Captive - Cheryl Brooks Page 0,53
at every turn.
She nodded her agreement. “One of my fondest wishes is to have food left over when each member of my gang has eaten his fill.”
To her surprise, Moe’s initial response was a chuckle. “My mother was never one to throw anything away that was still usable or edible—and believe me, I use those terms loosely—but you’re the only woman I’ve ever met who longed for leftovers.”
“You would, too, if you’d never had them.” With yet another sigh, she added, “Meeting everyone’s needs should be so simple, and yet it isn’t. There will always be the haves and the have-nots.”
She could have been one of the haves if she hadn’t cherished her freedom—a trait she and her mother had shared. Delaroh had risked everything to lie with Trag and bear his offspring. Even so, Klara had never heard her utter a single word of regret except for not having traveled far enough to escape the notice of the likes of Pelarus and his Nedwut henchmen. The vast majority of their woes could be traced to that one, unfortunate detail. Moe was undoubtedly regretting having landed on Haedus Nine himself.
The planet where dreams go to die…
A fitting slogan for a sad world.
Unless their revolution succeeded.
Getting rid of a creep like Pelarus shouldn’t be too hard. After all, she couldn’t imagine that anyone actually liked him. He might pay his henchmen to wreak havoc on the citizenry, but she doubted many tears would be shed over news of his demise. The Nedwuts would probably loot the treasury, take their ill-gotten gains, and waste no time in leaving Haedus Nine far behind.
She sat bolt upright in bed.
That’s it!
“I know what we need to do. How to get rid of Pelarus.”
“And that would be?”
“Instead of distributing Pelarus’s fortune among the poor, we simply tell the Nedwuts they’re welcome to take anything of his they deem valuable. As long as they agree to go back wherever they came from.”
Moe appeared to ponder this suggestion. “That might motivate them to turn on Pelarus, but getting them to follow through on the leaving part might be difficult. You could be trading one corrupt ruler for a horde of greedy Nedwuts.”
She grimaced. “They do tend to be rather greedy, don’t they?”
“Bloodthirsty, too,” he added.
“Still, it’s an option we can ask the others to consider. The trick would be sharing the plan with the Nedwuts.”
He snorted with laughter. “Oh, please. You’ve been paying off Nedwuts for a while now, right? I’m guessing you’ve made more friends among them than you realize.”
“Oh, here we go again…”
“Hey, I was right the last time.” Grinning, he reached up to drape an arm over her shoulders and pull her back down beside him. “I’m on a roll. Got us a bed for the night and, unless I miss my guess, breakfast.” He nuzzled her neck, sending waves of warmth flowing outward from the point of contact. “Although I’m pretty sure Velkma hasn’t started cooking yet.”
“It is kind of early,” she admitted after a sniff of the air yielded a lack of cooking aromas. “I was about to—” A sudden realization caused her to turn over to face him. “You’re purring! What the devil is that about? I thought you were mad at me.”
A seductive smile curled his lips as he shrugged. “Must’ve gotten over it.”
“Had to sleep on it, huh?”
“Maybe.” Still purring, he cupped her cheek in his palm before gliding his fingers through the hair at her temple. “Although the dream I had might have more to do with my change of heart than the sleep.”
She arched a brow when a simple turn of her head would’ve brought her lips in contact with his wrist. “Dream or vision?”
He chuckled. “Does it matter?”
She was forced to admit that it didn’t. Not one tiny little bit. “Not really. Just wondering.”
She was stalling, and she knew it. She was alone with him—they were even in a decent bed—and he was purring. If the gang would sleep a while longer, she might find out what her mother had gone to such lengths to experience for herself. She didn’t even need to fool him into believing she was something she wasn’t, because unlike her father, Moe clearly had nothing against a Davordian’s blue eyes.
She searched his eyes for a hint of duplicity and saw only honesty in the golden light shining from his pupils. Her mouth watered so profusely, she had to swallow before she spoke. “You don’t think we’ll be…disturbed, do you?”
His half smile revealed