Salvage Rights (Distant Worlds Book 2) (10 page)

Tuft studied her,
looking for something he did not find, because he finally bowed his head, and
with one final incomprehensible glance to Lucan, he was gone.  They never did
find out what he had come for in the first place.

She was still looking
at the empty door when Lucan spoke.  “You give her secrets away easily.”

“Do I?  Somebody needs
to, otherwise he will never find his way to her.”  At the bark of non-humor
behind her, she turned her head to look at him.  “You think he does not want
her?”

“Kira is a beautiful
woman, but you are right, she is damaged, timid.  Tuft is a man of action.  He
would run roughshod over her, and she would flinch at every hard look. 
Together they make no sense.”

“You do not feel what I
feel when he looks at her.”

He raised a doubting
brow before taking her arm to lead her from the room  “Lust is natural; she is
a beautiful woman and he is not a monk.  Come, we have other things to discuss
besides fairy tales.”

“Perhaps.”  Danika
pressed her lips together, determined to keep her own council if he was going
to be so dismissive anyway.  She did make one parting comment before she moved
ahead of him out of the suite.  “But it is not the lust I speak of.”  She
refused to elaborate further.

As soon as she awoke
the next morning, dry and hollowed out from another long night without sleep,
Kira came and escorted her to a washroom not under construction.  They argued
until a sarong was produced.  Danika didn’t want to draw extra attention to
herself by wearing the ship suit so ill-suited for the heat of PortSea.  She
also left most of the delicate weavings behind after her bath, and only wore a
single strand around her right wrist.  She kept that only because she could not
bear to lose all the warmth and comfort it offered her, especially not after
yet another night where she had to force herself to lay down and get what small
increments of sleep she could.  She had insisted on the cool sarong dress of the
island women, despite the apparent loss of supposed rank and was happy for it
when she had a day of two suns ahead of her.

Kira had found her the
most costly fabric she owned, which was a soft slick red that moved with each
breath she took.  It was worn simply, a long piece of fabric that reached her
knees and wrapped around and tied behind her neck.  Everything proper was
covered but she still felt somewhat exposed with her bare back, arms, and
legs.  She refused to change, though; compared to the ship suit Sera had given
her, it was like a cloud.  Truly, it made her want to dance she felt so light
on her feet.  She decided then and there that she was done with anything that
did not make her feel that way. 

“You do not look like a
servant,” Kira said, taking in the long garnet hair that fell freely to her
hips, and the way the shimmer of the red made her skin look like heavy cream. 
Out of the ship suit, it was even more apparent that she glowed from the inside
out, even with a hard night behind her eyes.

Fatigue was what Lucan
noted as soon as he saw her waiting for him at the breakfast table.  Though
admittedly it took him a moment to notice anything but the way she moved in the
slithering sarong. 

“I do not know whether
to praise your beauty or berate you for ignoring my orders.  I find myself torn
between wanting you to change so I do not have to fight every man who sees you
today, or leave you as you are so that I might enjoy the view.”

Danika sat down at the
table and calmly regarded him.  “I do not dictate your words or actions; I
would request you grant me the same courtesy.  As I am wearing the same simple
dress as most of the women I saw at market the last time we ventured through, I
doubt anyone will notice me.”

“Right.” Lucan’s mouth
twisted up in a doubtful smirk.  He looked her over, his eyes lingering on her
hair and eyes, then trailing down to caress everything else he could see above
the table top.  “Because every man has seen fantasy come to life before.”  At
his words, Danika froze, her eyes jumping to the heat smoldering in his.  He
chuckled, and as usual it was not a happy laugh.  “I will probably have to kill
someone today.”  He stepped closer until he was towering over her, one hand on
the back of her chair the other on the table in front of her.  Danika held her
breath, dreading and yearning for a return of his addictive touch.  He leaned
down and pressed his face into her hair while she shuddered in a gasp.  However,
he merely breathed her in and then stepped back, his hand gliding down the soft
length of garnet before he turned to his breakfast.  “So be it.  I could use
the outlet.”

When he did nothing
more than sit down at the table across from her, Danika picked up her fork with
shaky hands.  It was not an easy meal with his eyes rarely straying far from
her, so it was with no small relief when it was finally over and they were
heading out.

With the escort of both
Tuft and Lucan Warrung, it was impossible to go unnoticed in the market
square.  It didn’t help that the second they stepped off his private lift,
Lucan went into serious lockdown mode.  Danika felt the moment he went cold. 
Seeing the people scatter under his daunting eye was illuminating.  Of course,
the Furgarians did not seem to be prohibited by his mood.  Almost the second
they entered the suddenly silent square, a cloud of them descended and
commenced to weave around Danika.  Their joy was so infectious she forgot about
making a good impression and just lost herself in laughter.

After tossing and turning
all night, then the perilous morning she had, it was almost miraculous to do
so.

After all that, to be
laughing with abandon with the Furgarians was a gift beyond the price of the
crystal pearl weavings they insisted on covering her with.  By the time they
backed away, she was once again dripping in sparkling crystal and delicate
weave, and the worries and tension had disappeared along with the fatigue.  She
sent a blanket of gratitude to the little sprites and then turned to pull Kira
to her side, aware as she did so that both Tuft and Lucan were watching her
with the same blank face.  From Kira there was only fear of what the Furgarians
would think of her, mixed with awe.

“This is my friend Kira
and she is nervous of the people at the market.  Would you look out for her as
you do me?”  She was not sure how much of her words were understood by the
emotion-driven beings, so she was thrilled when one of the Furgarians separated
himself from the rest of the cloud and flew forward.   He circled Kira a few
times, and Danika could feel him twirling in and out of her spirit.  Finally,
he seemed satisfied, because a moment later he came to rest on her shoulder,
while Kira seemed both comforted and unnerved by the small weight he made
there.  A moment later, he had woven a crystal pearl necklace that he rested
on, seeming content to sleep away the morning against her neck.

Danika smiled into Kira’s
moist eyes as her hand tentatively felt the beauty that rested at her neck. 
The second she understood she had been accepted as worthy, Danika could feel
the lightness of her relief and happiness.  It was an overwhelmingly good
feeling to be connected in such a way to such creatures of light, and she was
thrilled to see that reflected on her friend’s face.  Meeting her eyes, Kira
laughed out loud for the first time, and Danika joined her, wiping away the
tears that slid down her friend’s cheek.  Probably later the doubts would
return again, but for now, Kira would experience a time of peace, and it made
Danika happy to see it.

Danika took her hand
and they walked forward surrounded by a cloud of happy Furgarians, barely
noticing the looks of astonishment and envy amongst the watching crowd.

Lucan looked from the
women to Tuft who seemed to be as out of sync as he was.  “Rarely in my life
have I seen something as beautiful as that,” he said, watching the women walk
away.  “So why am I feeling irked and invisible all of a sudden?”

Tuft snorted, tearing
his eyes away from a laughing Kira.  “You are just not used to being forgotten,
left behind, or generally just overlooked.”

“Ah, so this is what
that feels like.”  Lucan thought about it a moment, then narrowed his eyes.  “I
do not believe I care for the sensation.”

“I can see that, but
rather than wallow in our
feeling
like girlie
shupahs
, maybe we
should catch up to the beautiful beyond belief females wearing priceless gems
before they cause a riot.”

“I think I would
welcome the excuse to kill someone.”  Despite his words, he started moving
toward the oblivious women.

Tuft snorted again
following behind, his eyes everywhere at once, his hand fisted on his blaster, and
his stare biting when he caught more than one man watching the show with lust-filled
thoughts.  “I cannot argue with that.”

Danika pulled Kira
toward the first stall without giving the men a thought.  It was overflowing
with colorful sarongs and skirts, simple cool sleeveless tops, and woven hats
to keep the heat off the head.  It was only when the man started expounding on
the virtues of one particular fabric that caught her eye and quoting the price
that she realized her dilemma. 

“Come, lovely lady, it
would bring out the green of your eyes.”  She backed up hastily, her hands up
realizing that she had no money, and she was taking up the man’s time for
nothing.  She backed right into Lucan Warrung.  She turned her head to look up
over her shoulder, and had to blink stupidly at the sudden onslaught of male.

“You do not like it?” he
asked rough and soft.

She felt her cheeks redden
and could not say if it was caused by embarrassment over her lack of funds or
the heat he generated being so close.  “We never got around to discussing my
pay, and I have not earned it yet in any case.  I will just make do with what I
have until I have done so.”

He looked her over,
something hard fluttering behind his eyes.  “You wear a fortune in crystal pearls;
you could trade one strand for anything you would like at market and still have
credit left.”

Danika gasped, her
hands going to cover the delicate sparkles as if she could protect them from
his words.  “But they are not truly mine to trade.  They are the Furgarians’
way of comfort when I cannot be with them.  They do not truly belong to me.”

He raised a doubting
eyebrow.  “You intend to return them?”

“Of course, when the
moon has waned, the power will be spent and they will be returned to the sea for
renewal.”  She tilted her head to the side.  “Does not everyone do so?”

“I can honestly say I
have never heard of such.”

She knitted her brow
thinking on it, and holding the warmth of a strand in her fingers.  “But the
power would be spent, all the warmth gone.  They would become nothing more than
empty rocks.”

“Believe me, I sell
those empty rocks all over the galaxy; nobody has noticed the difference.”  She
caressed her hand down a long strand at her waist, feeling the life flowing out
from it and soothing her, warming all her cold places, almost as thoroughly as
the man behind her could do with his touch. 

“Well, that was how it
was shown to me.  I would not like to wear dead crystal pearls, nor can I trade
them when they are only with me for a short time.”  She waved it off, stepping
away from the heat of Lucan when she did.  “It is of no consequence.  I can
work with what I have until such time as I earn my wages.”

He studied her, finally
the cold cracked enough that she saw a blaze of heat directed her way, along
with a half-smile.  “You really mean that.”

She turned fully around
to face him, feeling something was happening, but she had no idea what.  Only
that Lucan was less guarded then he had been a moment ago.  She tilted her head
in her usual way to study his face further.  When he smiled enigmatically, she
wished she could touch him.  It was aggravating to see that brazen suggestive
smile and not know why he was making it.  Then it dawned on her.  She
straightened her neck and raised her chin. “You put me in the harlot red ‘blue’
room because you assumed I would be like the other one – Briar.”  She backed up
a step when he stepped forward.  “I am neither a fool, nor a prostitute, and I
will not take your money except that which I earn by the afore agreed truth saying
and reading.”

He digested that with
another arch of sardonic brow.  “I can loan you some credits.”

“Thank you, but that
will not be necessary.  There is nothing I need.”

Before he could lose
his temper and insist she have new clothes, which she could see on his face he
was gearing up to do, there was a commotion at the next stall over.  She felt
Kira’s fear seconds before she heard the ruckus start.  Apparently Kira had wandered
over that way and drawn an admirer, one that her Furgarian passenger took
exception to.  And he was not the only one.

Danika turned to see a
handsome man in a suit entirely too fancy for an island market leering at her,
even while the Furgarians buzzed warningly around his head.  Other people were
backing away hastily, but this man had arrogance stamped upon his features and,
instead, swatted at them like they were insects — his first mistake.

His second was missing
the nearly seven foot scarred warrior coming up behind them, fully armed, with
blood in his eyes.  Danika blinked at the scene, flashing all the possible
outcomes before she settled on the most likely.  Tuft was going to kill him,
most heinously, and Kira had seen enough violence to last two lifetimes.  “
Stop!
”

Except for the
Furgarians no one did.  In one second, violence was about to erupt, and in the
next, the handsome man in the peacock colors was just gone.  Danika looked
around at the confused islanders.  Tuft looked at the empty space before him,
and then to Kira who looked haunted, before turning belligerent eyes toward Danika.

“Where is he?” Lucan
asked from behind her, with a hard edge to his low voice.

Danika shook her head
in confusion, looking around herself, then was grabbed and flung around to face
an angry Lucan. 

“Where is he?” he
repeated with more bite.

She shook her head
again and winced at the pressure at her shoulders.  The leather of his gloves
was cutting into her tender skin, but that seemed the least of her problems. 
She could feel the confusion turning to fear among the islanders.  “It wasn’t
me,” she said quickly when he would have shaken her.  “I did not do this.”

Understanding from her
breathless voice and frightened eyes that she at least believed she was telling
the truth, he let her go slowly and turned to face the scene.  Tuft had reached
Kira and was talking low to her, as she shook her head at something he was
saying.  Everyone around them began buzzing about and whispering, many turned
and looked her way.  Except the Furgarians . . . Danika tilted her head and
listened
to what they were feeling.  A moment later, she sucked in a breath.