Zero's Heart - Mina Carter Page 0,42

mock slapping his shoulder even as he turned the chair so they both faced the screen.

“Nah… not a man, remember? I’m a machine… a luuuurve machine.”

“Oh. My. God… Guys, did you hear thi—”

Zero groaned as the ship-wide comm cut off, his expression pained as he looked at her. “You do realize I will never, never live that down now?”

She chuckled, leaning over to kiss his cheek. “Yeah, well, it’s accurate. Isn’t it? I say own it. Now… how do I get my messages?”

With mingled foreboding and anticipation, she watched as Zero logged onto the system for her. The language on the screen was like nothing she’d ever seen before, although it seemed hauntingly familiar. Almost like she could squint, look at it out of the corner of her eye and it would resolve into something that would make sense to her.

“Latharian?” she guessed.

Zero nodded. “It’s a common language for all of us. Most of the crew are either Lathar or half-Lathar. T’Raal and Talent are inner systems pretty boys, Skinny’s a heavy-worlder, Beauty’s backwater of some description and Fin’s a Navarr. Red’s half-Krynassis.”

She shook her head in amazement. “And we thought we were alone out here.”

“Yeah… right. In terms of space travel, you guys are barely out the cradle.” Zero snorted and then sat back. “Okay, all yours.”

Somehow, amazingly, the screen cleared of alien writing, and she was looking at her inbox on the familiar Inter-sector communications system. There were two messages. One from her brother, and the other from her mother.

Oh shit. She’d forgotten about Eric’s message. Having the most lethal special operations unit in the human systems shooting at you tended to do that. Reaching out to open it, she suddenly stopped her hand in mid-air.

“Crap. Will opening this let them track where we are?”

“Please… give us a little more credit than that,” Zero chuckled. “Skinny will have bounced that off so many arrays they’ll think you’re in the Earth president’s office.”

Heat hit her cheeks.

“Dumb question,” she muttered, but he kissed the side of her neck.

“Nah. Understandable. You’re dealing with technology you’re unfamiliar with. How would you know its limits and capabilities? It was a sound question.”

She mumbled under her breath, but the heat on her cheeks turned to a blush at the tone of approval in his voice. She’d never needed validation from any man, but… from Zero it made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

“Shit…” he said when she didn’t reach for the screen right away. “Do you want to be alone to view them?”

“No… no, it’s fine.” She grabbed his hand when he made to move her out of his lap. “There’s not going to be anything I don’t want you to hear.”

Tapping the screen, she opened Eric’s message first. Rather than her brother’s face as she expected, it was a notification from a message holding service that they had an encrypted data pack for her.

“Huh. Odd,” she murmured. “We’re heading to Praxis-Four. Aren’t we? To pick up your other crew member?”

“Uh-huh.” Zero had wrapped his arms around her, holding her close in a cuddle she was really rather enjoying. Settled in his lap like this, warm and comfortable, she could easily forget there was a bounty on her head. Or that, miraculously, alien medicine had repaired the damage to her legs. A long, slow shudder escaped her as something, the smallest feeling, expanded in the center of her chest. She hadn’t wanted to believe it, in case it was a dream she’d wake up from, but… here and now, it sank in.

“You okay?” Zero asked softly as her head dropped back to his shoulder. Closing her eyes, she nodded, her throat too thick at present to speak. Without saying a word, he held her for a few minutes, letting her absorb her new reality.

Sitting up, she shook herself and reached for the screen again.

This time, she wasn’t as lucky with the message. Her mother’s angry face appeared on screen, and they both winced as Catherine Archer-Russell screeched.

“Eris! What the bloody hell do you think you’re playing at? Getting a price on your head? Dealing with terrorists? Do you know how much trouble you’re going to cause your father—”

“He’s my fucking stepfather!” Eris hissed under her breath, even though the recording couldn’t help her.

“You’ve disgraced the family, and if you think you’re getting away with it, you’ve got another think coming!” Her mother wagged her finger at the screen like Eris was five years old. “In fact, young lady, if you don’t get your