Chapter 7
The Sineater
I had not felt this strong in months, and I knew the sole reason for that was the human female jogging after me like a stray Gracka puppy.
My injuries from the fight had healed when she’d woken and filled the hold with her terror.
Only a small part of me felt a hint of guilt over that, but the bigger part was relieved.
We needed me at full strength if she wanted to get out of here alive.
That thing I’d fought? It had caused some nasty injuries, the damage more serious than I would have expected.
Maybe there was truth to the planet’s terribly deadly reputation after all.
I’d have to kill it before we could escape this sunken tomb.
There was no way it would let us go, and the last thing I wanted was to fight that thing in the water, it would have the home advantage.
Fear was not a familiar emotion for me to experience; usually, Val and I fed on the fear of others.
My own? It was useless to her, but I did feel it.
For the first time in centuries, I’d run into an opponent that might be just as strong as I was.
Only a Terafin metallurgist I’d had a run-in with a few years ago had come close to matching my strength.
He had not inspired any sense of fear, just a hint of respect.
After all, we’d been on the same side, more or less.
This thing? I wasn’t even sure it had any rational thoughts; it seemed to exist with the sole purpose to consume.
Feed. Destroy. One could say my existence was no different, but I did not kill without some higher plan, usually.
The feeding… that was where the creature and I matched, and I did not like looking into that kind of mirror.
My human stray was quiet as a mouse as she tiptoed after me, and I realized I’d adjusted my stride just a little to make sure she could keep up.
I thought her quiet steps meant she would not pose a further distraction, but I was wrong, she crowded my thoughts and filled my senses.
The truth was, she was no idiot; wanting to stay with the biggest bad around was a smart thing to do.
I wouldn’t want to go back into stasis either, even if all my friends were dead, not that I had many.
Of course, the stray thought my half-hearted invitation meant we were now best buddies.
“Thank you,” she whispered when I paused at a crossing to tilt my head left and right.
I was considering the best options. Would it have tried to follow us?
How did it track? Where was its den? She had other plans, things like conversation.
I curled my lip as she began the silly ritual of introductions.
“I’m Frederique Moretti,” she offered. “Freddie for short to my friends. What’s your name? ”
Introductions. I hadn’t made one in so long that my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth and my brain briefly went white.
My name? Everyone called me the Sineater, that was what I was.
One very obnoxious Ulinial engineer dared to call me “Sinny,” but only if she thought she was well out of striking range.
The last time I’d given anyone my name was shortly after Asmoded found me.
I’d been wounded, hungry, and alone on some Aderian planet with far too many happy people. That was dozens of years ago…
“The Sineater,” I said, voice grating in my throat as I gave her the name I’d been given aboard the Varakartoom—a name that had echoed in the wake of my footsteps for centuries already and fit like the cloak of night.
It was the truth; I might as well embrace it.
She did not need to know anything else, no matter how much a part of me was tempted to say more.
She came to stand right next to me, her hand casually reaching out to stroke Val between her pointed ears.
I’d expect my symbiont to snap her teeth, coil away, or growl in fury, but the traitor was wagging her tail and leaning into the touch.
The pleasure that sank through the bond into my bones made me envy her and long to feel those slender fingers on my skin.
Not scared now, and not because Val and I had sucked it all out of her.
No, it had gone away the moment I’d made the suggestion she come with me.
Even before that, it had begun to wither and fade, replaced by warmer things, like safety and…
trust. I bared my teeth at the hallway to the left but held in the growl that wanted to slide from my throat.
She was infuriating, she was an idiot, and damn it if she wasn’t brave and competent, too.
Not to mention noble, given the mission that had brought her here, according to the ship’s logs.
“Sineater? Is that your name or just what they call you?” she asked, cutting through the anger simmering in my veins with that far-too-clever question.
I felt exposed, raw, like she’d read my mind and known exactly what kind of turmoil went on inside it.
Was this how I made everyone feel—always knowing exactly when they were scared, or angry, or hurting?
“Does it matter?” I barked at her. She shrugged, shaking her head so that the black, springy curls swayed around her face.
She was pale, probably from the long space journey and exhaustion, but a hint of a natural tan still lingered.
I recalled all too well what she’d looked like in her barely-there stasis clothes—down to the intriguing little black mark on her slender wrist. The cuffs of her uniform jacket now hid that, but I cut my eyes down to glance at that wrist anyway.
That’s when I saw it: the glint of silver that was all Val, still circling her wrist.
“Damn it!” I snarled, eyes flashing to Val’s Gracka head and piercing her with a sharp glare.
“You can’t be serious now. Her? Are you crazy?
” The Gracka flicked her ears back and tilted her snout up to pierce me not with a glare, but with something all condescending and bored—like she didn’t give a damn that what she’d done was going to change the course of our lives forever.
Frederique’s too. And wasn’t that just marvelous?
Not. I did not need another to drag along on this crazy ride that was supposed to be life.
Not when Val and I were splintering, failing, and possibly dying of hunger.
Though granted, neither of us was hungry now.
Not like before. No, now a different kind of hunger filled me.
“Are you talking to your symbiont?” Frederique asked, all curiosity.
Her hand twitched against her thigh, as if she wanted to do something with it but couldn’t.
Then the other resumed petting Val’s regal head as if she were a damn pet, and Val practically purred for her.
Val never purred, and she had never felt so clearly happy to me, so strongly present inside my mind.
I did not give the stray human an answer, but turned away again to consider the hallways, bridge, or quarters.
Would it return to the med bay, where it was likely responsible for the deaths of Frederique’s crew?
And why had it spared her but not the others?
Because she was pretty? Because she was the one in charge, and he was saving her for a special occasion?
It, I should say, but the face inside the mass of tentacles and shadows had seemed male. Male and human.
“What’s the name of your symbiont?” Frederique asked next.
Val had forgone all pretense of being a respectable, ancient alien being.
She’d slunk closer to the human, pressing much of her body against Frederique’s hip and side, and tilting her head to offer the best spots for scratching.
Her tail was wagging so much that it swished across the floor and thumped into the human’s boots with a whack.
Hard enough to make her wobble. I reached out a hand to steady her by the shoulder before I could stop the impulse.
Nobody had ever so much as considered that Val had a name, that she was anything more than a strange, liquid extension of me.
She was not a person, not a being, but a thing.
I’d never bothered to correct anyone, and Val had never appeared to want me to, either.
But it was odd what that single question did—as if, suddenly, it validated her presence and made her real: a flesh-and-blood being with feelings and desires.
I knew that, but nobody else had, until Frederique.
My voice was brusque and a little choked when I snarled, “Val. She’s called Val.
” Then I couldn’t stand around any longer and picked a hallway at random.
What did it matter, anyway? The creature was trapped on the ship just like we were, it would find us eventually, and then I’d kill it.
I ignored the warm words of welcome to my symbiont Frederique was uttering, and the way Val was soaking them up.
My skin prickled along my spine, where the creature had struck me with its fanged tentacles before and drawn blood.
It was the only hint of a warning I had before it attacked.
I’d never been this off guard before, but I was stronger than when I first got here, thanks to Frederique’s delicious fear.
Even when the creature jumped on me from above, where it must have been hanging from the ceiling, it did not injure me.