by Roxie Ray
I glowered. Moonstruck did not even begin to describe how completely my mind had fixated on the tiny human female I had saved from the Rutharian ship. I had known her for only a night now. In this night, even as Leonix had been thwacking me with her staff, I hadn’t been able to remove Alyse from my thoughts.
No, what embarrassed me was not just my newfound obsession with Alyse.
What embarrassed me was that according to Leonix, it was so obvious.
“I only wish to be her friend, Leonix. Nothing more.” I picked up my staff and returned it to its place as quickly as I could. I needed to get out of the training room and into the shower. Or better yet, into my bed. If exertion could not quell my thoughts, perhaps a clean body and a little sleep would lead to a clean mind as well.
“Keep telling yourself that, Nion,” Leonix called after me. “Let me know how well it serves you.”
Her laughter followed me out all the way back to my bunk.
My lodging on the Avant Lupinia was not like the set of rooms I had led Alyse to. Leonix, Haelian and Kloran, as nobles, stayed in similar rooms aboard the ship—rooms meant for ambassadors, dignitaries, and now, for the human females we were able to rescue as well. But as a common warrior, I shared my room with three other men—Gallix, Ronan, and a flighty new warrior, Ero, who was only just barely of age. For Gallix, Ronan and I, this was far from our first encounter with the Rutharians. Ero, on the other hand, had only just joined the Avant Lupinia under Haelian’s command. He had not been part of the boarding party to the Rutharian dreadnought that we had rescued Sawyer from. I was eager to see how he had fared in his first real battle against the Rutharians.
At least catching up with him would take my mind off of Alyse. Not for long, no, but for a little while.
“King-killer!” Gallix roared as I entered. He clapped me on the shoulder, grinning from ear to ear. “How does it feel to have royal blood on your hands, Nion?”
“Better his than my own.” A small smile found my lips. No matter what Kloran said or how Alyse haunted my thoughts, I would never stop taking pride in the fact that I had killed the Rutharian king. Not after what he had done to her.
“You are just lucky that General Kloran didn’t have your head for your troubles.” Ronan offered me a bottle of starshine as I passed him on my way to the bunk. Starshine was a soldier’s drink, bitter and strong. I took a swig of it and it burned all the way down—but it was not an unpleasant burn, or one I was ill-accustomed to, for that matter. “Let us pray to the nine moons that without their leader, the Rutharians will be slow to retaliate.”
“A prayer worth drinking to,” I agreed. I took another swig, then passed the bottle back to Ronan. All through the bunks, I suspected the other men were getting drunk in the wake of the battle, but I wished to keep my wits about me.
In the midst of everything else currently troubling my mind, I had not yet failed to remember that somewhere aboard the ship, there was likely a traitor in our midst. Not long after Sawyer’s rescue, two Rutharians had managed to board us without warning. They had nearly recaptured her during the encounter. Haelian had only just intercepted them in time.
It was a happening I did not wish to see a repeat of. For the sakes of the other human females now aboard the ship—and especially for Alyse. They would be eager, I was certain, to regain ownership of her more than any other. The Rutharian king’s special prize.
“Is Apex around?” I asked Gallix and Ronan. “I have not seen him since we first launched.”
“Lurking about in the shadows somewhere, I have no doubt. Or maybe he has already taken to one of the humans,” Gallix said with a bawdy laugh. “That one you carried aboard was delectable looking, Nion. Perhaps you should check her bed.”
I growled in warning, but before I could chastise Gallix for speaking of Alyse in such a way, Ero rolled over and peeked out the edge of his top bunk. He bore a bruised, swollen eye and a shock of dark, messy hair.
“Did you really kill the Rutharian king, Nion?” he asked.
“I did,” I told him solemnly. “And I would do it again.”
“You weren’t scared? You feel no remorse?” Ero’s questions came fast and eager.
It made me laugh.
“No,” I said. “I was not scared of him. He died naked and pathetic on the edge of my blade. As for remorse…he was a Rutharian, Ero. I imagine you killed a few of your own today yourself.”
Gallix snorted, then grabbed the bottle of starshine from Ronan.
“Alas, no. Our little cub Ero was knocked out almost immediately.” Gallix drank deep from the bottle then reached up to ruffle Ero’s hair. “I had to drag the poor thing back onto the shuttle myself before Ronan and I threw ourselves into the fray.”
Ero blushed deeply and drew away from Gallix’s teasing.
“I didn’t mean to,” he said. “When we boarded, I was supposed to—” His mouth gaped open for a moment, but then he closed it once more.
Strange—but understandable. After being knocked out cold at the start of his first battle, he was reasonably embarrassed. I doubted Gallix’s ribbing was making it any easier to bear. I gave him a kind smile as he retreated back into his bunk.
“You will have another chance, I am sure,” I said to him. “But, a word of advice—next time, hit your opponent before he hits you first.”
Ronan and Gallix chuckled at that as they passed their bottle back and forth, but I was in no mood for further celebrations.
It had been a long, confusing day so far. Long enough that all I wanted to do now was lie back, close my eyes, and find some solace in a dreamless sleep.
I lay there in my bunk for what felt like hours. I was searching for that sleep I so desperately wished for, but it did not come. Eventually Ronan and Gallix had finally polished off their bottle and dimmed the lights, but I remained awake and on edge.
Even in my bed in the dark, an entire ship’s length away from Alyse, my mind still found ways of focusing on her.
I thought of the green of her eyes, so much more complex when I had finally found opportunity to look into them in the light. They reminded me of the lagoons just outside my mother’s village. Crisp and clear at the top, but deep enough to grow shadowed and murky if one was brave enough to drive down. Though the other village cubs and I had spent entire summers trying, we had never managed to reach anything resembling a bottom to those lagoons. Alyse’s eyes were the same way. I could have stared at them for an eternity, taking in the swirling shades of color her irises held within them.
I could have gazed into her eyes until, just like in the lagoons, I became so lost in them that I ran out of breath.
And had she not looked fair in my shirt? Her legs, impossibly long for her short stature, had stretched all the way up to the shirt’s rumpled white hem, but she was small enough that her torso had been dwarfed by the thing. I would have to requisition a new one from the ship’s laundry, I knew. I did not think I could bring myself to ask for it back from her.
Some small part of me hoped that she would keep it with her through the night. That perhaps she was holding it to her tiny nose as she lay in her own bed. Breathing in my scent on the linen. Remembering me as I now remembered her—the way I had carried her through the smoke on the Rutharian ship. The way I had held her when she cried.
The way I had slit the throat of the man who would have made her his bride had I not stepped in and saved her from his cruelties.
Perhaps, as she lay in her own bed, she was thinking of me too.
My hands were undoing the fastenings of my belt and breeches before I could stop myself. My cock swelled at the thought of her curves, her curls, her everything. I could hardly draw her to the forefront of my mind without ending up achingly hard.
All around me, the other men in the room slept—but such was the life of a warrior. Gallix snored, Ero thrashed in his sheets and Ronan mumbled nonsense in his dreams, but I was well-practiced at ignoring all of that by now.
Instead, I c
alled out to my memory the sound of her voice as she had asked me if I would wash her. In reality, I had scolded her for that, but in my fantasies, I was free to answer as I liked.
Yes, I should have told her. Yes, I will strip my shirt from your body. Yes, I will guide you to the shower and leave my own clothes behind as well. I will shelter you from the first heat of the water, burning far too hot for your pale, cold skin in your current state. I will lather your body with rich, luxurious soap. I will wash the oils your Rutharian captor adorned you with from your skin—and when you gasp at the boldness of my touch, I will sooth you with sweet, searing kisses. Kisses that will make you forget the kiss of any other. I will protect you, Alyse—and once you say you will be mine, no other male will so much as look at you in a way that displeases me ever again.
It was a wrong thing to want. It was a terrible thing to wish for. But in the moment, with my fists stacked atop each other as I clenched my cock tight, I did not care.
I imagined her whimpers. I imagined how I would turn them to deep, lusty moans. I imagined lifting her up onto my cock and lowering her hips down onto it, her honey slick against my flared tip, her nipples hard against my chest and her fingers raking in desperation through my hair…
I came hard, my lips silently snarling the shape of her name. Alyse. Alyse. Alyse. My greatest desire. My pleasure. My prize.
As I mopped the seed from my chest with my sheets—more than I could ever recall spending in orgasm before—I knew, of course, that none of that could ever come to be.
But in my dreams, anything was possible. I wrapped myself in the memory of her scent, soft and sweet, as I finally slipped off to sleep.
9
Alyse
Seven days passed, with each blurring into the next so completely that I could only count them by the number of outfits I wore. The first of the outfits had been so extravagant that it managed to rival even the fanciest of the clothes I’d left back on Earth. I’d had to emerge from my room and creep through the halls of the ship in the billowing harem pants and midriff-baring top, holding my breath at every sound of footsteps that I heard coming my way, until I stumbled upon the tall, gray-haired female Lunarian, Leonix. I’d begged her for something a little less revealing and more comfortable, and she’d provided me with a stack of soft dresses instead. They were all soft enough that I could sleep comfortably in them.
For the whole week, I forced myself out of bed for just long enough to sear my skin bright pink in the shower and change into a new dress. Then, I sent myself right back to bed.
It was all I had the energy to do, it seemed. Sleep. Before Nion had left me, he’d told me I was welcome to roam the ship as much as I liked, but no matter how hard I tried to talk myself out of my room, I couldn’t find the motivation.
I didn’t exactly know how to deal with that. Lack of drive had never been a problem of mine before, but neither had this level of exhaustion. I knew that both of those things were telltale signs of depression.
All things considered, though, being depressed after everything I’d been through was probably the sanest thing my brain had done in a while. When my time as Var-arak’s captive had been happening, I’d at least had something to struggle against. But now, inside my safe little room with nothing but my own thoughts to wrestle with, the full weight of what had happened to me was finally settling in. And whether I liked it or not, there was no way out of it but through it.
I just wished that getting through it wasn’t so damn hard.
I had other symptoms too. Nion had explained the workings of the food articulator in my room, but I hadn’t bothered trying to bully it into making me anything. He’d pointed me toward the ship’s canteen, too, but I hadn’t been able to convince myself to wander out to grab food from it.
Leaving the room meant being gawked at by the Lunarian warriors, none of whom had seemed willing or capable of hiding their stares so far. The only people I really felt comfortable with on the ship so far were Leonix, whom I didn’t want to bother, and Nion, who I was pretty sure didn’t even want to be my friend at this point, no matter what he’d said when we last met.
It was fine, though. I wasn’t hungry, anyway.
Loss of appetite. Antisocial behaviors. Two more signs that my brain chemicals were so screwed up now, there was no telling how long it would be before they sorted themselves out again.
That was what I was most afraid of, really. When I’d been assigned shifts in the emergency room at my gray-class hospital back on Earth, I’d treated rape victims nearly every night. Often, I’d see them again, weeks after they’d been released from my care. Then, instead of preparing rape kits, I would have to pump stomachs or stitch up slit wrists.
After the ordeals they’d been put through, many of them never truly recovered.
Maybe I wouldn’t, either.
A knock sounded on the door of the suite, two hard raps. Probably someone who’d been sent to make sure I hadn’t killed myself in here already.
But I wasn’t suicidal. At least I had that going for me. No, the real problem was getting out of bed again. I’d already had my shower for the day. My teeth were brushed, my hair had dried into its usual wild mess of curls and I had a clean dress on. Barring those most basic forms of self-care, I was struggling to find a good reason to emerge from the warmth of the fluffy blankets all around me.
Knock-knock, came the sound from the door again, though. Like some kind of cruel joke. But the sound was insistent enough that I could be sure whoever had been sent to check on me wasn’t going away anytime soon.
And the last thing I needed right now was for some Lunarian warrior to wind up kicking down my door.
I emerged from my blankets like a grumpy bear being forced out of hibernation mid-winter. As I padded out of the bedroom and through the little living area of my suite, I did it with a scowl on my face.
I knew how I probably looked: wild, huge hair pointing in every direction known to man and a few known only to alien warlords. Dark circles beneath my puffy eyes that wouldn’t go away no matter how much I slept. In the last week, I knew I’d lost weight. My body felt heavy all over, but my feet touched the floor so lightly that I might as well have been floating across the room like a ghost.
“What?” I snapped as I yanked the door open.
Behind it, Nion’s fist was already raised, ready to keep on knocking until I let him in.
Wow. He looked…incredible, in a word. He was dressed in the same kind of outfit he’d been wearing when he’d rescued me. Black boots laced up to his knees. White pants fastened with a black belt. He’d obviously managed to find a fresh white shirt, which was good. I still had the one he’d given me wadded up beneath my pillow.
Sometimes, I was embarrassed to admit, I held it against my face and breathed in his scent when I wanted to feel something other than the dull, sensationless embrace of the void I was currently stuck in.
And that wasn’t all I was embarrassed about. Nion looked clean-cut and handsome, with his green hair slicked back elegantly and a charming smile on his lips. By comparison, I must have looked positively feral.
Well done, Alyse. Now he’s going to think you’re a madwoman on top of being a spoiled brat, too.
“Hello, Alyse.” He was still pronouncing my name with care. Obviously, the hissy fit I’d thrown over the way he’d been saying it before had left a mark. “I had not seen you in some time, so I thought it prudent to ensure you were well. May I come in?”
For a second, I thought about telling him to fuck off. I hadn’t asked to be brought aboard this ship, and I certainly didn’t need babysitting. No, I wasn’t exactly doing okay, but I was a doctor, dammit. I’d put myself back together again eventually. I just needed time—time, and to be left alone so I could recover.
But then, I met his gaze. There was a tenderness in his eyes, a warmth that, despite myself, I couldn’t help but crave. Just a little.
This whole situation was stressful enough already. We were from diff
erent cultures. Different worlds. I didn’t need to exacerbate things by being rude.
And truth be told…I could probably use a friend right now.
“Yeah, okay.” I stepped aside so Nion could enter the room, then closed the door behind me. “So. Um. How have you been?”
Nion looked around the untouched kitchen and pristine living room and frowned.
“I am more concerned with how you have been, Alyse. You look…thinner. Have you been eating?”
I hugged my arms around my body and squeezed my biceps. He wasn’t wrong. They were smaller than they’d been when Nion had last seen me, and the bags under my eyes probably didn’t make me look like the picture of health, either.
“Not hungry,” I said with a shrug. “But I’m okay. Just taking things day by day.”
Nion’s frown deepened. He stared me down like he could see straight through me. Not just my body, but my lie as well.
I wasn’t okay. And whether I liked it or not, he could obviously tell.
“Come.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the bedroom. I struggled against him, but he was strong—and after a week of skipping meals, he could have moved me wherever he wanted me just by blowing on me at this point. “Enough of this.”
“I’m fine,” I insisted, but Nion was having none of it. I stumbled after him into the bedroom. He pushed me into a sitting position on the mattress, then turned to the pile of clothes I’d left in the corner.
“You are not fine. Are these the only clothes you were given? Sleeping shifts?”
“There’s a fancier outfit toward the bottom of the pile,” I admitted. “But I felt kind of…on display in it. Leonix gave me a stack of these dresses instead.” I plucked at the soft cloth of the shift over my thighs. It came down to my knees, but if I’d had a choice, it would have extended all the way down to my feet, and up over my head as well. “They’re comfortable, though. I’m happy in them.”