Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
QUIN
Brooke turned another magnetic coupling collar beneath the portable light, her blonde bob falling across one eye as she inspected the connector for hairline fractures before dropping it into the crate marked USABLE.
"I can't wait until we leave this place.
I hope the Nomadicans can get that conduit assembly installed soon. "
I rotated the same connector between my fingers without really seeing it. "Uh-huh."
Brooke picked up another coupling collar and frowned at a tiny crack running along one edge. "Hey, Quin."
"Uh-huh."
She tossed the damaged connector into the SCRAP crate and raised her voice. "Look at that parade of elephants marching across the command deck."
"Uh-huh."
Laughter erupted all around me. I blinked and looked up. "What?"
The crystalline lattice in my hand had a hairline fracture running through its center, barely visible unless you held it to the light, which I had not been doing.
I’d been thinking about Vennox’s hands. The way his scales had deepened to that vivid blue when my fingers wrapped around him.
The tremor in his grip when he’d held my wrist, as if he were afraid I might disappear.
Brooke grinned, blue eyes dancing with amusement as she pointed another connector in my direction. "Exactly. You've been completely distracted ever since you and Vennox got back from the Troken freighter two days ago."
"More like dick-stracted," Erin said with a wicked grin, brushing dirt from a conduit assembly before handing it to Mara.
Mara laughed. "The way you've been mooning over Vennox, you'd think you two had already done the nasty."
Heat flushed my cheeks.
Lila snorted as she held a connector up to the light.
Her long ginger braid slipped over one shoulder while wide hazel-green eyes searched for tiny fractures before she dropped the damaged piece into the SCRAP crate.
"When exactly would they have had time? We've all been practically sleeping on top of each other. "
"Seriously," Brooke agreed, securing the lid on the crate of scrapped components. "There isn't an ounce of privacy on this ship."
Erin examined another connector through a handheld magnifier before setting it into the USABLE pile, then shared a look with the group. "Mehr told me that glowing design on Vennox's chest means he's sealed the deal with his soulmate."
"Spirit mate," Mara corrected automatically, brushing debris from a magnetic coupling collar with her sleeve. "Brunnex said the mark is called a shawra."
Kira paused in the middle of sorting conduit assemblies, her face filled with curiosity. "What's a shawra?"
Mara rolled another connector between her fingers and checked it for stress fractures before placing it into the USABLE crate.
"It's a mark that appears after two complementary spirits have sex.
" She absently traced a circle over the center of her sternum.
"Brunnex said it's a portal where tiny wisps of each mate's spirit emerge and coalesce.
That's why bonded pairs can sense each other's emotions. "
Erin lowered the magnifier and furrowed her brow, dark eyes fixed on Mara. "How do you know all that?"
Mara shrugged, though the corners of her mouth betrayed a smile. "He told me."
Brooke's eyes sparkled with mischief as she swept a few loose strands of hair behind one ear and looked around the circle of women. "Am I the only one who’s noticed how much time she's been spending with Brunnex?"
"Oh, I noticed," Lila said with a knowing smirk. She tucked her long ginger braid over one shoulder before sliding another intact conduit assembly into the storage crate. "Funny how she always volunteers whenever he needs help."
"He has a blunt force trauma injury,” Mara protested, examining another connector. "I’m a paramedic; it’s in the job description to care for injured people." The blush creeping across her cheeks completely undermined the argument.
Brooke barked out a laugh. "Uh-huh. And somehow, Vennox and Truxxet are never available to help him?"
Kira giggled. "She's got you there."
Erin leaned back on one hand, studying Mara with quiet curiosity. "So... does Brunnex think you two are spirit mates?"
Mara's teasing smile softened as she shook her head. "No. He said spirit mates are incredibly rare. Most mated couples choose each other the normal way." Her warm brown eyes drifted toward me. "What happened between Quin and Vennox... that's something entirely different."
The laughter that had filled the command deck dwindled into an uneasy silence.
Without meaning to, every pair of eyes in the circle settled on me.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I mumbled, lowering my gaze to the connector in my hands as though the tiny piece of technology had suddenly become the most fascinating object aboard the ship.
Kira turned toward me, her expressive face open with innocent curiosity. "Can we see your shawra?"
Every head whipped in my direction. Heat flooded my cheeks.
My mouth opened, but no words came. I hadn't gotten as far as inventing a believable lie when Elizabeth stepped onto the command deck carrying a heavy crate overflowing with conduit assemblies, magnetic coupling collars, and crystalline connectors.
A few loose components clinked together as she crossed the room. She lowered the fresh crate into the center of our work circle with a soft grunt, then bent to lift the crate of inspected USABLE parts Vala had been waiting for.
"Leave the poor girl alone," Elizabeth said, balancing the box against one hip. "Whatever happened between Quin and Vennox is their business.”
Relief washed over me. I caught Elizabeth's eye and silently mouthed, Thank you.
Her dark green eyes softened. She answered with a knowing wink before shifting the crate more comfortably against her hip.
"Vala needs these as soon as you’re finished sorting them. They'll need every good component we can salvage,” she said, then started for the door back to the engine room.
"Wait," Mara called after her. "How are you married to two Nomadicans at the same time? How does that even work?"
Elizabeth paused in the doorway. A slow, secretive smile tugged at her lips. Without saying a word, she drew one finger across her lips as though sealing them shut, pretended to lock them with an imaginary key, then tossed the invisible key over her shoulder.
Then she was gone, leaving five women in various states of amusement and the distinct sense that we’d been expertly outmaneuvered.
Mara slumped dramatically and let out an exaggerated groan. "That's so not fair."
“Well,” Brooke huffed, “that was evasive as hell.”
"So true," Mara said with a mischievous grin, wagging her eyebrows. "And a girl's gotta wonder. Does she do them both at once or one at a time? The Nomadicans are some pretty big guys."
“She’s entitled to her secrets,” Erin said, reaching for the new crate. “If I had two seven-foot horned aliens worshiping the ground I walked on, I’d keep the details to myself too.”
“Speaking of worshiping,” Mara said, her gaze sliding toward Brooke with the precision of a sniper acquiring a target. “What about you, Brooke?”
"What about me?" Brooke asked, trying and failing to sound innocent.
"Don't think we haven't noticed the way you ogle Truxxet every chance you get."
Brooke didn't even bother denying it. Throwing up both hands, she laughed. “Why wouldn't I? The guy's practically naked, wearing nothing but a breechcloth, and he's built like a freight train without even an ounce of fat. Cut me some slack. He’s some serious eye candy.”
Lila threw her head back and laughed so hard she nearly toppled backward.
“I agree! A hundred percent.” Erin chimed in, setting another inspected connector into the USABLE crate. "After what we’ve been through, a little eye candy is good for the soul."
Kira smiled as she rotated another connector beneath the light. "I wonder if all Valosian males look like that. If they do, Valose might be the sexiest planet in the galaxy."
The conversation erupted into excited chatter as everyone seemed to speak at once.
"All three of them are every bit of seven feet tall," Brooke said with an appreciative sigh. "I do love a tall man."
Lila laughed as she brushed her ginger braid over one shoulder. "Have you noticed the width of Truxxet's shoulders? I don't think he'd fit through my apartment door back home."
"I still can't believe their hair is naturally that whitish-silver," Kira said, turning the connector so the light caught its polished surface. "It reminds me of Christmas tree tinsel."
"And those silver eyes..." Erin sighed dreamily, resting her chin in one hand. "I could stare into them for days."
"And Vennox—" Brooke began.
"You know they can hear everything you're saying," I interrupted, surprised by the sharpness in my tone as a surge of jealousy caught me off guard. "Just because they aren't in the same room doesn't mean they can't hear you. Their hearing is exceptionally acute."
Brooke smiled unapologetically. "Good. Then Truxxet already knows I'm interested."
Lila barked out a laugh, eyes sparkling with mischief. "Get in line. I think he's gorgeous too."
Brooke pointed a finger at her. "Too late. I already called dibs."
Mara barked out a laugh. "Pretty sure Truxxet didn't agree to that arrangement."
“He prefers blondes.” Brooke tossed her head.
"He does not," Kira laughed, smoothing a strand of sleek black hair behind one ear. "Did he tell you that? Because last night he said he liked my dark mane."
"Sounds like he's playing both of you," Erin observed dryly as she sorted another connector into the USABLE crate.
"Fine by me," Brooke said with a shrug. "I'm not looking for anything permanent. I wouldn't mind a little fun."
"Me either," Lila admitted with a grin.
"You know what they say." Mara leaned forward conspiratorially. "What happens off-world stays off-world."
"Who is they, exactly?" Erin asked, laughing.
Around me, the conversation droned on about Valosian aesthetics with the enthusiasm of people deprived of normal human interaction for too long.
My hand had found its way to my sternum without conscious thought, pressing flat against the two shirts I'd layered on that morning so the shawra's glow stayed hidden from curious eyes.
I was grateful for the reprieve. Grateful to be incidental again, just another body sorting alien tech while the conversation flowed around me.
Beneath my own thoughts, I found him. Not his voice or his memories, just that quiet, steady thread that had become strangely familiar over the past two days.
It wasn’t intrusive; it simply existed, like the distant warmth of sunlight filtering through closed curtains.
The echo of him that now lived inside me.
At first, I’d hated the violation of it, the way it had arrived without permission, rewired something in me I hadn't agreed to change. But somewhere along the way, without my noticing, the hatred had gone quiet.
It wasn't the psychic leash I'd braced for.
It was subtler than that, more like registering a room's temperature the moment you walk in, not through touch, not through any deliberate awareness, just a knowing that settles into you. Vennox was somewhere below deck, working alongside the other males, and I could feel him down there the same way. Without trying. Without wanting to. Just there. The bond should have felt like the exact opposite of that—a tether, an anchor, a cage disguised as destiny. It didn’t feel like a cage.
It felt like someone standing beside me in the dark.
I wished we had met somewhere else. A coffee shop in Tucson, a trailhead in the Chiricahuas, anywhere that wasn't a nightmare world where every sunrise carried the threat of something trying to eat us.
Somewhere I could have chosen him without the universe choosing for me first. But we hadn't met on Earth, and the thread connecting us carried a weight I couldn't explain and couldn't put down.
I was growing attached to him. There was no point pretending otherwise. He looked at me like I was worth protecting, and the thought of leaving him behind no longer felt like someone else's tragedy. It had begun to feel like mine.
My eyes burned and my vision blurred. I blinked to clear it and tried to redirect my thoughts to my work.
I was going to break his heart… and mine.
Because I still planned to return to Earth.
Nothing had changed about that. And Vennox would stay on Valose, where he belonged, with his people and his domed city and the Huren jungle he’d described with such quiet reverence.
He would stay, and I would go, and the bond between us would fade with time and distance until it was nothing but a scar on my chest and a memory neither of us could quite forget.
My vision blurred again, and I blinked hard to clear it.
Brooke was recounting some exaggerated tale about Truxxet’s combat prowess, her hands sketching wild gestures through the air, and the others were laughing, the sound bright and normal and achingly human when the women went quiet.
Suddenly, I was being swung into strong arms, cradled against the hard planes of a chest I knew all too well, and carried away from the women and off the command deck.
I wrapped my arms around Vennox’s neck and hung on tight, burying my face in the hollow of his throat and breathing in his unique, spicy musk. Burning him into my memory to draw on later once we separated, living worlds away from each other.