Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
AIRIK
The suns rose on the horizon, and for the second time, Airik was in the command chair, witnessing it. Emotion welled in his throat. From the confines of ships and starfields, suns never rose. How strange that he’d now seen it twice in a row.
Before him lay his gun and sword, polished and sparkling, the result of needing to keep his hands busy.
He’d dismantled the gun in a wildly ill-advised attempt to find what had caused the malfunction.
He had found a small wire out of place—no doubt another unfortunate result of the crash—and corrected it.
Without the sleep serum, he’d managed only a few hours of sleep that night—not long enough to lose himself in dreams. Thank all that was sacred for that small fortune.
If he’d dreamed, he knew it would have been of Nora.
Of the seta about to kill her. Of how she’d covered her head, a victim of her body’s need to survive.
Of what would be left of her when it was all over. If he could even recognize her face.
He hadn’t wanted to kill it, that pitiful thing.
Last night, its mother would’ve returned to an empty nest and wouldn’t have eaten until she found her young.
It was the first life he’d taken since the Lemides.
Its eyes held the same bewildered gaze as the insurgents from that night, weeks and weeks ago.
He knew it was about to learn the true cost of a morazir’s touch.
Afraid. As if the meaning of its barely started life had flashed before its eyes, only in time to be snuffed by Airik’s hand.
Just as morning fully broke, Nora emerged from his room with a slight shuffling. He hurried to yank on his helmet, then turned in his chair.
She wore her own pants and his shirt, swimming in it. She held up the pouch of heart-slowing serum. “You left this—”
He snatched it from her, then tossed it onto the control panel. It wasn’t formulated for humans—it might’ve killed her. How could he have forgotten?
She frowned, her face a mask of confusion and frustration. She pushed the hair out of her eyes, her hands hidden beneath the too-long sleeves. His number—a replacement for the tagion code—sat over her left breast. His name, as far as the Veynari was concerned. Heat flared in his groin.
Untouched. Untaken. Unconquered.
“Where is your suit? None of your things I want to be still here.”
The way her eyes fell downward before she went back to his room to get her suit made him want to be thrown into a pit and sealed away.
Ed’un’s two suns were nearly equal in mass. According to the mission briefings, the climate would remain temperate, with no distinct cold or hot seasons. If they stayed close to their ships, the one thing that didn’t want them dead was the weather.
Nora met him on the ramp, wearing her suit and holding the torn section together. She showed him a tab at the neck. “Is zipper technology beyond your people?”
Ignoring what he was sure was an insult, he held up his sewing kit, with a needle and thread already prepared. “Don’t worry—I’ll fix it.”
He should have asked her to remove the suit. He should have told her he needed it flat to repair it properly.
Instead, as if under a spell, he dropped to his knees before her and tugged her close by her sleeve.
Nora made a noise of protest, but she still let herself be pulled halfway toward him.
He pulled her even closer until her clothed feet nearly touched his knees.
“I said I will fix it. Don’t move.” They were nearly eye to eye now.
Protected by his helmet, he couldn’t stop staring at her face, at that crooked tooth of hers peeking out from her parted mouth.
It begged him to place a finger between her lips and press them apart so he could get a better look.
He hoped she couldn’t hear the loud gulp as he swallowed.
With great difficulty, he tore his eyes away, focusing on the cut fabric. If any god heard his thoughts, he wished fiercely to be delivered from this fascination with a creature who wasn’t his and was much more trouble than she was worth.
Nora stumbled as he pulled the two sides of the fabric together too aggressively. Shame bit into him. He wasn’t meant to touch another—too hard, too rough.
“Use me,” Airik suddenly said, sitting lower so she could reach his shoulder.
Her cheeks went pink, and she rested a hand against him. Interesting. It seemed the flush coincided with his offering something of himself in the form of an order.
The suit relayed the pressure of her hand to his skin. What an unexpected pleasure to feel another’s weight against his.
Untouched. Untaken. Unconquered, he thought, yet he leaned into her touch, telling himself it was to help her.
He whipped the needle back and forth, starting just above her knee, careful not to prick her as he sewed her into the suit. As he worked, the quivering rise and fall of her chest lit his body aflame—she was just as ruined as he, struggling with their proximity.
Airik clenched his jaw, trying to ignore their shared misfortune.
He sewed with long stitches to end his silent suffering sooner. His progenitor would’ve been horrified to see the quality of his work.
By the time he reached her hip, his heart pounded.
By the time he reached her belly, his heart sprinted like fleeing prey.
And by the time he reached the apex of her chest, his heart thudded with such violent intensity that he wondered if it’d break free from its arteries and veins, blood flooding his chest, and he’d die right there at her feet.
“Stay close to me,” he said, issuing orders to calm down. “I carry everything.”
“Okay.”
“You listen to me. Anything I say.”
“I will.” She nodded. “No repeat of yesterday. I swear.”
When he finished stitching, he stood. She looked away, facing the forest to their west. He tied off the threads at her throat, his hands lingering. Her lower lip caught beneath her slightly crooked tooth as she chewed it.
She annoyed him. For no other reason than that her eyes were not on him.
Need and pressure coiled together in hot impulse. He caught the rope of her hair and tugged—not hard. Just enough to make her look at him again.
“W-What?”
Her cheeks flushed a wonderful red that spread down her throat and lower, still. He realized, with an absurd amount of pleasure, that his own cheeks burned as well.
Ulliel, save me—something terrible is happening.
Airik threw her hair back, stepping farther down the ramp. If there had been any question about whether his decision to take her back was correct, here was the answer. He wouldn’t survive her. He needed her out of his things. Her scent out of his room. Her hair out of his reach.
After finding the slippers he’d made for her two nights earlier, he placed them on the ramp in front of her, a safe distance from him.
Nora looked at the shoes, then back at him. “What’s this?”
“They’re to cover your feet,” he said, a little confused that she didn’t recognize them. “I don’t have the human word. They go on your foot…to protect.”
“Shoes,” she said, looking at them with a tentative smile. “They’re called shoes.”
“Yes…small shoes. Hurry. Put on.”
An indescribable expression crossed her face. “They look like they’ll fit.”
Was this how humans accepted things? With an exhaustive report of what was given? “I made. For you.”
“You made them?” she asked him, as if he’d made a mistake. As if no one had ever given her anything like this before.
“Yes… Put your feet in them.”
Hesitating, she said, “Okay,” then tried to sit. She winced, wobbling on her left ankle.
Airik caught her arm, relieving her of some of her weight, then helped her down. It was impossible to be around her without touching.
She ran a finger along the stitching on one of the shoes. Thank the fates that he’d remade them twice to fashion them as perfectly as he could.
“They look nice and sturdy. When did you have time?”
“When not sleeping, more time.”
Nora laughed. “I get that—I know entirely too much about extinct animals because I watch old TV shows instead of sleeping.” Her face lit up with excitement.
“Did you know the slow loris had a toxin that could send a person into anaphylactic shock? That’s when—” She stopped abruptly, leaving Airik breathless, waiting for the next words.
She let out a short laugh, then turned back to the shoes. “Never mind.”
None of what she’d said made sense. Neither did the way his knees felt weak. What did a slow loris look like? What was anaphylactic shock? Was it a pleasant experience?
He stepped back, rubbing hard over his heart to relieve the sudden tension.
Nora put on the slippers, stretching her legs to see them on her feet. The canvas he’d chosen for the tops matched the dark gray of her pants. “They’re soft,” she said. “And they fit pretty well.”
His chest throbbed with full force—an unfamiliar pain. Had the biological scan been wrong? Had the human made him sick? Or was this the final warning to look away from her or else his heart would burst?
“Good,” he said, his voice inexplicably hoarse.
She smiled at him. Why did she give them so freely? “Do all soldiers from your world know how to sew?”
“No. My mother teaches me.”
His jaw clamped shut. Something about how he’d conjugated the verb felt off, but he could not focus on anything but Nora.
“Should I try walking in them?” She held out a hand, wiggling her fingers.
A memory rocked loose in his head.
As if remembering something, Nora jerked back. “Oh, sorry! You said no touching.”
Airik caught her hand, with his ungloved hand, no less, and pulled her to her feet. “Try them.”
A soft sound escaped her as she watched him through her hair, which had fallen over her eyes. She must’ve thought him unhinged.
“Walk.” Resorting to another command.
Without another word, she took a few limping steps down the ramp and then returned. “They’re perfect,” she said, posing her toes this way and that.
He let out a gruff acknowledgment. If this was how she received gifts, maybe he could gather enough materials to make her more things.
Her gaze returned to him, bright with earnestness. “When you get back, you should let your mother know you sewed shoes for a human and that she loves them.” Her cheeks turned pink again. “Thank you, Airik.”
She might as well have hit him with an axe, cracking open his chest. How desperately he wanted to believe that what she’d said could ever be true.
He swung his sword to his back, where it attached to his suit. Its weight felt heavier than usual. Morazir didn’t make shoes for humans. A human who should have been dead…if he had followed protocol.
“Come, Nora,” he said, herding her down the ramp. “It’s a long walk to your ship, and you are slow.”