Broken by Erin M. Leaf Page A

my heart. I had no choice.”
    Before
she could argue, Zoen cupped her cheek, derailing her
words.
    “Stormy
Sky,” he said, leaning in to kiss her. “Be still, now. You hold my soul.”
    Sky
let out a shuddering breath as her emotions threatened to overwhelm her. After
a few false starts, she managed to speak. Damn them both for making me cry. She swiped at her cheeks. “Okay.”
    Zoen gave
her a disapproving look.
    She
growled. “Fine. Okay, yes, I love you both, too. Now
let’s go home.” She squeezed them, then stepped back and looked around
critically. “Also, this is a crappy ship. I say we blow it up.”
    Jaxt looked at Zoen , who looked at Sky. She shrugged. He
grinned. Jaxt threw back his head and laughed loud
enough to scare the dead.
     

Epilogue
     
    “Welcome
back, Sky,” John said, closing the cloak behind her.
    Sky
paused and looked out at the trading settlement. Now that the old bosses were
gone, the people who lived here had used some of the extra money to expand
their technology. She smiled at the solar panels on the cabins. All the ragged
tents were gone.
    “Looks
good, eh?”
    She
smiled at him. “It sure does. How’s it going?” She edged her slightly rounded
belly behind the table where his ledger sat, already open. “You were waiting
for me?”
    “Yeah, Zoen came by and said you’d be here within the hour.”
He smiled crookedly. “You sure those aliens are treating you okay? He had green
skin today. Green. ” He shuddered.
    “It’s
kind of too late to do anything about it, even if they weren’t treating me
well,” she replied, gesturing to her belly.
    John
sighed. “I still can’t believe you let them knock you up.”
    She
grinned. “It was a lot of fun.”
    “ Ack ! No, I don’t want to know,” John exclaimed, laughing. “Too much information!”
    Sky
chuckled and headed outside, stooping to pick up the
bag with the turkey she’d trapped. The smugglers’ settlement was a lot cleaner
and more organized now. She’d had a bit of an altercation with Foxworthy when
she came back with Jaxt and Zoen ,
and he’d ended up dead. The location was still kept mostly secret to protect
the inhabitants from being overrun with humans trying to escape from other
parts of Earth, but trade was much more open. Well, as open as smugglers ever let something get , she thought
wryly.
    “Cori
was looking for you,” John said, coming up behind her.
    “Ah, good. I have something for her,” Sky said, looking toward Mack’s former cabin. Cori
lived there now, with Alice and Louisa. Some of the other women from Kaxt’s ship were here, too, and a few others had gone back
to the refugee camps where they had families. “I won’t be staying long,
anyway.”
    “When
your aliens came here without you, it gave us a bit of a scare.”
    Sky
rolled her eyes. “That’s ridiculous. We’ve been coming here together for half a
year and they’ve never done anything violent.”
    “They’re
usually with you, Sky,” John argued, walking with her.
    “They’re
perfectly civilized,” she lied, walking faster. She wanted to give Cori her
favorite dinner and get the hell out of here. This place might be run better
since John took over as leader, but it still reminded her too much of her years
here with Graeme. And Mack.
    “I
kept things cool, but you know how people are,” John said, keeping pace with
her. Little dust clouds from their feet puffed up around them.
    Sky
coughed to clear her throat. “I bet Cori didn’t freak out.”
    John
sighed. “No, she didn’t, which helped a lot. She actually ran up and gave the
bigger one a hug.”
    “You
do realize that the three of us are the reason this place is doing so well,
right? That Jaxt and Zoen keep the Xyran raiders away?” She stopped and glared
at him. “And the human criminals? And
the last of the human military?”
    “Most
of us know that, which is why your guys are here right now, chatting with Alice
and the girls. We know who keeps us