Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Amy woke up warm and comfortable.
For a few sleepy seconds, that was all she knew. She was warm and held, with something heavy draped over her waist and a broad solid wall against her back and a low, steady vibration humming through her bones. Then the wall breathed and her eyes flew open.
Brannik.
The memory of the previous night returned in a rush that should probably have embarrassed her. It didn’t, which surprised her enough that she lay still for a moment, examining the fact.
She was curled on her side on the narrow bunk, wearing nothing but the thin shirt she’d eventually pulled back on before they slept.
Brannik was fitted around her from behind, one massive arm across her waist and his knees tucked behind hers.
How a male his size had managed to fold himself onto a bunk designed for an Ordanian of considerably more ordinary proportions was a mystery.
His feet were probably hanging off the end.
She didn’t care.
He was wrapped so completely around her that she felt as if she were surrounded by a cage of muscle and warmth, and understood, for the first time in her adult life, that a cage could be a thing you chose.
Being wanted, it turned out, was not the same as being taken.
She was still learning the difference in her body, muscle by muscle, unclenching a fear that had gone bone-deep. But she was learning it.
His breath stirred the hair at the back of her neck. His hand rested against her stomach, his claws retracted even in sleep. And the low rumble she’d been feeling was coming from his chest. She smiled. He purred in his sleep. That was information she intended to treasure.
She shifted carefully, wanting to see his face, and the arm around her tightened instantly.
“Don’t,” he growled, the word rough with sleep, and her smile widened.
“You’re awake.”
“No.”
“You’re talking.”
“No.”
She laughed softly and managed to turn inside the circle of his arm.
His eyes were still closed, his hair falling across his face, and without the alertness that usually sharpened his features he looked younger.
Not young exactly, and certainly not harmless because nothing could make him look harmless.
But he looked peaceful, and she realized she had never seen him peaceful.
She’d seen him chained and bleeding. She’d seen him furious.
She’d seen him tear restraints out of a wall and fight his way through armed males as though nothing in the universe could stop him.
Last night she’d seen something else entirely—she’d seen him uncertain and afraid, but trusting her enough to admit that there were things even he wasn’t ready for.
Now she got this too. She got to have him asleep and safe with her. She lifted one hand and pushed the hair away from his face. His eyes opened and silver caught the dim cabin light.
“You’re staring,” he said.
“I’m admiring,” she corrected, and the corner of his mouth tipped up.
His hand moved slowly over her back, not demanding anything, simply following the line of her spine beneath the shirt. Her body noticed immediately. Heat gathered low in her belly, accompanied by a vivid memory of his mouth on her skin and his hand between her thighs.
She had discovered several things about him the previous night.
He was extraordinarily patient, but that patience did not mean restraint came easily.
She’d seen his face when she’d reached for him.
She’d felt the rigid tension in the enormous body against hers, and the throbbing of his massive erection.
He’d wanted her desperately. And he’d still said no.
Not no. Not really. Not yet.
The thought should have frustrated her. Instead it made something warm expand behind her ribs.
She understood now why he’d accepted those same words from her without argument the night before.
Wanting something didn’t mean you had to take it the instant it was offered.
Wanting someone didn’t give you a claim on them.
Apparently that applied even when the someone in question was enormous and horned and currently stroking a very distracting thumb along the base of her spine.
“You’re doing that on purpose,” she murmured, and his thumb stopped immediately.
“Do you want me to stop?”
No annoyance, no attempt to persuade her. Just the question. She reached behind her back, caught his wrist, and put his hand back where it had been.
“No.”
Something hot flickered in those silver eyes.
“Then yes,” he said. “I’m doing it on purpose.”
She laughed and kissed him. It was supposed to be a morning kiss, soft and pleasant. The sort of kiss people presumably exchanged when they woke beside each other after doing things the night before that she was trying very hard not to think about while his hand was sliding down over her hip.
It didn’t remain that sort of kiss.
His mouth opened beneath hers, and the purr in his chest deepened into something rougher. She pressed closer before remembering that pressing closer brought certain parts of him into extremely noticeable contact with certain parts of her.
She froze. Not like before. This time she froze because every nerve in her body suddenly became intensely interested. He went still anyway, and she leaned her head back just enough to look at him.
“That wasn’t a bad freeze.”
His brow furrowed.
“I think we’re going to need a classification system,” she added.
“A what?”
“For freezing.” She was trying not to laugh now. “Bad freeze means stop immediately. That one was more of an oh, that’s interesting freeze.”
He stared at her. She lost the battle and laughed, and the expression on his face changed.
“Interesting.”
The way he said it wiped the laughter right out of her.
“Very,” she admitted.
His hips shifted deliberately against hers, and her breath caught. His eyes darkened.
“That one?”
She swallowed. “Also interesting.”
His mouth curved.
Oh, hell.
She shoved at his shoulder. “You are learning entirely too quickly.”
“You told me to.”
“I absolutely did not.”
“You said there was a classification system. I require data.”
She stared at him. The big idiot was teasing her.
The silent, terrifying alien warrior who had spent weeks chained to a wall pretending to be an animal was lying in bed teasing her about his erection.
She started laughing again. This time he joined her, although his laugh was barely a laugh at all, just a rough warm sound deep in his chest.
It might have been the happiest she had been in four years.
The realization arrived without warning, and her laughter faded. He noticed, just as he always did.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
His eyes narrowed, and she sighed.
“I was just thinking that I’m happy.”
He went very still. There were classifications for his stillness as well, and she knew this one. Not fear but wonder. She reached up and lightly touched his cheek.
“Don’t look so alarmed. I’m not asking you to do anything about it.”
“I wasn’t alarmed.”
“You looked alarmed.”
“I was thinking.”
“Loudly?”
“Apparently.”
She smiled and kissed the corner of his mouth, wiggling closer to that very interesting erection. His hand slid up from her hip and his thumb brushed the sensitive underside of her breast. Her nipples stiffened so much they ached and instead of freezing, she arched into him.
“That is a different kind of data,” he said solemnly, and she’d never known she could be so aroused and so amused at the same time.
She reached for him, but just as her fingers brushed his erection, her stomach growled. His attention immediately focused on her stomach.
“You need food.”
“I know what I need, and it’s not food.”
But he was already moving. She groaned as he unfolded himself from the bunk, taking all that lovely warmth with him. “You know, most males would be offended if a woman’s stomach interrupted this.”
He looked back at her.
“Most males are idiots.”
She couldn’t really argue with that.
Breakfast was considerably better than usual, because she cooked it. He attempted to help. She eventually assigned him the task of opening containers because there was only so much assistance one small galley could survive.
He was finishing his third portion when she carried her cup into the cockpit and found the navigation display alive with columns of symbols she couldn’t read.
“Is it supposed to be doing this?” she called.
“Yes.”
He followed her in carrying the bowl, which looked absurdly small in his hand.
“You said I could look for the coordinates when I’d stopped bleeding.”
She glanced pointedly at the bandage around his forearm.
“It stopped.”
“That is a very creative interpretation of my instructions.”
He sat in the pilot’s chair without responding, but she decided he really was healing well enough.
She leaned against the console beside him and watched as he moved through screen after screen.
Krebb apparently hadn’t believed in deleting anything.
There were cargo manifests, payment records, docking authorizations, lists of names and numbers, and endless strings of places Amy had never heard of.
He read them all. He didn’t skim. He absorbed. Minutes passed, and she finished her drink.
“Anything?”
“No.”
Another screen disappeared.
“Anything?”
“No.”
“You know, saying more words doesn’t actually use them up.”
His silver eyes flicked towards her, and she gave him an innocent smile. He returned his attention to the display.
“Raskor. Cargo transfer. Drellis Station. Payment record. Orthan—” His fingers moved. “Valkesh.”
He stopped and turned his head towards her. Her eyes widened as they looked at each other. The cockpit went very quiet.
“That’s the one.” She set down her cup. “That’s it. That’s the name Krebb said.”
He looked back at the display, his fingers dancing over the controls. She came around behind the chair and leaned over his shoulder as lines of incomprehensible symbols appeared.
“Are those the coordinates?”
“Yes.”
A little thrill ran through her. They’d actually found it. He opened another file, then another. The third contained an image. She leaned closer, frowning at it. It looked like ruins.
“What is that?”
Pale structures rose from a mostly barren landscape at the base of a huge mountain range, softened by distance and weather. Some had collapsed almost completely. Others still stood, smooth-sided and strangely graceful, nothing like the squat industrial buildings of Port Rusk.
He didn’t answer, and when she looked over at him, he’d gone utterly still. Not thinking-still or angry-still or any of the other stillnesses she’d learned to read. This was something different.
“Brannik?”
He enlarged the image. On one of the standing walls, weathered but still visible, was a pattern of narrow curling marks. His hand rose towards the screen, but he didn’t quite touch it.
“I’ve seen those before.”
She looked from him to the row of symbols.
“What are they?”
For a long moment he said nothing, then his finger gently touched the faded marks.
“My mother had a book with similar symbols. It’s Aurelian writing.”