by Roxie Ray
It was just…I couldn’t fathom what path my life would take if it was true. I didn’t want it to be true. And if it was…I didn’t know what I would do.
If he wanted to fight me on that, I was ready to go.
“That is fine,” Nion said to my surprise. No fighting. No insisting. Just a direct, simple acknowledgment of my wishes. It was embarrassing to say, but I’d forgotten that was possible.
I hadn’t had anyone acknowledge what I wanted in what felt like a long time.
“Well…thank you.” I stared into his eyes, which seemed to be shifting between a purple and a shade of blue that I couldn’t really explain just then. His gaze was sympathetic, at least.
I didn’t like people feeling sorry for me, but I appreciated being seen.
“It angers me, what has happened to you,” Nion said slowly. Now, his eyes were switching between a blue-purple and a purple-red. Incredibly weird. “I am sorry that it happened. I am sorry I could not have saved you sooner.”
I opened my mouth to tell him it was nothing…but a sob came out instead.
I was crying. As the tears came, they frustrated me more than anything that had happened so far—but there was no stopping him.
“Shh. Let it out. Let it go.” Nion wrapped his arms around me and held me tight as my body trembled with frustration and sorrow and guilt. He held me until I was able to calm down—just a little bit.
“I don’t know how to repay you,” I told him through my sniffling. “If you hadn’t saved me, I think…I think I would have died there.”
“Repay me by getting your check-up. The healers will not hurt you,” Nion reassured me. “They will only examine you to ensure you do not need medical care.”
“I’m a doctor—a healer—too,” I snapped at him. “I get to decide when I do and don’t need medical care.”
Nion drew back and stared me down for a moment.
“Do it for me?” he asked. “If you want to repay me, then do me this favor. You owe me, do you not?”
I scowled at him for saying it—but I couldn’t argue with his logic.
“Fine. Send them back in, then.” As he moved toward the door, though, I reached for his elbow and held him back for a second. “Will you, um. Will you wait for me, though? I’m all alone here right now, and you’re the only person I know.”
“Of course,” Nion said without hesitation. Now, his eyes were just flickering between purple and blue. “Whatever you need. Of course.”
6
Nion
“Stubborn humans,” Leonix scoffed as we loitered outside Ahl-iss’ examination room. “I cannot believe you gave her your shirt.”
She was not wrong, of course. From my interactions with Bria and Sawyer, I knew that human females were undoubtedly among the most obstinate creatures in all the galaxies. But even so, I had never seen her look so vexed before, not even by Bria or Sawyer. “I do not understand what there is to make such a fuss about. Does she not want us to ensure that she is well?”
I bit my tongue, uncertain of whether I should reveal to Leonix why I believed Ahl-iss may not have wanted to be examined. She had been violated by the Rutharians, yes. And I suspected that determining whether or not the seed of the Rutharian I had killed had taken in her womb was not a reality she was yet ready to face. Not so soon after she had been brought to safety. But Ahl-iss had revealed that to me in confidence. It was not her fault that she had been treated in such a terrible way. She had no reason to be ashamed of that which she had no control over. But it was not right to inform others of her abuse just the same, I decided. Head Healer Adskow and Coplan Majari were medical staff who needed to know of such things. Leonix, on the other hand, had no need to be told of it.
“She says she was a healer on Earth,” I told Leonix instead. “Remember what a fuss Coplan caused when Healer Adskow had to set his broken arm? And he was only in training at the time. I think, when it comes to healers, they dislike being healed themselves.”
“Perhaps,” Leonix grumbled. “But it is still an annoyance. The other females you rescued have submitted themselves to our medical examinations without complaint. I fear your little female is going to prove to be quite the handful.”
I smiled without meaning to, recalling the softness of her breasts against my chest as she had pressed her body to mine for comfort. More than a handful. Much more.
But I forced the smile away with my next words.
“Not mine,” I said, trying my best not to sound bitter. “I am a soldier, Leonix. Not like Kloran or Haelian. I have no title or riches to my name.”
Leonix scoffed. “Do not be daft, Nion. Human females do not care about those things.”
“Bria chose General Kloran. Sawyer, General Haelian,” I pointed out. “When the high lords come to court her, she will forget all about me. When we arrive back on Lunaria, she is sure to choose someone who can give her a better life than the one she had on Earth.”
“If we arrive back on Lunaria.” There was a rumble in Kloran’s voice as he stormed through the doors of the medical bay. When his eyes fell upon me, he looked as though he wanted to tear my throat out with his teeth. “Do you have any idea what you have done, Nion?”
I held my hands up and blinked in surprise. Yes, I supposed, I had placed Ahl-iss on my lap in the shuttle, but I had not meant for my cock to be so hard on the ride back to the ship—and as far as I could tell, she had been understanding of my inability to control such things. But I doubted that Kloran could have heard of that already—and even if he had managed to find some way of knowing, I did not see any reason to incriminate myself further.
“Not…recently, no?”
Haelian was not far behind Kloran. He did not look so angry as he did exhausted. He placed an arm across Kloran’s chest, holding him back.
“Nion had no way of knowing,” Haelian said to Kloran. “You have no right to rage at him for it. He was simply doing his duty. As you would have done. As would I.”
“And what exactly is it that Nion has done?” Leonix perked up with interest. Gossip. Few things lifted her mood better than a delectable scrap of news.
Kloran and Haelian exchanged a tense look, then Haelian sighed.
“It was no average Rutharian ship we assaulted today,” Haelian revealed. “Had it been a dreadnought, or a scouting ship, it would be a different matter, but—”
“You killed their king, you know-nothing dolt!” Kloran lunged at me as he snarled, even though Haelian held him back. “We have already debriefed the other men on the mission, and none could say that they fought anything more than berserkers—which means it must have been you, Nion of House Nothing. What should have been a simple rescue mission will soon turn every Rutharian in the galaxies toward our ship—and with five human females on board with us, no less!”
I did not flinch as Kloran swiped and bellowed at me.
If anything, my lips twitched with amusement.
At least if what Kloran was saying was true, I would not be known as Nion of House Nothing for much longer.
Nion King-killer. It was a fair epithet, especially for a soldier of no house like myself. If Kloran was so full of rage at me for killing a Rutharian—king or not—then I supposed my actions aboard the Rutharian ship would indeed have political ramifications. But I was a warrior, not a general. I did not give the orders. I did not plan the attacks. My duty aboard the Rutharian ship had been simple: save every human female I could find and cut down every Rutharian I could sink my blade into.
No. If Kloran wished for me to apologize for slitting the throat of Ahl-iss’ rapist, he would be left wanting. I felt no remorse for what I had done. Nor, I doubted, would I ever.
The things he had done to her were unspeakably cruel. As far as I was concerned, he deserved a far worse end than the one he had received.
“The Rutharians have violated every code of war the galaxies have offered them,” I said with a shrug. “They steal breeding slaves from their rightful buyers. They steal human females from thei
r homes. They terrorize the citizens of every planet they come upon, the crews of every ship that crosses their paths.” They murdered my brother, I had no need to add. Leonix, Haelian and Kloran knew my opinions on that matter well enough already. “If it is wrong to kill them for their misdeeds, then perhaps I am in the wrong line of work.”
Haelian sighed again. “You speak truthfully, Nion, but—”
“But could you not have taken the baz-terd hostage instead?” Kloran roared with frustration.
I blinked at him for a moment, choosing my words with care.
“Perhaps I would have, had I known he was some lofty royal,” I said simply, though I knew it was not true. If I had the chance to do it over, my actions would have been the same. “But I did not find him sitting on his throne, nor did I find him dressed in finery. There was no crown upon his head when I killed him. When I found him, forcing his way between the thighs of a defenseless female, he wore nothing at all.”
My words must have hit heavy, because for a moment, no one spoke in reply. Leonix, Kloran and Haelian simply stared at me for a long while before finally, Kloran drew back and Haelian clenched his jaw in disgust.
It did not surprise me. Kloran and Haelian had human mates. Leonix was friend to Sawyer and Bria, and female herself.
They understood the heinous act that I had stopped. They understood now, at least, why I had done what I had done.
“Then it is settled,” Haelian said quietly. “There was nothing to help it. You did all that could be asked of you, Nion.”
I wished to point out that it was Haelian and Kloran who had ordered the attack on the so-called Rutharian king’s ship—and that it had been blasted into nothing as our shuttle flew away from the scene as well—but these points, I had already determined, were largely moot.
I loved Kloran and Haelian as brothers-in-arms, Leonix as a sister. We had fought beside each other ever since we were cubs, with Leonix training the aims of our blasters and the movements of our blades. But though they were kin to each other, I was kin to no one but the single mother I had left on Lunaria when I came to fight the battles of others. I would never be the warrior at the helm of the ship, choosing where to strike next. I would never sit on the high council, deciding on whom we should next wage war.
They were nobles, all three of them. Though I may have become a king-killer, I was not. And in my experience with nobility, they rarely enjoyed hearing from a peasant like myself that they, in fact, may have been in the wrong.
“We must address the high council to inform them of this news,” Haelian said, nudging Kloran toward the door. “If there is to be retribution on the part of the Rutharians—and I am certain there will be—then they need to know before it comes.”
But Kloran did not move from where he stood. He stared me down instead. Slowly, his eyes shifted from blood-tinged, to purple, to a dull, sorrowful gray.
“I apologize, Nion.” The sincerity in his voice told me he may have meant it, too. “I should not have—”
“It is nothing.” I held up a hand in salute to him. “I apologize for any inconvenience I may have caused you, but… such is war, General.”
“Such is war,” Kloran agreed. Then, abruptly, he furrowed his brow with confusion. “But, Nion…”
“Yes, General?” What in the stars could he have wanted now?
“Where is your shirt?”
Leonix burst with a laugh. “That, General, you do not want to know.” Still chuckling, she placed her hands on Haelian’s and Kloran’s backs and led them back out through the doors.
In their absence, I paced while I waited for Ahl-iss to return from her examination until I was certain I would wear a path through the floor beneath my boots. It made me anxious to know that the Rutharians would likely strike back at my people for what I had done, but it made me even more anxious not to know what was happening to Ahl-iss within the exam room.
I had much preferred it when she had been at my side, I realized. Though it was not my duty to keep her safe any longer now that she was aboard the ship, I still felt a sense of protectiveness toward her. Not simply because it was I who had saved her from the Rutharians—though, I was sure that played a part—but because she had asked me to stay with her.
Even when she feared the exams that Healer Adskow and Coplan sought to run on her, I was the one she had looked to for comfort. For safety and warmth.
But depending on how the exams went…if she was pregnant with the Rutharian king’s heir…
Those were, perhaps, not things I would be able to give her. If she carried a Rutharian cub, I suspected, those were not graces that any would be able to provide for her anymore.
As if in answer to my wonderings, the doors of the examination room burst open. Coplan strode through them, but though I searched his face for an answer—relieved or dismayed—I only found annoyance knitted in his brow.
“She is impossible,” Coplan spat. He raked his fingers through his hair and looked to be on his last wit. “Are all humans like this? It seems as though the more beautiful they are, the more frustration they cause.”
Despite myself, I felt my lips twitch in amusement.
“You have not spent enough time around human females, my friend.” I crossed my arms over my chest as my smirk broadened. “What has she done now?”
“Oh, she allowed us to examine her. Up to a point.” Coplan paused, drew in a breath, and let it out, long and slow. “Physically, she does not seem to be harmed. Mentally, she is aggressive, spiteful and rude—but thankfully, not broken.”
“Then what is the problem?” Aggressive, spiteful and rude—it was hard to imagine Ahl-iss in such a way, but all of these things appealed to me. She was spirited. I liked that in a female—liked it more than I wanted to admit.
“She will not agree to be tested for pregnancy,” Coplan said, looking grim. He held up his hand, which was marred with a small, dark orange mark. “When I tried to test her anyway, she tried to bite me!”
I could not help it. I laughed.
“You find this funny? She could have torn my hand off, Nion!”
“I find it understandable,” I corrected him. “She has been through much. If we are concerned that she may be pregnant, do you not think that perhaps she would be disagreeable to being manhandled further? Besides, humans do not have fangs like we do.” My chest filled with warmth at the sight of the small smile she had given me when I made her laugh. Her teeth were straight and white, but her incisors were small. Kloran’s own cub, Kaliope, had longer ones than Ahl-iss did. “She barely left a scratch on you, my friend.”
“True. But…still.” Coplan’s eyes met mine, shining with seriousness. “She must be tested, Nion. If she is with child…”
“I know the stakes, Coplan.” If Ahl-iss was pregnant with a Rutharian cub—the offspring of the very king I had just killed—Kloran and Haelian would have more to worry about than just a Rutharian war party intent on revenge. They would want her back. Immediately. And with a Rutharian cub in her belly, I did not know that the high council would even see Ahl-iss as someone worthy of our defense.
“Can you not talk some sense into her? She at least seems to obey you.”
Despite my misgivings about a potential pregnancy, the warmth in my chest doubled at that. Obeying me…I did enjoy the way that sounded, though I doubted if she was as feisty as Coplan claimed, that would not remain true for long.
But though Ahl-iss had asked me to stay with her, I hesitated to agree to Coplan’s request. For as long as the idea of her obeying me pleased me so, I did not know that I could trust myself around her. She was as beautiful as he said. Desirable in every way I had ever felt it for a female, plus a few new ways that I had never before known. From the moment I first laid eyes on her, she had made my heart feel as though she had slipped a leash around it. I knew if she simply tugged on that lead, it was I who would be the one obeying.
And despite my desire for her, I had other things to be keeping my mind on. Fight
ing more Rutharians, for one. Finding the one who had killed my brother—and, perhaps more pressingly, finding the traitors in our ranks as well.
How could I stay true to my mission, when already she had twisted my mind so completely around her delicate little fingers? How could I continue to throw myself into battle, to fight and maim and kill, if I came to care about her so much that I was no longer so concerned with killing Rutharians as I was returning to her side once more?
And when we did return to Lunaria—when she chose some good-for-nothing lord over me—if I did not distance myself from her now, how would I recover? Broken bones, stab wounds and concussions, I could heal from. But I had never felt so tenderhearted for a female before. Not like this.
I feared very little, but to lose myself to a female I knew would never be my own—yes. I feared that. I feared that a great deal.
“Nion?” Coplan drew me from my musings and cocked his head toward the door of the exam room. “If you do not mind?”
My chest rumbled with annoyance, but I did as he asked and followed him back into the room.
I would give her what she needed for now, I decided. She was alone on this ship, and in need of me. But I could not let myself fantasize about her for any longer. Of that much, I was sure. We could be friends, as I was friends with Sawyer and Bria.
I could not lose myself to Ahl-iss, though. Not in my head, and certainly not in my heart.
I could not let her in too much. Not when I knew that I would inevitably lose her. Even if she did not have a Rutharian prince in her womb, she would someday undoubtedly belong to another.
And I could not fall in love with some other Lunarian’s bride.
7
Alyse
“I don’t care what he says,” I told Nion with a scowl in Coplan’s direction as they came back into the room together. “I’ve put up with enough alien invasiveness for one lifetime already. I’m not getting probed.”