Chapter 15
Irena
It was that moment in the night when everything aboard the ship grew quiet and dim.
The crew slept in their quarters, with only a skeleton crew manning the bridge and engine room.
Tonight, the mood was even more subdued because their numbers had been cut down by Flack.
Eight body bags had been carried out of that hallway and tossed unceremoniously out the airlock.
Eight. That’s how many Flack had killed when, with impeccable timing, he’d raced to my defense.
Too bad Xathena hadn’t been one of them.
I discovered she’d slipped away after Flack had struck her that first blow, and, badly wounded, she’d retreated to the safety of the med bay.
That’s where she now slept a fitful, pain-filled sleep.
I tried not to enjoy the thought of her pain but couldn’t stop.
She deserved every bit of what Flack had done to her, and he’d clawed her up good.
Really good. I was pretty sure they’d been forced to sacrifice one of her eyes, which made her look even more like a pirate, with a white bandage covering it.
With Xathena down and out, nobody was looking for me anymore, and I was once again able to move freely around the ship.
In fact, nobody even seemed to care about my existence; it was like I’d been completely forgotten.
That’s how I found myself tracking where they took Flack after they knocked him out: to his cell.
Gathering supplies, not even caring if I got caught on camera stealing them.
And scouting the ship to figure out what was going on and what the pirates were going to do next.
Now that everything had quieted down, I made my move.
Ignoring Dimon drinking himself into a stupor in his quarters and Xathena moaning pitifully in the med bay, I slipped through the quiet ship with a bag full of food, bandages, the tissue regenerator, and more.
I’d even stolen a gun some crew member had left lying around, as well as a very dangerous-looking knife in its sheath.
Flack was going to be proud of my budding thieving skills.
They’d put guards on the brig now, but not inside it.
Apparently, they still didn’t want to risk him talking to anyone and perhaps convincing someone he’d spare them if they opened his cage.
Not a problem for me; I had another way to slip inside.
It was a tight squeeze with a bag filled to overflowing, but pretty soon I was slipping out of the cell adjacent to his.
The idiots had made this so easy for me, too; they hadn’t even bothered to lock me out of his cell.
It opened with a creak that made me freeze, but it was Flack’s lack of response that worried me.
He hung in the shackles, his big, human-looking body limp and lifeless.
A wound sat pink and red on his shoulder, and he was bleeding from at least a dozen spots.
He wore the same pants and boots as always, and little else.
His head hung limply toward his chest, his long silver hair obscuring his face.
He was out cold, and I didn’t think I’d ever seen Flack anything but animated and awake.
It was eerie to see him like this, and for a moment I feared the worst. Had he died from his injuries?
No, I could see the slow rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, but it looked dangerously shallow.
I stepped into his cell with a last glance over my shoulder, then carefully dropped my heavy bag on the bunk beside him.
He didn’t respond, and I worried what that meant.
Still deep under the effects of whatever they’d used to knock him out, or seriously injured?
Only one way to find out. I carefully placed my fingers against his throat and focused on finding his pulse.
“Flack? Are you okay?” I asked at the same time, relieved when I felt a steady rhythm beneath my fingers.
He didn’t respond, so I moved onto the next step: using my very limited understanding of alien first aid to check out his wounds.
The burn on his shoulder was probably from one of those high-tech rifles or pistols everyone carried around—much like the one that had just burned a hole in the bottom of my bag.
The small dots of blood that had dried on his skin, I surmised, had to be from the tranquilizers they’d shot him with.
Apparently, whatever these pirates used for that was still very similar to what I’d expect on Earth.
They’d removed the darts, but each one had left a tiny puncture mark that had bled.
I wiped away the blood with a clean cloth, then focused on the nasty burn on his shoulder.
Was it bad enough to keep him from shifting, like the stab wound had before?
I checked the hidden pocket on his pants, but he didn’t have another injector in there.
So no healing-aiding drugs. That meant I had only one real option to speed up the process, and I pulled out the regenerator with a little trepidation.
What if I accidentally put it on the wrong setting and it did nothing?
Or worse, harmed him? I had to try, though, so I flicked it on with shaking hands and held it over the burn.
At first, I thought it was pointless; nothing was happening except for a faint blue glow on the angry red, blistered skin.
I kept going, though, because there was no indication that Flack was in any worse pain than before.
That light did look exactly like it had before, and that gave me hope.
When something began to change, it was faint and started at the edges: deep red turning to a soft pink, and nasty blisters beginning to empty, then shrink.
Slowly, the red wound changed entirely to pink, and then healthy skin began to come through in tiny dots and patches.
Eventually, though his skin was still pink and very new-looking, the burn had receded almost entirely.
I lowered the healing device and stared at it, then at Flack’s face.
He was still asleep, and I hated that. I wanted him to open his sapphire-blue eyes and give me that warm, tender look—the one that reassured me he had it all under control and that he’d take care of me.
That wasn’t happening, so it was up to me to keep going. I just didn’t know what was next…
Curling onto the cot next to him, I tucked away the supplies I’d used and tried to nudge his body into a slightly more comfortable position against the wall.
I curled beneath his awkwardly hanging arm and ran my fingers over his chest. Curiosity got the better of me then, and perhaps the need to touch and be touched rose to the forefront, too.
There, warm against his side, I felt at least a little safe for the moment.
The stripes of white that marked his ribs and chest felt slightly different from the rest of his skin when I ran my fingers over them.
The one that ran over his pectorals was broken up, as if the paint had begun flaking.
It wasn’t paint, though, though there was texture.
Kind of like a callus, maybe: the skin was slightly raised and just a tiny bit rougher.
Much more intriguing were the nearly arrow-like shapes below his belly button.
Like nature itself wanted to guide my eyes down to his cock, which I now knew was definitely the most impressive specimen I’d ever laid eyes on.
My fingers tingled when I stroked those lines, remembering what it had felt like to stroke his cock instead.
“Keep going like that, and I’ll have you mounting me just like this, Irena.
Is that what you want? Take me while I’m all chained up?
” His voice, and the sinful words he spoke, made me jerk back guiltily.
Even shackled, he managed to prevent me from going far.
His elbow, beneath which I’d curled, came down to pin my neck to his chest. He’d never done that before—actually restrained me—and a startled yelp escaped me.
A burst of fear followed, then an ever-sharper lance of arousal.
He pinned me with his heated stare as much as he did with the pressure of his elbow against my neck.
His nostrils flared, and I saw the knowledge burn in his eyes, heating the connection between us.
He knew I’d gotten turned on, just like last time.
He knew. Then his eyes dropped from my face to skirt over my body, and my skin prickled with awareness.
“Are you hurt anywhere? What happened?” His voice had been husky with arousal—perhaps sleepiness—before, but it grew sharp and urgent now.
I liked very much how he could go from flirting to concern, and how much my well-being mattered to him.
It was the real deal, that worry, and that genuineness still blew my mind a little.
“I’m okay,” I whispered. “I was scared. I’m a little bruised, but otherwise fine.
They forgot I was here, I think. Xathena is pretty hurt, so she’s confined to the med bay right now.
” My eyes flicked to the pink patch of skin on his shoulder.
“What about you? How is your shoulder? Are you hurt anywhere else?” He didn’t stop scanning the parts of my body that were visible until I’d finished talking.
His arm slowly let up from around me, giving me the chance to move away; I didn’t.
I kept myself tucked against his side, with one hand on his belly, relishing the contact.