Chapter 61
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
NORA
Nora didn’t sleep.
The gigantic cot she was supposed to sleep on was meant for species larger than humans and didn’t compare to Airik’s chest and the beat of his heart against her ear.
Torren had prepared a room for her—one of over a dozen on the ship, if the number of doors was any indication. While he’d been setting up the cot, Lucky had trotted after him, enamored. He’d nosed Torren’s pocket, and his tail had brushed against the man’s side.
Grunting, Torren had doubled over, clutching his stomach. After admonishing Lucky, Airik had quickly grabbed a tube of clear healing gel. Nora had watched, confused, as he handed it to Torren, who had begun to lift his shirt.
That was when Nora had seen them. The brands. Alien symbols pressed into his abdomen. Black liquid had oozed from the wounds, mixing with blood. So much worse than she could have imagined, her skin crawling as she thought of the cracked, swollen skin around the marks.
Each brand was about the size of her palm. But Torren, an impressive representation of what the ti’rosi species must’ve been, had begun to gasp, as if punched in the gut.
Torren had patted Lucky’s head, then motioned for him to follow as he left. All was forgiven. But for Nora, nothing was well. Airik had lingered for only a moment, the surveillance sensor blinking above, recording their closeness.
Before locking her door, Airik instructed her on how to use the panel beside it to call out if she needed to leave. You are the only one of us who can’t see well in the dark, he had told her. And all of us know it. He had meant it as a warning about the third man, Xallix.
Who Lucky hated. And who Airik had nearly killed, whether the other two men knew how close he’d come to it or not. She was certain Airik would face discipline for what he’d done the night before.
All she’d needed to do was remain by the shower door, but she had been curious. She’d wanted to see a real spaceship, not knowing if she’d ever had a chance to do it again.
What a naive idiot.
And her impromptu tour hadn’t even been worth it.
From the outside, the ship looked like a flying saucer, just like in old comics.
It was huge—the size of an entire city block.
But instead of an open space inside, she was faced with wedge-shaped rooms, barely bigger than her dorm, that branched off a curved hallway circling the inaccessible center.
All night, she’d flipped from one side to the other, imagining Airik’s impending torture because of her mistake.
She wondered if her words would carry any weight to save him.
If she could vouch for him. If she could take the punishment instead.
If her attempt to save him would somehow get him branded more.
Seeing the brands had made it worse. Was there even room on his body for a brand? She hoped not. She hoped his scars were somehow enough punishment and that whatever strange system they used to determine where to put them required a clear patch of skin, which Airik didn’t have.
The next morning, dark gray circles under Airik’s eyes were evidence that he’d had a miserable night as well.
Nora crouched by Lucky, in the open space he had told her was the command deck.
“Is he better?” Airik asked.
“I don’t know,” she responded, scratching behind Lucky’s ears. “I…don’t think so. How could a broken leg possibly heal without help?”
Torren sat smiling beside Airik, his head bouncing from left to right, following their interaction as if they were circus seals throwing a ball back and forth.
Airik rubbed his eyes, then said a few words to his friend, whose smile dimmed as he listened.
Torren nodded, then came and knelt beside them, his long hair covering his face. If Airik was a sullen wolf, Torren presented as a shaggy, happy bear. Big, strong, and annoyingly pleasant. Even in the cold ship, he radiated warmth. Most importantly, Lucky seemed to love him.
“He wants to try putting Lucky in the healing tube,” Airik said. “It might work for him—he is designed, and the medicine will know what to do. But he will be separated from you for hours. You will be alone.”
“That’s okay—I’m used to that. Let’s do it.”
She followed Airik as he carried Lucky down the hall, trying not to show fatigue. The room they entered was larger than the others, with two glass cylinders lying flat on each side.
Torren lifted the glass from one, then Airik set Lucky on the spongy white gel lining the base. As Airik arranged him, Torren clicked his tongue to gain Nora’s attention.
He raised a brow. His striking gaze entrapped her. His eyes were bright violet, with the same glow as Airik’s. Black marks radiated from the center of his left eye, like a circular barcode embedded in the iris.
Imagining that he probably hadn’t ever seen a human before, she let him look. Airik trusted him, and he’d shared his food with Lucky. Even now, there was no question that Airik knew Torren was looking at her, because he kept throwing him scathing looks, but in a…brotherly way.
He smiled at her.
Nora’s breath hitched. He sensed the shift instantly, and his brows furrowed with concern. Then, as if remembering he had fangs, he closed his lips. The rest of his expression fell quickly, like a sad bear cub.
Great, Nora. You just made the nice alien man sad.
Torren had to be good, even if she felt like a peasant under a god’s scrutiny—one eye looking into her desolate future and the other rifting through her pathetic past. And so big—taller and broader than Airik. With perfect skin, she wondered if he had ever seen combat before.
Though his eyes frightened her, she forced herself to smile back.
His response was another smile, wider than last time. In his excitement, he turned and tapped Airik’s chest. “Brother,” he said to her.
Airik shoved his hand away. “No,” he told Nora. “He doesn’t know what he says. We don’t share parents.”
“You don’t need to share parents to be brothers,” she had said, trying her best not to break down. Earlier, he had said they’d been put together as children. Watching their rapid slide into aggression the night before, she was now sure—these two had been thrown into war and shaped into men by it.
“Brother,” Torren insisted, waving his hand in Airik’s face, as if he knew he’d been denying it.
For that simple fact—that he seemed to want to stake a claim in Airik’s life and let it be known to everyone, she liked Torren.
Airik groaned, stroking Lucky’s side as he glared at Torren. “I don’t think his mind works right anymore.”
Giving up, Torren shut the glass lid, then tapped something on the pod’s side. A white gas hissed into the chamber, and Lucky’s eyes closed.
Nora leaned over the glass, hating that she wanted to cry again. “Should we give him a little blanket? It seems cold in there.”
“It’s not,” Airik assured her, going to the door. “It’s warm. The bed will feed him while he heals. When he wakes up, his leg will be better.”
The men returned to the command deck. Turning back from the doorway before continuing with them, Nora went to Lucky. She wanted to say something, but everything felt wrong. So she reminded him he was a good boy instead and hoped some part of him heard.
When she left, a grunt from behind forced her to spin around. At the end of the hall, in the opposite direction from where the men had gone, stood Xallix, head down, looking at something in his hand.
Nora stepped back, thankful the soft soles of Airik’s shoes didn’t make much sound against the floor. Airik had told her Xallix worked beneath the ship, so she was surprised to see him aboard.
Though he hadn’t yet seen her, his head turned, freezing her in place. A thin tongue—like a snake’s—flicked through the air, and the slits on his face flared. In his hand, a shiny black glass rectangle strobed red and blue, but he paid no attention to it, breathing more deeply.
He could smell her.
A cold shock ran through her as his head snapped up and he found her standing there, about as useful as a scared rabbit about to become roadkill. His eyes, twice the size of hers, were swirling black-and-white pools as he looked her over.
She grabbed the collar of her jumpsuit, covering Airik’s bite marks.
He laughed, then raised a clawed hand. He drew a circle on the left side of his chest, then pointed at her, as if to say he’d seen the marks and there was no point in hiding them.
“Nora,” she heard Airik call.
A part of her wanted to say nothing. To let Airik come find her, then Xallix.
So that Airik could finish what he’d started.
Men like Xallix were the same everywhere and could be found throughout the universe, it seemed.
The type who thought they were owed a woman’s body simply because another man had been granted a touch.
But then she remembered how Torren had nearly been brought to his knees by a simple graze over the brands on his side. Teaching Xallix a lesson he’d likely forget, since he’d simply hop into the healing tubes and be well in a few hours, was not worth the harm that might come to Airik.
If she were to survive in the world they were headed for, she’d have to learn to stand on her own. An image of the six species from the city square flashed in her mind. Humans were the second-smallest of them all.
They’re all people—just different versions of them. They could be nice. I might even make friends with them, as I might with Torren. Just not with Xallix.
Nora gave Xallix the hardest glare she could muster, but his attention had already fallen back to the device in his hand.
Not wanting to cause trouble and hearing Airik’s footsteps coming down the hall, the flash of bravery vanished, and Nora turned and hurried back to the command hall.