Mack 'n' Me: The Wolves of Alpha 9 by C.M. Simpson (top ebook reader txt) 📕

I tried a half-hearted leg sweep in the vague direction of where he was standing, and couldn’t get my leg to shift. Mack came and stood over me.

“Let’s call it a day, there,” he said, and I was about to argue, when he added, “I think I promised you a kaff, and some breakfast.”

“Haven’t knocked you on your ass, yet,” I murmured, but all I wanted to do was sleep.

“Not without eating, you don’t!” Doc’s voice snapped through both our heads, making us jump. “You’ll eat, and then you’ll sleep, and training is over until oh-eight-hundred, tomorrow, after breakfast.”

Seriously?

I stared at Mack, and was relieved to see he was just as surprised by Doc’s order as I was.

“We’d better do as he says,” Mack told me, and stretched out his hand.

I stared at it for a moment, and then reached up to grab it—or that was what I was meant to do. I got my hand off the floor, and just couldn’t raise it any higher.

“I am as weak as piss,” I said. “Doc, what’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing a good feed, and a good eighteen hours won’t go a long way to mending.”

“What the Hell?”

“You push your system that hard, Cutter, something’s going ta give. Do as you’re told, and you’ll be back to your usual obnoxious self in a couple of days.”

“I don’t have a couple of days, Doc.”

“Kiddo, you’ve got until the end of the week. Mack, make sure she goes to bed once she’s fed.”

Mack fixed me with a stern glare.

“I’ll tuck her in, myself.”

I huffed out a sigh, and struggled up onto my elbows. I was beat, and my body didn’t want to cooperate, but I got that far, and then sat up, and only then did I let Mack haul me to my feet. Before I could move away, he’d tucked his arm around me, and turned for the edge of the mat. Weird just how right that felt.

“Weird?” Mack asked. “Feels like you belong there, to me.”

Nice of him to say so. I guess he’d finished being the responsible captain, then, and was back to being boyfriend Mack.

“Boyfriend, girl?” And his arm tightened. “Nah, this is more than that.”

It was?

I felt my heart give a happy skip, and decided I could get used to the idea. Maybe next time I skipped off the ship, he could come with me. That gave him pause.

“You thinkin’ of running away, again?” and sadness softened his voice.

I scowled.

“Is it running if I drag your sorry ass with me?”

I sensed confusion, as though he didn’t quite know what to make of that, but he gave me the best reply he knew how.

“I don’t know,” he said, and changed the subject as we reached the cafeteria. “Just how hungry are you?”

Truth was, I wasn’t feeling all that hungry, but, before I could answer, Doc pushed through some minimums, and I sighed.

“How about that hungry?” I asked, and Mack guided me through to the small chamber off the main cafeteria that served as the captain’s mess.

“Tens? You and the boy joining us for lunch?” Mack asked, and Tens came back, bright and sharp.

“Not today, captain. We’re in the middle of something. We’ll eat later. You and the missus can have a romantic meal for two, for a change.”

Romantic, huh? Well, sure, if you liked it when your girl fell asleep in the soup. Mack set me in the seat just off to his left, the one furthest from the door and closest to him. It had started out as a way of keeping me in reach, and become a bit of a tradition. Right now, I didn’t care.

I slid into the seat, and propped my elbows on the table, before resting my head in my hands. I was even too tired to give Tens a hard time. Which reminded me...

“Just where in the Stars do you get missus from?”

But Tens didn’t reply. Mack, on the other hand.

“Would it bother you?”

“What?”

“Being the captain’s wife?”

“I...uh...”

Uncertainty sluiced through my gut, like ice. It was one thing to accept I wanted to partner with Mack, quite another to wear the title.

He sighed.

“I’ll let you sleep on it,” he said, and I shot him a sharp glance.

“Alone,” he added. “Very much alone.”

The look on his face made me smile, and I managed to snark up a retort.

“You better,” I said, “or Doc is gonna have your hide.”

“I’m still gonna tuck you in,” and he sounded like he was sulking.

I looked down at the table, then over at the door.

“Someone said something about kaff,” I said, “or were you just talking through your ass.”

“I could just make you go get it yourself...”

I took my chin out of my hands, and set my palms against the edge of the table, getting ready to push back my chair, but Doc’s voice intervened.

“She crashes before she eats, Mack, and I’m holding you personally responsible.”

Mack gave me a startled look.

“How much time do we have?”

“Thirty minutes, maybe less.”

“I’ll be back,” and, with that, he was gone.

“What do you mean ‘thirty minutes”, Doc?” I asked.

There was a long silence, and then Doc answered.

“I mean you’ve got maybe thirty minutes before your body decides it’s going to sleep and there’ll be nothing you can do about it.”

Uh, huh.

“Great.”

“So you better eat fast when Mack comes back.”

I had?

“Yes, you had, because I can always kick your tail when you wake up.”

He could?

“Or stick you with an I.V. and get the nutrients into you that way.”

“I’ll eat,” I said, and really hoped Mack hurried the Hell up.

He did, and I ate like I was on standby and the Drop Master was about to kick in my door and boot my ass to a shuttle. The kaff should have helped, but it didn’t, and I barely made it through the plates Mack lined up in front of me before my eyes started to droop.

“I’m not making it back to my bunk alone, am I?”

“Shut up and eat, or Doc will have both our hides.”

I