Excerpt from Born of Ice:

Devyn frowned. Alix didn’t really strike him as a rural kind of woman. “Really?”

She nodded. “I like the greenery and foliage. When I was little I used to try and grow plants on my dad’s ship.”

That had to be tough. Most living things didn’t like the recycled air and lack of natural daylight. “Didn’t work?”

She shook her head. “I never could get the hydroponics or lights right.”

“Sorry.” He stepped away from the machine and picked up his suit. “If it makes you feel better, I once tried to grow a monkey.”

“A monkey?”

Devyn laughed at the memory. “You know the candy, Monkey Seeds?” They were nothing but chocolate covered raisins- a nasty candy really, but it was one his dad had loved and it was something Devyn’s mother always kept in large supplies for him.

“Yeah.”

“I thought if I planted them, they’d grow monkeys.”

Alix laughed at the image of the fierce captain trying his hand at farming. And for something so ridiculous… He must have been adorable. “How old were you?”

“Five or six. I would run out every morning to see if my monkeys had sprouted. My mom didn’t have the heart to tell me I was wasting my time. So my dad created a monkey body for Vik and buried him in the garden. He crawled out one afternoon while I was watering the seeds.”

She gasped at the image in her head. “No, he didn’t.”

“Yeah, he did. Since my dad had also altered his voice track, it took me a full hour before I realized my monkey was really Vik.”

“Were you angry?”

“Nah. But Vik being Vik finally explained to me why he was the only monkey I’d ever have.”

“And I’ve been your monkey ever since.”

A charming grin broke across Devyn’s face as he looked up at the speaker. “Nah. You’re not my monkey, Vik. You’re my bitch.”

“Of course I am. And I’ll remember that the next time your shower door is stuck and you want me to open it… Wait. That does make me your bitch, doesn’t it? Damn, I am whipped.”