by Roxie Ray
“You should be thanking me, Gallix.” I stripped out of my clothes and tossed them at him with a grin. “With that pretty face of yours, you could do with a few scars to balance your features out.”
“And here I was thinking I would be able to throw on a pretty dress at the next military ball and seduce a wealthy lord with my looks.” Gallix placed his palm to his forehead in faux-anguish. “No fair prince of Lunaria will have me now!”
We laughed as we raced into the showers, shouldering each other out of the way for access to the best tap. Once again, I won.
After today, I imagined, Gallix would think twice before sneaking up on me in the training room again.
“Your pretty blonde female looked enthralled by your fighting skills today,” Gallix said offhandedly as he soaped up. “Such a shame you were gawking at her so hard you let yourself be caught unawares.”
“She is difficult not to stare at,” I admitted. The steam rose up off my body as the water seared against my chest, deliciously hot. “But she is far from mine.”
“Whatever you must tell yourself to sleep at night.” Gallix chuckled and flicked a fistful of soap bubbles my way. “Take that as an order, actually. I am tiring of hearing your bunk creak while you imagine your fist to be her pretty lips, Nion.”
“And I am tired of hearing you snore all night while you dream of wealthy husbands,” I shot back at him. “But alas, we all must endure.”
After I had finished washing the sweat from my body, I knew I was best off returning to my bunk to wind down before I got some sleep. But without another battle on the horizon for the foreseeable future and no new word from Apex on who the traitor among the warriors might be, I struggled to convince myself to relax.
When we arrived on Newthelia, I knew there would be nothing to do but relax. When we returned to the ship after the short leave, the other warriors would do so exhausted, with their bellies full of cheap Newthelian noodles, and empty balls from their time at the pleasure houses there. I, on the other hand, would be dining on fine embassy food and doing not much else. Entertaining Alyse, perhaps, if I had to—if she wanted me to—but I suspected that would be an exercise which would leave my balls more aching than empty.
More likely than not, I would spend most of my time on the planet in a plush bed with my hand around my cock, trying and failing to avoid imagining her shapely hips and lovely green eyes.
Instead of taking to my bunk, I decided to slip into the canteen for a drink. With the increased rations of starshine, there was certain to be a little revelry there. And since I would not be going out with the other warriors in the Newthelian capital, my time for socialization amongst my comrades would have to be done on the ship before we docked.
If nothing else, a few drinks would help me take my mind off of her.
Or at least…so I had thought.
I spotted Alyse as soon as I walked into the canteen. She was seated at a table with Leonix and Healer Adskow, sipping from a little glass of starshine. It was hard not to smile when I caught sight of the cute little face she made each time she raised the liquor to her lips. She clenched her eyes shut tight, scrunched up her nose, twisted her lips and shivered with every mouthful.
Blood. The way her body moved was exceptional. Even draped as it was in her oversized medical scrubs, she made me salivate just to look at her.
Unfortunately, I was not the only one.
Across the room, I saw Coplan’s gaze catch on Alyse as well. He raked his fingers through the blue waves of his hair and tossed back an entire dram of starshine as if steeling his will, then moved toward her.
Immediately, my body tensed with jealousy.
I had been trying to avoid Alyse as much as possible, yes. My fascination with her was already all-consuming enough. If I allowed myself as much time as I liked with her, I would have never left her side again. It was a fool’s indulgence, I knew, to give in to that urge.
But she had done nothing wrong. Nothing to deserve coldness or distance from me. Earlier, outside the medical bay, I had seen the distress on her face when I took my leave after she had offered me her company.
She wanted to spend time with me too, for some unknown reason. And it was not her fault that I was so insanely attracted to the mess of curls that fell over her shoulders so lusciously, her smile and her laugh and her scent.
Nor was it her fault that Coplan was similarly enamored with her. While I knew well enough not to attempt to seduce her after all she had been through, I doubted Coplan was able to show the same amount of restraint.
I beat him to the table with ease. He was all the way across the canteen. I only had a few steps to take. Despite my desire to keep my distance from Alyse, obviously that went out the airlock as soon as another Lunarian posed a greater threat to her than I did.
She deserved to be treated with kindness and care—not salivated over like a fine cut of meat.
And at least if I was the one salivating over her, I would be able to conceal it. Better than Coplan could, anyway—of that, I was quite sure.
As I neared the table, though, I caught a few lines of Alyse’s conversation with Leonix that nearly stopped me dead in my tracks.
It was, I realized immediately, a conversation I had not been meant to hear.
“It’s just not fair,” Alyse pouted. I was close enough that I could see the way her cheeks were flushed pink from the starshine. “He’s…well, he’s…not exactly bad looking, you know?”
“Oh, please. Just say it.” Leonix poured Alyse another glass from the bottle between them. “Nion is a fine warrior—and honorable, too. You wish to mate with him, do you not?”
“Um. Well, that would be a little forward, but…”
I knew that I should have stepped in then. If not to place myself between Coplan and Alyse, then at least to stop myself from eavesdropping on what was obviously a private conversation.
A private conversation about me.
But then Alyse giggled, and I was too desperate to hear how she might answer Leonix’s question to bring myself to make my presence known.
“It’s not the worst idea ever,” Alyse admitted. She looked half-surprised at herself as the words spilled out over her lips. “I used to like sex, you know? And I’d kind of like to be able to enjoy it again. And if there was anyone aboard the ship who could make that happen…I mean, just look at him. Every time I see him, he’s practically dripping with good-at-sex vibes. How am I not supposed to notice that?”
Though I knew I was a baz-terd for doing so, I found myself grinning.
I did not know what these vibes were, but if Alyse believed me to be a pleasurable potential mate…
How could I not grin at that?
“I just wish he’d stop avoiding me,” Alyse continued with a sigh. “I know I’m not in danger anymore, but after everything…I like when he’s around, I guess. He makes me feel…I don’t know. Comforted. Safe. Is that crazy?”
“Not at all.” I could not see Leonix’s face, but I could the smirk in her voice. “So why do you not make the first move?”
Alyse shrugged and looked disappointed. “Maybe I would…but I haven’t even been able to thank him properly for rescuing me. Every time I try to figure out how, he’s either already comforting me for some other stupid reason, telling me that I need to be more careful here on the ship, or he runs off before I can find the right words. And if I can’t even say thank you to him, how am I supposed to tell him to jump my bones?”
I did not understand what jumping on Alyse’s bones had to do with anything, but apart from that, I could not pretend she did not have a point.
“I wonder if he’d let me braid his hair,” Alyse mused aloud. She giggled and clapped her hand over her mouth as Leonix tossed her head back with laughter. “I mean—”
“Braid whose hair?” Coplan asked. He slid into the seat I had walked over with the intent to steal from him with a smug little smirk on his lips. “Mine, I hope.”
Blood. I suppress
ed a groan as I turned away. With only three chairs at the table and none nearby left to spare, it would be awkward and rude of me to join their group now.
I had been so eager to hear Alyse’s thoughts about me, I had failed my only mission of the evening: saving her from a night filled with mind-numbing conversation with very healer I was quickly coming to see as my rival.
But as I moved away to find a bottle of starshine of my own, it was difficult to feel like I had been completely defeated by my own eager eavesdropping.
Alyse wanted me. I knew it now. She had said so herself. And though I knew she was tipsy with drink when she said it, I also knew the way a few drinks of starshine could bring about honesty. Candidness.
Words spoken while drunk often expressed true wishes while sober.
And if Alyse and I would be spending our time on Newthelia together…
It was a baz-terd’s desire, but it was my own just the same.
She wanted me, and I wanted her too.
“Nion!” Kloran waved me over to him and passed me his bottle of starshine. “Why in the stars did you hesitate?”
“What do you mean?” I asked him. I took the bottle but did not yet drink.
“Alyse? The seat that Coplan took from you.” He glanced over to Haelian, who was smirking proudly.
“Kloran and I were watching the little scene play out from over here the whole time,” Haelian admitted. “Your hesitation just won me a hundred credits, at least—though, admittedly, it will pain me to collect.”
“I should not have approached Alyse’s table at all. It is just…” I sighed, then took a swig of the drink. “She is hard to stay away from, no matter how hard I try.”
“Then stop trying,” Kloran suggested. “Do you think I had any intention of falling for Bria?”
“Or I for Sawyer, for that matter.” Haelian clapped me on the shoulder and held my gaze. “You cannot fight nature, Nion. Take it from one warrior to another—you will make things easier on yourself if you simply give in.”
Haelian’s words were urging me toward a decision I did not wish to admit I was already toying with. Despite all my reservations on the matter…nature seemed to be exactly what I was currently butting heads with.
My body had yearned for Alyse from the start. And if she yearned for mine as well—if she thought perhaps lying with me might help her heal…
What could truly be the harm?
“We look forward to seeing how things will progress between the two of you on Newthelia, at any rate,” Kloran said as he and Haelian shared a knowing grin.
I groaned. “Who has credits on what this time?”
“You know we can’t tell you that,” Haelian gave me a wink. “It would spoil the odds. But rest assured, both of us want to see you happy.”
“And if that happiness happens to be found in Alyse’s bed…”
I elbowed Kloran in the ribs and tugged the bottle away from him when, howling with laughter, he reached for it again.
“I think you have had enough of this for one night, General.”
But as I took the bottle of starshine back to my bunk, I could not ignore the spring in my step that strengthened with every sip.
Coplan may have won Alyse’s company for the evening, but for our entire time on Newthelia, I would be able to claim all of the time with her that I could wish for.
And, I reminded myself, it had not been Coplan’s hair she’d been imagining braiding while she was intoxicated.
It had been mine.
13
Alyse
When I peeled my eyes open the next morning, my mouth was dry and my head felt like it was full of evil little goblins taking pickaxes to my brain.
“What the crap was I drinking last night?” I mumbled to myself as I turned over the empty bottle I must have fallen asleep cuddling. There wasn’t a drop left in the pretty blue glass of the bottle’s bottom, but when I sniffed it, the intense, burning smell of alcohol turned my stomach immediately.
Starshine, I was pretty sure Leonix had called it.
Such a pretty name for such an awful, awful, hangover-inducing drink.
After I’d forced myself into the shower and dressed for work, I was feeling a little less like a train wreck—but only marginally.
Note to self: never try to outdrink a Lunarian warrior again.
When Coplan spotted me in the medical bay, he immediately met me with a knowing smirk and handed me one of the two paper cups he was holding.
“Drink,” he instructed me. “I think after last night, we probably both need it.”
I stared at him blankly. A flush was already rising to my cheeks.
“Did I, um…” Oh, crap. I could remember sitting with Coplan and Leonix last night, but that was about the last thing I could recall. “I wasn’t annoying or a mess or anything last night, was I? I think the starshine might have gotten the best of me.”
“You were fine,” he assured me. His smile was warm and kind. “You spoke quite a bit, but I think you may have needed to.”
“Oh, no.” Now my whole face was burning red. What had I told him? Nion had warned me to be careful about who I talked to on the ship. Now, my drunken words might have put us both in danger. “Um. Remind me what I said?”
Coplan chuckled. “Mostly, how happy you were to have such nice friends here—and, of course, about your little crush.”
My eyes shot open wide. “Oh, no.”
“Do not worry, Alyse. Your affections for Nion are safe with me.” He patted me on the shoulder, then laughed again. “Leonix, on the other hand, is an incorrigible gossip. I tried to warn you, but at the time, you were quite disinterested in remaining quiet on the subject.”
“I embarrassed myself,” I bemoaned softly. A crush on Nion…of course, I had some feelings for him. He’d saved me, after all. He’d been kind to me, when he wasn’t trying to put as much distance between us as possible. And he was handsome. That couldn’t be denied, even sober. But I hadn’t needed to go around telling everyone! “I didn’t talk to Nion, did I?”
Coplan rolled his eyes. “No, you did not. I saw him in the canteen briefly, but you only sat with Leonix and me all night. Rest assured, you did not do anything wrong. If anything, I believe it was good for you. Now.” He nodded to the cup he’d handed me. “Drink. It has vitamins and minerals in it. I promise, it will help.”
The liquid inside the cup was bright blue. When I raised it to my lips, it was sweet and a little gloopy, but by the time I’d finished it, I felt a lot better. Well, enough that I’d be able to do my rounds for the day, at least.
When I finally got around to seeing patients, I took a little solace in knowing that I wasn’t the only one who had overindulged. Most of the warriors who came into the bay that morning just needed cups of the blue anti-hangover liquid themselves. Once they’d been taken care of and sent on their ways, the afternoon was thankfully quiet and slow.
“You should take the rest of the day off, Alyse,” Healer Adskow commented as he came into my now-empty ward. “We will be touching down on Newthelia tomorrow. I expect all of the warriors will be on their best behaviors until they are allowed off-ship. You should take the time to get some rest.” He gave me a knowing smirk. “I hear from Coplan you had quite the night last night. It sounds as though you may have needed it.”
Dammit, Coplan—and he called Leonix the gossip!
Normally, I would have insisted on finding some way to keep myself busy for the rest of the shift. When I guessed that I needed something to occupy my time to help pull me up out of my depressive state, I’d been completely right. I didn’t like to stay still for too long anymore. As long as I was moving, using my mind to learn alien anatomy or figure out exciting new ways to stop the bored Lunarian warriors from inadvertently killing themselves, I couldn’t focus on the bad stuff.
And there was still a lot of bad stuff bouncing around my head. Not as much as there had been a few days ago, but if I’d learned one thing from my parents’ mu
rders, it was that although the bad stuff faded, it never completely went away. The best you could do was take it in stride. Learn to live with the things that had happened to you.
If you could do that, then slowly, someday, when you remembered those times, they wouldn’t hurt so much anymore.
But on that day, to my surprise, I was actually pretty tired still. I must have been up late with Leonix and Coplan last night, and while the blue anti-hangover goo had helped a little, I still found myself yawning as I waved goodbye to Healer Adskow and Coplan.
Especially if we were going to be on a new planet tomorrow—the first one I’d been on other than Earth—getting a little extra beauty sleep probably couldn’t hurt.
“Alyse?” Nion’s voice called out to me from down the hall when I rounded the last corner toward my room.
I turned to find him jogging up to me. There was a small, almost bashful smile on his lips.
Maybe this means he’s done avoiding you, the saucy voice in the back of my head mused. Maybe Leonix told him about your crush!
I blushed at the thought. Oh, crap. I really hoped that wasn’t what he was coming to talk to me about.
“Hey, Nion,” I said tentatively. I gave him an awkward little wave as he stopped about a foot away from me. “How are you?”
“I am well. And yourself?”
“Um…yeah, good.” I laughed. Still awkwardly. I couldn’t seem to be charming around him right now even when I was trying. “A little hungover, admittedly, but I think I’m going to drink some water and grab some sleep. You have to, you know, stay, um… hydrated.”
Nion quirked an eyebrow, obviously picking up on what an idiot I sounded like, then nodded.
“Yes. Hydration is, ah, important.” He glanced around and the awkwardness only amplified.
Okay. Between me being embarrassed and Nion being his usual hot-and-cold self, we were beginning to shape up into the world’s most uncomfortable two-person comedy act. Someone needed to break the silence and fast.
Unfortunately, we both decided to be that person at the same time.
“How is your—” I started.