37. Chapter Thirty-Seven #3
As I attempted to push myself back to my feet, Alexei suddenly lunged for me, grappling at my legs. I screamed as he grabbed me, pulling my feet out so my back hit the floor, hard, knocking the wind temporarily out of me.
I couldn’t believe only a few moments before I’d been hoping Alexei would be my friend.
He was brimming with contempt toward me now that he was no longer bothering to hide.
Was it because of the part I’d played in Croydon being captured?
Or did it go back even further than that—because I had deigned to politely refuse his boorish attempts at seduction?
Hard to say. It was possible even he didn’t know for certain.
He leered, enjoying my fear. “Go ahead and scream. Everyone else is down in the cargo bay.”
“Except Ursa,” LeFleur gloated—almost joyfully, as if this were some kind of game and the two of them had won. “He’s fast asleep, isn’t he?”
Dread settled into the pit of my stomach. It hadn’t struck me before just how remote the galley was from everywhere else on the ship, how isolated the three of us were in this room.
As if coming to the same conclusion, Alexei gave me a bloodstained grin before lunging toward me again. But he had to release my legs to do so, and so I brought them up to my chest, like Ursa had shown me once so long ago, and used their strength and Alexei’s momentum to push him backward.
He didn’t expect that at all, not from me, and so he fell over with a satisfying roar of surprise, followed by an even more satisfying thump of his body hitting the metal wall. I didn’t let myself gloat for long, though. Rolling over, I pushed back up to my feet and raced toward the door.
I didn’t make it far before two hands gripped me, trying to drag me back down to the floor.
LeFleur this time. He wasn’t nearly as strong as Alexei, and on his own, I might have been able to handle him.
But it didn’t take long for Alexei to rejoin us, and between the two of them, they dragged me back down to the floor, pinning me beneath them.
I was forced onto my back. LeFleur grabbed hold of both my wrists while Alexei took hold of my jumpsuit.
LeFleur was giggling, like this was all a game. “Don’t worry, it can be our—”
Then suddenly, his head jerked quite violently to the side, and there was a terrible snap before he slumped over, unmoving.
Eyes wide, I looked up to see Ursa, naked and wild and radiating with rage.
He lunged at Alexei next, the two of them rolling around a bit before Ursa overpowered him.
When I left him, he’d been weak, barely able to keep his eyes open, but he pinned Alexei down like it was nothing, using the strength in his thighs to hold him in place while he pummeled him with his fists.
I watched all of it in awe. My heart was racing, my adrenaline spiking. I rolled to my side and looked at LeFleur, lying so very still. That had been his neck snapping, I realized. He was dead.
My eyes slid over to Ursa. His back was to me as he brought his fists down on Alexei over and over, a loud roar of rage emitting from him.
Alexei struggled at first; I couldn’t see his face with Ursa’s torso blocking it, but I could see his arms pushing futilely against Ursa, his legs flailing.
Then less and less of each movement, until there was none.
Long after Alexei stilled, Ursa finally slowed his movements until he stopped altogether, his body still quaking with the force of his wrath. Only then did I finally push myself up so I was half sitting. “Ursa?”
It took him a long time to turn and finally face me. His eyes were wild, his face speckled with blood, not his own. For a moment, he simply stared at me, as if pulling himself back from a deep, dark abyss.
Then he crouched over to me, gathering me into his arms. His blood-soaked hands ought to have repulsed me, but they were so gentle as he gathered me and held me tightly. “Hurt?” he kept asking, that one word over and over again, like it was the only thing he could think to say in the moment.
“No, I’m . . . I’m all right.” I was shaking, though, as I clung to him as tightly as I could, and he did the same. We rocked together silently for a moment, the emotions too big and potent to speak through or reassure away or even to name.
Then all at once, it struck me. What it would mean. What we had done. Croydon was gone, and now LeFleur and Alexei were both dead. For some of the crew, it wouldn’t matter why.
“Ursa.” I gripped him tightly, trying to think of how to fix this. Where we could go. What we could do. I tried, frantically, to remember if there were any active escape pods on the ship, if there was any chance we could get away before the crew realized what had happened.
But too late. The door to the galley slid open behind us, and somebody swore, then shouted.
1. Yet another indication of how exhausted he must have been. Under normal circumstances, the man never missed an opportunity to take off his clothes.
2. To be clear, I would have also rejected his advances knowingly; I just happened to do so while also not understanding his intentions.
3. Hand-eye coordination has, admittedly, never been a strong suit of mine.