Chapter 11
A Dish Best Served Cold
Jasper clapped him on the shoulder on his way out of Engineering.
“See you on the other side, man.” The grin that lived on his face was there, but the skin around his eyes was tight, and the terminal in his other hand shook slightly before he adjusted his grip and the shaking stopped.
Tyler paused at the far door, gave Levi a single nod, then opened the door and was gone.
Elliot was at the Engineering console with his palms flat on the purge controls.
He caught Levi’s eye across the room and held it, before his eyes drifted to Levi’s cheek and throat.
Shit. In the chaos since the containment breach, Levi hadn’t seen what he looked like…
and now the new acting captain of the ship and eternally irritating romance option was looking at him like he needed to be rescued from Asher more than he needed to help get rid of aliens that said hello via extreme chiropractic adjustments.
“Be careful,” Elliot said. To Levi. Not to the room.
Asher crossed the space between the door and the console in three steps.
He didn’t touch Elliot. He didn’t need to — he put his hand on the back of Levi’s neck in front of everyone, fingers curling around the nape, spelling out mine in a language Elliot didn’t need a translator for.
Then he leaned in and pressed his mouth to Levi’s temple, unhurried, lingering, his eyes on Elliot the entire time.
“He’ll be with me,” Asher said in a pleasant tone that meant nothing pleasant. “I’ll keep him safe.”
Jasper found something fascinating on his terminal. Owen’s data pads became suddenly absorbing. Maddie looked at the ceiling.
Elliot’s jaw set. He nodded once and turned back to the purge controls.
Levi’s face was burning. “Was that necessary?”
“Yes.” Asher’s hand stayed on his neck as he steered them toward the corridor door. “It was exactly necessary.”
Every person in this room just watched that. Every person in this room now knows exactly what’s between us. And whatever that costs me, I’ll find out later.
God dammit, Elliot.
The plan was simple, in theory. Three teams go to each major sealable junction, lock it down, and create a funnel to the purge zone while Elliot diverted power. When the seals tried to go down because of the power draw, they’d use Jasper’s bypass to let them maintain the seal.
It’s too easy. Levi couldn’t shake that feeling.
The fetch quest was never just go kill the rats in the basement.
It always turned into go kill the rats in the basement, accidentally discover a hidden room and an eldritch horror.
That was how games worked. Even the calm, casual games he played weren’t that easy.
The corridors between Engineering and Junction C were colder than the ones they’d walked before.
The life support in this section had been throttled down to feed the purge reserves, and each breath Levi drew felt thinner, his lungs working slightly harder for the same amount of air.
The amber emergency strips painted everything in shades of old copper and dried blood, and in the stretches where even the emergency power had been pulled, there was nothing at all — just darkness, and their footsteps, and Asher’s breathing ahead of him, controlled and even the way someone breathes when they’re listening to everything else.
Asher moved differently than he did in the sanitarium.
He was more…controlled, somehow. He still wanted to lead, to be the body between Levi and potential danger, but everything about his movements looked trained: his sidearm up, shoulders low, each corner checked and cleared before he waved Levi through with two fingers.
It was both extremely attractive on a level that disturbed Levi and concerning in a way he couldn’t yet name.
Levi occasionally felt the vibration in his chest and called directions. “Straight.”
The hum was layered now — multiple creatures at different distances, the sensation sitting in his chest like overlapping bass notes.
The closest ones made his ribs ache. The distant ones registered as a low, steady pressure behind his heart.
He was learning to separate them the way he’d learned to read a controller rumble during stealth levels — stronger meant closer, weaker meant farther, and the direction mattered as much as the intensity.
He felt the strongest pulse coming from somewhere to their right and forward, and a secondary one behind them and to the left.
Navigating an alien-infested spaceship by chest vibration. Add it to the resume.
“Left at the junction.”
Asher went left without hesitation.
Two more corridors passed. The air grew colder, the amber strips fewer.
Levi’s fingers were stiff on the pocket gun, his throat was dry, and the bite mark ached the way it always did when his pulse was elevated, each heartbeat pushing blood through tissue that hadn’t healed right and probably never would.
The vibration built on the right side of his lower ribs as something approached from that corridor, the climbing from background noise toward the range that meant too close.
Levi opened his mouth to call the direction and Asher was already turning left.
He didn’t even look back at Levi. He just did it.
“How did you know?” Levi asked, once they were clear, the vibration fading behind them.
Asher glanced back. “Know what?”
“That right was wrong. I was about to tell you.”
Asher tilted his head at him, as though he needed to see Levi from every angle like a piece of art.
“I can feel it,” he said. “When something’s close to you.
My chest does this thing.” He grabbed Levi’s chin and lowered his lips to Levi’s, just hovering there.
“Like a pull. Gets stronger when you’re in danger. ”
“You…um…feel the vibration?” Levi asked, pressing his hands to his thighs as the sudden proximity of Asher’s mouth to his made his stomach flip. Get it together Levi, your ass still hurts…now isn’t the time to be seduced by Asher. He spanked you like a child, for god’s sake.
“I feel you,“ Asher corrected as he closed the last bit of space between their lips, warm and unhurried. His tongue traced the seam of Levi’s mouth and Levi’s lips parted on a breath he didn’t mean to let out.
Asher licked into him — slow and deliberate — and Levi’s tongue met his without permission, sliding against it as heat bloomed downward in one hot pull that settled low in his stomach.
Asher’s teeth caught Levi’s bottom lip on the next pass with just enough pressure to sting and make Levi’s breath stutter.
When Asher finally let his lip go, the sting stayed, hot and tender and exactly where his mouth had been, and Levi could still taste him on his own tongue.
“It’s about you, baby. Always. My body knows when yours is threatened. ”
He then patted Levi’s cheek and turned back around to head down the corridor.
He feels it too.
The thought sat in Levi’s chest alongside the vibration itself, one more thing he was carrying, one more thing he wasn’t ready to look at directly.
A quiet stretch opened up. Thirty seconds of empty corridor, the vibration low and distant, nothing approaching from any direction. Asher’s fingers found Levi’s between strides — lacing, squeezing once, releasing. The contact lasting two seconds. The warmth of it lasting longer.
“After this,” Asher said. “I’m going to find candles.”
Levi’s face ached with the effort of not smiling. “Is that really what your priority should be here?”
“It’s a date, Levi,” Asher said. “There should be candles.”
The vibration surged. Both of them going quiet at the same instant, the humor evaporating in the space between one breath and the next.
Through the connecting corridor ahead — movement.
The dish, the height, the metal fingertips trailing the wall with that light irregular sound.
The apertures cycling. Tck tck tck. Levi’s sternum aching hard enough that he pressed his palm against it involuntarily, as if pressure from the outside could dampen the pressure from within.
The creature passed. The vibration faded. Levi’s palm stayed on his chest for a moment longer than necessary.
“The priorities list is you,” Asher said, as though the last forty seconds hadn’t happened, “then candles, and killing anything that interrupts.”
Junction C ended in a T-cross section, along a massive exterior window that nearly took Levi’s breath away as he looked out into the vast field of stars.
It was beautiful. Even knowing it was just another part of the game, he just wanted to stare for a few seconds and appreciate it.
He’d never get this close to the stars in real life.
“Focus, baby,” Asher said, his back to the view, already at the override panel that was recessed into the corridor wall.
It was just a metal face with manual override controls, three toggle switches, and a dark screen until Levi pressed his palm against the activation plate and the screen came up green.
He pulled the walkie from his belt. “Tyler, are you in position?”
The static hissed, then cleared. “Junction A, we’re ready and waiting.” There was a pause. “For the record, if this works, I want it noted that I saved the ship.”
“Noted.” Levi rolled his eyes.
“And if it doesn’t work, I was never here.”
“Junction B. Ready.” The walkie flattened Jasper’s voice into something tinnier, more distant. “Keep the channel open, communication shouldn’t be delayed by clicking buttons.”
“I’m ready to divert power on your count, Levi,” Elliot’s voice crackled through the speaker.
The chatter went quiet. The corridor hummed around them — the ship’s systems cycling, the amber strips casting long shadows, Asher beside him, angled to cover both approaches at once. Levi could feel his own pulse in his fingertips against the panel. It’s going to work. It has to.