Chapter Text
“Okay, but we could just move the table,” Vi pointed out, gesturing at the very easily moved kitchen table. “Just pull out the chairs and—”
“They feel safer under there,” Yale argued.
Vi didn’t give a flying fuck if the stowaway brats felt safe under the table. The stowaway brats were not safe, and Violet needed them off her ship. There were enough resources on board for exactly two people: her and Yale.
Now we’re going to have to drop them off in Whistle. She hated that port, but it was the only one within a two-week’s trip. Vi’s ship was a deep-space freighter, emphasis on deep-space. She and Yale were just lucky they’d found the kids before they got too far back to turn around.
“Vi, don’t look like that,” Yale scolded, and that was the last straw.
“Don’t tell me what to do!” she snapped. “This is my ship, my provisions! We’re dropping them off with the port authorities the second we get to Whistle. You hear that?!”
Vi kicked a chair to punctuate the point—Yale’s chair, because he deserved it for trying to guilt trip her when she was the only one being reasonable.
Under the table, one of the pups yelped and another keened. The terrified omega call grated in her ears, pulling on her instincts to protect, which wasn’t fucking fair. This was her ship, they weren’t entitled to act like she was the problem in her own home!
“Vi—”
“No!” Vi slammed her fist on the table. “You brats get out here right now or I will flip this table and drag you out myself!”
There was silence in the room, broken by a muffled sob from under the table. Yale just stared at her in horrified silence like he couldn’t believe her.
Shame and rage boiled in her chest. Yale didn’t have the right to look at her like that when she was the one protecting them from starvation. If they’d gotten out further than they had, they would’ve run out of provisions before they reached port.
Vi worked like a dog to keep her ship running while other captains lounged about like passengers. Yale didn’t know what it was like to starve. He’d never worked all day in the furnaces for a sliver of hard tack, he’d never eaten lint just to have something in his belly, he’d never seen a fight to the death over half rations.
Yale didn’t have a fucking clue how terrifying space was when the pantry was empty because Vi was a damn good captain. Because she fucking cared.
Vi pulled Yale’s chair from the table, clearing the way for the stowaways. They had till the count of three before she—
A small hand, trembling, reached out and braced itself against the metal floor. A moment later, the rest of the kid emerged.
Or, well. Most of him.
He was a pretty boy. Perfect ebony curls framed his sculpted features. His clothes, scant as they were, were made of fine silver-colored silk that matched his piercing gray eyes and the beautifully etched mechanical left arm.
The boy raised himself to his full height—Vi wasn’t big, but he was half a head smaller—and tilted his head back, submitting so perfectly that Vi wanted to punch something. She knew fake when she saw it, and that submission was an act.
“Vi, calm down!” Yale hissed.
She growled a warning, not breaking eye contact with the boy. His averted his eyes, another layer of a ruse she wasn’t falling for.
If she accepted a fake submission, he won, and Vi wasn’t going to lose in her own fucking ship. Yale didn’t get it, he was a beta, but the omega knew it as well as she did.
Vi stalked forward, growling louder, nastier. The boy whined, but even that wasn’t real! What was with this fucking kid? And why couldn’t she fucking smell him?
Vi grabbed the kid’s collar and yanked him forward, ignoring a protestation from Yale and a gasp from the kid. Finally, she could smell the kid’s scent. He was freakishly good at stifling it, but she finally caught the childlike notes of milk and honey in his scent, the more mature vanilla scent, and the sharp stench of fear.
Good.
He should know that she wasn’t someone to be messed with, and when she dropped him off in Whistle, he could tell everyone else in the criminal underbelly of that damn port that Vi wasn’t a pushover.
Her metal right hand might not be pretty like his, but it was cold and sturdy and just a bit bloodstained from her last fight in Tern. Vi jabbed the kid in the ribs with a cast iron finger.
“Cut that out,” she growled.
The pup yelped and tried to pull away from her, finally breaking the stupid play-pretend of being a good little omega.
“Vi, stop it!” Yale snapped, marching over and grabbing her metal hand before she could do anything more.
Vi growled, but she didn’t snatch her hand away like she could have. She couldn’t imagine why Yale was so attached to these runaways, but she couldn’t risk him abandoning ship in Whistle. She wasn’t going to lose any more pack.
“Submit,” she snarled in the omega’s face.
This time, the boy threw back his head and keened for real, a submission her alpha instincts purred at and told her was real.
Vi released his shirt, and the omega crumpled at her feet.
“Meri!” screeched a young voice.
A pink blur rushed from under the table and practically tackled the omega at Vi’s feet. The second omega kid, a Leshian girl with rose pink skin and kaleidoscope eyes, stared up at Vi in terror.
The Leshian girl snapped her teeth at Vi.
Vi snarled back, fighting the instinct to lash out. If the kid had been a few years older, she would’ve kicked her in the teeth for that. Vi had been kicked in the teeth for that more than once.
“Lana, no!” the first boy—Meri, apparently—tried to push the girl back under the table, but that wasn’t fucking happening.
Vi reached down with her right hand and grabbed the girl by the back of the neck. Lana snapped her teeth again, but the kid wasn’t stupid enough to risk her pearly whites on iron.
Vi squeezed the back of Lana’s neck till the pup shuddered and went limp, falling on Meri leg with a soft groan. Meri stared at the girl’s still form, leaving himself wide open to be scruffed too.
Once both the kids were limp on the ground, Vi stepped back and glanced over her shoulder at Yale. He looked pissed.
“What? I didn’t hurt them.” Vi threw her hands in the air. What could he even blame her for at this point?
Yale scowled. “That was mean, Vi. They’re kids.”
“They’re fine,” she argued. “It only lasts a couple minutes, now help me move them to the brig.”
“What brig?”
“My room, then! They’ll be out of the way till we get to Whistle, then we’ll drop them off—”
“Vi!” Yale cried.
“What?”
“Look at their clothes, Vi!” Yale pointed accusingly at the pile of kids at her feet. “Tell me why you think they ran! Please, tell me your plan isn’t abandoning a bunch of unclaimed omega pups in the most dangerous harbor in this quadrant!”
Vi bit her tongue before she could snap something she didn’t mean. She would’ve figured out something in the days it would take to reach Whistle. She wasn’t a monster, but it wasn’t her job to care about other people, it was her job to care about Yale.
“Just help me put them in my roomm,” Vi grumbled. “We’ll figure the rest out tomorrow.”
Even a beta knew better than to risk crossing his pack alpha when she took that tone, but Yale looked sorely tempted.
“Yes, Captain,” he said curtly.
Not Vi, not even Vincenza. Yale must be furious with her.
Yale crouched, but instead of reaching for one of the two pups in front of Vi, he looked back under the table and extended a hand.
“Come here, puppy,” Yale said. He sounded tired. “No one’s going to hurt you.”
He didn’t shoot Vi a pointed look, but his tone made it clear that he didn’t believe she really hadn’t hurt the pups.
Vi scowled and glanced under the table. Sure enough, there was one last kid, littler than the other two. The older boy was probably fifteen or sixteen, the girl a little younger. The little boy with midnight blue skin and pointed ears was probably around nine or ten.
Even Vi felt a twist of pity. He was pretty damn young for brothel work.
The pup shook his head and keened, a desperate call for his pack. Meri twitched and groaned, trying to answer.
Nah, she wasn’t waiting any more. Once the first scruff wore off, it would hurt if she did it again.
Vi tossed Meri over her shoulder and marched out of the room, leaving the younger two kids for Yale. Her room wasn’t far—nothing was, not in The Ivory Rain. When Yale was in a good mood, he’d joke that it was narrow and cramped because she ran a tight ship, and when Vi was in a good mood, she’d laugh at the dumb joke.
Vi’s room was the only one with a lock. The ship hadn’t come with locks on the doors, and Yale hadn’t cared to install one on his own door.
Vi had cared.
She’d left her door open in her rush to get to Yale when she’d heard his cry of alarm in the kitchen just minutes before. This is what I get for saving him.
She’d be sleeping in the bridge tonight. When they had guests, either she or Yale would give up their room and they’d bunk together, but they were both too pissed for that tonight.
Vi dumped Meri on the bed and started tossing everything sentimental or even mildly dangerous into the bag she wore when they roamed the ports. Meri whimpered, but Vi ignored him. She wasn’t his pack.
By the time she had her things, Meri was stirring on the bed and Yale entered the room with the Leshian girl cradled like some helpless baby in his arms. The little boy clung to the hem of Yale’s coat and stared fearfully at Vi.
“Lock the door behind you. I don’t want to find them messing shit up again.”
“Vi—”
“Yale.” Vi glared at him. “We have limited supplies and dangerous cargo. Lock them up for their sake if not for our own.”
Yale set his jaw, but Vi just rolled her eyes and brushed past him, throwing “I’ll be in the brig if you need me,” over her shoulder.
Wrapped in every spare blanket in the ship, Vi glared out at the stars. The sky had quite a lot of nerve being this beautiful when Vi was so mad.
Everything would be okay tomorrow. Sure, it was a shitstorm now, but she and Yale had had rough patches before. No one could be totally okay with someone else all the time, especially not in tight quarters.
There had to be a shelter or something for packless omegas in Whistle. Once the stowaways were safe enough to satisfy Yale, Vi and her pack—literally only Yale, but he was her pack—could leave. The omega kids would be out of sight, out of mind.
And everything would be better.
It had to be.