Chapter 2
Snick snick snick. The sound scratched against her brain, an irritation she swatted away. Her body throbbed.
Nia brushed her cheek and her fingers came away dotted with blood. Pain pulsed through her wrist. She tried to move, then realized heavy arms held her close.
The bulkheads rattled with another blast. She flinched. Snick snick snick. More debris fell to the deck from somewhere nearby.
Adrenaline spiked through her. The station was under attack, and she needed to find a safe zone. Breaths left her lips in panicked bursts. She pushed against the arms binding her, wriggling free.
His eyes closed, the Tellusian’s body went lax. Crawling backwards, she turned, scrambling through the debris and broken glass on her hands and knees. Pain shot up her arm.
A hand grasped her ankle. She screamed. The sound cut short as he yanked her toward him. Bits of metal and glass scraped her hands, poking through her uniform into her stomach.
She twisted on her back, kicking, then went cold at the expression of rage on the Tellusian’s face. She punched.
He batted her hands away and her stomach jumped at the skin-to-skin contact.
“Stop,” he growled. “We’ve got to get out of here, izar.”
His hands spanned her waist. The world spun again when he tossed her over his shoulder. Her breath left her in a whoosh.
“Let me go!” She kicked and slapped, trying to grab anything she could. “You prick-faced, waste-humping bastard!”
The arm wrapped around her thighs didn’t loosen no matter how much she wiggled and squirmed. They passed more debris, more sections of bulkhead only held together by SNAP shielding. His footsteps faltered, his body turning…
Laser fire popped through the corridor, the acrid scent wafting a moment later. Then he was moving, quicker this time, his shoulder digging into her stomach. She twisted to see. He stepped over dead defenders like they were space junk.
The corridor quaked again. Red emergency lights flickered. Quieter blasts echoed from farther away. He shifted her weight forward, like he would set her on her feet, and her heart stuttered. Would he release her? Her hope crashed when he pushed her against a bulkhead, a firm hand on her stomach to keep her still.
His icy eyes flashed. “Make a sound and I’ll kill everyone in there.”
She shivered, shoved away, but he pulled her against him, chest against her spine and breath in her ear. He lifted her hand and pressed her PALM flat against the control panel. The door slid open a second before he threw an orb inside a maintenance bay.
She heard a shout, then another. People scrambled. A thick fog poured out into the corridor. Another blast rumbled through the station, vibrating through her feet. The Tellusian pushed her inside the chaos of the bay.
The smoke from his device shrouded them. Her heart beat in her ears as they wove through ships and people. She yanked her arm, but he held tight, propelling her forward at a swift pace.
A defender stepped in front of them. There was only a second of struggle before he fell to the deck, his throat slit. A whimper escaped her lips. She pressed them together, so tempted to scream, but the Tellusian’s threat rang in her head.
She stumbled, tripping on a ship’s ramp. Panic stabbed her chest. He tugged her upright by her wrist, and she cried out. His eyes narrowed on her face before he pushed her into a Raven, a scout ship.
She wrenched her arm, gasping at the second stab of pain. “Let me go!”
He pulled her inside, past the hatch, and closed the door with a slap of his hand on the side panel. The ramp rose on a whine.
Clank. The door sealed shut, mocking her last shreds of hope. “You said you wanted off the station.” All heat left her body, her limbs becoming numb. “You don’t need me.” Her last words came out a whisper.
When he shoved her into the co-pilot’s seat, she knew she should be struggling but couldn’t make her limbs work. With quick fingers, he pulled the restraints over her shoulders and between her legs.
She stared at the unfamiliar buckle, her hands shaking as she tried to pry it away from her chest.
The Raven’s engines hummed, the Tellusian’s fingers flying over the controls. Voices blared from the speakers; someone had left the media feed running when they’d powered down.
“…Calypsons need to be eradicated. They might not be as violent as Tellusians but their influence is insidious, polluting minds, and we—”
He turned it off, then the ship lifted, tilting into a hover. The smoke around them dissipated. With their camouflage drifting away, the defenders on security detail fired. Pink shields rippled, enclosing them in a protective cocoon.
Nia stared at the closed blast doors through the Raven’s viewer, her heart beating in her head. No way out.
An energy pulse left the shuttle. Boom.
The bay door crumpled. Bile rose in her throat as debris flung out into space a second before the SNAP shielding initiated. The Tellusian pushed the throttle and her head jerked against the headrest.
They launched into a war zone.
Laser fire flashed beside them. She screamed, gripping the arms of her seat. The enemy’s fighters mixed with CORE Marauders. A Tellusian Destroyer loomed in the distance, colossal, its all-black construction an omen of more death to come. The shuttle turned and she caught sight of the medical station.
Her heart cracked into a million pieces. Most of Elara Five was destroyed, including her triage bay. The other parts were covered in Tellusian pods. People farming.
“We’re a non-combative medical station.” The words whispered through her dry lips as anguish crashed over her in waves. The control panel blurred in front of her as the Raven changed trajectory, the battle through the viewer morphing into indistinct blasts of light against the darkness.
It felt like someone had ripped her chest open.
The Tellusian spoke into his comm in a language she didn’t understand. Pods detached from the station to head to the Destroyer. The larger fighters shot away, disappearing into the stars. A high-pitched humming noise filled the Raven a second before they followed.
Tremors began low in her belly and traveled to every limb. She was going to be a Tellusian slave, forced to... She swallowed against the dryness in her mouth. Everyone had heard the stories: people forced into the sex trade, or made to do manual labor until you broke and were tossed out an airlock.
Staring out the viewer, she gripped the straps at her shoulders so tight they cut into her skin. The unmoving stars made it seem as if the ship stood still, but they must be traveling close to the speed of light. A deep breath through her nose did little to calm her.
She didn’t know how long she stayed that way, staring at nothing, when a small bit of hope spiked through her. With her uninjured hand, she pressed the cool metal of her locket under her uniform. If she could get alone, she could turn on the inert tracker hiding inside it. Someone would save her.
For once, she was grateful she’d listened to her tyrannical mother.
Heart pounding, she glanced at her captor without turning her head, surveying him from top to bottom. She should have realized he wasn’t a defender: too-long black hair and a light growth of beard. All the defenders she knew had their hair cut short to the scalp, even the women. Despite his injuries, he’d been strong enough to carry her through the station.
His white knuckles on the controls drew her gaze. She scanned lower, beneath his seat. Blood dripped to the deck, a small puddle forming.
Her rage and desperation gave way to something else, something she didn’t want to feel. She was a healer. The words of her oath upon graduating from Lunar Medical Academy pounded in her head. She would do no harm, help those who needed it. She lived the mantra every day of her life.
But this man and his people had destroyed her home, killed her friends and colleagues.
Her face flushed with shame, the two sides of her nature warring with each other.
I’ll fix him, then I’ll kill him.
“Release me,” she demanded, pulling against her restraints. Her sprained wrist protested. “Now.”
He didn’t move or twitch, kept his gaze straight ahead.
“Don’t be a twat,” she gritted between clenched teeth. “You’re bleeding all over the place and I’m a doctor. Release me.”
He turned his head, and she inhaled sharply. His eyes. The icy blue looked unnatural, like he could see right through her. Maybe it was a normal shade for Tellusians, but she didn’t think so; they seemed to glow.
Skepticism furrowed his brow.
She bared her teeth. “Yes, I’m big and scary. You must fear me.”
His brows shot up, a flash of something crinkling the corners of his eyes. Humor? No. A Tellusian wouldn’t know humor from mercy.
They remained staring at each other, nothing to break the silence but the hum of the ship. Then he undid his buckle and leaned toward her. She held her breath. His hair fell forward, blocking his gaze. Pressing against her seat to avoid his touch, she contracted her stomach, and inhaled sharply through her nose as his hand brushed her uniform. She watched closely to see how he undid it: three points pressed at the same time. The buckle clicked.
His unsettling eyes followed her as she stood on shaky legs. Stepping away, she scanned the interior of the ship. Ravens weren’t big, but they were built for long-distance travel. It should be stocked with medical supplies.
Compartments ran along the top length of the hull. She opened the first one. Empty. The next one held blankets and emergency rations. The third had a med kit. She snatched it and opened the lid.
It was only half stocked. Her hand hovered over the laser scalpel. He’d shoved one in her neck. She should return the favor.
Her cheeks warmed with shame—not because she’d had the thought to use the medical tool as a weapon, but because she should feel remorse over the idea, and didn’t. Wouldn’t anyone in her position feel the same?
Clenching her jaw, she returned to the front of the ship, med kit gripped in her hand. “I’m going to need access to your injury.” Her voice cracked, resentment pounding through her.
After a hesitation, the warrior turned, exposing his side. Taking a fortifying breath, she knelt and pulled the ripped and bloody fabric away from his abdomen.
She swallowed her gasp. How could he remain conscious with a wound like this? She met his eyes. Disconcerted by the force of his gaze, she looked away and grabbed the laser scalpel.
He caught her arm before she could aim it. A shocked breath left her lips. They froze, locked in a staring contest, the scalpel between them.
Despite having homicidal thoughts moments ago, she straightened, insulted he would think so little of her. “I need to cut your shirt away,” she said between gritted teeth.
A long moment passed before he let her go. She rubbed her arm, trying to remove his heat impression, then grabbed the material of his shirt, splitting the remainder with a quick zip of the scalpel.
The two pieces hung off his body, baring his chest and exposing the cerulean blue tattoo covering most of the expanse. She pushed the instinctual spike of fear his tattoo invoked.
Ignoring everything else, she passed a scanner over his obliques. Grisly, the outer edges were charred black, the inner flesh red and angry, surrounding a center of exposed muscle. She’d seen laser wounds like this before, but not on someone alive.
Without looking up, she set aside the scanner, and said, “There weren’t any paralytics or numbing agents in the kit.” It was going to hurt like a son of a bitch.
“Get on with it.”
The harshness of his accented voice raised her hackles. With jerky movements, she grabbed the waistband of his pants with her injured wrist and winced as she revealed the bottom of the burn. Her fingers pressed against the uninjured flesh of his hip bone. He twitched.
Freezing, her gaze jumped to his. She looked away to turn on the regenerator with her good hand. Beginning with the outer edges, she removed the charred flesh and healed the skin beneath. It would scar, but without a synthesizer, she couldn’t replace the tissue. She kept her hand steady and mind focused, not allowing anything to interfere.
His hands clenched the arms of his seat as she neared the more severe damage. If he passed out, it would be easier on him, but he remained stubbornly conscious.
Turning off the regenerator, she leaned away, but kept her eyes on his hip. “I need better access to your front.”
He turned slightly and spread his knees. The bandages on his thigh peeked out between the panels of his torn uniform, glaring at her. She knelt between his legs, her gaze straying to the bulge between his thighs before she blinked and focused on the wound. Heat seared her cheeks.
The regenerator hummed. Nia braced her forearm against the inside of his knee to keep her balance, the heat of his body surrounding her. The scent of new and dried blood, and something distinctly masculine, invaded her senses.
Everything faded into the background as she focused. Time passed as she worked, her energy fading. She nearly asked Ezra to inject another stimulant when she remembered where she was.
How could she forget with the Tellusian’s tattoo mocking her?
On a shudder, she turned off the regenerator and sat back on her heels, keeping her eyes on his new scar. “It’s done.” Not her best work, but he’d live.
“Your turn.”
His rough voice made her gaze fly to his. From his grim expression, he wasn’t talking about her sprained wrist.
“No,” she whispered.
She scrambled backward, but there was nowhere to hide when he closed the space between them.