Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
AIRIK
Airik pulled off his helmet, letting it drop to the floor. He slumped in the command chair, shielding his eyes from the first light of morning.
I like it. Airik couldn’t shake the lie he’d told from his head. So he busied himself trying to repair the command module until it would sputter out words.
Nora slept so fiercely that he had gone to her several times to check that she still lived.
From the doorway, he watched the slight rise and fall of the sheets over her until he swayed in sync with her breathing.
The tail of her hair had hung off the low cot, pooling in a loop on the floor.
His hand had fisted each time, or else he would have tried to reach for her.
Tried to wake her so he could hear the lilt of her voice again.
Each time, he had turned, repeating the oath.
Untouched. Untaken. Unconquered. To be unkillable.
He had closed the door to his quarters and let her sleep, not knowing whether he wanted her to live or die. Either way, there was nothing more he could do for her but wait.
I like it. That was what he’d told her.
Despite rushing out of her room to rinse his mouth after he’d eaten that horrible “apple pie,” as she called it.
Why had he said that? He had wasted nearly half a bottle of water rinsing out his mouth, the stubborn residue clinging to his teeth like a curse. It had taken hours before he could tolerate the taste of his own mouth again.
Perhaps it was the way she’d pulled the bar from between her thighs, a move so unusual and unexpectedly erotic that he’d had to lean against something for balance, unable to tear his eyes away from her thighs, wondering how warm it would be if he slipped his hand between them.
He roughly pushed the hair out of his eyes and leaned back in the chair.
It was still dark, though the pink light of Ed’un’s morning was creeping across the horizon.
Twinkling streaks crossed the sky like rain fire—failing atmospheric processors falling and burning up.
Tragically beautiful, but not enough to hold his attention.
The human had no shoes.
Once she could walk unassisted, the soft skin on her feet would be torn to shreds without protection. Unless he carried her everywhere, which he certainly didn’t want to do.
Airik groaned, opened his sewing kit, and got to work, fixing any possible reason the human might need to touch him.
He cut soles from an armored canvas bag.
An unwanted heat throbbed in his cheeks and groin as he measured them against his hand, remembering how perfectly her feet had fit in his palm.
Pushing the thoughts away, he moved to the sides, which he cut from the softer fabric of a water-repellent uniform.
After perforating the seams with his blade—an egregious use of the Sword of Ulliel, worthy of a branding—he sewed them together.
Then he looked at the lopsided, ugly things, scowling and unsatisfied.
He tore them apart and reassembled them more carefully.
Soft slippers were among the first things his progenitor had shown him how to sew—she’d loved the meditative ministrations of hand sewing.
Your thoughts keep straying. You’re making these so you won’t have to carry the human around everywhere.
When he’d gotten them just right, he placed them on the control deck, imagining with torturous vividness what it’d feel like to slip one onto her foot. How the tips of his fingers would curl around her toes. Whether she’d smile as she took her first steps wearing something he’d made for her.
Ulliel, bury me at the center of a burning star.
Deciding to answer his body’s cries for sleep, he threw a rag over the slippers and shut his eyes.
He hadn’t expected her voice to sound so…pleasant. Or for her to even understand him. Or, worse, for him to understand her.
Airik’s eyes flew open. For the hundredth time that night, he tried the comms again.
Nothing. He checked the internal system, which was still online but limited in reach because it couldn’t pull data from the wider Veynari communication branches.
I like it. Again, the words burrowed into his chest, forcing him to confront the inexplicable urge to appease her. She’d covered her face and turned away from him. Though she hadn’t said a word, he’d known her heart had been breaking.
So he’d said he liked it. On impulse, to bring her eyes back to him. To keep her talking to him. So that he didn’t have to watch anguish suffocate her, glazing over her dark eyes.
The human smiled when she spoke, even if some of the words trembled. He didn’t think she realized it was a thing that she did. He’d hung on to each thing she’d said. How her plush, pink lips—finally devoid of blue—formed the words.
But when it had been time to respond, Airik had stumbled with slow, halting sentences.
After spending over twenty of his twenty-six revolutions of life listening to Urrth languages, he tripped over words when he finally had the opportunity to speak them, managing only short sentences. She must’ve thought him slow and dull.
Letting out a low groan, Airik smashed the communication icon on the command panel, hoping to force a connection for rescue. The screen cracked, pinching him.
He barely noticed.
She had told him his words were “great,” hadn’t she? She’d escalated the praise from “good” herself, which itself was an honor he never thought he’d hear in this life. She could also read his name, and though she said it wrong, she smiled when she did—
Untouched. Untaken. Unconquered. Why did you share your name at all?
By Ulliel’s grace, these would be the longest hours—the worst of his life—spent waiting for an extraction team to arrive.
The heartbeat signal had long since gone silent, triggering a relay of messages through the Veynari network that alerted dispatch that something had gone wrong.
A team would come for them, even if only to retrieve the ship and his sword.
As long as they stayed with the ship, they’d be safe, fed, and sheltered within the striker’s tough walls.
He opened the onboard network, flicking away the offline-status message that taunted him, and opened the general guidebooks preloaded on every Veynari craft.
He slipped his progenitor’s language chip into the striker’s interface so it could pull the words and texts it used for language lessons. Hopefully it wasn’t too damaged.
“Mars,” he said softly into the receiver.
The query turned before beeping success. A small miracle.
“Mars. Fourth planet in the Orion Arm of the Solar System, Milky Way, Local Group, Virgo Supercluster, and Laniakea Supercluster. The surface is orange red, covered in iron oxide dust. Currently inhabited by robots of Earthen origin. Named after the Earthen Roman god of war. Illicit terms are from human texts. Inclusion of such terms is for accuracy’s sake and not to be repeated or recorded without express Veynari permission. ”
Next, he looked up Valhalla. “Hall of the slain warrior, realm of the Norse gods. According to Earthen mythology, a great hall in Asgard where the souls of warriors who fell in combat go after death, awaiting Ragnarok, a cataclysmic battle that will lead to the death of the gods, the destruction of the world, and its eventual rebirth from the ashes. A place of feasting, drinking, fighting, and pleasure.”
He couldn’t help but snort a small laugh. Valhalla seemed perfect for Torren, if only it didn’t require him to fall in battle.
Airik’s chair creaked as he turned back toward the dark hallway, imagining Nora’s sleeping form in his bed.
She’d said she didn’t “believe,” and though he didn’t know what that meant, he assumed she rejected all superstitious beliefs.
She’d torn the necklace off with fervor, as if even the thought of it touching her were painful.
She must’ve had brain damage if this was where she’d thought she was headed.
Morning light broke over the horizon in full force. His skin itched from wearing his suit for too long.
Airik slipped quietly into his room. Nora still slept, her lips parted, the blanket kicked onto the floor.
Her cheeks were pink, and he remembered how her face had flushed as they’d spoken.
Each time it had happened, a hot throb had spread low in his groin.
Her colors fascinated him. Even now, he couldn’t help but linger.
He was no stranger to the pleasures of the flesh—unwillingly enlightened by Torren, who often expounded on his off-world conquests.
And Airik certainly wasn’t in need of sexual release.
Like all citizens of the Veynari, he had access to biological-release robots, built to satisfy and appease the body’s more primal needs.
A common and acceptable practice, even morazir were permitted to use them.
The drive to touch and breed couldn’t be so easily controlled as words.
Some models, toeing the line of what the Veynari would allow without crossing into pleasure, were indistinguishable from a person until they opened their mouths and spewed basic terms, asking for direction on what the user wanted. They came in all models and species.
Airik had always requested the nondescript ones, with basic body plans and no ability to speak. No face or heating mechanism. Just a quick, silent release.
The opposite of Nora, whose name was even pretty.
Before moving on to the shower, he covered her body with the blanket and briefly touched her cheek. Just to be sure she was alive, of course.
Warm, dry. His heart rose to his throat, almost joyful. He stepped away.
There wasn’t much she could do on the ship without him, in case she woke before he finished showering.
His weapons were locked in the hall cabinets.
He didn’t think she could operate the door locks—her craft still had manual levers and latches, and she’d be lost trying to figure out the control panels.
And he’d warned her not to go, and she’d said she wouldn’t, repeating his words to show she understood. The land was poisoned. She would die. No creature would be so reckless as to tempt death while injured.
Airik stepped into the shower chamber. Cool air rushed over his itchy skin as he peeled off the suit, folded it, and placed it in the hygiene cabinet for automated cleansing.
When he turned on the water, the sudden heat shocked him, reminding him of the pink flush on Nora’s cheeks. His cock half hardened.
No better than the wild beast he was thought to be, he was drawn to injured prey.
His body’s reaction fading, he was now flush with self-disgust. He viciously pounded the cold-water icon on the temperature controls. Frigid water assaulted him as he scrubbed himself with a rough cleansing cloth.
You deserve this.
The cloth fell to the floor as his fingers went numb. Shivering, he leaned his forehead against the metal wall, letting the water rinse him clean.
He needed only to keep the human alive until rescue arrived. Then she’d belong to the Veynari. Nora would no longer be his concern. Any thoughts of her would fade into oblivion, where all the good things in his life eventually went.