She laughed softly, and I turned to find her looking up at me with an expression I had rarely seen, the softness I had once witnessed passing between Harper and her second mate, Blade, when they thought no one was looking. I had never even hoped a female would look at me in such a way. “You want to keep me all to yourself?”

“Yes.” Gods be damned, it was true. I didn’t care if the processing had made a fucking mistake. I didn’t care if I was cursed with a foul temper and a gift for killing our enemies. Who would keep her safe if not me? Who would protect her better than I?

No one. Fucking no one.

I was keeping her, and I didn’t care if the gods tried to damn me for it. I’d already been cursed at birth. What else could they do to me?

“Come on.” Abby kissed me one more time and crawled off my lap. “Does this thing have autopilot or whatever? Can it fly itself?”

“Yes, but I do not use that function so close to enemy territory.”

“Hmmm.” Abby ran the tip of her finger over my bottom lip. “How often do you fly through this area? Hundreds of times?”

“Thousands.”

“And have you ever been attacked?”

“No. But there is always…”

My throat closed as Abby removed the armored shirt I had generated for her earlier. Her gaze held mine as she backed toward the exit that led to the rest of the ship. “How about we play a game?”

I barely managed to swallow around the lump in my throat. “What kind of game?”

“Hide and seek.” She pulled the soft undershirt up and over her head as she stepped farther away from me, baring exposed skin. Small, round breasts. Nipples peaked from arousal? Excitement? Cold? I didn’t know and I didn’t care. I simply wanted.

“What are the rules?” Everything had rules. Everything.

“You close your eyes and count to twenty, out loud, while I hide.”

“And then?”

“You find me.”

“No.” I glanced at the scans and data reports streaming into the ship’s systems. Nothing of concern at the moment, but that could change at any…

She was gone. So were her clothes.

“Abby?”

Silence.

“Abigail! You will answer me! This is not safe!” I began unbuckling my flight harness. “Abby? Come back here!” Fuck. She could open the wrong panel. Trip and fall. Hit her head. Fall down a ladder and break her leg or her ankle. We could be attacked, and I would be forced to take evasive action, which would throw her around the ship like unsecured cargo. “Abby!”

Silence.