Page 47 of Sloane

"Blocker." I hold my hand, hoping Vyron will hand over the small device that hooks into a male's nostrils and blocks out pheromones from the air.

Blockers are necessary to have when males and females who have cycles are near one another, but Holoth is the only one on our crew whose species does that, so we've never needed blockers. Now, I think we will need to stock up at the next port we stop at so this situation never has a chance to occur again. I don't know how we got lucky enough for it not to have happened in the last six years.

Vyron places the device in my hand, and I give him a small nod of thanks. Holoth still has the gun aimed at the smuggler, but he doesn't snap his teeth at me when I move closer to him. His lips twitch as he takes deep, hard breaths through his nose. If there really is a female in heat right now, he's only making himself more upset by breathing so hard. Thankfully, it'll all be fixed as soon as I get this blocker on him.

"You good?" I ask in a whisper as I move to place the blocking device on his septum.

Holoth jerks his head once in an affirmation but keeps his eyes on Vyron like he's one twitch away from blowing his head off inour navigation pit. Essa and Alik have shifted their bodies closer to him. If a fight happens, we want to be in position.

The blocker slides into place, and a soft beep sounds as it locks into his nostrils, purifying the air as it enters his system and keeping more hormones from filling his lungs.

"It will take him a while to adjust. The human female's system was modified, and her heat just ended when you arrived at the rendezvous point. It's why we needed more time. She was making me lose my mind. I wasn't safe to be around," Vyron says as his muscles relax.

He steps into the navigation pit, his hands loose on his hips as he steps aside and lets the other two come through as well. Both are Unaran males. They're about two heads shorter than their leader and much more twitchy than he is. Their kind are thin and spindly, their pink skin always looking slightly wet. Their eyes are too big for their faces, but their mouths are filled with razor-sharp teeth they're not afraid to use in a fight.

"Why was her system modified?" Alik asks, feigning disinterest as best as he can.

They're here to take our female off our hands, so it shouldn't matter to us what they're doing to the other female they're smuggling, but we do care. She's about to be a part of the crew while we get her to safety, which means we need to know what was done to her to make sure we don't traumatize her even more.

"Alik," Vyron offers a hand to Alik that he shakes as though it's no issue. It's only clear to those of us who know Alik that he's unhappy to even be near the other male. "We've discussed so much via comms, but I'm always surprised when I actually meet peers."

I'm surprised Alik doesn't attack the male on the spot. He hates being likened to the smugglers in any capacity. "Yes, I don't think I realized you were Rytharian "

"Not something to mention often," Vyron says as he rubs the back of his neck. "It's easy to take us down. You saw how your pilot reacted to just lingering scents of heat. I don't like others knowing, so they can't use it against me."

"Human females don't have heats." Holoth finally seems to calm his raging hormones and holsters his blaster. His hands flex and fist next to his side over and over, but that's better than holding a gun to the other male's head. "Is that how you modified her?"

"Our buyer wanted a female with the anatomy of our species but didn't want to deal with all of the paperwork and training he'd have to go through if he applied through the embassy." The leader shrugs as though it's a decent answer. "I didn't even know it was possible, but human DNA is easier to adjust than other species. It helps that their wombs are compatible with most species so long as adjustments are made."

Holoth growls deep and low in his chest again, but the other male doesn't pay much attention to it. There's an understanding among Rytharian males, as far as I know. Holoth has never told us much about where he came from, but we looked it up a little when he joined us. His species is more physically aggressive in general. Right now, that's fine because it means the male thinks Holoth's still adjusting to the blocker and hormones rather than struggling not to disembowel him.

"Are you planning on doing the same with our female?" Alik asks.

The word 'our' is loud in my ears as he says it. It's a small thing he's doing to make sure I remember that we're not going to let anything happen to Sloane. He needs to ask to make sure all of this seems like a normal trade.

"Where is the female?" one of the little Unarans asks as he looks around the navigation pit.

His eyes narrow as though he's just now realized there are only four of us here when we definitely have five crew members and a human. Maybe they're more intelligent than their captain, or maybe just a little more observant.

"She's locked up in my room," Alik says with a smirk. "You never made a specification that we couldn't sample the product before selling it."

The rage that bubbles in my chest is hot and grating as I try my hardest to swallow it down and not let it get to me. Essa's lip pulls up as well, her tail lashing back and forth in irritation as she, too, tries to keep herself from blowing the mission before we've even found the other female.

The three smugglers don't seem to notice our reactions because they're staring at Alik like they're both impressed and a little disgusted with him. Who would've thought he'd be able to make human smugglers uncomfortable?

"Our buyer doesn't allow us to touch his product, but seeing as you didn't know this, we can just not tell him," Vyron says, a hint of uncertainty filling his words. His brows furrow, and then he opens his mouth to ask another question. "Before we take her into our custody, might we each have a turn with her? It's been a while since we've had a female, and the heat hormones have been making our lives difficult."

Alik's face turns into an icy hellscape as soon as the male's question is posed. The only saving grace is that this male doesn't know any of us, so he doesn't realize that Alik's deciding how much of our oxygen we're willing to waste on him.

"His kind do not share females while they're still being serviced by them," Essa says with a wave of her hand and a flick of her tail. She uses her singsongy voice, the one that lures in prey.

It's an enticing sound usually accompanied by her scary eyes and lengthened fangs. Those are both put away for now becauseshe's trying to draw the smugglers' attention away from Alik, who's about to murder them.

Her plan works, and all three males turn their attention to her. It leaves Alik to seethe without an audience. His fingers play over the daggers strapped to his chest, and I know we're one bad statement away from a bloodbath in the navigation pit.

I don't realize my hands are on my daggers until Holoth is next to me, stilling my fidgeting with a hand on my upper shoulder. The smaller males don't seem to notice how close Alik and I are to losing it, much like their leader, because they're too focused on noticing that Essa is a female. So much for them being more observant.

"And what's your role on the ship, then?" The male's voice deepens, a smirk spreading his lips as his muscles flex taunt.