Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
AIRIK
You left your sword behind.
The thought bored a hole into Airik’s head.
Since the moment his sword had been placed in his hand, the day he’d taken his oath, it had been an extension of himself. He’d lost it only once—on the Lemides.
Untouched. Untaken. Unconquered. Once armed with the Sword of Ulliel, I become unkillable.
And yet he’d left it behind.
He had just put on his suit when he’d received the mechanical alert, informing him that the exit ramp was too damaged to retract. Alarm had shot through him when he’d seen his empty bed.
Without thinking, he had run after her. His body had been charged with adrenaline and dread, and his skin had felt like it was about to burst.
Forgetting your sword.
He hadn’t even noticed until he’d seen the seta cub and needed it. At least his gun had still been on the suit, though it had malfunctioned. It was only by luck that it powered on before the seta could slice through his suit.
And then he had seen the dirt on her hands. Dirt that, though unlikely, could’ve been laced with kudra. Never had he’d felt such an amalgam of fury and terror.
So now he ran. Hard. Ignoring the burn in his throat and the sting on his hand. Only listening to her breath behind him as she hung over his shoulder, hoping it still came. His hand tightened around her thighs.
The ramp still jerked over broken gears, trying to close. He kicked the emergency release so energy wouldn’t be wasted trying to close a door that was too broken to do so.
The human flailed as they entered the ship. She might have said something, but he didn’t listen or care.
Airik tossed Nora into the shower stall, with no care for how she landed, himself remaining outside the glass door. She would be dead if not for him. A bump in the stall was nothing compared to what was about to be her fate.
He slammed the shower control panel. Water shot down at full blast.
“Fuck!” she cried, pressing to one side to avoid the stream. He hit another button on the wall, widening the shower stream. No escape for her.
“Clean,” he said. “Everything.”
“It’s freezing,” she cried, trying to pry open the stall door.
He held it shut. “Poison.”
She stared at him, eyes wide. He knew she couldn’t see him—he’d kept the lights dim. “What do you mean it’s poison? You said we would go out. You didn’t say—”
“Clean the dirt, or die.” He hit the panel again. Foamy soap cascaded from the ceiling, dousing her from head to toe.
Ignoring her pleas for an explanation, he left her, yanking the washroom door slats shut. Keep moving, he ordered her silently, hoping the next sound he heard wouldn’t be her collapsing to the floor.
When he heard her movement beneath the water, he let out a breath and sagged against the door.
Airik heard her complain—too fast for him to understand, but it didn’t matter. If there had been kudra in that soil, it would’ve affected her by now.
Though the tension in his body eased, there was no relief because he now felt a shooting pain in his hand.
He collected supplies from the medical cabinet, including the heart-slowing serum Aelior had given him, and sat on the cot, tending to the cuts on his bare hand.
The seta had been young—barely out of its mother’s nest. Its venom hadn’t had a chance to gain potency. Otherwise Airik would be dead.
Nora stepped out while he wrapped his hand in treated cloth. Somehow she looked smaller than she already was, wrapped in his drying cloth, which she must’ve found. Her bare skin against something that had just been against his own.
Untouched. Untaken. Unconquered.
He forced his thoughts back to the pain in his hand.
Her golden skin had gone pale. She looked at her feet, which was for the best. He didn’t want to see those brown eyes that had fooled him into trusting her.
“Breathe,” he commanded her.
“What?”
“Breathe in. I want to listen.”
Nora blinked. “From all the way over there?”
What was wrong with this human? Airik stood, looking down at her. “Do you want me close?” He forced out a low growl, the anger she couldn’t see. “Now?”
“N-No.”
“Smarter than before, Nora.” He stepped toward her. She stepped back several times until she hit the wall.
Something about that annoyed him. “Breathe,” he ordered.
She drew a deep breath, keeping her mouth closed. He turned his head so the helmet’s receptors over his ears would catch the sound of her heart. Though her breath shook, it was strong and didn’t wheeze. There was no crackling as there would’ve been with kudra infiltration.
“Is everything…okay?”
He should’ve lied to instill fear of him, which would make her easier to control. Instead, he said, “Yes.”
“Great.” A weak, strange smile formed on her lips. “Thank you for saving me…again.”
Her gaze dropped to his half-wrapped hand. Her smile faded.
That, too, annoyed him.
“Oh, god. I’m so sorry I—”
“Stop.” He crossed his arms, hiding his hand from her. “Not bad. What could happen to you is worse. But…it did not.”
“Oh, okay.” Nora pulled the towel tight around herself, turning her face down. “That’s good.” A lackluster reaction, considering she should have been on her knees, praying to her Norse gods and thanking them for her good fortune that Airik had followed her.
“Yes…good for you.” He looked at her feet, too. What was of interest to her that she kept her eyes down and not on him?
“I had to pee,” she suddenly said.
“Hmm” was all he managed, transfixed by her toes. With translucent square nails just like her hands.
Only when she wiggled her toes did he realize he’d been staring. In two strides, he was in the hygiene suite. To get away from her.
He found her clothes in a wet heap on the shower floor. He bared his teeth—everything she did upset him. With patience running thin, he exited the suite, passing by where she still stood by the wall, and went to the sparsely stocked closet beside the task desk for clothes.
“I had to pee,” she said again. She pointed between her legs and arced her finger outward. “You know?” She made a sound. “Pssss.”
He stopped, his hands closing around a shirt that would fall laughably large on her as she made that ridiculous sound. His lip tingled, wanting to curl into a…smile?
Ulliel, hear your progeny and save him. Please.
He turned to her, clutching the shirt. “Urinate,” he said, hoping to stop the absurd noise she was making.
“Y-Yes.” She turned to him, grinning.
He wanted to scream at her to stop smiling. There was nothing to be happy about. But he also wanted to get closer, to see that smile of hers better.
“That’s the technical term for it,” she continued, unaware that his body was bracing for combat or something worse he couldn’t yet place. “You know, your English is really very good. I’m not just saying that—”
He threw the shirt onto the cot. Her talking—and the feeling it invoked in him—it had to stop. Soldiers sometimes babbled when their heads had taken injury. “I say to you, I will take you out when you wake. Why not wait?” Now that he had a legitimate reason to be close, he approached her.
“I-I just told you. I had to pee.” She edged away from him until she bumped into the desk. “I’m sorry. I guess I didn’t fully understand what you meant by ‘dead causing.’ I didn’t—”
Airik placed a gloved finger beneath her chin. She instantly closed her mouth. He pressed upward, tilting her head farther back.
“W-What are you doing?” she asked. Her eyes locked onto his. Could this little human see him through the helmet? Or was something else guiding her?
“I will not hurt you.” He tilted her head until she looked straight up at him. Her hair fell away from her forehead, baring her face to him.
Airik bit his lip hard, gazing at her. Even with overly bright eyes tinged with fear, she glared, challenging him.
“Why did you leave me?”
“I said I was sorry.” Her chin trembled, but she spoke the words firmly. “But don’t think that because I am, you can do whatever you want to me.”
Leaning down, he nearly grazed her hair with his helmet. “Whatever I want to do with you?”
Her cheeks turned pink. She tried to turn from him, but he didn’t let her.
Using the light in his glove tip, he examined her pupils. Just as they’d done with him after the Lemides.
He had to check her eyes several times to make sure they behaved as expected—the color distracted him. So brown, they looked almost red. Like the iilas berries he’d loved so much as a child.
“No brain death,” he concluded, hoping it wasn’t a lie. The heat of her skin seeped through the thin barrier of his suit. Though it burned more than the venom ravaging his hand, he was reluctant to let her go.
“Oh.” Nora let out a little huff. “You could have just said you were checking for a concussion.”
Airik stepped back, pointing to the shirt on his desk. “Today you rest. You do not move. I close the door. Not a prisoner. But not free. Understand?”
She clutched the top of the towel but gave a curt nod.
“You eat. Then sleep. Tomorrow we go to your ship.”
Nora’s head shot up. “My ship—by the ocean? Why? You said it was gone—”
“Broken,” Airik said, watching her warily. Her descent into panic was too swift. “Not gone.”
“Why?” she asked again. Her right knee buckled, forcing her to brace herself against the desk.
“I won’t chase you again. You stay there with your own things. Help arrives, and they take you. I don’t want you—too much.”
His gut twisted as he heard her heart accelerate.
“I—I don’t want to go to the ocean,” she said. “I get it, okay? I didn’t listen. You don’t want to deal with me. But take me somewhere else. Anywhere else. I’ll—”
“No meaning what you want. I will not watch you die. You can do that by yourself.”
Nora’s lip trembled. It took every bit of his strength not to tell her the abysmal truth—that he had no idea what he would do with her. He knew what he should do, what he was supposed to do, which was to terminate her or to bind her and leave her where she couldn’t be a danger to herself or to him.
She spoke in an agonized, soft voice. “But you said that I’m yours.”
Airik’s heart thudded against his ribs with treacherous force. “Wrong. I was very wrong. Not mine.”
Her lips tightened into a line as she turned and touched a book on his desk. If she even had a sliver of viciousness in her body, she should have thrown it at him.
Instead, she straightened it, so its edge was square with the edge. She shut her eyes tight.
He ached to have her look at him.
This is why she needs to go.
“All right,” she finally said, then opened her eyes. “I guess that’s fair. I caused you trouble, and you’re not here for me. You don’t owe me a thing.” She gathered the shirt to her chest. “I can sleep in the chair tonight. I didn’t mean to take over your bed.”
Airik fought back the growl rising in his chest. The only place he wanted her was in his bed, where she was safe. “Stay in this room. There is your own food and water. Don’t move until I get you. Understand?”
Nora swallowed, and Airik was keenly aware of the slight contractions of her throat. “Okay, I understand.”