Chapter 7 #2
“It’s a superficial laceration,” the healer, Kellat, said. A tall lathar, he had silvery hair and a teal sash across his leathers. He ran a small device over her palm without actually touching her skin. “The dermal seal is complete. No tendon damage. No nerve damage.”
“Are you certain?” Raaevik asked. His voice was rough, like gravel grinding against itself. “There was a significant amount of blood.”
Kellat sighed. “Sub-Commander, hands are vascular. They bleed. It does not mean the limb is compromised.”
She looked down at her hand. The gash was gone, replaced by a faint pink line that looked weeks old, not minutes. It didn’t even hurt anymore.
“See?” she said, holding her hand up to show Raaevik and wiggling her fingers. “Good as new. Can we go now?”
Kellat tapped a command into the holographic display hovering near his elbow. “Not yet. You need to stay here for an hour. For observation. Standard procedure, I’m afraid.”
“An hour?” She slid off the bed. “For a scratch? I put a plaster on worse things last week opening a can of soup.”
“Please return to the bed, Your Grace,” Kellat said, not looking up from his display.
“But I’m fine.”
“Protocol is protocol.”
“Protocol is stupid,” she muttered, but she climbed back up onto the oversized bed.
Raaevik finally looked at her. His violet eyes were dark, the pupils blown wide. “You will stay,” he ordered. “You will be observed.”
“You’re enjoying this,” she grumbled. “You like seeing me stuck on a table like a lab rat.”
“I like seeing you whole,” he countered. “I prefer you bored to bleeding.”
The memory of the training room crashed over her again: the heat of him, the way his hands had gripped her shoulders—neither gentle nor rough, just… desperate. And then she’d slipped, cut herself like a bloody idiot, and he’d turned into an overprotective nightmare with control issues.
She shifted on the bed, the bed’s cover rasping under her in the quiet. The adrenaline from the sparring session was fading, leaving behind a dull ache in her muscles and a particular pressure in her bladder.
She waited five minutes. Then another five.
Kellat was busy calibrating a machine in the corner. Raaevik was back to staring at the wall.
“I need to go,” she said.
His head snapped toward her. “Where? You are under observation.”
“Not go… leave,” she said, heat climbing up her neck. “Go… go.”
He stared at her blankly and she sighed. Fuck, she was just going to have to come right out with it.
“The restroom, Raaevik. The little girl’s room. I need to pee.”
Kellat glanced over his shoulder. “The facilities in this unit are currently undergoing maintenance. You will have to use the ones across the corridor.”
Raaevik frowned. “Is that safe?”
“It is a bathroom, Sub-Commander,” Kellat said, voice flat. “Not a combat zone. Unless the plumbing is particularly aggressive today.”
Raaevik didn’t smile, didn’t blink. He marched over to the bed and offered her his arm, his expression grim. “Come.”
“I can walk to the bathroom by myself,” she said, ignoring his arm and hopping down. “It’s literally ten feet away.”
“I will escort you.”
She blinked at him. “What? You’re going to stand guard while I pee?”
His expression didn’t alter. “I will stand guard outside the door. Move.”
He was unbearable. Absolutely unbearable. And being this close to him made her want to scream, or grab him again… she wasn’t sure which.
She marched past him, chin high. “Fine. But if you try to listen at the door, I’m reporting you to Daaynal.”
Raaevik flinched. It was small—a tightening of his jaw, a flicker in his eyes—but she saw it.
Good.
They exited the medical bay into the corridor. It was curved, like everything on this station, the walls a soft white that glowed with ambient light.
“There,” he said, pointing to a door directly across the hall.
“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” she muttered.
Palming the door open, she stepped inside. It was a standard utilitarian bathroom… clean, metallic, smelling faintly of antiseptic. When the door slid shut, locking Raaevik out, she leaned her forehead against the cool metal and exhaled a long, shaky breath.
Turning, she caught sight of herself in the mirror above the sink. God. She was such a mess. Her hair was a disaster, a dark halo of frizz escaping the tie she’d hastily put in before the gym, and her face was flushed.
“Get it together, Emily,” she whispered to her reflection.
Splashing cold water on her face, she let the shock of it ground her. Then she used the facilities, washed her hands, and took three deep, centering breaths.
Okay. She could do this. She could go back out there, finish her hour of observation, and then go back to her quarters and pretend what had happened… hadn’t.
Drying her hands, she hit the door release. The panel slid open in front of her, and she stepped out into the corridor. “Okay, I’m done. You can stop lurking now—”
The words died in her throat.
Raaevik wasn’t looking at her. He stood with his back to her, his body angled slightly away, and his attention fixed on something further down the curved hallway.
She peered around his broad shoulder and followed his gaze, wondering what had enthralled him so completely.
About twenty yards away, a heavy security door was sliding shut. It wasn’t like the other doors in this sector; it was thicker, darker, marked with symbols that even without translation screamed Restricted Access.
A man had just stepped out of it.
Daaynal. The Emperor.
He was alone… no guards, no entourage, and he wasn’t wearing the formal leathers and crown she’d seen him in before. Instead, he was dressed in a simple black tunic and trousers, his long dark hair loose around his shoulders.
But it wasn’t his clothes that caught her attention. It was his face.
The man who had welcomed her with such polished charisma looked… spent.
His shoulders were hunched, and exhaustion sat in the lines around his mouth. He leaned back against the closed door for a second, eyes shut, one palm braced to the metal. He looked like he couldn’t bear to leave.
Daaynal took a breath and then pushed himself off the door. Rolling his shoulders, he lifted his chin, and in the span of a heartbeat, the Emperor was back. Turning, he walked away down the corridor, disappearing around the curve without ever looking back.
Raaevik exhaled. Then he turned around and looked down at her, his expression blank.
“Are you finished?” he asked.
She blinked, trying to clear the image. “I… yes.”
“Then we return to Kellat.” He gestured toward the medical bay door.
“What is down there?” She nodded toward the secure door.
Raaevik’s eyes narrowed slightly. “That is a restricted medical wing. High-security stasis units. It does not concern you.”
“The Emperor was there.”
“The Emperor is everywhere on his station,” he said flatly. “It is his domain. Come.”
He ushered her back into the exam room with a hand on her shoulder that was firm enough to be a warning. She climbed back onto the oversized bed, her mind racing.
An hour passed in a blur. Kellat scanned her hand three more times and finally pronounced her fit for release.
“Keep the seal dry for another cycle,” the healer instructed, handing her a small pot of salve. “If it itches, apply this. Do not scratch it.”
“I won’t,” she promised, hopping down. Grabbing the salve, she shoved it into the pocket of her tunic.
“Let’s go,” Raaevik said, his hand hovering near the small of her back as he guided her toward the exit.
They stepped back out into the corridor.
“Wait,” she said, stopping as she looked toward the heavy security door.
“Emily,” he warned. “We are going back to your quarters.”
“I just… I thought I saw something.”
Before he could stop her, she headed to the restricted door and looked through the viewport.
Blue-white light washed the glass. A stasis pod sat in the center of the room, humming. There was a woman inside it—tall and pale, with her hair fanned out across the pillow like a halo. She had a scar on her face… a jagged line from temple to jaw, old and deep.
Emily stared, her breath catching.
“Emily.”
Raaevik's voice was sharp, cutting through the silence. He was beside her in an instant, his body blocking her view, his hand gripping her arm.
“You should not be seeing this,” he hissed.
“Who is she?” she whispered. She looked up at him, her eyes wide. “Raaevik, who is she?”
“She is none of your concern.”
His face was stone. Turning her around, he put his broad back between her and the window, shielding the room from her prying eyes.
“We are leaving,” he said. “Now.”
He marched her down the hall, but she couldn't shake the image of the woman in the stasis pod.
Who was she?
And why was Daaynal keeping her a secret?