Chapter 17
Nia glared at the door, her palms flat against the cool metal of the table, her spine pressed against the chair. Grit lived in her eyeballs, making the room around her blur. Exhaustion made her sway. It had been hours since she’d decided to wait, ready, for Mace’s return.
At first, she’d been annoyed. He’d left so suddenly, not telling her anything, and she’d expected him to return with information, to explain what was going on and who, or what, had initiated a proximity alert.
The yellow alarm had stopped, and he hadn’t returned. Her annoyance turned into frustration. Hours passed, and she’d gotten angry. Now she seethed with rage, fingers flexing against the tabletop.
She’d only managed to get a couple hours’ sleep between frustration and anger and she wasn’t moving until Mace returned. He had to collect her for her shift at some point, right?
The door slid open. Nia jumped to her feet, grabbed the orange sitting beside her hand, and whipped it at his head.
At the last second, Mace ducked out of the way, lips parting in shock, eyes wide.
She had another orange ready and threw it. This one he deflected. She grabbed the peach and whipped it. He caught it in one hand. Ripe, it made a sloppy, squishing noise when he squeezed.
Swallowing at the expression on his face, Nia reached for the next peach. Nostrils flaring, Mace advanced. He deflected the second one, skirted the table, and grabbed her wrists before she could reach for another.
Tugging, he pulled her close, until they almost touched. “What the hell are you doing?” he asked, his voice deadly quiet.
“I’m pissed off.” Nia tried to yank her arms away, but he held firm. Her chest heaved with each angry breath. She tipped her head to meet his eyes.
Icy blue flecks flashed at her. “Pissed off?”
“You left me here with the lights flashing and didn’t come back!” Her voice rose in volume with each word, her rage igniting like a spark in a room full of combustible gas. She yanked on her arms but couldn’t break free. “Let me go so I can finish,” she demanded, jerking her chin at the table full of all the food she’d emptied from the refrigeration unit.
His grip on her wrists loosened, but he didn’t let go. Instead, he pulled her hands around until her arms wrapped around his hips in a hug. Her breasts squished tight against his chest, her locket a hard mass between them.
Her nerves tingled at the contact. She swallowed at the look in his eyes while her heart beat an uncomfortable pace in her chest. His eyes had darkened to an electrifying shade of cobalt.
“There was a Guardian in the area.” His warm breath brushed her cheeks. “It’s gone now.”
“A Guardian?” She couldn’t keep the hopeful tone out of her voice.
Mace’s eyes narrowed, hands tightening on her wrists behind him. “Don’t get any ideas.”
All the cumulative frustration from a long night of uncertainty bubbled inside her. “What the hell would I do?” She struggled against him. “Stick my arm out an airlock and wave?” Her knee jerked toward his groan.
He spun her around so fast, his quarters were a blur until she found herself facing the bed, his arm a band around her middle. Her hands pinned to her sides, he pressed his lips to her ear. “That would not end well for you, izar.”
The position and the words brought back memories of her last day on Elara Five, how he’d ripped her from her home and killed her people. On a scream, she threw her body backward, snapping her head, kicking where she could reach. She thought she’d gained an inch of space, when he pushed her forward until her knees hit the bed. Bent over, his groin pressed against her ass, her hands trapped against the bed frame.
“Let me go,” she spat over her shoulder and pushed against him. The part of him pressed between her thighs hardened. Every part of her went tense.
“I’d stop doing that if I were you,” he said, voice low.
The air around them crackled and shifted. She froze. A shiver tickled along her spine. Her cheeks burned at having his body pressed so intimately against hers.
The fight left her, and her body sagged. Heat settled in the pit of her stomach. She leaned forward until her forehead pressed against the bed covers. With sheer willpower she held herself still.
“Mace.” She groaned, barely resisting the urge to move suggestively against him. His hand hovered over the middle of her spine, like he was about to press her further into the mattress.
“Mace—” Nia stopped speaking. Heat settled between her legs. Oh, hell. What was going on with her body? Why wasn’t she screaming at him to stop touching her?
He shifted, releasing his hold, and freed her arms.
Nia exhaled and braced against the bed to stand on rubbery legs. By the time she’d turned around, she stared at an empty room, the smashed fruit on the deck and the thrumming of her body the only indications he’d been there.
Mace ran a shaky hand over his face, leaning against the bulkhead beside the door to his quarters. What the fuck? He had nothing in his brain except that. What. The. Fuck.
He needed to stay away from her. Nia was his responsibility in all ways. He needed to protect her, even if it was from himself. The way she’d said his name…an accented purr making every part of his body harden.
Pushing away from the bulkhead, he stalked the corridors until his brain slowed to an acceptable speed. Unfortunately, his cock remained as hard as it had been when he’d held her in his arms.
Walking and taking deep breaths for long minutes, Mace circled back to his quarters. The door opened and he found Nia sitting on the edge of the bed, her arms wrapped around her knees. He lifted his gaze above her head so he wouldn’t see her wounded expression.
“Your shift starts soon,” he said, speaking to the bulkhead.
Nia rose and walked toward him. He refused to look at her as he engaged her bonds and continued to the lift. When he finally turned, he realized she hadn’t followed. She stood by the door to his quarters, wrists clasped, and stared at him.
The sight of her bound had never hit him so wrong as it did right at that moment. An emotion akin to panic wrapped around his chest and squeezed. There was no way to fix this situation, and he’d made it worse. He stood frozen to the spot.
Finally, she walked toward him with slow steps, counted only by the stuttered breaths in his tight throat. She stopped in front of him, her gaze searching his, the color high on her cheeks.
The lift door opened, but neither of them stepped on.
“Am I safe with you?” Nia asked, chin jutting. Confusion and challenge swirled in her eyes. “On my first day here, you said you wouldn’t hurt me.”
It felt like someone’s hand punched into his chest and squeezed his heart slowly. “I won’t hurt you.”
He had to make this the truth. He couldn’t overpower her again. She was his ward, and he needed to protect her. If staying away from her was his only option, then that was what he would do.
She stared at him, eyes searching, then gave him one nod, like she believed him, before stepping onto the lift.
Nia focused on her patient, a boy with a sprained wrist, and tried to clear her head of everything else.
It wasn’t working.
She’d been angry—beyond angry—for being kept in the dark about the proximity alert. Attacking him with fruit had been juvenile and stupid, but she’d needed some sort of release.
But it had turned into something completely different.
It made her mad all over again. She shouldn’t be attracted to her warder, to a Tellusian. She shouldn’t want to get to know him better. But no matter what she should or should not be doing, she found herself craving both.
Instead of dwelling on all the confusing emotions in her head, Nia focused on work.
The day merged into the next, the one after that into another. Nia became used to the routine of family medicine, the rhythm. Ignoring the occasional snide comment wasn’t hard. Kilian was booked to see a physical therapist and discharged. The debt of the prosthetic hung over her head.
And it didn’t take long for Nia to realize Mace was avoiding her.
He didn’t sleep in his quarters anymore, didn’t even speak to her except the bare minimum. He only collected her at the start and end of her shift. And with the lack of him in the bed, her nightmares of a face covered in a blue tattoo and birds eating eyeballs returned.
What she wouldn’t give to order a sleeping aid in the middle of the night with her PALM, but things didn’t work like that here. There wasn’t a dispensary in Mace’s quarters or every few meters in the corridor.
Mace had been so dedicated to his silence, when they walked side by side toward the med bay and he actually spoke to her, it made her jump.
“We need to go to processing after your shift.”
“Why?” She barely resisted the urge to grasp her locket protectively. Had someone figured out she wore a tracker? She swallowed against the lump growing in her throat.
“Captives need to be interviewed within two weeks of their arrival. It’s mandatory.” He spoke in a flat tone.
“And you don’t want me to be interviewed?”
He didn’t answer, instead leading the remainder of the way to the med bay in silence.
Tension rolled through her stomach for her entire shift. Scenarios raced through her head, ones where she was thrown into the brig for her tracker. Ones where her lineage was exposed, and they tortured her for being ruling class. Ones where she was locked in a cell instead of allowed to work.
By the time Mace retrieved her, she’d put herself in a right state. The calm she’d attained over the past few days evaporated.
Her hands bound in front of her, the walk to processing felt like a death sentence. They arrived through the docking bay, the same one as that first day. Her body trembled remembering the line of medical officers, and the one who’d resisted and was murdered.
Mace led her past the area where she’d been scanned, to a door beyond. After tapping on his vambrace, it opened into a long corridor, blank doors alternating on both sides. He glanced at his vambrace and strode forward.
For a moment, her feet wouldn’t move, then Mace threw a scowl over his shoulder. Glowering back, she stepped over the threshold, and the door slid closed behind her.
He stopped at a door on the right and tapped on his vambrace. It slid open on a soft whoosh. A sterile scent assaulted her nose, not unlike the smell of a medical lab. Two chairs and a slender metal table sat in the middle of a small room, one entire bulkhead filled with a viewer set to opaque. She couldn’t tell if there was anyone on the other side.
When she felt the warmth of Mace’s hand on her lower back, she stepped forward. Her bonds separated.
Not five seconds later, a man wearing a long gray coat stepped through the door on the side. She tensed. It was the same person who’d processed her on her arrival. He bustled to the table, an air of hurry surrounding him.
He sat, then sent her an expectant expression. The hushed sound of the door closing behind her made her spin around. An immediate sense of abandonment tightened her stomach.
Mace had left her there.