Chapter 9
The lift door slid open, and Mace stepped out. At the end of the corridor, Foley walked away from him, Commander Poole at his side. Fury burning in his gut, Mace jogged to catch up.
“Hey, Foley,” he said, tapping him on the shoulder.
Mid-sentence, Foley turned. In the next instant, he was on the deck, holding his nose, blood coating his mouth. “What the fuck?” His nasally voice went high pitched.
At his side, Poole tipped his head, looking from one of them to the other without intervening.
Mace shook the sting out of his hand. “That was for Elara Five.”
“Elara Five?” Foley whined. “I saved your ass on Elara Five.”
Mace clenched his fists, needing to hit him again. “You destroyed a non-combative medical station and nearly killed me.”
With his hand holding his nose and blood dripping down his chin, Foley’s face puckered in confusion. “I was following orders.”
“Cache did not order you to destroy the place.”
“Cache ordered me to take as many medical officers as possible because we’re so short. Do you think if we’d sidled up and parked nicely, they would’ve hopped on?”
Mace ran his hand over his face. More guilt pressed down on him.
Poole pulled Foley to his feet.
“What is this really about?” Foley wiped the blood off his upper lip and flung it to the side. “You want my position?”
“I don’t want your fucking position.” Being Orion’s head of security was the last thing he wanted. He’d found his place training tyros and loved it. It was the only thing he cared about, really. He didn’t want to become Cache’s glorified enforcer.
Wiping more blood onto the sleeve of his uniform, Foley said, “You should be thanking me. Everyone’s heard about the captive you kept to play with and—”
Mace’s fist connected with Foley’s face for a second time, in the exact same spot as it had before.
Foley’s head snapped back, but he stayed on his feet. “What the fuck?” he roared, charging forward. Mace braced, ready to do more damage, when Poole stepped between them. Grey was there a second later.
Mace’s body slammed into his friend’s. “Get out of the way,” he gritted.
“Think what you’re doing.” Grey spoke the words quietly, but there was steel in his tone.
But the urge to kill Foley was so strong, he could hardly see straight. He wanted him to pay. For everything.
For attacking Elara Five.
For almost killing them.
For Mace taking Nia instead of leaving her behind.
The thought was a cold spray of water in his face. As angry as he was at Foley, he was more enraged with himself. He’d used her as a shield like a coward. If there’d been another way to survive the situation, he hadn’t seen it.
But I should have left her to die.
Mace straightened, digging his hand into his hair, and watched as Poole restrained a thrashing Foley.
“You need to blow off some steam,” Grey said under his breath.
Mace stepped back. “Yeah.”
With Foley still vowing in three different languages to bring hell on his family, Mace turned around and headed toward the lift, Grey beside him.
Before the lift door closed, he met Foley’s gaze. The commander had stopped fighting Poole. Blood dripped down his face as he stared at Mace with an expression that promised retribution.
As the lift ascended, Mace stared at his reflection in the shiny surface of the control panel. Then he punched it, a dull crack reverberating in the small space. “Fuck!”
Breaths labored from exertion, Mace wiped his neck and chest with the towel and threw it to the deck. He flexed his fingers, wincing. The cuts and bruises shifted over the bones of his knuckles.
The confrontation with Foley kept bouncing around in his head. He’d owed the man the first punch, but with the second, he may have started a blood feud. He should have regretted it but didn’t. Mace wanted more of Foley’s blood spilled. Then maybe his mind would finally settle.
Because no matter how much he pounded the shit out of the padded column, he couldn’t erase the sound of Nia’s voice when she’d begged him to leave her on Elara Five.
He shouldn’t care. Compassion for his pint-sized ward would only lead to weakness.
I am not weak.If other commanders and those below him thought he couldn’t handle his job, then there would be no end to the challenges for his position. Hell, Cache would call him out herself if she thought him unfit for duty.
And all because he was stupid enough to care about what happened to one CORE doctor.
His vambrace beeped. It was the end of Nia’s shift. Bending, he scooped his shirt from the deck and pulled it over his damp body. He’d shower later.
Grey gave him a wave, eyes concerned, as Mace walked the outer edges of the sparring area and took the stairs two at a time to the barracks level, then out into the atrium. He kept his pace quick as he strode to the lift and rode it down.
A few more corridors later, and Mace stepped into the medical bay. Three medics glared at Nia’s back while she attended the only patient in the room. They abruptly scattered when they saw him, trying to look busy with their duties.
Nia sat on a stool, a boy’s foot in her lap. The kid’s father stood beside her, arms crossed over his chest, looking as grumpy as the medics.
Completely focused, she moved a regenerator over the boy’s ankle. A strange sensation unfurled in his chest as Mace leaned against the door frame to watch.
The boy twitched and Nia’s head snapped up.
“Are you okay? Has the numbing agent stopped working because—”
She stopped talking when the boy shook his head. “It tickled.”
“Oh.” She let out a heavy breath, then a strained chuckle. “That’s okay then. I’m almost finished.”
She returned to her task. Curls fell forward to curtain her face and Mace had the urge to go over there and tuck her hair behind her ears so he could watch her expressions. He clenched his fists, the freshly bruised skin of his knuckles protesting the action.
Straightening, Nia said, “There. You’re all done.” She slid on his sock and shoe before helping him hop off the bed. “Don’t do any back flips for a while.”
Mace saw her glare at the father as she said it. His answering glower made Mace want to punch him. He kept his eyes on the pair as they left the medical bay. Nia’s cheeks turned pink when she saw him standing near the door.
“You ready to go?” he asked, noticing the dark circles under her eyes. His chest constricted knowing he’d been the one to put them there.
“Gladly,” she said, tossing a glance at the three medics who fumbled around the supply shelves. She shrugged out of the white jacket and hung it on a hook with others near the door. When he reached to touch his vambrace to engage her bonds, she stopped him by grabbing his hand. His whole body twitched.
“You’re injured,” she said, examining his knuckles. “How did this happen?”
Nia pulled him over to the med bed, and he followed, unable to resist the tug of her warm fingers. Tingles radiated up his arm from where her skin made contact with his. Grasping a regenerator, she adjusted the settings, then raised her eyebrows, waiting for his answer.
Mace cleared his throat. “I hit something.”
Her brows pinched together before she focused on the injury. The regenerator hummed in the otherwise silent room. With his hand resting in her much smaller one, she healed each of his knuckles in turn.
The damage wasn’t bad. He could have healed it himself without a problem but hadn’t been thinking. He should tell her he’d do it himself later—he didn’t.
Mace couldn’t pull his eyes away from the sight of his hand in hers. He focused on the differences between them. Her skin was pale, flawless, but still had the slightly red contact points of her PALM on her thumb, forefinger, and pinkie. His hand seemed so bulky compared to hers, his skin darker. He became overly conscious of where they connected, how her thumb pressed on the side of his hand to keep him from moving.
It was all over too soon, each of his knuckles unblemished. He didn’t move his hand when the regenerator stopped humming.
“I’m assuming the other one is damaged?” she asked, keeping her head bent.
Mace removed his hand and placed the other in her upturned palm. Heat traveled through his arm from the fresh contact, and it had nothing to do with the regenerator humming over his knuckles. His fingers twitched. Nia stilled her movements for a second before continuing.
All knuckles mended, Nia let go of his hand and turned off the regenerator. She set it with the other tools next to the med bed before heading to the exit, casting a glance at the medics over her shoulder. The pink of her face darkened to red. Mace touched his vambrace, her bonds clicking together, and they headed out into the corridor.
“What was that all about?” he asked as they stopped in front of the lift.
Her wide eyes flew to his, confused, until he jerked his head toward the medical bay. “The medics?”
The question set her off.
“They didn’t even know how to treat a compound fracture. Can you believe it? What are they doing in there if they can’t treat something simple? That boy came in, and the one medic, he was going to make a mess of it, so I told him to get out my way. I wasn’t going to put the child at risk for chronic pain for the remainder of his life. Not on my watch.” Her breath left her in a whoosh.
Mace had always thought the CORE’s Common accent was snobbish at best, their pronunciation of words exact, consonants hit precisely. But in her irate state, his ward wore it well. It made her even more appealing.
He cleared his throat. “I told you we had a shortage of doctors.” He touched the lift’s control to call it to their location.
“I know, but I didn’t think it would be that bad …” Her voice trailed off.
The lift arrived and they stepped on. “And the father? He didn’t look happy.”
Mace didn’t know it was possible for her to redden further.
“I may have asked him how the boy attained the injury, and I may have insinuated I didn’t believe his answer.”
His eyebrows jumped. She really knew how to make friends. Her heightened color didn’t recede as the door’s lift opened and they exited on the deck with his quarters. Her fingers tugged at the hem of her shirt as they walked, drawing attention to areas of her body he’d been trying to avoid.
Mace focused on the corridor ahead instead of his ward’s body. After scanning his hand on the panel next to his quarters, he ushered her through and disengaged her bonds. She turned to him, face flushed, vibrant.
He retreated into the corridor. “Feed yourself, get some rest.”
“Wait!”
He raised his eyebrows at her shout.
Nia bit her lip. “Is there a way for me to contact the captives from Elara Five?”
The hope in her eyes was enough to cool his emotions. “No. It’s not allowed.”
Her gaze fell, and he tried to ignore the resulting pang in his chest. He needed to get out of there before he considered breaking Captive Laws to give her what she wanted.
The door closed between them, and Mace exhaled. He couldn’t be in the same room as her, not when his emotions were so volatile and he didn’t know which way was up.
He flexed his healed knuckles and knew he needed to bruise them again.