by Bex McLynn
He did, too. Therion’s striking appeal captivated her. His height dwarfed her, which never felt intimidating, just awkward because tilting her head back to make eye contact was something she was unaccustomed to doing, given her own height. He moved with athletic grace. Suspected that he commanded speed and quick reflexes that should have been at odds with his tall frame. His eyes—constantly trained on her—sparkled with mirth and levity, and his lips remained curled into an ever-present smile. She guessed that when his attention drew inward, his mouth maintained a lazy upward curve. The right corner probably tucked a bit higher than the left, flashing a fang-like tooth.
He huffed, seeming satisfied with her answer. “Good.”
She gestured toward him. “And I like your praal. It’s very stunning”
He took the crate back to the closet and glanced over his shoulder at her. “You like my praal?”
“I do. It makes your eyes sparkle.” The turquoise veins, cracking all over his skin like fine lines on china, picked up the green and gold in his eyes that never blended into a single color, like hazel.
He beamed at her. “That’s fucking great.” Then he turned his head, exposing his neck to her. The red and black ink of his tattoos scored over the turquoise. “Don’t think it’s too livid, do you?”
“Is that bad? Your grandfather and grandmother have lovely, bright praal.”
Therion groaned. “That’s because they’re old as fuck.”
“Ah,” Maude said in understanding. “So bright praal is a sign of maturity?”
“It was amazing to have thick lines when I was a cock-driven, newly enlisted grunt in Fleet.”
“I’m sure it was wonderful.”
Therion jerked, like she knocked him on the shoulder, and gave her an assessing look. “You really mean that, don’t you?”
“Unless I am misunderstanding this, it must have been wonderful for you.” She thought it might be like a young man being proud of growing a full beard or finally bulking out to fill his frame. “You know, to be a young man with impressive praal.”
“Aye. I got my fair share of notice.”
Maude nodded. “I believe it, but I bet it was more than just your appearance.”
She could see where a man like Therion could easily pair up with a woman for a night or a week or a month. He was playful, but she didn’t read him as a player. That woman would be his sole focus for whatever time they had together, receiving the full intensity of his humor, protection, and passion.
Oh, how she disliked all those phantom women from his past. Fools and idiots. How could they have had Therion in their lives and let him walk away?
Days ago, she would have been one of those women. Someone who had Therion for a time with the full intention of letting him go. But now, after what Rannik innocently revealed to her, did she have to be just another woman to Therion?
He flicked his gaze away from her and then back. “And you don’t mind the ink, do you?”
“I love your tattoos. I can’t read them, though.” Funny how she could read the language on her WristCune and Cuneiform tablets, but not his tattoos.
“They’re Bulanii.” When she shook her head in confusion, he waved her off. “Doesn’t matter. It’s all clade bullshit anyway.”
“Your grandfather has tattoos. And so does your cousin.”
“Aye, they do.”
“I like the way they look on all of you. I don’t have any tattoos.”
A blue blush rushed his face and he cast his eyes away. “Aye, I know.”
She gasped in surprise. “How? You said you didn’t look. Back in the cell, you swore to me—”
“I didn’t swear.” He dipped his head, locking his gaze with hers. “The Teras take swearing very seriously, Maude.”
She swallowed as she gazed into his green-gold eyes. They no longer looked alien to her, but rather, had a spike of awareness moving through her. She had Therion’s sole attention, and she loved it. “I know.”
He nodded once, a sharp chin dip, then rubbed at the back of his neck. “Your skin is fucking amazing, Maude. You’ve not got a single blemish. No praal.”
She blushed and ran her hands over her arms, although they were covered by the uniform. “I don’t look too different? Too alien without any praal?”
“It’s exotic as hell.” He flicked his eyes away again.
She melted. How marvelous, that he was as taken with her as she was with him.
Then, he added, “Just like a sefura.”
That comparison, though, didn’t flatter her.
Seph had shown Maude the modern Teras interpretation of a sefura. The scantily-clad female figure appeared on a Cune game—basically a Teras video game. Seph had cackled, but Maude didn’t share her cousin’s amusement. During Maude’s medical exam, Lekar had confirmed that the baby was a girl. A girl who would grow up in a society that would associate her with that half-naked sefura.
Maude would find a way to combat that stereotype. She’d do anything for this baby, because this baby was now hers.
Claiming the baby filled her heart with so much: love, anticipation, sorrow, and fear.
But if she was reading Therion correctly, she wouldn’t have to go through any of that alone.
“Therion, I’ve been thinking about the baby.” Her voice sounded tight to her own ears.
He gave her a baffled look. Well, she had changed the course of their conversation rather abruptly, hadn’t she?
She continued, “I’ve been thinking about how I’ve been thinking about the baby. Does that make sense?”
He shook his head. “No, Maude. But here’s the important part, I’m not afraid to admit that.”
Oh, he crushed her. Even his humility was coated in cavalier confidence. He was unlike anyone she’d ever met, and she hoped his uniqueness, the surprises that he’d sprung on her, would extend to this matter. Because there was one sure-fire way to send a man running, and she didn’t want him to run.
She steadied her voice and said, “I’ve started to think of this baby as my baby.”
“Yours?” he echoed.
She studied him, noting that he did the same to her. That they both roved their eyes over the other, seeking answers to questions. For Maude, voicing the next part meant closing a door. It meant accepting that her only path was forward.
“Aye,” she swallowed back tears. “She’s now mine.”
Sometimes, Therion truly was the idiot that everyone assumed him to be. He found it unsettling to be genuinely confused and disadvantaged. Maude had done this to him. He’d gotten lost in vivid recollections of her praal-free skin and his scheming to finagle another kiss. The bastard inside of him fueled him with wild imaginings that he could have her, only to be doused when she abruptly changed the topic to her sister’s baby.
A baby that Maude now claimed as her own, thus tossing him into another consecutive moment of idiocy.
Truly, he was an arse. He’d not forgotten about the baby, but he wanted everything. For Maude to see the baby safely to her sister and for Maude to stay and choose him.
I’ve started to think of this baby as my baby.
He could tell that her statement meant something to her, and he hoped that her declaration mirrored a Teras claiming. Because he wanted. He desperately wanted—
Maude squeezed his hand, pulling his attention back to her. “I’ve started to think of her as mine because I’ve also been thinking about those power cells—stasis pods—whatever they are. You know salvage, don’t you?”
He nodded as his head pounded. “Aye. I do.”
“Do you think those cells were modified within the past ten years or so?”
Fuck what he thought. He wished—with every last drop of his selfish, damned soul—that the pods were original, unmodified cells. That in his desire to keep Maude with him, he would bless the graves of the Athelasans himself if it meant those ancient beings had visited Earth a millennium ago, gathered up Humans, and made their discovery a part of the Teras
’s inheritance.
Unholde take him, he deserved none of it.
But when he set his desire aside and gazed at the pieces scattered before him, he couldn’t shrug off the evidence. He knew Athelasan tech. He knew retrofitted parts from original salvage. He knew what powered Prykimis and Kora.
Holding her gaze, and noting how she steadied herself, he said, “No. I don’t.”
“You think longer?”
“Aye.”
“Therion,” she chided him.
He was being an arse by stringing out his answers like a coward. “Centuries, Maude.”
“Yeah.” She nodded and looked away. “So, the baby is now my baby. I’m going to have a daughter.”
His mind conjured an image—a bright-haired green-eyed tyke toddling through Prykimis’s nacre halls. It stole his breath.
But Maude’s words, as spoken, didn’t convey joy, only acceptance.
“Maude,” his voice was thick with his own regret, “I’d made a promise to you. That you’d see your sister again. I’ve failed.”
She tsked at him, then smiled, but her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “You didn’t fail, Therion. There was never anything that you could have done. My abduction. Being in stasis. It’s all in the past. Already over.”
Aw, hell. “It’s not over yet, Maude.”
“What? Why not?”
Reaching out, he touched her chin to keep their gazes locked. “Wanna be honest with you. Prykimis, she’s got, like, dozens of salvaged cells in her engine cluster.”
He waited for his meaning to penetrate. Dozens of cells meant dozens of Humans.
She frowned. “Why haven’t you—”
“We’re going to examine them. But not now.” He cringed at his panicked response and hurried on. “We’re in deep space, Maude. We can’t strand Prykimis again. She’ll be targeted by marauders, especially if they get wind of this and think there are Athela for the taking.”
She started breathing heavily, although she nodded calmly. “But the thane, he will check? He will?”
“Aye. Once Prykimis makes port at Bulan Ero.” Relief coursed through him that she’d not demanded an immediate inspection. “This I’ll swear to you, Maude: every last one of those power cells, Vayant’s included, will be checked.”
Her eyes widened and she rocked back. “Oh god! More of us?”
“There are more spirenoughts in the Dominion. A good dozen of them. There used to be more—”
She gasped, a pained whine, and slapped a hand over her mouth. Cautiously, she lowered her hand. “Hundreds of us.”
“Aye,” he agreed, but that number echoed hollowly in his mind.
Hundreds of Humans, and he only cared about the one standing before him.
“And none of us are going home,” she said softly, her eyes on the deck.
He cupped her cheek, finding it damp. She had started crying, but didn’t sob. She’d been silently weeping.
“Aye,” he told her.
She glanced up at him. “Who’s gonna tell Seph?”
Therion’s chest ached. How characteristically sweet of her, to think of others amidst this shitstorm of revelations. “Zver will. He’ll make sure she knows.”
She nodded and sniffled. His sensitive hearing also caught the hungry gurgle of her stomach. She’d held onto the ration bars their whole conversation, white-knuckling those horrid bricks of food.
Therion gently settled his hands over hers. “You need to eat, Maude.”
“Eat?”
“For the baby. You need to eat.”
She sniffled and nodded again. Then, she looked around with a hopeless frown on her face.
“Here.” He guided her to the bunk and sat her on the edge. “Sit and eat.”
She stared at the bars in her hands. “Can I stay?”
“Stay? After you eat? Aye, Maude.” Therion jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. “I’m sure there’s some other junior grunt I can evict for the night.”
She snatched his arm, dropping a ration bar to the deck with a solid thunk. Hell, he was serving her bricks. “No. Just, stay. Please. Like before when we were at the Gwyretti compound.” She raised her eyes to him. “Please stay with me.”
Stunned, he nodded. “Aye. I’ll stay.”
Gods, she shredded him. He hated that uncertain, lost look in her eyes. He should have been celebrating. He should have been barreling through the corridors bellowing his joy.
But he was on borrowed time. As sure as his anthers circled his cock, men would come and circle about Maude. They’d vie for a chance to join her clutch. Thanes of both Great and Lesser Houses. Fleet Admirals. Dominion politicians. They all would come.
As Maude gnawed on a ration bar, he looked around their current accommodations. A hot spur sank into his belly. Fuck, he was an idiotic arse. Maude was an esteemed Athela bunking in a junior officer’s cabin. Those Teras Ero elites would offer her luxurious domiciles and cruiser class spaceships. Some owned entire continents on their planets. Far more than he could offer her.
After eating one bar, Maude yawned and tugged him down into the bunk next to her. She hadn’t spoken, not since she requested that he stay. He nearly chuckled when he realized that they just spent many moments in silence, yet none of them were awkward. None of them propelled him to her, determined to cocoon her by wrapping himself around her by consuming her with kisses. Rather, they had been caught in a feedback loop of wordless glances and deep sighs. Never in his life had he felt so understood. She absorbed every ounce of his compassion, returning it to him as pounds of gratitude.
Gods, he had to find her the best damn thane in the Dominion, because those rotten bastards who would battle to clutch with her would destroy her with their plots and schemes.
If he didn’t find her a thane, then her only defense would be the Trine. Therion hated to admit that of all the members of the Trine, Gummy was the most upstanding. Unholde himself would slink away from those ladies.
Hell, Maude would meet those manipulative Athela tomorrow.
Maude sighed in her sleep and nestled closer to him. Through her clothes, he felt the distinct absence of Kora wrapped around her limbs.
Therion stopped humming The Ne’er-Do-Well to whisper, “Hoy, Kimis. Fetch Kora, aye?”
Tomorrow, Maude would need all her allies.
He picked up the song again. “A drifter, no roots in the loam…”
Chapter Sixteen
Maude stared at her cousin, her heart aching. They rode in a shuttle, traveling from Prykimis to Sacana Turris, the fortified moon that served as the outpost for Therion’s homeworld, Bulan Ero. Therion told Maude that their trip was a short, routine run for the transport crew, yet Seph appeared tense. She sat in the equivalent of an alien jump seat, right next to the shuttle’s navigation cabin. The thane stood in the hatchway, his voice a low rumble as he conversed with his officers at the controls. Although Seph was strapped securely into her seat, she managed to press her shoulder and hip against the thane’s thigh. Her eyes never rose from her WristCune screen.
Maude sighed. The flight caused Seph so much anxiety that her cousin couldn’t focus her technopathy. Instead, Maude watched Seph run her fingers over the screen of the comm device. Meanwhile, the thane kept his attention on his officers, yet would occasionally unfold his arms and brush his fingers along Seph’s springy curls.
Therion, who sat in the seat next to Maude, nudged her with his shoulder. “You don’t have to fret over Seph. This isn’t her first transport run.”
Maude glanced up at Therion, touched to see sympathy in his green-gold eyes. “But she really doesn’t like it.”
Her bubbly cousin sat rigid, her leg thumping, with a curtained expression. Maude shifted in her own seat, realizing that she, too, had stiffened.
“She’s a stubborn ass kicking warrior,” Therion said, his rumbling voice filled with esteem. “I’ve seen that woman broken only once, when mutineering fucks chased her.”
“What happened?”
“Prykimis opened a maintenance panel and hid her. Then my brother,” he canted his head toward the thane, “killed those bastards.”
Stunned, Maude looked at the thane who towered over her cousin like a golden sentinel, offering comfort, yet positioned himself to face his officers.
As if the thane knew Maude gaped at his back, he glanced over his shoulder and gave her a slight chin dip. Then he gave his attention back to his men.
Good lord. That glance and affirmative nod did not calm her. The thane’s eyes carried no remorse for killing those men.
A shiver passed through her. This place was now home.
Therion gently cupped a hand under her chin and turned her to face him. “Ech, Maude, none of that now. Seph is House Borac. Those were Teras men and knew what it meant to cross Zver.” He ducked his head to gaze into her eyes. “Same for you, Maude.”
Could she take those words at face value? Did it mean Therion would kill for her?
“Aye, Maude,” he nodded his head, his mouth a firm line, like he knew her thoughts. “I’ve done the same for you.”
“For me?”
“Aye. For you.”
She went to ask when, but then snapped her mouth shut. She wasn’t an idiot. She very well knew when and where and why—the Gwyretti compound, during the riot.
Kora, who had returned to Maude that morning, rippled against her skin. “[I fire.]”
The conviction that Kora flowed into Maude renewed her alarm. Beings that would kill for her surrounded her.
She pulled in on herself, which prompted Therion to try to catch her eye. She kept her gaze down and focused on steadying her trembling hands, yet she couldn’t block everything out. Seph’s entourage guards crowded around them, carrying the scent of the Teras—crisp and cool like Autumn, and their low, roll-of-thunder voices thrummed over her skin. It wasn’t their alienness that upset her. It was what they wore: TacArmor.
Although she and Seph traveled from Prykimis to a space station controlled by House Borac, the thane had surrounded them with armored guards.
How could her moments amongst the Teras be such contradictions? This morning Maude had exited the lav to find Therion’s butt wiggling at her as he’d tried to shimmy under the bunk. She’d heard Kora’s distinct metal clicking coming from under the bunk as well.