“Even Kaed?” I asked, stunned.
“Kaed? Who’s that?” Her nose scrunched up in an adorable way that I envied. She was everything I was not—petite, thin, a fighter.
“Commander Karter.”
She chuckled. “Name’s Kaed, huh? That’s news I can sell for some extra tech in requisitions.”
“No. Makaed Karter. But Ronan calls him Kaed.”
“And you?” Chloe saw too much. Either that or she heard the hurt in my voice. But then, she was an outer space spy, trained to notice everything. “What do you call him?”
“I don’t know yet.” Staring at her collar was making me wonder if I’d made a mistake coming out here after all. Who knew I’d have collar envy? Yes, it was a pretty gold color against her perfect, light brown skin, but still. Collar envy? That was just weird.
Thank god she changed the subject, joining me to stare out the window. “What did you do, back on Earth?”
“I have a master’s degree in astronomy.”
“Awesome. A science geek.”
“Totally.” I laughed. “Didn’t expect to ever hear that term again.” I looked down at her. She had a calm manner that put me at ease. “What did you do?”
“Military first. Then I served in the Coalition Fleet. They sent me home—long story involving a self-serving asshole who set me up—”
“I hate them,” I said.
“Me, too. But I got the last laugh. Was a 9-1-1 operator for a while, back on Earth, then volunteered as a bride. Soon as I got here, Commander Karter looked up my fleet record and I was right back in the mix where I wanted to be.”
“And your mates? They’re okay with you being in danger all the time?” I needed to know, because that was the exact opposite of a ton of words Ronan and Kaed had said to me.
“No. But I outrank both of them, so they couldn’t order me not to fight. It was ‘take me as I am’, or choose someone else.”
Damn, I wish I were half as confident as she appeared to be.
“Nice collar,” I offered. The proof of their choice—and acceptance of their female—was solidly around her neck.
Her hand drifted to the golden collar, her fingers running over it almost absently. “Thanks.” She sighed and we stood in silence for a few minutes, each lost in our own thoughts. “The view is amazing, isn’t it?” she asked.
“It’s beautiful. I don’t recognize anything you’d see on Earth, but I’ve been making up my own constellations.”
“Of course you’d be into stars.”
“I worked at an observatory for a few years doing research on the Supergiants, especially Sirius. We think it’s over two hundred billion years old. Part of the reason I wanted to be a bride was to see if I could access the Coalition’s star charts and astrological data.”
“They’ll have a lot of that. They’re all over the galaxy and have been for centuries.”
“That’s what I was hoping.” My smile was sheepish. Yes, I wanted amazing mates and babies and a happily ever after, but I wanted more than that. I needed knowledge like I needed water, but I couldn’t explain all that in the first five minutes. Probably scare her off, and she was the first human I’d met out here. “Stars are kind of my thing.”
“So where are you on the Big Bang?” she turned and looked up at me.
Loaded question. “Undecided.”
She laughed. “That sounds like a really cool job. You must be ridiculously smart. Math makes my head hurt.”
I shrugged because test scores and college rank didn’t really matter out here. I pointed. “See those five stars in a row. They’re vertical?”
“Yes.” Her chin was tipped up and she was following where I aimed my finger. “Then it turns to the right, then back up.”
“Like a box!”