“Mmm?” She pulls away from my ear long enough to notice, though her hand slides over my chest as if she can’t help but pet me. “Oh. It’s dried noodles. Jade says she puts salt and some other spices on them and they taste a bit like potato chips, whatever those are.” She pops a piece of dry noodle into her mouth and crunches, grinning at me.
Potato…chips? Never heard of them. But Helen has a human-like palate after growing up with her “sisters” and so I give one a try and decide it’s not terrible. Salty, but not terrible. Settling Helen against my side, I eat another noodle as Jade moves to another one of the nearby couches and puts her feet up, balancing her bowl on her belly. “You think they’ll really get her?” she asks. “Or you think this will just be a slap on the wrist?”
“I doubt anyone will be slapping anyone’s wrist,” Adi says. “It’s more like they’ll cuff them.”
“Figure of speech, baby.”
He pauses, then gives her a silly grin. “Well that makes a lot more sense than someone actually grabbing a criminal and whacking them on the wrist.”
Jade giggles, shaking her head at her mate. “Just come sit with me already.”
Adi taps at the comm, then frowns at the screen. “It might be a little delayed, since we’re just outside of range, but I think we should still get a decent picture.” He moves to sit next to Jade and pulls her against his larger form. “Did you save some noodles for me?”
“A little,” she teases, leaning toward him. “But I’m gonna eat most of this bowl, especially now that I can eat.”
“That’s all right. I’ll just lick the spices off your pretty lips,” he practically purrs, moving in closer toward her.
“Ew, you two!” Alice throws a dried noodle at them. “Get a room!”
“Oh please,” Jade says, and gives Adi a kiss, ignoring Alice’s comments. “We have to be around Helen and Mathiras constantly. You can stand to watch me kiss my mate.”
“They’re gross with the PDA too,” Alice grumbles.
“We are?” Helen asks. “But you’re constantly giving Kas a tail-handy. I caught you doing that just the other day—”
“That is different,” Alice declares, her face growing red.
Kas just grins and rubs one of her feet. “Don’t worry, Sunshine. I’ll lick your lips later. Both—”
She smacks a hand over his mouth before he can finish the statement, her face even redder than before. My ears feel hot as well, because I’m imagining the end of that sentence and kef me, when did I become the stuffy one? Or have I always been the stuffy one? I glance down at Helen, but she just gives me a sultry smile that promises a lot of licking in my future, too, and my ears get hotter.
Music blares—the sound of a multi-comm blast starting. A reporter appears, standing in the narrow, cramped hall of what looks like any other station. “If you are just turning on your comm, the raid upon the sa’Rin gambling hideout will begin soon. We’re here with Lord Straik sa’Rin, who is eager to see his family brought to justice.”
The vid pans over and Straik stands there in an austere, dark robe, his family’s insignia displayed across the breast. His appearance is impeccable, right down to the high shine of his gilded horns and the gleam of encrusted jewelry on his ears. He clasps his hands in front of his chest, more rings upon his fingers, and affixes a pious look on his face that makes me want to laugh. “All I want is to restore the pride of my family name,” he says gravely. “And if it’s true that my mother has been consorting with criminals and using underhanded means to acquire our family fortune, then it’s my duty to bring this to light. As a loyal son of house sa’Rin, I must uphold the law.”
This time I do snort. “Says the infamous pirate who pays no attention to the law.”
Straik continues, droning on to the vid audience about how he doesn’t view this as a betrayal of family, but as the right thing to do. How his family has been dishonored with his mother’s shady business dealings, and how he wants nothing more than to make it right.
Helen looks over at me and crunches down on a handful of noodles. “You think we’ll see Ruth on the screen?”
“No. He’s going to hide her away and keep her out of the spotlight. If it got out that she was a clone, she and her sisters wouldn’t be safe because they’ve been illegally made.”
“Oh, right.” Helen looks disappointed. “It would have been nice to see her, though. I guess I can understand Straik wanting her to be safe.”
I just reach over and snag a noodle, biting back all the things I want to say. Ruth is pregnant, and vulnerable because she’s been cloned against her will. Straik will do everything in his power to keep her protected, even if it means hiding her away from the universe. I know just how that feels, because I want to do the same to Helen. Even though she’s been programmed to be a bodyguard and is more than capable of taking care of herself, the possessive mesakkah part of me gets frantic at the thought of putting her into any kind of danger. I can’t imagine what it’d be like if Helen was pregnant and she wanted to rush into danger.