Edward (BBW Western Bear Shifter Romance) (Rodeo Bears Book 1) (28 page)

“I’m sorry,” Hyde said, “did you just say we’re sending Delphine out of the ship? Without the collar?”

“She knows what to look out for, Custer isn’t one of her main targets, she’s pretty sure we’re all going to get killed by her coworkers anyways, and she deserves it after the week she’s had,” Ingram said in the tone of a man who’d been on the receiving end of those very arguments. “That okay with you?”

Hyde snorted. “Whatever. Just don’t come crying to me when Custer gets his ass killed.”

“Noted,” Ingram said. “Any other complaints?”

“Here’s hoping I don’t regret this horribly,” Ingram said, rubbing a hand over his face. “Just know, if we end up swarmed by security, mercenaries, or angry small business owners, I will shoot both of you.”

“Duly noted,” Custer, giving a half-hearted salute. He turned to Delphine. “You ready to go?”

“Of course,” she answered.

“Great. Remember: everyone needs to be back to the ship in two hours. If, for whatever reason, you can’t make it in time comm one of us. Now, get out.” The captain turned and started talking to Annie in a low voice. She flipped her hair back and smirked at him. Delphine doubted they’d get much research done.

“So I was thinking,” Custer said, drawing her attention back to him, “that we could hit the square. There’s usually an outdoor market on weekdays, and the stalls have some interesting stuff. After that, there’s a pretty decent bar around here. I doubt you’ve ever gone bar crawling during a mission, which is practically a crime. Plus, information.”

“That sounds…” Delphine paused searching for a word to capture the warm, fluttery feeling in her stomach. She couldn’t find one that could properly convey it. “…fun.”

Custer smiled, the same manic grin as always but with a soft light in his eyes. “Off we go, then.”

And off they went. The crowd at the market stalls appeared to be thinning out and a few stalls had started to pack. Delphine wandered around the stalls, eyes roving over carvings, hand-made jewelry, and other pretty baubles that held no use. Custer, content to let her take the lead, trailed behind her.

There was a stall that sold knives. Delphine found herself disappointed in the wares; the few that weren’t purely ornamental were poorly made and dull. She passed over the stall, nodding at the owner, and found herself looking at a stall that sold metal jewelry. The pieces were beautiful, the few that were left. Delphine was ready to move on to the next booth when one of the bracelets caught her eye.

She couldn’t say why, exactly. It was a fairly simple gold number, broad, with a geometric pattern carved into it. The glittering bracelet was really more charming than beautiful, and certainly not useful at all. There was no reason to want it, and yet she couldn’t take her eyes off of it.

“Would you like to buy it, miss?” the vendor asked in heavily accented Standard.

Delphine forced herself to smile. “No thank you.”

“Are you sure?” The woman cocked her head, purple eyes unblinking. “I can give you a good bargain on it.”

Delphine was about to refuse her again when Custer cut her off.

“What kind of deal are we talking about here?” he asked with a smirk.

The wrinkled old woman put a hand over her heart and fluttered her eyelashes at him. “For you, handsome, eight chits.”

“Can you take credits?” he asked over Delphine trying to make eye contact with him in the hopes of communicating something along the lines of
‘please stop.’

The woman nodded and Custer handed over his card.

“What are you doing?” Delphine hissed. “I don’t need that!”

“But you wanted it,” Custer said amiably as the woman handed the card back and began to wrap the bracelet. “Oh, that won’t be necessary.”

“As you wish,” she said, handing the bracelet over.

Custer took it in one hand and held the other out towards Delphine.
 

“Your arm, please,” he said.

Hesitantly, she reached out to him. Gently, he took her arm and slid the gold band over it, her skin strangely warm under the cool metal. It complemented her dark skin, catching the low, artificial lights of the marketplace. Delphine stared. Suddenly, her arm was something beautiful.

Custer thanked the vendor and tugged her along.

“So, I say we hit the bar. We still have a little over an hour, which means we have just enough time to stop in, get you a drink, and scrounge for whatever information these people might have.”

“I defer to your expertise,” Delphine responded. “Custer…”

“Yes?” Custer asked, sounding far too amused.

“Why did you do that? You just wasted credits on me.”

Custer snorted. “I did no such thing.”

“Then what do you call it? This doesn’t have any use. You can’t fight with it, or eat. It’s just pretty.”

“It makes you happy, though. That’s not nothing.”

“Yes, it is,” she said, frustrated. “Happiness isn’t a sustaining force. It’s just as useless as the bracelet.”

“What’s the point of living if you aren’t ever happy?” Custer asked. “Happiness, and that bracelet, are useful because once you’re done with all the fighting and running, you still have something. One way or another, Delphine, you aren’t going back to work for Mason Corporation, so you may as well give in and learn how to be happy.”

Delphine’s tongue felt thick and she wasn’t sure she could speak around it. It didn’t matter; she didn’t know what to say to that.
 

They arrived at the bar after a few minutes of walking silently, but still hand in hand. It was dingy with neon lights and creaking floors that could barely be heard over the thrumming music. There were a few drunken patrons crammed into a corner playing some card game, the obligatory passed-out drunk leaning on the bar, and several flirting couples. Custer sauntered over to the bar, Delphine at his heels.

“Hello, there,” he said to the bartender. “Can I please get two Daltorian Sunrises, please?”

“Coming right up,” the bartender grunted. “Anything else I can get you?”

“Actually, yes. Do you, perchance, have any information on how any of the smugglers working in the crew of the
Rabblerouser
could be contacted?”

“Might. Might not.”

Custer smiled. “Well, if you could decide which one it is, my friend and I are with the
Breakwater
crew and we sort of need to talk to them.”

The bartender stilled. “You ain’t with the
Breakwater
crew. They don’t trade in this part of the system anymore.”

“I assure you, I am.”

“Prove it, then.” The man folded his arms and glared, although it came across as more of a belligerent squint.

“You couldn’t afford the property damage of him proving it,” Delphine said softly. The bartender looked from her, unnervingly still, to Custer, who certainly looked like a maniac. He squinted a bit harder, then sighed.

“Alright, you didn’t hear this from me, but they’re running blasters for Dunin at the moment.”

“Thank you kindly, sir. Now, about our drinks,” Custer said, his smile relaxing into something less nightmarish.

“Coming right up, your highness,” the bartender muttered.

Delphine leaned towards Custer. “Is it always that easy?”

“Sometimes, sometimes not. The
Rabblerouser’s
crew lost a lot of respect when they lost Lytos, so at the moment it’s smarter to bet on us than them. Our reputation precedes us, which is a tricky thing in our line of work. At the moment, it benefits us. Hopefully when that changes we’ll be able to overpower whatever comes after us.”

The bartender set their drinks in front of them. The glasses were simple, orange and pink and yellow liquids layered inside. Delphine looked at one curiously as Custer picked one up and took a long sip.

“When they were teaching us about information gathering,” she told him, “they said one of the easiest ways to get information was to get the person drunk. They made sure we knew not to get men colorful drinks, though. They said it would make them angry.”

Custer snorted. “I turn into a bear, I’m an apparently notorious smuggler, and I’ve killed more people than some of these backwater shits have seen in their lives. If they want to start shit with me because of what color my drink is, it’s on their head. Try it, it’s good.”

She did, and was pleasantly surprised to note that she agreed. It was tangy and a bit sweet, the sharp taste of the alcohol almost nonexistent, though she suspected there was more in the drink than the taste implied.

“What is this called?” she asked.

“Daltorian sunrise. As opposed to a Q’rren Sunrise, which is straight whiskey on account of the fact that there’s a huge dust cloud surrounding the planet that’s too thick for its sun’s light to get through, or a Fenian Sunrise, which is drinking until you’re intoxicated enough to forget you’re on Fenos.”

Delphine hummed, taking another sip. “We were told to not order anything with a high alcohol content because while we don’t get intoxicated easily, it’s an unnecessary risk. This is, of course, only if you absolutely have to drink on an assignment.”

“When all of this blows over,” Custer told her very matter-of-factly, “I am taking you on the bar crawl to end all bar crawls.”

And just like that, her good mood evaporated. The bracelet suddenly felt heavy and her mouth tasted bitter as her blood ran cold. Custer noticed immediately.

“Whatever you’re thinking, stop thinking,” he told her, suddenly serious. He leaned towards her. “I already told you, I won’t let anything happen to you. And whether it looks like it or not, the others are on board. The captain’s the patron saint of hopeless cases. No one’s going to make you go back to Mason Co., and turning you out on your own would be just as bad. We’ll get through this.”

“Custer,” she said quietly, looking straight at the bar, “I’m evidence. I could, at any time, go to any law enforcement agency with the right jurisdiction and tell them that Mason is making illegal splices for violent use. All I would need to do is let them run a few tests on me. They can’t risk that. It’s why Coleson didn’t want me on this. He knew my upbringing would be an issue eventually.”

“Yeah, well, Coleson’s going to die ugly,” Custer said, “and we’ve made evidence disappear before. This is just going to be a new version of an old trick.” He took her hand slowly, curling his fingers around hers. “Trust me.”

She wanted to, more than anything else, but now the fears were swirling in her head. Her mind wouldn’t calm down and her frustration at her lack of control only made everything worse.

“Hey, look at me a sec,” Custer said softly. Delphine hesitated, then obeyed. He opened his mouth to continue, but before he could the door to the bar burst opened.

Delphine whipped around, her hopes that it was just an aggressive local or a clumsy drunk evaporated as she took in the blasters at their hips. There were four of them, their eyes scanning the patrons before quickly locking onto Custer and Delphine. They definitely weren’t Mason’s, which was a relief, but that hardly meant they weren’t dangerous.

“Heard you been asking questions,” one said. Delphine turned and noticed the bartender was mysteriously absent. Around them, people not-so-subtlety tried to get out of the door.

“Might have been,” Custer said calmly, reaching for his blaster. “I don’t suppose you’re here to answer them.”

“Boy, you need to learn to mind your own business,” the man growled.
 

Custer’s face split into a wide, sharp grin. “Or else what?”

The other men, almost definitely mercs, took that as their cue to start shooting. Anyone who hadn’t gotten out yet rushed for the exit, several of them screaming and stumbling on their way out. Custer and Delphine both ducked out of the way and the bolt smashed through Custer’s glass, splashing glass and the remaining drink onto the counter. They dove apart, Custer drawing his blaster and firing at the man who’d shot. Three of the mercs went for Custer, the remaining man heading for Delphine. It made sense. As far as they knew, Delphine was just some unknown woman hanging off of their actual target. She almost felt bad for the poor bastard.

He sauntered towards her with a smirk. “Now, I won’t hurt you if I don’t have to, but—”

Delphine lashed out at him as soon as he was in range. She felt her nails harden and grow longer as she rushed forward, grabbing her would-be attacker around the middle and driving him into the wall several feet behind him. He grunted on impact and Delphine pulled back and struck him in the jaw, not letting him get his breath back. He crumpled but was still conscious, going to his knees and waving his hands woozily as he tried to stand. Delphine let him flail for a moment, then kicked him in the head.

Behind her, there was a strange ripping sound followed by a shout. She spun around to come to Custer’s aid and stopped short.

He’d apparently decided that taking on three mercenaries in his human form was too much work because there, in the middle of a dingy bar on Saltos, was a huge, honey-colored bear swiping angrily at three very unhappy men. He caught one in the jaw with his massive paw and he dropped like a puppet with its strings cut, blood splashing across the floor. The other two got smart and quickly got out of his range, one in front of him and one directly behind him. Custer turned to keep them both in his line of sight, but they had the advantage on maneuverability. He thrashed, roaring and swinging his paws in wide arcs, and then charged forward when he failed to connect. The merc in front of him ended up pinned with his blaster sideways in Custer’s muzzle, keeping him from biting down. The second man took the opportunity to aim at the back of Custer’s skull.