Chapter 9 #2
“I need Kareth compound base.” My professional mode engages despite the chaos pressing at my nerves. “Twenty units, sealed for transport. Atmospheric stabilizers for three species classifications.”
The vendor names a price that would bankrupt most. I open my mouth to negotiate, when Drazex steps forward. He doesn't speak. Doesn't threaten. Doesn't do anything beyond fix his gaze on the vendor.
The silence stretches for three heartbeats. Four. The vendor names a new number. One quarter of the original price.
“That must be convenient.” The words escape. “The whole terrifying death stare thing.”
A smile ghosts over his full lips. “It has its uses.”
I see the dry humor I'd discovered before he ruined everything, the personality beneath the enforcer that had been emerging one careful layer at a time. Then he looks away, and the mask returns, and the moment dissolves into the market noise around us.
I'm flagging by the time we finish gaining the samples I need. My temples throb in rhythm with my pulse, the early warning signs of hypoxia.
Drazex notices before I say anything. Of course he does. “You didn't take your supplement.”
He steers me toward a seating area at the market's edge, positioning his body between me and the crowd as I sink onto a bench carved from the canyon stone. Relief floods through me, and spots dance across my vision. I hate myself for the weakness even as I'm grateful for the reprieve.
“Drink.” He sets a container in my hand, water condensation cool against my palm. “Take the pill now and don't argue.”
“I wasn't going to.”
“You were forming the words. I saw them building.”
I take the pill and drink because he's right and because my body has stopped giving me choices. The water is cold and clean, not enough to erase the oxygen debt, but enough to push back the worst of the symptoms.
He stands between me and the market with his back to me, seven feet of muscle and menace blocking me from view while I gather myself. Protecting me from witnesses while I'm vulnerable.
“You don't have to stand guard while your 'property' catches her breath.”
His shoulders stiffen. “You're not...” He stops. Starts again. “I require you functional.”
“Of course.”
I finish the water and stand, steadier now, and he turns at the movement.
The anger is still there. The hurt hasn't faded, but underneath both lives a different current.
One that took root when he noticed I was struggling.
The monster brought me water and... I don't hate him. I don't know what to do with that.
★ ★ ★
DRAZEX
She's quiet on the return transport, but the quality of her silence has changed.
The rigid hostility of this morning has softened, and I track every glance she steals when she thinks I'm not watching.
I'm always watching. Can't stop no matter how thoroughly I understand the danger in letting her matter.
The Bazaar's lights fade behind us as we ascend through the canyon. She's tired. The thin atmosphere took more from her than she will admit, the stubborn female.
She should be in her quarters. Resting. Where I can watch over her.
I should not be memorizing the way exhaustion softens the sharp edges of her expression.
Should not be tracking her breathing, counting the seconds between each inhale, measuring her recovery by the sound of air moving through her lungs.
Should not be thinking about the kiss. About the taste of her, all sweetness and heat. About the way she opened to me before I ruined her beautiful surrender.
She leaned on me at the Bazaar. Her body sought mine, and her arousal bloomed and I spent the rest of the day half-hard and aching and furious at myself for wanting the forbidden.
“The samples should allow me to identify the compound's base structure.” Her voice cuts through my spiral. “Another day, maybe two, and I'll have a test we can run compound-wide.”
“Good.”
“The traitor won't be able to poison anyone else once we can detect their weapon.”
“That's the goal.”
She turns from the window, and dark eyes hold mine across the transport's narrow space. “Why did you do that? At the vendor.”
“Do what?”
“You know what. The death stare. The price drop. You could have let me negotiate.”
Because watching someone try to take advantage of you triggers instincts I can't control. Because your safety matters more than credits or appearances or any of the lies I tell myself about what you are to me.
When that Thesskan trader stepped too close to her, I nearly killed it. Would have, if the Trade Zone laws didn't carry consequences even House Draven can't ignore. The impulse was pure instinct, older than thought, the territorial violence that defines what I am at the genetic level.
She should hate me for it. For all of it. The possessiveness, the cruelty, the kiss that proved I want her and the words that proved I'll hurt her for it.
Part of her does hate me. I smell the sharp bitter edge, but she still leaned into my touch.
“Negotiation wastes time and I'm a busy male. The investigation has priority.”
“Right. Priority.”
The transport settles onto the compound's landing platform, and I'm through the door before I can say anything that would make this worse.
She follows at a distance and we walk through corridors that echo with everything unspoken until we reach the door to her quarters.
She pauses at the threshold. Turns to face me, and her dark eyes hold mine.
I should speak. Should find words for what claws at my chest whenever I see the hurt I put there. What emerges instead is: “Lock your door.”
Her human eyes spark with fire and life and everything that makes my blood sing. “Of course, Lord Draven.”
She goes inside, and the door seals between us, and I stand in the silence of my making with her scent fading in the recycled air.
I should leave, but I don't. The hours pass. Staff members give me a wide berth in the corridor, questions unasked behind their curious expressions. Let them wonder why their lord stands vigil outside a human's door. Let them speculate. I don't have answers for them. Don't have answers for myself.
Her breathing changes as sleep takes her.
Restless at first. Then deeper, slower, the pattern of true unconsciousness settling over her.
I should leave, but the corridor holds me captive as surely as the compound holds her.
I listen to her breathe through the door that separates us, and the wanting I've tried to kill spreads through my chest like a wound that refuses to close.
Her breathing pattern shifts. Faster now, shallow and uneven. The rhythm of distress. The scream tears through the silence and rips loose inside me. I'm through her door before the sound finishes leaving her throat.