Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Voidspace
Garrison
I’D NOT been sure how Shohari would be with me, whether she’d go back to the distance she’d created just before Vadias, or whether she’d soften now we were going to bring about the freedom she craved.
Last night, we’d buried those worries under joining bodies, tender touches, and whispered words. She was all business again this morning, but it didn’t diminish the contented hope fluttering in my chest.
After she departed the galley for the bridge, I headed to the cargo bay with the shaa’ith.
The guns were a strange mix of familiar and alien. Their version of the assault rifle was more bulbous, the polymer of its body a strangely smooth texture, but the weight of it in my hands was familiar, as was the motion of locking in the cartridge, and the crisp tchik of the safety lever.
I gawped every time the target dropped the spent bullets and remoulded itself, filling the large frame with a smooth, semi-translucent ballistics gel.
“It’s not very thick,” I said, peering from the side as it coloured and swelled into a new target.
Tokki laughed. “Why would it need to be thicker?”
I sent him an incredulous look. “To stop bullets going through?”
“Didn’t these ones stop okay?”
They had, but I might not have fired if I’d known the target was only three inches thick.
I shook my head, blinking. “Back on New Earth, we’d need ballistics gel far thicker than this if we didn’t want anything out the other side.”
“Be glad you’re in this sector, then. Now stop skykking around, and do it again. You might be out of practice, but based on that, I’m not sure you know more than how to pull the trigger.”
I glared at him, a spark of anger firing in my chest, but I’d never lost my shit at my training officer, and I wouldn’t lose my shit at self-appointed drill sergeant Tokoran, either.
Once both of them were behind the line, I let out a comfortable breath and fired another short burst at the target.
Better. The grouping could be tighter, but we had plenty of time to practice.
“How come you don’t have those laser rifles the Reserve has?” I said.
Daiytak chuckled. “Who says we don’t? Get better with this and maybe we’ll let you play with the fun equipment.”
Get to work with alien tech? Hell yeah.
I THREW MYSELF back into training, running drills with the others, spending equal amounts of time in the training room and converted cargo bay.
Some days I let myself be involved with the planning discussions.
Others, I was content to do my own thing, honing my rusty skills, ensuring I was an asset not a liability.
It was easier to keep busy.
My feet landed in a steady rhythm on the stepmill, and my lungs burned as I cranked up the speed.
I’d expected Shohari to be focused on the mission, but the easy softness we’d shared after take-off was so far away, we may as well have left it back on Vadias—the way she’d meant to leave me.
The only thing we had was the night. Neither of us had mentioned I could have taken the sofa in the galley.
Each night I returned to the only bed I wanted to be in, even though it was torture.
She’d come to bed once I’d already settled down; kri’ith needed less sleep than humans, and without intimacy to take up our time, she kept to a different schedule.
As soon as she woke, she’d leave the bed.
Some mornings I was still asleep. Others, I woke tangled up in her embrace, breathing in the way her fingers twitched over my chest, the way her hips rocked softly against me as she started to rouse, her clit hard and wanting.
But she pulled away, always, without fail.
I heard her angry grumbles as she got dressed, and sometimes her longing sighs. I knew her reasons for holding herself back even if I didn’t fully understand them. There was nothing I could say to change it.
I never said anything. How could I?
One morning my dick had been so hard it was painful, and it had only taken a few steady strokes of my fist to spray fast lines of cum across my chest after she’d left.
The pleasure was sharp and faltering, my teeth biting down on my lip so hard it drew blood.
Her scent on the sheets surrounded me, the warmth of her body still lingered behind me.
I’d have felt bad about jerking off in her bed except she did it in the shower too.
Three days ago, soft moans had drifted through the walls over the hammering water.
That, and the shower couldn’t fully wash away the unmistakable scent of sated Shohari.
She’d stepped out of the convi already dressed, but I knew the telltale flush on her ear ridges.
When she caught my eyes on her, she’d dropped her head and left.
I whacked the stop button on the stepmill and let myself roll off the end, my legs aching.
I’d stopped even saying good morning to her. The pain—as if my heart was made of glass and she could crush it with one more silent daybreak—wasn’t even the worst of it.
It was infuriating. More than the sexual frustration was the exasperation that I knew she wanted me, and I was right fucking here. She already cared about me, and it should have filled me with so much joy. Instead it threatened to make my limbs so heavy, some days I struggled to train.
Like today.
I should have been here for another hour, but I finished up one more lacklustre set of burpees and swiped a towel across my neck.
I could shower later. Maybe a chrya would help.
Air puffed out from the wall vents seemingly every time I walked past one, as if the Dorimisa herself was trying to get my attention.
“I know,” I muttered, uncaring that I was speaking to the ship. “But what can we do about it?”
I knew Shohari wanted to protect herself. Fuck, I wanted to protect her. I wanted to crush her family so they could never hurt her or her brother again. I had to focus on that anger to fuel my body, so I wouldn’t succumb to the despair that sought to overwhelm me.
I understood the need to protect against all rational thought.
She was trying to avoid some hypothetical future, but it was one we were doing everything we could to prevent.
Surely life was here and now? The pain of denying what we both desperately wanted felt like too high a price.
Was another week or two of being together not worth having?
Much as I wished it could be more than just sex, if that was all it could be, I accepted that—albeit with a stone in my guts.
The last—and only—time I’d had a fuck-buddy, I’d struggled to handle the not-sure-where-we-stand aspect, even though I’d known from the start he wasn’t interested in a relationship. And now, in this horrid limbo, I remembered with acute clarity why I’d ended it.
Ending things with Shohari was the last thing I wanted.
I swallowed hard. It hadn’t helped that two nights ago, we had been intimate.
She’d been angry at Tokki, spoiling for a fight, and I’d been happy to give her the release she needed.
But the way she softened in my arms afterwards, letting me stroke her, kiss the back of her neck, made me ache with how much I wanted that every night.
Every day. I wanted her, wanted all of her.
The following morning she’d been gone before I woke, and I hadn’t caught sight of her until the afternoon.
It was too early for lunch, but I needed food as well as a drink. I hadn’t hung around for the discussion yesterday, but after days of being caught up in my own head at any quiet moment, I decided I would. Maybe the distraction would help.
The drinks machine hissed, but animated voices drowned it out. I wasn’t the only frustrated one. Tokki and Shohari still spoke like they’d spent this past week going round in circles, unable to agree on a plan.
“I’ve got word from the bounty hunter,” Muzati said, and I’d forgotten she’d engaged one. “The Crown of the Void is definitely a dai Yakri ship, definitely a trading vessel.”
Shohari’s breath whooshed out of her. “How has she managed it? It can’t have ever entered Orith’s atmosphere.”
“Well, however she’s done it, your mother’s rival controls an illegal second trading ship. It’s quite exciting. He said they take reasonable precautions to hide their identity, but not as many as they should. Which—”
“As if arrogant that nobody will realise or care.” Shohari flicked a headspine. “That certainly sounds like an Orithian madame.”
Tokki’s eyes lit up, his body animated. “You said a way to sway factors in our favour in the enclave would make a difference? This is it, Shohari.”
Rather than sharing his excitement, her eyes narrowed. “And how exactly do you propose we use this information?”
“You use it as leverage over your neighbours to help us, of course.” Tokki spoke as casually as he would if the chrya pods needed filling up.
Shohari’s voice was like ice. “Are you suggesting I blackmail them?”
The shaa’ith flicked his nails against each other. “Like I said, it’s leverage.”
“Absolutely not.” Her face flushed a dark magenta, and her hands clenched into fists on the table. She held herself so taut, I worried she was liable to snap at any second
“But it’s a—”
“It is not up for discussion. We find another way.” Her chair clanged to the floor, and she quaked with the effort of holding herself back.
“Then why did you bother investigating it?” Tokki’s voice rang out to Shohari’s stiff back as she stormed out of the galley. He turned to me, eyes gleaming with frustration. “What is her problem? Can you talk to her?”
Fighting all my urges to go to her, I didn’t answer him straight away. She was stubborn. Hurt. Betrayed. Traumatised, even. But her shortsighted thinking could cost us too high a price.
I sighed. “She won’t go for it.”
Tokki was on the cusp of anger, holding it in every tight muscle, each one an echo of my own. “It’s too risky without another angle, and this could tip the balance in our favour. How can she not see that? She wants it to be perfect but won’t entertain a major strength we have?”
I got why he was incredulous, but he couldn’t see past the logic of the situation. “Have some fucking compassion, Tokki.” My chair clattered down next to Shohari’s, and I stalked to the window. “Have you any fucking idea what she’s been through?”
The grey swirls of voidspace were neutral and dispassionate. I missed the stars.
I huffed out a breath, fogging the glass. “We find another way.”
The words felt hollow, even though the fire, the need to back her up, to protect what was important to her, burned in me.
“Don’t be foolish, Garrison. Do you think we aren’t going to shoot anyone, either?”
“If we have to, we will.” I kept my voice controlled. “It’s like we said. Aim for peace, but prepare for war.”
Knowing it would drive a further wedge between us, I said, “I’ll see if I can talk to her.”
I couldn’t help feeling by the end of this, Shohari was going to hate me.
Shohari
HOW DARE TOKORAN suggest I stoop to blackmail?
I let my rage carry me, let the heat of it fire up my veins, even though his words echoed.
Why did you bother investigating it?
Because I’d hoped there was another way the information could be useful?
The truth settled in my gut like a stone. I should use my strengths. Be ruthless. Like she is.
I didn’t want to be like my skykking mother, didn’t want to have to become like her to be free from her. How could I force another to my will when the weight of that had crushed my spines for so many years?
I’ll go to any lengths to free my brother. That was what I’d told my crew two weeks ago. I’d been angry, zealous, without any hope of it becoming a reality.
And now the myriad threads twisted and tangled, weighing my head down inside and out. Was I a coward, or was I principled?
I can’t do this any more.
Garrison found me slumped against the training room wall. He sat close enough I could feel the warmth radiating from him but not close enough to touch.
Everything else fell away, the strength of my wanting for this man burning away all other concerns as though they were nothing. That was… worrying.
Dangerous.
The need to have him, to claim him as mine, to explore what we could be together, blazed as brightly as the desire to rescue my brother. The paths to each were just as tangled. Tangled on their own, tangled together.
“Is there anything I can do?” His low, husky tone sang of sex, but his words offered care. Care I needed. Care I craved.
“I just need time.” My words could have been a reply to any of it, to all of it. But, as the Dorimisa hurtled towards Orith, time was the one thing running out.
“Take all the time you need, Sho.” His emotions bled through despite his carefully constructed calm.
If his words had meant to be a comfort, they didn’t wrap me in warmth—just further chilled the void inside me. Where was the male who’d shoved me against the wall and thrust his fingers into my cunt as he growled what he wanted to do to me?
Where was the male who let me lead him by the cock a few minutes later? The male who eagerly helped me with anything? Who laughed with me? Called me sweetheart?
I risked a glance, but his impassive face told me nothing.
Sharp pain knifed through my chest. He was gone. Locked away, because I’d asked him to.
All I wanted was his arms around me. But I’d told him I couldn’t risk a mate bond, not yet, and so he held himself back—taking away everything that made him him.
I hated it.
I stared at the mats on the floor, my eyes out of focus. This was where we’d first kissed. Where I’d first had him inside me.
The memories rose up in my throat and threatened to choke me.
For the second time, I dashed from the training room, leaving Garrison behind. This time I couldn’t even find it in me to apologise.