Five
WILLOW WOKE TO darkness and warmth.
Renjik slept on his side next to her. His breathing had the measured control of a man thinking sleep might sneak up on him if he held still long enough. One arm lay around her waist. The prosthetic was behind his back, safely away from her body.
Her head felt almost normal. Na’ashq’ii was tucked against her upper chest, cool and heavy, apparently unconcerned that it witnessed events most pets hid from. Though now that she thought about it, the land cephalopod did seem to make itself scarce.
The bed was a wreck, her clothes scattered across the floor, and Renjik’s shirt was thrown over a lamp.
She checked in with her body, scanning from head to toe.
She was sore in all the right places, but more relaxed than she had been since before the Shangris was destroyed.
Renjik breathed evenly and his big body radiated heat and protection.
Despite the war, despite the pressure, despite everything, she felt safe.
Intellectually, she’d known rhun would change things.
Every survivor from the Shangris read the brief.
Instant attraction, biological imperative on the part of the warrior.
Mind-melting sex and potential pregnancy for the human.
Reasonable things to bullet point in a brochure titled So You’re the Rhun of a Giant Alien Warrior.
Honestly, she should have recognized the signs before his declaration.
But none of the others had talked about how cherished she’d feel. How cared for. Or maybe they had, and she’d ignored the fine print because she was busy trying to survive.
Renjik’s deep rumble was just another caress. “You’re awake.”
“So are you.”
His arm tightened around her waist and then loosened instantly.
Willow put her hand over his. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t pull away every time you remember you’re touching me.”
Silence.
Good going, Benally. That was as sensitive as a brick thrown through a window. She rolled to face him. In the low light, his features were all hard angles and shadow. Very warrior. But she knew the hurt that existed beneath the fierceness.
“I don’t mean be careless. Definitely be careful. I’m fond of my bones in their current arrangement.”
His lips twitched.
“But when you pull away, it feels like you think touching me is something you’re going to lose.”
He looked away.
The old her—the sensible version that existed several hours and one cosmic mating imperative ago—would panic at the intimacy of the conversation. The new her was still panicked, even though she’d decided to have this talk while naked in bed with a traumatized warrior.
“The Scozid changed me forever.”
She sat as still and quiet as she could, afraid the slightest thing would frighten him away like a scared rabbit.
“They restrained me on a table. Forced my arm away from my body. Cut slowly—not because they needed to. Because they wanted the data. Pain response. Pressure needed to penetrate my armor. Psychological deterioration.
“When the Molzaed implanted the prosthetic, they deemed it a success.” His jaw tightened. “It functions. It can hold a weapon and crush bone. It can’t tell me I’m being too rough until someone makes a sound.
“I heard your inhale when I caught your arm.”
“Renjik.” She ducked down to catch his eyes. It was all written clearly on his face. Shame, fear, and most of all rage turned inward because it had nowhere else to burn.
Willow took his cybernetic hand and brought it between them. He resisted but she held on. “I’m going to say something, and I’m tired and recently sexed into an orgasm coma, so I need you to listen and believe me.”
He finally met her eyes.
“You’re responsible for learning your body again. You’re responsible for being careful with me. You’re not responsible for what they did to you.”
His breath caught. Nobody ever separated the two before. The arm. The damage. The Scozid. In his mind they had always been the same wound.
“I’m not made of glass.” She pressed the metal palm against her cheek. “If you hurt me, I’ll tell you. When I need space, I’ll tell you. When I want your sexy ass to give me more orgasms, I’ll tell you that, too. Probably with little to no dignity.”
“You have dignity.”
“You’ve never seen me truly horny.”
His thumb brushed her cheek. A gentle caress without thought.
Willow smiled. “No bones broken. Progress.”
He closed his eyes. When he looked at her again, something seemed lighter. She knew he wasn’t healed. Even she wasn’t arrogant enough to think a speech and great sex fixed trauma. But a door had cracked open, letting her in. That mattered.
An alert chimed.
Willow groaned. “If that’s someone asking me to save the world, I’m defecting.”
Renjik chuckled. “Identify.”
A stiff voice answered immediately. “Apologies, Dr. Benally, the Premiere wants your presence. Razili recovered the transmitter burst.”
Her blood went cold. “What did it send?”
“Failure data from the prototype. The burst left the planet before rescue arrived, and the attached routing packet points to an active manufacturing queue.”
Renjik stood up and reached for his pants, every muscle tense.
“Do we know how long until the next test?”
“The queue timestamp suggests the refined version may already be in transit.”
Na’ashq’ii clicked sharply against her chest. Her stomach dropped. Of course there was a next target identified and waiting.
She stood and reached for her clothes. “Tell the council I’m on my way.”
Renjik turned toward her, but she held a hand up. “I know. I need to rest. I also needed to choose a better species to study.” She yanked her shirt on. “But what I’m getting is another bioweapon briefing.”
“Willow.”
She stopped and looked at him. For the first time, she saw fear in his eyes. “I’m scared too. I’m scared for you—and yes, me—and everyone too close to arrogance calling itself strategy.” She stiffened her spine. “But they don’t get to use my fear to make choices for me.”
His jaw worked. Then he nodded. “Together.”
She walked to him and put a hand on his chest. His covered hers. “Together,” she said.
Na’ashq’ii extended one tentacle and put it on top of their hands. Renjik looked down at it and raised an eyebrow. Na’ashq’ii clicked and lifted its plates.
Willow nodded. “Together.”
Renjik smiled.
That was deeply unfair.
It transformed his face from merely hot to a legitimate threat to her concentration.
“Then we go.”
They dressed in silence. The moral, and the real weapon waited. Somehow she needed to help end a war without letting victory ruin them all.
RENJIK RESPECTED NA’ASHQ’II’S tactical usefulness. Acknowledged that it reduced Willow’s pain, identified Scozid debris, and displayed enough judgment to distrust nearly everyone in command. Those were admirable traits.
But he didn’t like needing it.
His Rucieth senses should warn him when a room shifted toward panic or violence. Not enough to replace training, but enough to feel a threat gather. Na’ashq’ii detected what he couldn’t, and every useful click or touch of its tentacles reminded him of one more thing the Scozid damaged.
It clung to Willow’s shoulders while she sat at the table, its body tucked at the nape of her neck, its tentacles draped down her chest like a decorative collar.
Every so often, it tapped her wrist or curled a limb under her jaw.
Once, when the Azar commander leaned too close, it lifted three tentacles and all its plates and hissed. Renjik hadn’t known it could do that.
He almost smiled.
“Na’ashq’ii responds to biological markers, and I suspect environmental ones as well.” Willow rotated the projection of her pet with two fingers. “Pain and vibration, but it may also detect instability on a cellular level.”
“Or engineered instability, which would make Na’ashq’ii the most valuable thing I’ve accidentally worn.”
The creature pulsed blue.
Renjik narrowed his eyes. “It understands some language. Praise, certainly.”
“Don’t be jealous.”
“I’m not jealous of something that crawls along the ground.”
Willow looked over her shoulder with a smile. “Very convincing.”
He folded his arms and tried not to return her smile. Her amusement was easy to read now. It made him want to lay her out on the table and remind them both they were still alive. He planted his feet.
The burned transmitter sat in an isolation field on the far side of the table. It had told them only what the Scozid had failed to erase. Everything left behind was shaped like a taunt.
Proof before witnesses.
Willow dragged another file onto the projection. “Scozid demonstrations rarely happen in sight of the enemy. They conduct them in sight of their own public, to show technological superiority to the population.”
Det’ae’s feathers ruffled. “Then they’ll deploy the weapon on their own civilians?”
“More likely where they can force their civilians to watch it happen.” Willow stroked Na’ashq’ii’s plates. “There’s something wrong with the phrasing in the packet. It isn’t victory cadence. It’s a command rehearsal.”
Renjik’s metal hand flexed. Willow had touched his arm without fear. For the first time since the Scozid, he believed his body still belonged to him.
Det’ae studied the projection for a long moment. “Signals will need time to reconstruct the missing cadence layers. Doctor Benally, you’ll be more useful if you rest before we ask you to interpret more damaged Scozid nonsense.”
Willow blinked. “That almost sounded like medical advice.”
“It was an order shaped like a courtesy.”
“Ah. There it is.”
A few of the officers pretended not to smile. Renjik didn’t care if they smiled. He cared that Willow was exhausted, one hand pressed to the edge of the table as if gravity had become personally offensive.
He stepped closer. “We’ll return when summoned.”
Willow looked up at him. “You say that like you’re in charge of me.”
“No.” He lowered his voice. “I’m asking you to let me take you somewhere quiet.”