Nokx (The Sraibur Crew #3) - Layla Nash Page 0,122
when EJ hollered at him like, he claimed, an injured haugmawt, whatever that was. It didn’t sound as adorable as a marmox, that was for damn sure.
He tried to sound patient and reasonable, as if she were the one being completely ridiculous. “Ellie Jane, my job is to protect you. I will do that however I can, and the first step is to keep you out of danger to start with.”
“I thought your job was managing cargo on a pirate ship,” she said.
A soft growl rumbled in his chest but none of it showed in his expression. “You are my mate. I protect you, I feed you, I take care of you. I cannot do that if you are constantly running off into dangerous situations.”
“I’m not going to go running off into anything,” EJ said. He was being completely absurd. “You act like I’m going to leap off this ship and charge into some ungoverned port to take hostages and start fights and get shot at.”
His dark eyebrows rose and he gave her a pointed look.
EJ’s cheeks warmed and she clamped her lips together to keep from shouting at him more. Just because she’d escaped the gen ship onto an ungoverned port and stowed away on the Sraibur, and just because she’d started a battle when they put her back on the Hollbrd, didn’t mean he could act like she needed a babysitter. “I’ve never taken hostages, thank you very much.”
The corner of his mouth tightened, like he wanted to laugh. Some of her anger melted, but she held on to the rest of it. “You are not going to lock me up on this ship, or any ship, because you think it’ll keep me safe. I could say the same thing to you and make you stay in your quarters so you don’t end up tripping over your giant ego and cracking your head on the floor.”
“If you ordered me to stay in our quarters, I would.” And those damn scales drifted back toward purple and blue as his thoughts no doubt went to exactly what they could be doing while locked up in their quarters. She knew how quickly he got distracted and how long that distraction would last, even if they’d been distracted just half an hour before.
“But I wouldn’t do that to you,” EJ said. “I met you in the middle of all that craziness and that’s when I decided I liked you. Loved you. So why would I want to change that? Why would I want to change you?”
He frowned in the way she’d decided meant he thought over something she said and tried to come up with a good argument. EJ braced for some other crazy justification, but before he could say anything, the doors to the loading bay slid open. Nokx tensed again, bracing as if he expected a whole horde of Slasu to come piling in, and EJ nudged his side in exasperation.
A long neck and a bright black eye rose up over several crates and scanned the bay for them. The rustle of feathers further heralded Bula’s arrival, with Thula and Mirti on her high-legged heels. Nokx shifted his feet in irritation. EJ knew he remained uncomfortable around the space chickens, although she couldn’t tell exactly why. Nokx wouldn’t say, although once he muttered that one of them looked ready to eat him. It was absurd, of course, even with the sharp beaks the space chickens occasionally flashed.
Bula blinked a bright eye at them and fussed with a small wrapped parcel. “Oh my. Surely we are not interrupting?”
“We would not want to interrupt,” Mirti echoed.
EJ had gotten used to the way the sisters repeated themselves and each other and had slowly figured out they tended to echo the important parts, or at least what they considered important. “No, Nokx was just about to agree with me.”
He slid her a dirty look and folded his arms over his chest.
Bula gave her bird-like chuckle, more like the wind through the trees, and tilted her head to consider the Xaravian. “We knew he was smart.”
“Oh yes, very smart,” Thula and Mirti repeated together. Mirti blinked and balanced on one leg. “To have won such a clever girl, he must be smart. Smart and brave.”
Nokx didn’t look convinced. EJ swallowed her laughter. It sounded like the space chickens were buttering him up, so no wonder he seemed suspicious. She probably would have braced for bad news, too.