some charity event. Rebel turned away from the camera, speaking to the man behind her, and Winter glared daggers at the back of her head. His hand clenched her elbow, but he angled his body away from her. Everything about his posture and their mutual body language screamed at unhappiness.

  Mari wanted to know more. Not in a celebrity gossipy way that feasted on trash and bad behavior. She wanted to know more about him, about how he found himself propping up a falling down drunk woman and what made him stay.

  Her curiosity didn’t matter as she assumed her path would never cross with Winter Cayne again.

  Valerian, meanwhile, had declared him to be the nastiest man she ever had the pleasure to have met and moved on. Her current passion included swimming with the native sea mammals, claiming it to be the most intense spiritual experience she ever had, and went swimming daily. Her spiritual experience had nothing to do with the handsome gray-haired instructor and his swim trunks.

  Sure.

  Mari let her mother keep up her harmless little pretense if it bought her quiet mornings in the sun with a good book and staff that brought her cold drinks. Speaking of, she fiddled with the straw on her slushy, fruity drink.

  Heaven.

  Zero shifted from foot to foot, impatient. The sea breeze ruffled his already messy hair.

  “What kind of help?” she asked cautiously.

  “You’re a pilot. I want to hire you.”

  Mari waited two heartbeats to respond. Yes, she decided she needed a change and opened herself to whatever the universe sent her way, but she still held the power to veto the universe’s bad idea. Working for Winter Cayne? Such a bad idea.

  “Sorry, kid. I already have a job,” she said.

  “But this is a better job,” he said.

  She highly doubted that. “Flying you and your—” She stopped herself from interjecting a whole slew of unflattering adjectives. “You and your father around? No, thank you.”

  “Back home, to Corra, but we’re staying to see a meteor shower.”

  “Sounds like a one-way trip. I don’t do short-term.” She might not be able to get a commitment out of a romantic partner, but she sure as heck would get job stability.

  “Oh, no. It’s more than that. Dad doesn’t drive or fly. Ever. He’ll still need you when we get home.”

  “As a chauffeur?” She was a star pilot, not a rich man’s private driver.

  “But you said you liked me and we need a pilot.” His ears pulled down in an expression of pure droopiness and tragedy. In the sun, his icy blue eyes went wide and practically gleamed. He clutched the end of his tail.

  Wow. Manipulative much?

  “This,” Mari said, wiggling a finger at Zero, “is good and it might have worked, but I have a little brother. I’m immune to the sad eye thing you’ve got going on.”

  He sighed, the air of tragedy vanishing in an instant. “I want you to be our pilot because my father drives everyone away. You’re the only one who stands up to him. You’re perfect.”

  Those words tickled something in the back of her mind. The kid had said those words before. “Look, I’m not sure what you think is going to happen. Your father said some harsh things to me. I don’t want to work in an environment with a boss like that.” Even if she let Zero drag her back to his ship like a stray animal, Winter would never hire her.

  “But—”

  “Zero, enough. Don’t be like this. Accept rejection.”

  His tail twitched as he shifted from foot to foot again. In that instant, Mari believed that he felt out of his element and nervous. He paused, ears moving forward and back. “I need to learn how to make friends. My father is not the easiest male to get along with, and there’s only so much I can learn from books. We’ve moved around a lot, so I’ve never really had an opportunity to practice. But we’re going back home to Corra, and I need to know how to talk to people without being weird. This is the third time I’ve tried this. Please say yes. Please say you’ll help me be not weird.”

  The raw emotion in his voice moved something in her. She knew what it was to always be the new kid, never able to make a connection. Her desperate need for roots never left. She felt it still. This is what the universe was giving her.

  Oh no.

  The entire situation was absurd, but her sucker of a heart moved in sympathy for him.

  “If your father is so awful, what makes you think I’ll last longer than any of the others?”

  He tilted his head to one side. “I don’t know. I just have a feeling.”

  Great. A feeling.

  “What’s so difficult about your father?” She had a fair idea, his tetchy attitude and prickly disposition being first among them. If Zero confessed that his father shoved the previous pilot out the airlock, she wouldn’t be surprised.

  “He needs a friend.”

  “A friend or a friend? Because that’s well outside the job description of a pilot.”

  The kid grinned, awkwardness draining away, and Mari realized that her quip was a little too racy to say in front of a dang kid about his father. Shit. How old was Zero?

  “My father—”

  Bursts of laughter bubbled up over the noise of the surf. Mari caught sight of a group of teens at a nearby patio, sitting on the tabletops rather than the chair, sharing baskets of food, and laughing. Typical kid stuff.

  She turned back, catching the unguarded look of longing on Zero’s face, and melted. Her mother moved them around constantly when she was his age, and Valerian had a reputation for being difficult. By the time she got over her shyness, it was time to move again. If it weren’t for Joseph, she’d have no friends at all, and she suspected that her brother didn’t count as a best friend.

  “I didn’t mean, you know, that,” he said.

  “That is the first thing you said that wasn’t weird,” she replied without thin
king. A smile—a real smile—spread across his face, and his wintry blue eyes thawed.

  “My father is overprotective. I need you to…be his friend. Distract him so I can be an average kit. He’s not a bad male. He’s lonely, I think, and that makes him moody.”

  Moody, antisocial, and overprotective. Delightful.

  Zero’s gaze drifted back to the gaggle of teens. He claimed his father was lonely, but she suspected that description included him too.

  “So, home is on Corra?” It wasn’t the worst planet, even if it was on the ass-end of nowhere.

  He nodded, hair flopping on his forehead. “For the school year.”

  “Look, you seem like a great kid, but I don’t think—”

  “But you’re perfect!”

  “I’m really not.”

  “Is it money? I have lots. Do you need more?” He looked so damn earnest.

  This kid made her heart hurt.

  The whole situation was weird. She said she wanted a fresh start, right? The universe answered and gave her this awkward kid who wanted a friend and didn’t know enough to realize he couldn’t buy them.

  Scheming universe.

  Foolish heart.

  Embrace the weird, she whispered in her mind, and said, “If we’re going to do this—”

  Zero gave a whoop of delight, and she waved a hand to get him to turn down the volume.

  “The first lesson is the people you can pay to be your friends aren’t friends worth having.”

  “Oh.” His ears went flat. It was the saddest thing she ever saw. “And my father? He’s not so bad once you get to know him.”

  She snorted.

  “We’re going sailing this afternoon. You should come! Then you’ll see that he can be nice.”

  “I highly doubt that.” Winter didn’t do nice. She suspected that nice was incompatible with his soul.

  “I dare you.”

  She wasn’t a child, but damn if she didn’t like the challenge in his jaunty tone. “Wanna bet? He’ll lose his cool in the first twenty minutes.” She knew Winter’s type, hypersensitive and ready to go off with the slightest provocation. She never backed down from some cocky pilots swinging their dicks around, trying to make her feel lesser because she flew day trips instead of long hauls, and she wasn’t about to start with Winter Cayne.

  “Deal! You’re going to have the best date with my dad. Come on.” He took off down the beach, walking fast enough to be a run.

  Wait a minute…

  “It’s not a date!” she shouted after him, positive he suckered her into a date. “I’ve never been sailing!”

  Winter

  “What was that last night?” the comm unit whispered the message in Winter’s ear. The computer continued to read, “Who is that female? Do not cause trouble and upset our investors. We can’t afford to drive them away.”

  Winter ignored the rest of the message. More of the same from his cousin.

  Be more acceptable in public. Why can’t you smile for the cameras? Not like that. Don’t cause trouble.

  It was exactly like all the messages he received from his father. The only difference was that now Winter didn’t care what his cousin, the stockholders, or the investors thought of him.

  The sailboat rocked gently. The day turned out to be bright and the air pleasingly crisp. Three layers of protective gear shielded his eyes from the aggressive sunlight, but he found the effort worth the bother of layering lenses, tinted glasses, and wearing a wide-brimmed hat.

  “Dad! Look who I found.” Zero approached the dock, the human female in tow, his chest puffed out as if pleased with himself.

  Zero’s fascination with the female worried Winter. Somehow his kit had imprinted on the female. This was as bad as when Zero dragged home a wuap and begged to keep the hissing, feral creature.

  Marigold frowned at Winter, arms crossed over her chest. “What?”

  He believed the human to be marginally better behaved. Marginally.

  “When you said you had to get something, I assumed you meant a snack, not a person,” Winter said. He should have allowed Zero to keep the wuap. Perhaps then he would have purged himself of the need to be a caregiver to a wild creature.

  “A guest,” Zero clarified.

  “As you say. Help your guest aboard and give her the proper safety equipment,” he said.

  Zero marched up the ramp, ears pert and tail swaying in a manner that suggested he was entirely too pleased with himself.

  Was this not a desire to have a pet? Was this an infatuation? His kit was too young for such emotions. Winter tried to remember when he was a youth of fourteen. He had been friends with Rebel for years, but he did not regard her the way a male regarded his mate. But he had noticed females and wanted their attention.

  It was too difficult for Winter to reconcile his own wants and feelings at that age with his innocent and sweet mental image of Zero.

  No. Not possible.

  His meddlesome kit was up to no good.

  The female stepped onto the gangway. A swell rocked the boat. She swayed dramatically and hopped back onto the dock.

  “Take your time,” he said, adjusting the brim of his hat. “We’re not wasting daylight.”

  She lifted her stubborn chin and traversed the short distance from the dock into the boat, clutching the rope railing the entire way. Once inside the boat, she immediately flopped down onto a seat and grabbed onto a handhold.

  Zero arrived with a life preserver and helped her fasten it in place. Once secure, she returned to her post of clutching the handhold as though her continued existence depended on it. She stared out at the water, her complexion turning green.

  “First time?” he asked.

  “I’ve been on a ship before,” she replied. Then, quieter, “Just not one on water. Look, I can tell Zero sprung this on you and you’re not thrilled. I can leave.”

  Winter wanted very much to ask her to leave. She had already crashed into their lives during the storm. Somehow, she charmed his kit, and now the human female seemed impossible to remove. Sailing had been the excuse to spend the day with Zero, only the two of them on the water. Soon, Zero would be at school and Winter would have to compete with books, schoolwork, and adolescents for Zero’s attention.

  “Dad doesn’t mind. Do you?” Zero turned his gaze to Winter, ears pitched forward.

  It was only one day.

  “As you say,” Winter said.

  Marigold gave him a look that baffled him. Her eyes squinted as her head tilted to one side. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Zero seems determined to bring you along.”

  The corner of her mouth quirked up in a smile. His tail swayed, and he found himself mirroring the motion.

  “You know, he offered me the pilot job,” she said.

  His entire body stilled. What promises had his kit been making? “He cannot.”

  “But you do need a pilot?”

  “A pilot with qualifications,” he clarified.

  Her cheeks puffed out and her hands moved in a fluttery gesture he had no lexicon to interpret. “Oh, of course, I’m qualified. I wandered through the wilderness for three days with nothing but a handful of psychoactive berries and a spoon. Anyway, long story short, I totally awoke my inner knowledge of how to operate complex interstellar flight-capable vessels.” She huffed, almost a laugh. “Or I went to school, passed my exams, and am now an Interstellar Union-approved pilot with certificates and a real license.”

  She held out her hand and raised an eyebrow in an impatient expression. She gave her hand a wiggle. Did she expect him to do something?

  Cautiously, he reached out and grasped her fingertips. He pumped her hand up and down in the greeting ritual he had seen humans perform in a film, once.

  This time her laughter was loud, almost brash. Her eyes sparkled in the sunlight, and he wondered what color she would ascribe them.

  “I meant to scan my ID chip. You’ll see I’m a fully qualified pilot,” she said.

  “Unnecessary. I do not require my kit’s assistance in hiring a pilot.”

  “Good, because I’m not interested, I just thought you should know he’s actively recruiting.” She huffed again, this time sounding tired. “How do you get under my skin like that? I never get snippy. I apologize. You’ve been nothing but kind to me, and I’m throwing this attitude around. I’ve never been sailing, and I’d be delighted if you’ll still have me.”