by Bex McLynn
Her face stung with heat, but not from Gummy’s slap. Her embarrassment and regret flamed her cheeks as a blushing heatwave. She’d torn into Therion like some crazed animal—biting and clawing at him.
She flicked her gaze up to him and saw that she’d scored his chin with her teeth.
What had she been thinking?
Disgusted with herself, she shook her head and released a shuddering breath. She had expected more tears to come, but she must be all cried out. That was probably for the best. She and Therion needed to talk about many things.
Gazing into his amazing green-gold eyes, she steadied her voice and said, “Thank you for calming me down. I’m sorry I hurt you.”
He shrugged, brushing her off. “You never have to apologize to me.”
That wasn’t the first time he’d told her that. It rubbed her that she hadn’t realized how often and easily she apologized until Therion started calling it out.
“Here.” He offered her the bundle of fabric that the other Teras—Dyr—must have handed off to him. “We’ve got clothes for you. Gappa’s still rustling up some footwear for you. Hopefully something of Gummy’s will fit you.”
“Thank you.” She took the bundle.
The fabric was smooth and thick, unlike her thin, scratchy cloak.
“[Tactical fabric,]” the spider told her.
She flinched and gasped. For the first time, it said something other than ‘I wake.’
Therion’s eyes softened with sympathy. “She’s talking to you, aye?”
He had been referring to the spider as a ‘she’ for some time, and Maude, in her fear, had dismissed it.
“Yes. Aye.” Maude fisted the bundle, her knuckles going white. “Looking back on things, it’s been talking to me since I woke up, I guess.”
Therion gestured toward her. “I can explain it all to you, Maude. Hell, I’m sorry I didn’t explain it all to you sooner.”
She started to tell him that she forgave him, but instead she said, “You can tell me all about it now.”
Then she scooted over and patted the padded bunk. Therion lowered himself next to her, folding one of his legs onto the bunk’s mattress so he could fully face her.
Maude ran her eyes over him, taking in his determined expression, as if by his will alone she would readily accept whatever explanations he offered.
He gave her a small smile that he probably meant to be reassuring. “Let’s start with you, shall we? You’re a technopath.”
Confused, Maude’s brow furrowed. “A what?”
“You’re like Seph. A human technopath. You have the ability to mentally interface with some of our technology.”
She’d never heard a term like that before, but conceptually, it wasn’t completely foreign. It mashed together ‘technology’ and something like ‘telepathy.’
She shook her head. Origin of the word aside, she couldn’t fathom how it applied to her.
Therion dipped his head, keeping eye contact with her. “Seph felt the same way. She said that she’d never had an ability like technopathy. The best that we can explain it is that there’s no Athelasan technology on your planet. So, there’s nothing for you to interface with.”
“Athelasan? I thought you’re Teras.”
Therion flipped his hand and the bit of the spider wrapped about him gleamed in the light. “I am Teras. Well, Teras with a bit of Athelasan genetics tossed in. The Athelasans were a race that died out centuries ago. They’re the ones who colonized the Tendex worlds. The Teras were farming with stones and sticks when the Athelasans made contact with us.”
That sounded eerily imperialistic to Maude. “The Teras weren’t invaded, were they?”
Therion shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. Kind of a moot point, isn’t it? Centuries later, they’re gone, but we’re still here. Plus, now we’ve got all their stuff.”
“I guess.” His acceptance didn’t sit well with her. “Are you a technopath too?”
“Not me. Just my brother and grandparents on my mother’s side.” He scratched at his neck and gave her a sheepish look. “Technopathy’s a rare thing amongst my people. I mean, there’re plenty like me who carry Athelasan genetics but don’t have technopathy. Those who do have the talent, well, they’re important.”
Her mind conjured images of labs and cells. “Important how?”
He took up her hand in his larger golden ones. Her eyes flicked to the spider encasing his wrist. What if he couldn’t get it off?
Therion disrupted her worrying by brushing his thumb along the backside of her hand. He grazed the bit of the spider that twined about her wrist, showing no wariness at all. She wished she could have felt that sweeping touch. That she could mirror his ease around the spider.
“Well, like I said, the Athelasans left behind all their stuff. Those with technopathy can interface with the Athelasan tech that we use.”
Believing she caught on, Maude looked down at her arms. “The spider is something of theirs? Their tech? You’re saying this thing on me is hundreds of years old?”
“Kora’s possibly older than that.”
Older. That word sat in her belly like a hot coal.
Disliking the implication, she refocused. “Why do you call it Kora?”
“I call her Kora because she’s sentient Athelasan technology. Mokora means armor in Bulanii, the language spoken on my homeworld.”
Maude nodded along. None of that—absolutely none—made a lick of sense. “Ah.”
He must have picked up on her confusion, because he kept his voice soft, as if cushioning her. “The spider, she’s a being. She has a soul called her moya.”
Maude’s entire skin flared with awareness. Prickles cascaded over her flesh, and as she shivered, the spider—Kora—flared gently in response.
“[I wake.]” Kora said and relief—Kora’s relief—flowed through Maude.
Stunned, Maude looked at Therion. How could he calmly sit there? “It—she can understand me?”
He nodded. “I believe she does. Prykimis, a ship with moya, communicates with Seph.”
“A ship?” Maude canted her head toward the door. “Is this a ship? Teras Class… Teret?”
“Aye, how did you—” Therion jerked. “Fuck! Damn freighter’s been nagging you for access, hasn’t it?”
“Just a bit.”
Therion frowned as his fingers lighted over a device strapped to his wrist.
“[WristCune,]” Kora informed her of the device’s name.
Therion grimaced. “Shit, sorry about that. Better?”
Maude gazed toward the ceiling and waited. When the freighter didn’t speak to her, she nodded. “Better. That was weird. Teret sounded different than Kora.”
Therion laughed as his eyes sparkled. “Well, this junker is Teras-designed based on Athelasan tech, thus no moya, only a ship computer. Probably why it sounds different. Prykimis, though, is a spirenought, a spacefaring battleship. She’s an Athelasan original.”
Although he said ‘spirenought,’ her mind conjured the word ‘juggernaut.’
She snapped her eyes to the bits of Kora that spiraled around her forearm like pearlescent bangles. A living thing curled about her body. Not a disease or fungal growth.
“She can understand me,” Maude said as something warm inside of her battered against the chill. Hope rose within her. “If I talk to her, she’ll listen?”
Therion shrugged, his eyes still soft. “I would think so. That’s what she’s been seeking all along.”
Maude nodded as her heart started racing again. Tucking her chin, she looked down at her body and addressed Kora.
“Please.” Her voice broke as she forced out the rest of her plea. “Please, don’t hurt the baby.”
Therion snuck glances down at Maude as they walked through the freighter’s corridors, retracing their route from the utilitarian sickbay back to Maude’s cabin.
Her head barely reached his shoulder. Her footfalls hardly made a sound. Fuck, he dwarfed her. In response,
he shortened his stride to keep pace with her. He also grazed his right shoulder against the bulkhead of the corridor, to give her space and to stop himself from stomping on her.
Yet something continued to nag at him, calling attention to their differences and exaggerating their proportions.
Perhaps it was the nerve-racking medical exam that they’d just finished. It had gone nothing like Therion’s visit to Feldser. The young submedic had been baffled yet professional about the cuff that Kora had encased about his broken wrist.
Feldser had given him a shrug. “This is beyond my pay-grade, Commander, but scans say your bones are mending. Fast, too.”
Easy as that, Feldser updated his file and sent him on his way. Maude’s exam, though, had become a debacle. The entire time Feldser had kept insisting that he’d been trained to mend battle-battered grunts. That he knew shit all about prenatal care.
Well, Therion had taken the young submedic in hand and ordered him, in no uncertain terms, to make fucking do.
In retrospect, that did nothing to improve Feldser’s fumbling.
Maude had to soothe the rattled submedic, bolstering him during the exam. By Unholde, she’d practically examined herself.
But this exam was the best that Therion could do, and his unpreparedness left him fucking cowed. Perhaps his shame skewed his perspective, making Maude look small and helpless even while in his care, because he was fucking everything up.
Direis keep him. She was pregnant.
Therion snuck another glance at her. For days now, he’d been admiring Maude’s body. Hell, he’d considered himself the foremost expert on the sway of her hips, the long column of her neck, and the graceful way her fingers curled her pale hair behind her delicate ears. Not once had he gazed upon her and thought she carried a child.
Which meant, like a godsdamn arse, he’d never really gave thought to Maude’s existence before the moment he laid eyes on her. Just like Zver had with Seph, he’d failed to consider that Maude had a life before he encountered her.
He thanked the gods that her life, by her own design, hadn’t involved a Human man. She’d explained that much to Feldser, who had remained baffled throughout the exam. Therion had understood why. The Teras rarely practiced surrogacy due to its poor success rate. Implanting a donated, fertilized egg into another woman’s womb seldom triggered the absorption of the medullary bone. Without the bone’s supply of osteon, the pregnancy would terminate.
Therion had done his best to shake off his own bafflement. He had to remind himself that Maude was Human. Stark differences, both culturally and biologically, were bound to arise.
Consumed with his own thoughts, Therion bypassed the door to her cabin. Ducking his head, he mumbled some excuse as he backtracked. Then, he finagled with the display console, grateful that she likely had no clue that he was stalling. He knew that once he got the door open, she would probably dismiss him.
“Therion?” Maude asked from behind him, her voice light and questioning.
He jabbed his finger at the display, striking at random commands. “Aye?”
“Can you come in for a moment?”
His heart skipped, and he cleared his throat, stealing a second to compose himself.
“Aye,” he gruffly forced out. He sounded like a surly bastard.
“Yes? I mean, aye? Well, I mean that you mean aye. Aye?”
Her nervous chattering had him glancing back at her. She was shifting on her feet, her eyes cast down, and she’d wrapped her arms about herself.
Well, fuck. Here she stood on his ship, protected by his house, and she still looked besieged.
His body flared, igniting his muscles and aligning his spine. Instinctively, he bulked up to declare himself her bastion. His chest burned as his unspoken oath blazed inside of him, lighting him with purpose.
I am Teras. I am House Borac. You have me.
But should he even present himself? What could he offer her? Until a few weeks ago, he drifted as an Unsworn. For years, his house refused to claim him. Fleet wouldn’t enlist him. Marauder clades harassed him. Through all that hell, he remained the Bane of Borac.
His best course of action would be—Fuck that.
Maude’s best course of action would be to sequester with a strong thane from a Great House. To gain the same stalwart protection that Zver provided to Seph. Zver had been belaying the other Great Houses for weeks as they hounded him. The houses had been demanding that Seph submit to a full examination by the Trine, the high council of the Athela Academe. They wanted to determine if Seph could carry a Teras child, thus passing on her strong vein of technopathy.
Therion knew that the Great Houses would demand the same examination for Maude. The fact that she already carried a child that wasn’t hers—a child that she had planned to give up—would be like blood in the water, and the Great Houses would be in a frenzy. They would court her relentlessly, seeking clutch contracts that stipulated offspring.
Of course, the contract jargon would carefully gild that stipulation, but Therion saw no reason to be delicate. Sterile laboratory conditions didn’t change the fact that they’d be breeding her.
Therion bit back a growl. How did his brother bear this with Seph?
“Therion?”
Like waking from a dream, Therion shook his head as he beat back his foolhardy protective urge. Gods, the hold Maude had over him. Maude needed a thane. The right thane.
He cleared his throat, yet his voice came out gravelly. “Aye, Maude?”
“Sorry I didn’t tell you about the baby. It’s just,” she hesitated and glanced about.
Right. He’d left them lingering in the fucking corridor.
He spun back to the door console, punched in the command that slid the door open, and then ushered her through. When she passed him, she gave him a small, appreciative smile. How fitting. From this point forward, that was all he would be good for: operating a console until she learned to use her technopathy. Then she wouldn’t need him at all.
On heavy feet, he followed her into the cabin. He reached over and robotically tapped the in-room console, closing the door.
Maude had gone to stand before bunk.
She sighed heavily, then unleashed her barrage on him. “I knew my sister wouldn’t want me to say anything about the baby. And it’s her baby. So that’s why I didn’t… Well, I did what I thought she would want me to do. So I said nothing. I’m sorry.”
Her mouth snapped shut.
Silence settled.
Therion usually loved being mired in awkward silences. He thrived in the uncomfortable void, nettling anyone who shifted self-consciously in that shared moment with him.
Ech, why dress it up? He fucked with people.
Watching Maude fidget, as she repeatedly tucked her hair behind her ears, all while avoiding his gaze, well—that fucked with him instead.
He crossed the cabin within one stride. If they were locked in this moment together—before some thane would become a barricade between them—then they would damn well be together. With one hand curled on her lush hip and the other buried in her silky hair, he pulled her close and kissed her.
Sure, she’d been gaping up at him in astonishment as he’d descended on her. It meant that he didn’t capture her lips so much as he shoved his tongue into her open mouth. But any second now, she would catch on and…
Did she just gag on his tongue?
Therion pulled back, too ashamed to meet her gaze. She was so alarmingly small, if he hung his head in shame, then he’d be forced to meet her outraged glare. He deployed his only option by dropping his head back and locking his eyes on the conduits strung above.
He groaned. “Listen, Maude, I—”
He bit off his fuck all apology as Maude yanked him, pulling him down.
Aw, hell. She was going to slap him. He totally deserved to be sla—
Her lips pressed against his gaping mouth, scorching him. By Unholde, she swept her warm tongue inside, and he finally got a proper taste of
her, heated and spiced, like mulled—
“Dammit, Therion.” She clambered up his body, growled as she pawed at him. “Kiss me.”
Kiss her? He wanted to devour her.
Being a man born and raised in a Teras Great House, Therion had been well-trained. The Athela always chooses. Which was fucking fantastic, because despite what she needed, he wanted her to choose him.
And the kissing bit. He was very thrilled about kissing her.
Therion dove into her, his lips hungry for hers. Trusting that, in her fervor, her tiny fists had a good hold on him, he slid his hands under her ass. When he lifted her up, she cradled right into his palms as she wrapped her legs around his waist.
Therion groaned in amazement when she embraced him with her whole body. Her arms wrapped about his neck. Her mouth remained opened for his tongue. Her legs squeezed tight around his hips. His anthers twitched as his cock kicked, both wanting to be clenched and stroked by her cunt.
She weighed nothing, but he trembled and dropped down to his knees.
Fuck his scrubber’s-lung-ravaged body.
Better his knees get battered than tumbling onto his ass. As he hit the deck, he cushioned Maude in his arms, hoping to buffer her from the jarring impact. She bounced over him. With her legs spread around him, her core made contact with his aching cock.
She startled and gasped, and Therion froze. His heart struck hard against his chest as he stared at her wide eyes. Amazed, he watched her very Human eyes roll, exposing their bizarre whiteness, and then her eyelids fluttered closed as she pressed her lips to his neck. By Unholde, she sucked right on his pulse, moaning as she rocked her hips.
Her stroke lit him up from anthers to tip. Gods help him, a devastating wave rolled through him, rushing forth from his gut. He reflexively thrust his hips upward—
Therion jerked back. With a panicked-fueled surge of strength, he lifted her up and off his lap. He kept his mind about him long enough to settle her gently on the deck and scramble back.