Varrick
My shoulder ached. Not from the wound, which had closed to a silver scar, but from the memory of poison burning through my system. Every nerve remembered the toxin's path, phantom pain tracing the routes it had taken through my body.
Sabine emerged from the bathroom in her ruined dealer's uniform.
Blood stained the sleeve. My blood from when she'd half-carried me through the station.
Burn marks from pulse fire dotted the fabric.
Three days of wear had left it wrinkled beyond salvation.
She'd washed her face, pulled her dark hair back into a knot that was already coming loose, but exhaustion shadowed her eyes.
Purple marks beneath them said she'd slept maybe four hours total while nursing me through the toxin.
“We need supplies,” I said.
“Food,” she corrected. “Real food. You promised.”
She was right. My body had burned through massive reserves fighting the poison. I needed calories, protein, nutrients to finish healing. And she needed everything. Three days of surviving on protein bars and determination had left her looking fragile. Breakable.
The thought made my fangs ache. A primal need to provide, to hunt for her, to be the one to keep her safe.
The market sprawled through three levels of the station's center ring.
Every species in the galaxy seemed to have a stall, a shop, or at least a corner where they sold something questionable.
The noise hit first. Hundreds of voices in dozens of languages, all haggling, arguing, laughing.
Then the smells. Spices and meat and flowers and things I couldn't identify.
Sabine's hand rested on my arm as we walked.
Steadying me, she claimed, though the toxin had metabolized hours ago.
The crowd pressed close, beings of every species jostling for space.
I tucked her against my side, arm around her waist. Protection, I told myself.
Nothing to do with how perfectly she fit there, how right it felt to have her close.
A group of Ewani scattered as we passed, their rat-like faces twisting with fear. Word traveled fast in places like this. The Vinduthi who'd survived Nexian toxin and the human woman who'd kept him alive. We were already becoming legend.
The first food stall we found was run by a Trelvan, his amphibious skin glistening with moisture from the spray-misters around his booth. His three eyes tracked us with interest as Sabine examined his display of fruits from a dozen worlds.
“What's safe?” she asked me, picking up something purple and spiky that pulsed slightly in her hand.
“Not that. Unless you want to hallucinate for three days and possibly develop a third eye.”
She set it down very carefully. “And this?” A round, golden fruit that smelled like honey and cinnamon had caught her attention.
“Veridian honey-fruit. Safe. Delicious. Expensive.”
“How expensive?”
“Don't worry about it.” I handed the merchant credits before she could protest. “Try it.”
She bit into it, juice running down her chin. Her eyes closed, and a sound escaped that went straight to my cock. A moan of pure pleasure that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with it.
“Oh. Oh, that's...” She took another bite, slower this time, savoring. “It tastes like sunshine. Like what happiness should taste like.”
The Trelvan made a burbling sound. His species' version of laughter. “The Vinduthi wants to watch you eat, yes? I have more. Many more. Foods for pleasure, foods for energy, foods for...” his three eyes rotated meaningfully “...stamina.”
Sabine flushed, red creeping up her neck. I bought three bags of the golden fruit and steered her away before the merchant could make more suggestions.
“He wasn't subtle,” she said, already reaching for another fruit.
“Trelvan never are. They consider subtlety a form of lying.”
We wandered deeper into the market. She stopped at every other stall, touching fabrics, smelling spices, asking questions.
Five years of the same walls, the same routes, the same stifling existence had left her hungry for everything.
I watched her experience freedom. Real freedom. For the first time.
A Mondian butcher was selling meat I actually recognized, from herd animals raised on Thodos III. I bought enough for several meals while Sabine watched him work with fascination.
“You cook?” she asked.
“When necessary. You?”
“Protein paste doesn't require cooking.” But she was studying the cuts of meat with the same intensity she'd once studied cards. Learning patterns even here.
“You need clothes,” I said, nodding toward a section where bright fabrics hung like flags.
“These work.”
“They're destroyed. And they mark you as casino property.” The possessive anger that sparked at those words surprised me. My hand tightened on her waist. “You're not property.”
“No,” she agreed quietly. “Not anymore.”
The clothing district was Lyrikan territory. All flowing fabrics and impossible colors. Their species had turned fashion into art and commerce into performance. Every stall was a small theater of beauty and excess.
Sabine touched everything, her dealer's fingers learning new textures.
Silk from off-world insects. Leather from creatures I couldn't name.
Synthetic materials that shifted color with temperature.
Her face was like a child's at a festival.
Wonder and want and the careful calculation of someone who'd learned not to hope for too much.
When she found something soft and deep blue, her whole face changed.
“Try it on,” I said.
“It's not practical.”
“Try it anyway.”
She disappeared into a changing booth that was really just fabric hung on a frame. I could see her silhouette as she changed, and had to look away before my body's reaction became obvious to everyone in a ten-meter radius.
When she emerged, my mouth went dry.
The fabric clung without being tight, showed skin without being obvious. The blue made her skin glow, her dark hair shine. She'd let her hair down, and it fell past her shoulders in waves I wanted to fist my hands in.
“It's not practical,” she said again, but she was looking at herself in the merchant's mirror with an expression I'd never seen. She looked happy. Just purely happy with how she looked.
“It's perfect.”
“It's expensive.”
“I have credits.”
“Varrick...”
“Let me.” The words came out rougher than intended. “Let me do this.”
She turned to look at me, and something passed between us. Understanding. This wasn't just about clothes. This was about claiming and providing and all the things my instincts were screaming for me to do.
“Fine. But I'm getting practical things too.”
She bought traveling clothes, sturdy boots that actually fit, undergarments that I tried very hard not to think about. Each purchase was careful, considered. Five years of poverty had taught her the value of everything.
While she shopped, I watched the crowd. A pickpocket, Nazok, young, probably desperate, was working the throng. He started toward Sabine, saw me watching, and immediately changed direction. Smart kid.
Two Valdorian were arguing over prices three stalls down, their pale, ethereal beauty at odds with the crude insults they were throwing. A Poraki family huddled together, their amphibious skin already drying despite the moisture in the air. Port refugees, probably. Like us.
“You're doing that thing,” Sabine said, appearing at my elbow with an armload of packages.
“What thing?”
“Cataloguing threats. Analyzing everyone.” She smiled slightly. “I do it too.”
We found food stalls on the second level. An elderly Orlian whose sand-colored skin rippled with pleasure when we complimented her cooking served us something that might have been stew. Strange meats in stranger sauces, flavors that shouldn't work together but did.
Sabine tried everything, making those sounds that were slowly driving me insane. Little moans of pleasure. Soft gasps when something was particularly good. A purr, actually purred, when she tasted something sweet and spicy that the Orlian called “fire honey.”
“You're staring,” she said, licking sauce from her thumb.
“You're making noises.”
“It's good food.”
“Those aren't food noises.”
She took another bite of something that steamed and glowed slightly, then moaned deliberately. The sound went straight through me, my cock hardening instantly.
“Careful,” I warned.
“Or what?” She licked sauce from her thumb, tongue moving slowly. Deliberately. “You'll break another wrist? Threaten someone? Go all protective Vinduthi on me?”
“Something like that.”
The space between us crackled with electricity.
The crowd faded. There was just her, those hazel eyes dark with challenge, her lips still shiny from the sauce.
I wanted to lean across the small table and taste that sauce on her mouth.
Wanted to find out if she'd make those same sounds for other reasons.
A fight broke out nearby. Two Zeqnids going at each other over some perceived slight. Multi-limbed violence that had other patrons scrambling for cover. One crashed into our table, sending food flying.
I had him by the throat before conscious thought engaged, lifting all two hundred pounds of him off the ground. “You spilled her food.”
The Zeqnid's compound eyes took in my fangs, the threat display of a Vinduthi ready for violence. “Apologies,” he wheezed.
I dropped him. He scurried away, his opponent already gone.
“That was unnecessary,” Sabine said, but she was trying not to smile.
“He ruined your meal.”
“He bumped the table.”
“Same thing.”
The Orlian woman brought us new food, free, grateful we hadn't destroyed her stall in the altercation. This time Sabine ate quietly, but the tension between us had ratcheted higher. Every look lasted too long. Every accidental touch burned.
“We should go,” she finally said.
“We should.”
Neither of us moved.
“The room,” she clarified. “Before...”
“Before I kiss you here in front of everyone.”