Sadie's Mate Read online

  Evernight Publishing ®

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2015 April Zyon

  ISBN: 978-1-77233-440-1

  Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

  Editor: Jessica Ruth

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  To Jessica R, thank you for taking my words and ensuring that they added to this world that I started with Adira's Mate.

  To my readers, you are all amazing and I'm always happy to chat with you all.

  SADIE’S MATE

  Space Wars, 2

  April Zyon

  Copyright © 2015

  Prologue

  The orders had come down to return home to Craegin. As it was time to resupply, refuel, and put off some of the temporary crew for vacation Bracken thought nothing of it. When he discovered they were having engine problems on the number three drive at the same time the orders came through, his suspicious nature took hold.

  Instead of immediately returning to Craegin, Bracken made a small detour. He needed to confer with his best friend, General Fintan Daykin, about his suspicions. The fact he also got the opportunity to cuddle with Fintan’s adorable twins and see Fin’s wife Adira, who was more a sister to him than his own siblings, was merely luck of the draw. Not that Fin believed his reasoning any more than Adira did. At least Adira had the grace not to call Bracken on it while he got in some time with the littlest Daykins.

  He’d taken two days to properly visit with his friends. The first night they spent an enjoyable evening cooing at the little ones. The second evening before he had to continue on his way to their home world Bracken laid out his suspicions to Fin and Adira.

  “The timing of the engine malfunction seems a little too coincidental for me. Within two hours of the orders coming through has my instincts on full alert.”

  “Understandable,” Fin said. “I don’t like you having to go back there, especially right now. You know that she’ll be there. It’s that time of year for the rounds of charity events.”

  The she his best friend referred to was his back stabbing, literally, bitch of an ex-fiancée. “I already downloaded the schedule so I’ll know exactly where I do not want to be.” That, though, was a concern for when he was on planet. “We need to find someone to look at the computer system to see if it’s even possible for anyone to screw up an engine remotely.”

  “Especially since from what I understood the systems are fully autonomous,” Adira said while gently patting her son Lennox’s back to get him to burp.

  “They’re supposed to be. Unless the maintenance workers are plugged in while we’re in dock, or at one of the space stations, there shouldn’t be a way to get at them that way. I’m going to assume you already verified it wasn’t one of your crew?” Fintan asked.

  Bracken nodded. “I went through all the footage from the engine room personally. At the time of the malfunction all crew were in their morning briefing by the lead engineer. No one was near a panel or the engine access at any time four hours prior or four hours after.”

  Adira shook her head. “Why is four hours the number?”

  “Due to the heat the engines put off within the cavities where they are built, specialized suits have to be worn to work on them. The suit packs only carry enough air for four hours. But in that heat three is the norm,” Fintan explained.

  “Has to be remotely,” Bracken speculated.

  Fin snorted and shook his head. “Good luck figuring that one out.”

  Bracken knew he’d need that luck and a bit more. On the Craegin home world not much happened that his mother didn’t hear about. The woman was bound and determined to have him married to a “proper” woman so that he could produce heirs and finally stop “flitting about the galaxy.” Like it was some hobby for him.

  When he’d gotten into the academy schooling she’d been proud. When he’d gone for officer’s school she’d told him not to fuck it up. The family name was everything, after all. But when he’d gotten his ship she’d immediately begun to up her game on getting him a wife.

  Even his three oldest sisters had gotten in on it. Younger than him, they all took their cue from their mother. He was grateful that the youngest, Cecilia, had remained out of the woman’s clutches. His mother had increasingly become erratic in her demands, going so far as to enlist his sisters to push everyone female of good breeding and proper pedigree under his nose. None of the women that he dated were right. They didn’t have what his soul cried for.

  In time he’d relented to dating a woman to get the women in his family off his back. His mother and sisters had approved of her. All except for Cecilia. In hindsight he likely should have listened to his baby sister when it came to Jeanette. Might have saved him a lot of money and trouble.

  But he hadn’t. He’d proposed to her, and she’d seemed excited. At least until a bigger wallet had wandered into her line of sight. Then the bitch had tried to kill him. On their anniversary, no less.

  Bracken had gotten home a little early for once. The meeting had gone smoother than all of them had even considered. So he’d stopped to pick up some of the sweets that his soon-to-be wife loved. Walking into the apartment he kept for his time on planet, Bracken had to smile. The lights were low, the music playing softly, and she’d turned the display on to show a beachfront view of the water.

  Setting the package of sweets aside, he’d checked the main level of the two-story apartment for her before heading up the stairs. Her voice from the end of the hall had drawn him closer. The sound of another’s voice, a baritone, had him stopping just outside the door with his hand on the handle.

  He couldn’t make any of the words out, their voices too low for him to catch anything. When the voices moved to the door Bracken made a hasty retreat down the stairs. At the last moment he remembered the sweets and scooped them up before darting out of sight.

  Jeanette came down with one of her brothers. Why she would have had her brother up in their room Bracken couldn’t begin to guess. The instant the door shut behind the other man he moved to find out, though.

  “Why was he here?” Bracken detested her brothers. Both of the men were extremely shifty characters. Neither worked, and yet they always seemed to be flush with credits. More than they should have been, given the family’s recent financial troubles. But that wasn’t his problem unless one of the brothers tried hitting him up for money.

  “Visiting, of course.” She smiled up at him. “I also asked him to pop round to take the gift I got for Daddy to the house to hide it. I want it to be a surprise so what better way than to fake him out with the idea I hadn’t gotten him anything. At which time I can pull that from the closet, and he’ll be thrilled.”

  Her brother had been carrying a box. The story could have been plausible. But something in his gut said she was lying.

  Her smile slipped until she was frowning at him. “What’s wrong?”

  Something he’d like an answer to as well. He shook his head and moved to the bank of windows. “You’ve been very secretive of late, Jeanette. Whispered vid conversations, hiding things when I come into a room, and now this. I know you’re lying about why your brother was here. Tell me the real reason.”

  He could see her moving closer in the reflective surface of the mirrors behind him. “Fine, but I don’t think you’ll like it.” Bracken was dri ven to his knees by a blinding pain that took the air from his lungs. “I’ve found someone better than a lowly ship’s second to be with. The Armada might be all honorable and whatever for some. But I plan on being a rich man’s wife, and you’re not getting there fast enough.”

  The blade she’d stabbed him with was wrenched out before being shoved back in under his rib cage. “I did like you at one time. Your dedication, though, is really quite boring. And you are too damn nosy.”

  After that his memories were foggy. They’d cleared up some over the years but not fully. He’d passed out eventually, only to come awake in the medical base to be told that nearly a month had passed. He’d been told what had happened thanks to the holo-recordings in his home. Recordings he kept to this day to ensure that bitch never crossed him again. His family hadn’t understood his refusal to turn Jeanette over to the law. But what he had in mind for her was far worse.

  His mother had told him that Jeanette had married her rich man, older too, interesting coincidence that. According to his mother, Jeanette claimed she and Bracken had broken their engagement much earlier. At the time of his awakening he hadn’t recalled how he’d ended up in the medical base. That had come later.

  Stopping outside the home where the latest fundraiser was going on, Bracken moved to a spot where he could see into the ballroom. And there she was, with her husband. The old man was only alive because Bracken held the key to Jeanette’s freedom. Since she hated her husband, and his apparently rather interesting tastes in the bedroom, a more fitting punishment for the bitch Bracken truly hadn’t come up with.

  A chilling wind blew along the street. Turning his face up to the sky, he saw one of their few storms starting to build. The temperature would drop continuously for the next hour before the storm truly hit. He needed to get back to his ship for a good night’s sleep before he had to find someone he could trust to fix his problem.

  Hunching his shoulders, he set off down the streets. He could have taken one of the public service vehicles, but he preferred to walk. It might help him think clearly about the war that seemed to be very quietly brewing behind the scenes. No one out on the streets, hustling to get indoors, had a clue. Hell, most of the military seemed to be buying into whatever the leadership said. But he and his friends knew there was something coming.

  A gust of cold wind slid under his uniform jacket. It felt too much like a warning to Bracken. One he intended to heed as he proceeded with extreme caution.

  Chapter One

  There he was again. It seemed as if every time he came back to their home world he breezed in and out faster than the wind blew over the ocean. She couldn’t blame him, of course. She had been friends with his sisters since she was born because they all lived so close together and went to the same schools, mostly the same teachers as well so she understood better than anyone just why the man spent so much time offworld. His sisters were pushy, to say the least, but his mother… That woman put controlling into a whole new light.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t like Bracken’s sisters, because that would be an untruth. She actually loved his sisters because they had all taken her under their wing during their schooling. Sadie had been an incredibly shy young woman and his sisters had helped to crack that shell and made her feel like she belonged. That was then. No, she loved them, but they pushed him too hard and no matter how many times she tried to tell them that they wouldn’t listen to her. It was during those times that Sadie disliked the women a great deal.

  So Sadie kept to herself and made herself scarce every time that he came planetside, which was mostly after having a blowup with one of his sisters. Not Cecilia, however. That poor girl was always hiding and it made Sadie’s heart hurt. Too bad she hadn’t known ahead of time that he was going to be on site now. He hated her, had only seen her in passing but couldn’t stand her so she went out of her way to keep away from Bracken. And anyway, according to his sisters, he was still pining for the woman he had lost a few years earlier. Although how he could pine for such a woman was beyond her.

  Sadie took a deep breath and blended back into the shadows, something she was exceptionally good at. She ducked behind the potted palm and watched as he moved along. She saw the way that he moved, the slight hitch when he shrugged into his dress coat, and wondered what had happened to him this time. Odd.

  She pulled the data pad from her pocket and swiped her finger across the scanner. Putting the ear bud into her ear, she touched the base of her throat and called into the unit. “Why wasn’t I told that Colonel Kauller was due planetside?”

  The crackle came through her ear and she heard, “He had been due back three weeks prior but ran into issues. Besides, aren’t you on vacation?”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be appraised when the colonel’s come planetside.”

  “Franco DeMarks was advised of the situation. He’s handled everything.”

  She rolled her eyes. She couldn’t help herself. “Thank you.”

  “Try to enjoy your vacation,” she was told before the connection was cut.

  Sadie sighed and rubbed the back of her neck, touching the bun that she had her hair wrapped up in, then leaned into the shadows once more. God she hated her job some days. It was her responsibility to inspect the reports from the destroyers, to ensure that every inch of their weapons systems were all in line as they should be. It was a position she’d fought her ass off for—and one that, at the moment, she hated. She had to arrange for another to clear his vessel so that she never got close to Bracken, a man she had secretly been head over heels for since she was five—a man that didn’t even know who she was.

  After a moment of silence she finally touched the communication device in her neck once more and said, “Upload all of Colonel Kauller’s destroyer stats to my data pad. I would like to see why he was late returning home.” So she could protect his ass. Again. She’d already done it several times for both him and General Daykin when they were far closer to Imarian space than they should have been.

  “Of course, Dr. Monterey.” Seconds later, her screen beeped.

  “Thank you, Adam. Please do not allow anyone to know that I have requested this information.”

  “As always, when it comes to Colonel Kauller,” Adam assured her before the connection cut.

  She’d been so focused on making sure she had everything she needed for Bracken’s ship that she didn’t see Lord Watkins approach her. When he reached out and touched her she jumped.

  Eyes wide, she looked at the man. “My Lord, how do you do.” She moved in closer to the palm trees. “I’m surprised to see you here. Isn’t this a function that the unmarried men typically come to in order to try to obtain a bride?”

  “Ah, then you don’t know. The contract with Felicia is up and I am now a single male. Would you do me the honor of a dance?”

  Damn. She seriously needed to learn to keep up with society, even if she hated being a part of it. Sadie knew exactly who and what she was and exactly the catch that men thought of her as. “I have to decline. Thank you for the wonderful offer, but I have a massive headache and a five a.m. meeting. Please excuse me?” She stepped around the large male by walking behind the plant. Slipping the data pad into her pocket once more, she headed for the exit, grabbing her cloak as she went along.

  She knew just what her night would entail. A glass of wine, then poring over the information from Bracken’s destroyer and ensuring that whoever went to inspect it knew just what to look for. Yes, the life of being a shadow.

  Chapter Two

  Bracken wasn’t in the best of moods the following day when his first officer informed him the inspectors were requesting permission to board. Taking the data pad, he scowled down at the screen. He read through the names and fought the urge to hurl the pad into the nearest wall.

  “No,” he said. “Permission to board denied.” Pressing his thumb to the screen, he waited for it to acknowledge who he was, then put it in officially. He handed the pad back over to his officer before heading for the doors off the command deck. “Come find me when they send someone with an actual brain. I might let that one on board.”

  He knew his denial would raise a stink with the marshal’s office. Not like it was the first time he’d done it. Bracken was very particular about who he let mess with his systems. And all the brownnosers on the list were not among the few he trusted. Given what he, Fintan, and Adira’s brother Petr were up to he had to be even more careful about who had access to his systems.

  With that foremost in his mind he headed for the main systems room. He needed to make sure that every last crumb of information of what he’d been up to of late wasn’t to be found. While he trusted certain inspectors and engineers, even those he trusted couldn’t come across what he’d been up to.

  Sealing himself into the server room, he went to the main console and logged into the system. Slowly and systematically he began to go over the time period he was on the border. Oddly enough it was clean. Which had the fine hairs on the back of his neck rising. Running a hand through his short dark auburn hair, Bracken frowned at the monitors. “There is no way you should be so pristine. What the fuck is going on?”

  Then it came to him. Taking a trick he’d learned from one of the programmers, he slipped through a backdoor of the system to look at who’d been logging in remotely. There were very few who could do it, especially with the destroyer not in port. There were fewer still who could actually get through what he’d put into place with the help of his programmer friend. What he found had him staring. Then a slow smile curled his lips. “Well, well, well. You have been a very naughty girl, Dr. Monterey.”