Chapter Eight
Elaina
I didn’t miss the way he said our room. That little word bothered me more than it should have considering I knew what I’d agreed to, and what it might entail to pretend to be someone’s mate.
I followed him from the shuttle onto the ship, my legs feeling heavier than usual. Each step was delayed, as if there were a barrier between my brain and the rest of my body that slowed the signal, and I couldn’t tell if their ship was unusually warm, or if it was just the fever.
Exhaustion dragged at me, making it hard to focus on my surroundings as I followed Drazien. I didn’t even react to the casual brush of his tail against my thigh, simply staring at it as my thoughts waded through molasses.
The corridor stretched behind me, a reddish glow coming from the base of the walls, but otherwise dim to my eyes.
There were markings that had to be Morraki writing and I should have been studying them, making guesses at what they meant, but my vision was blurry and my eyes refused to latch onto any of them.
Frustration simmered in the back of my mind, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
I’d always been the type to work through the rare cold I caught, so the complete and utterly drained feeling I struggled against was new.
Even after a dose of meds, I was sweating, and my energy had evaporated as if I’d spent the day in the summer sun.
Space grew between us until Drazien slowed and looked back, quirking a brow at me.
“Do you need assistance?”
I couldn’t keep from narrowing my eyes at him and I felt the frown pulling down the corners of my mouth.
“I’m walking fine.”
He huffed, his lips twitching. He seemed to enjoy making fun of me, and while I wanted to be irritated by it, part of me liked it. It was better than being stuck with someone who didn’t seem to know what a joke was, like the Torvakai.
“Barely, but we’re almost there.”
He strode past two more doors before placing his hand on the scanner beside the last one on the right. There was a heavier duty door at the end of the hall that likely led to something other than living quarters, but the markings above the opening seemed to squirm around when I tried to study them.
“Let’s go, rethari, before you fall on your face.”
My scoff sounded more like one of his growls, and I saw his teeth flash as I stomped past him into the room we would share.
There were burgundy-colored lights spaced evenly around the base of what I had to assume were the walls of the room, but it was so dark I couldn’t make out more than the impression of shapes scattered around me.
“I can’t see.”
I turned my head towards a sense of motion beside me, and Drazien’s voice drifted from that direction.
“And yet you’re looking at me.”
My frustration swelled towards irritation, and my nails bit into my palms as I fought the urge to actually growl.
“I cannot see well enough to move around without the possibility of tripping over something.”
I managed to keep my voice even and mostly free from the feelings swirling in my chest. There was a moment of silence, and then the lights shifted towards orange, growing bright enough for me to make out the furniture even if I couldn’t see the details.
“Is that better, rethari?”
I looked around the space, trying to decide whether I was relieved that it was similar to a hotel room on Earth, or disappointed.
There was a couch along the left wall, although it was larger than what I was used to and I had a suspicion that I’d feel like a child if I tried to sit on it.
A low table sat in front of it, with a shelf built into the wall beside it.
Straight ahead was a row of cabinets above a countertop that looked enough like a kitchen to assume that was its purpose.
There was a basin in the center of the counter, although I didn’t spot a spigot for what I figured was the sink.
Nothing looked like a fridge or stove, but aboard a ship, it wasn’t surprising not to find those.
There was probably a mess hall or cafeteria type room where everyone ate.
And to my right, sporting an enormous alien who looked far too pleased with himself, was a bed.
I’d have said it was a large bed, except Drazien made the space available on it seem far too small, and it was hard to swallow as my mouth suddenly went dry.
I had accepted what it meant to pretend to be planning on mating him and that it might lead to intimate situations, but I hadn’t expected to jump into bed with him the moment we were aboard his ship.
The dry mouth gave me the perfect excuse to avoid the bed, and I walked forward towards the kitchenette.
“How do I get water?”
The cabinet didn’t swing open when I tugged on the door, and I had to run my fingers over it before I found a button that made it draw back. The inside glowed with a dim red light that showed me several oblong packages, but no cups.
“You tell me you need it.”
I jumped when Drazien’s voice came from beside me before his arm brushed mine as he reached into the cabinet next to the one I’d opened. My heart fluttered in my throat, and I found my hand pressed against it as I struggled to swallow again.
He pulled out a cup and held it over what looked like a sink without a faucet. When he pressed something on the cabinet with his other hand, a spout emerged from the wall, followed by the sound of water filling the cup.
“You don’t have to do everything for me.”
The low light in the room made his blue eyes so dark I couldn’t tell the pupils from the rest. Since the Morrak had black sclera instead of white like a Human’s, it gave him the appearance of solid black eyes, and a shiver ran down my spine as he looked at me.
“I do. Your care is my responsibility now.”
Something in my stomach twisted as I accepted the cup, and I brought the water to my lips to hide my reaction. I wasn’t sure what I’d heard in his voice when he said I was his responsibility, but for some reason, my body liked his statement.
Trying to get away from the subject and my reaction to it, I sipped the water until the tissues of my throat no longer felt like sandpaper before asking him the question that had circled my mind more than once.
“What does rethari mean?”
White canines flashed in the dark, and Drazien shifted.
The wall was only a few feet behind me, and with the counter and cabinets beside me, his bulk left only a narrow open space to my right.
It wouldn’t take more than a step to the side for him to pin me where I was, but instead of worry flooding through me, my nipples tightened into painful points.
“Do you not like the name? It seemed better than calling you Human, or omega.”
His response made me frown, and I sipped the water again as I transferred my weight to my other foot. I didn’t know how to open the door, plus I was on a ship in space so I couldn’t actually get away, but it was instinct to seek an escape from a threat.
What kind of threat he was, remained to be seen.
“I do have a name. You could just call me that.”
More teeth appeared as his grin spread. He leaned in closer, and I caught the sound of him inhaling, as if he were trying to smell me.
“But where’s the fun in that?”
I opened my mouth to say something sharp but a wave of dizziness hit me. I barely felt Drazien’s grip on my arm as I started to lean, and as much as I wanted to pull away from him, I needed the support.
When my eyes focused again the light in the room seemed to have grown brighter, and Drazien was frowning down at me.
“Do you need more medication?”
The flight up to the Zeydvorrash hadn’t taken that long, so I shook my head.
“She said every four hours.”
He kept frowning at me and I remembered Earth time units were different than Morraki. I’d learned the words they used, but my fuzzy mind took a moment to calculate the difference between it and an Earth hour.
“Slightly less than two shyrn.”
The crease between his brows softened but didn’t disappear.
“You must rest. I will wake you when it is time.”
I didn’t protest when he took the cup from me and pulled me across the room. I didn’t even put up a fight when he pushed me onto the mattress and knelt to remove my boots, then lifted my legs onto the bed as he turned me.
Lying back with a sigh, I told myself I’d take a little nap, then once he woke me for more meds, I’d be able to focus enough to have an actual conversation with him.
There needed to be boundaries in place before he started getting any ideas, but every time I tried to line up the words to communicate them, the damn things wiggled away.
Time dissolved into fragments. There were flashes of pain and thirst. Moments of nausea and hunger intertwined until I couldn’t tell them apart. I was sweating one moment, then shivering the next.
Through it all, Drazien’s dark presence lingered. Seated at my side when I needed something, or stretched along my back when I couldn’t seem to get warm.
I had no idea how long I lingered in a half-aware state, where I was too exhausted to move, but sleep refused to do more than brush past me.
The hum of the ship was the only constant besides Drazien’s presence, and it became my focus as I tried to cling to anything that would keep me from drifting aimlessly forever.
It was a change in the hum that woke me, startling me awake with a clarity I regretted a moment later when my stomach cramped. I tried to roll from the bed, but a thick arm caught my waist, and something thinner but just as strong was wrapped around my calves.
“Easy, rethari. We’re only decelerating to enter the atmosphere. You’re safe.”
It took longer than it should have for me to process the deep voice that had come from behind me as I heaved for breath when the cramp released my guts. While my mind felt clearer, my body ached as if I’d spent a week doing six extra PT shifts a day.
“Atmosphere? I thought we were going straight to Morrakan?”