by Roxie Ray
“Fine,” I shot back at him, feeling petulant. My arms were crossed over my stomach as I sat on the bed like a naughty child who’d been put in time-out. But I wasn’t a child, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t in the wrong here. The near-kiss had been something we’d both wanted. I’d been able to feel it—at least, before Coplan recoiled from me like I had bad breath and nearly ran down the hall to get away from me. It had been weird then, and he was being weird now. We’d nearly kissed. So what? It wasn’t anything worth getting so awkward over. “How are you?”
Coplan obviously didn’t agree about that.
“Fine,” he echoed. He flipped through my chart like there was something incredibly interesting written on its pages. I’d seen the thing myself, though, and I knew there really wasn’t. “How are your ribs feeling?”
“Fine.”
“Your energy levels?”
I stared him down silently until he finally glanced up at me. His eyes flashed to a different color so quickly, I couldn’t even see what it was before they returned to their normal purple. Gray, maybe. Maybe blue. He was so in control of his own emotions, it almost didn’t matter. Why should I bother to wonder, when he was so obviously disinterested in how I felt?
“Fine,” I finally spat at him. If this was the game he wanted to play, I’d make him regret it. Fine, fine, fine—even though things were so obviously not fine. He was just too cowardly to say what his problem was, and I was too proud to ask.
“Good. We should take your weight, then. After that, I will leave you be.” Tentatively, Coplan moved toward me and offered me his hand.
I stared at it for a moment, then shrugged and ignored it. If he was going to be so cold to me, I didn’t need his help getting up. My arm muscles strained as I pushed myself to my feet, and my legs wobbled precariously, but when he reached to steady me, this time I made sure that I was the one who pulled away.
Okay. So I was being spiteful. But as far as I was concerned, I had every reason to be. For every moment since I’d been kidnapped, I’d been left feeling disgusted about my own body and disgusting in my own skin. But for that brief moment when he’d nearly kissed me…I’d finally felt real again. Desirable. Whole.
And now, I was back to feeling worse about myself than ever, thanks to him.
Maybe I was disgusting. Maybe I’d never really be able to feel pretty or beautiful or wanted ever again.
“Step here,” Coplan said, guiding me to the little black square tile on the floor where he measured my weight. The numbers that showed up in hologram just over my toes were an illegible pattern of unrecognizable shapes until my translator chip kicked in and shifted them into a language and measurement system that I recognized: ninety-nine pounds.
“Woo-hoo,” I said without enthusiasm. “I gained some weight.”
“Yes. You are no longer underweight—though, just barely.” Coplan scribbled the numbers onto my chart. He still wouldn’t look at me, though, which made this little victory feel even more empty.
I was filling out again, but I was still too horrible for him to even look at. Maybe he’d preferred me when I weighed less. Everyone else I’d ever known certainly had. I guessed it was silly of me to think that maybe Coplan was different.
“Do you need anything else?” I crossed my arms over my chest again and thought about tapping my foot impatiently, just to get my message across: if he didn’t want to be here, then I didn’t want him here either.
“No. This is…satisfactory.” Coplan moved abruptly toward the door but paused on his way out. “Ah. Unless…how are you finding the, ah…the food?”
“The food?” I raised an eyebrow. A second ago, he’d been doing everything he could to get out of here as quickly as possible. And now, he was asking about my diet? “It’s, um…Yeah. Good. The articulator is great for when I’m too tired to leave my room, and I’m enjoying going to eat in the canteen with Leonix and the guys when I have the energy for it. Does that answer your question?”
“Of course.” Coplan nodded twice and shifted a little further out the door again. But again, he lingered. “You are still sharing meals with Gallix and Ronan on occasion?”
“Sometimes, yeah.” It was another strange thing to ask. If Coplan didn’t want to be around me, then why did he care about who I was spending my time with instead. “Is that a problem?”
“Not at all. They are fair warriors with good hearts. It is only, ah…Gallix, I am sure you have noticed. His stories are not always, ah…the most truthful, I suppose.”
I smirked. “Worried that he’s telling stories about you?”
“No, of course not. I simply…” Coplan mumbled something under his breath too quietly for me to make out, then shook his head. “I only wanted to warn you, in case you were falling prey to his exaggerated tales.”
“Leonix already warned me,” I told him. “I’m not stupid. I know what a fish story sounds like when I hear one.”
“He is telling stories of fish?” Coplan groaned. “Not the one about the Qal-shark again, I hope.”
“Call-shark?” I knew my confusion was written all over my face. “Um. No. I mean, not yet. I was just talking about when, you know, a person tells a story where something is blown way out of proportion. Like when you catch a fish and it’s way bigger in the stories you tell about it than it was in real life.”
“Ha.” Coplan chuckled softly. “So he has told you the tale of the Qal-shark.”
“Um…Coplan?” This was getting too awkward, even for me.
“Yes?”
“Are you leaving, or staying to talk?” I rubbed my arms uncomfortably. “I don’t really know what’s going on with us after, um, the other night. But this is really screwing with my head. It has been for days now. Did I do something wrong?”
Coplan blinked at me a few times, then his shoulders slumped as he sighed. “I apologize, Savii. Of course you have done nothing wrong. I am the one who overstepped my bounds. You are my patient, and I am your healer. I should not have…taken such liberties. It would have derailed your progress and complicated our friendship in negative ways. I have been trying to keep my distance in order to prevent it from happening again.”
“Okay, well, this is derailing my progress too,” I pointed out. “I feel like you don’t want anything to do with me anymore. And maybe you don’t—maybe that night, we both crossed a line. But if you think we have a friendship…this doesn’t feel very friendly anymore, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t.” Coplan closed his eyes. A small, deep growl left his throat, frustrated, or maybe like he was holding something back. “I fear I do not simply wish to be friends.”
“Oh.” The sound came out of my mouth, tiny and sad. Maybe I just shouldn’t have brought it up, but how could I not have? At least now things were out in the open. Coplan didn’t want me. He didn’t even want to be friends with me anymore. It was an awful feeling, being rejected like this by the first man I’d actually felt feelings towards since my abduction, but I guessed that was part of healing, too. We were from different species. Different worlds. Just because he’d been kind to me didn’t mean he owed me anything in return. Now, I was just embarrassed.
What I thought was a moment that we’d both wanted to act on had actually been me throwing myself at him and him struggling not to hurt my feelings as he turned me down. It explained the last few days perfectly. I’d acted inappropriately and made him uncomfortable, and noble Coplan had just been trying to keep doing his job anyway.
I was a monster. Just, not the kind I’d first thought.
“I should go,” Coplan said quickly. He turned and left in a swirl of stark white lab coat. “I am sorry, Savii. Enjoy your day.”
Enjoying my day after that terrible encounter wasn’t really in the cards, though. That night, as I sat in the canteen with Leonix, Gallix and Ronan, I could barely bring myself to eat, I was so ashamed of what I’d done.
“Something wrong with your food, Savii?” Gallix grinned at me as he held out a ch
unk of raw meat on the end of his knife. “You can always try some of mine, if your burned meat does not suit you anymore.”
Leonix reached across the table and forced Gallix to lower the knife. “Humans do not eat raw meat, Gallix. Stop trying to force it on the poor thing.”
“You do seem sad, Savii.” There was care in Ronan’s eyes as he focused his gaze on me. “Has something happened?”
“Want us to kill someone?” Gallix’s grin hadn’t waned. “We will do it, you know. Always happy to do a little killing, if you think it might help.”
“No, you don’t need to go that far.” I sighed. “I don’t think you’re allowed to kill Coplan anyway. Where I come from, I’m pretty sure that’s a war crime.”
“It is here too,” Leonix assured me. “At least, if you are killing the healers of your enemies. Your own healer, though…” She shrugged. “I do not think it would be terribly frowned upon, if he has offended you in some way.”
“What has he done?” Ronan’s eyes shifted a little more toward red, which seemed uncharacteristic for him. Every time I’d spoken to him, he’d been one of the most serene, level-headed people I’d ever met. “If he made some unwanted advance toward you—”
“It would not be hard,” Gallix chirped, helping himself to another mouthful of his steak. “The ship has many dark corridors, especially at night. We sneak up on him, Ronan holds him, I go for the jugular…” He drew his knife across his throat, the blade hovering just over his skin.
“Thanks, but…no. Not necessary.” I shook my head and bit my lip. “I was the one who did something wrong. My legs gave out while he was taking me back to my room the other night. I must have pushed myself too hard or something, and when he caught me…”
Suddenly, everyone at the table was staring at me. I could feel my cheeks burning up. My whole face must have been hot pink.
“If he assaulted you, Savii, he should be killed.” Leonix reached over and placed her hand on top of mine. “We are not Rutharians. We do not hold with that sort of thing here. If he tried anything—”
“No!” I drew my hand away so I could cover my face with my palms. “I’m the one who screwed up. I thought he wanted to kiss me—and I wanted to kiss him, so I just…I went for it, but then he ran away from me and now I’ve screwed everything up.”
There was no sound in response. When I uncovered my face, I saw that all three of the Lunarians had their hands over their mouths in horror.
At least, I thought it was horror. But then I heard a small noise from Gallix. Leonix’s shoulders were shaking and her eyes were clenched completely shut. It was Ronan who broke first, though, letting out a massive laugh. He bent over the table, thumping his fist against its top as Leonix and Gallix joined him. When Ronan straightened again, he had to wipe tears from his eyes.
“What’s so funny?” I asked, scooting back in my seat a little. I already felt completely mortified at what I’d done. Did they really have to laugh at me on top of it?
“It is only…” Leonix took a deep breath as she tried to stop her laughter. “Well…yes, I can see why Coplan ran away from you. I just do not think you entirely understand the reason why.”
“That scoundrel.” Gallix threw his head back, still roaring in amusement. “Of course he did. Oh, I will not be letting him live this one down anytime soon.”
I looked to Ronan, who seemed to be doing the best at keeping his laughter in check now. “I’m missing something here. Do you want to explain?”
“Coplan has been warned time and again not to let himself get too close to you.” Ronan gave me a sympathetic smile as a few lingering chuckles rumbled through his chest. “It would be…politically precarious to do so, but I believe we have all been somewhat aware of how these things generally go.”
“First Kloran and Bria, then Haelian and Sawyer…” Gallix snorted. “My money was on Coplan and Alyse, to tell you the truth, since they were working so close together in the med bay for a while there, but—”
“You’re talking about the other humans you’ve rescued?” I asked, recognizing a few of those names. Now, I felt a different kind of embarrassed. “I didn’t realize Coplan had, um, been with a human before.”
“He has not,” Leonix assured me. “He and Alyse were merely friendly with each other, but it was obvious that Alyse would end up with Nion. It was a very different kind of friendly than Coplan has been toward you, I believe.”
I blinked. Well…that was kind of a relief, then. At least I wasn’t the latest notch in Coplan’s bedpost as he tried out an exciting new human kink.
“So, you think…he likes me?”
“What is not to like?” Gallix gestured to me. “You are beautiful, intelligent—could use a little more meat on your bones, true, but—”
“Gallix,” Leonix said in warning.
Gallix held his hands up innocently. “I am only just saying…”
“What do you mean, politically precarious, though?” If they were right and Coplan did like me, then I still didn’t understand why he’d run away from me when he had the chance to act on it. “Is he…married to someone else or something?”
Leonix smiled sadly. “Not at all, Savii. No, Coplan is an unmated male, and would be a fair husband someday, I believe. But the politics on Lunaria hang in the balance right now, especially where humans are involved.”
“It does not matter whether the two of you wish to mate with each other or not.” Ronan seemed to be choosing his words with care. “We cannot risk turning the Lunarian High Council against us right now by doing anything other than getting you well enough to return home. Coplan is under direct orders not to make advances toward you in that way. If you accepted them, or worse, found yourself falling in love with him—”
“Or fucking him,” Gallix added through another mouthful of meat. “Especially not fucking him.”
“Why…not?” I might not have understood the way Lunarian politics worked, but I’d only been talking about kissing Coplan—not sleeping with him. All of this seemed like a pretty big overreaction…either that, or the politics that Coplan was up against were worse than I could imagine.
“Because then, the High Council would think the warriors on this ship were just rescuing humans so they could mate with them for themselves.” Gallix let his knife clatter to the table and shrugged. “And then, we would all be fucked.”
10
Coplan
Idiot.
I should have never allowed myself to get so close to Savii. I should have never been so arrogant to believe that where Kloran, Haelian and Nion had failed in my eyes, I was completely immune. Emotions, as it turned out, were not so easily controlled as I had originally imagined. Nor were hormones, apparently. Before Savii, they had been, but after…
Most of all, I should have never allowed myself to act on any of them, and I certainly never should have admitted my lust. I could still recall with perfect clarity the way her face had fell when I said it: I do not simply wish to be friends. Announcing my yearning for her like that, after all she had been through, had been a callous move at best. She had been treated like an object by so many for nearly all of her life—and then I had come along, pretending to be a friend to her in her time of need when obviously, I had desired so, so much more. The soft, mournful shape of her beautiful lips as she had responded haunted me: Oh. It was the saddest sound I had ever heard, one of such disappointment that I did not know how I could face her after.
But what had I expected of her in its stead? Of course she did not feel the same for me. Of course she was hurt by my advances. They were advances that never should have been made in the first place. I had broken the sacred bond of healer and patient. I had violated the trust I had worked so hard to build. How could she want me when I had tricked her so cruelly? I had not done so intentionally, but it mattered not.
I had been fooling myself for too long now. In the process, I had strung her along, too.
I did not wish to only be Savii’s friend.
I lusted for her. I longed for her. My heart ached for her heartbeat, pressed close to my chest as it thrummed through her small, perfect breasts. My body yearned to feel her slender hips moving beneath mine. My ears wished to hear the gasps of her pleasure, her moans and whimpers and sweet nothings, and my mind was enraptured with the thought that perhaps I could give her that pleasure. I and I alone.
I rushed through my evening rounds. I had no choice. Every time I thought of the sadness I had caused Savii, I felt sick to my stomach. But worse, every time I remembered the beauty of her face, the way her curves were filling back out as she put on weight, the sound of her voice, her laugh, her scent—moons, her scent…
Collectively, it was enough to make my cock stiff beneath my trousers, and few good medical decisions had ever been made by a healer with all of his blood coursing to his lower head.
When I reached my room, my skin was abuzz with desire. Even the brush of my clothes against my body as I tore them off was enough to drive me half mad with want.
I let my fingertips linger on the little bruises Savii’s desperate blows had left on my chest and abs once my coat and shirt were off. They were pale brown and still slightly tender to the touch. Blood, how I wished to feel her tiny fists pounding against my chest again—this time, not in anger, but in ecstasy.
I tore my belt from my waist, kicked off my boots and stepped out of my trousers without allowing that thought to leave my mind.
It was wrong, I knew, but she was in my system. Under my skin. I had allowed these imaginings of Savii to bewitch me, and under their enchantment, I had hurt her badly. If I took care of them now, perhaps they would finally leave me so I could make my apologies and we could pick up whatever pieces were left of our friendship. Rebuild anew—honestly, this time.
The water of the shower scoured my muscles, releasing tension with every drop that fell. That was what I needed— release. If I could free myself of the ache in my balls and this unyielding stiffness in my cock when I thought of her only once, I could break this ridiculous spell I had put myself under once and for all.