“Damp hair.” I slid my gaze to her for a beat. “I was not watching you, if that is what you believed.”
She released a sigh. “Right, no, I didn’t think…it was nice. We don’t have anything like that on Lexxona.”
“I would think warm bathing pools would be welcome on such a planet.”
“They would be, but we were a mining colony before the mines dried up. They didn’t worry about luxuries like baths for miners and their families.”
I remembered some of the intel we’d gotten on her planet. “Not even after enough precious minerals were pulled from the ground to adorn all the necks in the Empire?”
She snorted a laugh that sounded more bitter than amused. “Not even then. The only reason we weren’t abandoned entirely was our location. We’re the last habitable planet before you leave the Outer Rim and the last chance for ships to refuel.”
“The colony can survive on that alone?”
“We manage,” she said with a shrug. “The ships that stop bring enough business to keep us going, and it isn’t always as cold as when you came.”
“No?” I asked. “Does it get colder?”
She stifled a laugh, but this one held traces of amusement. “It gets warmer. Not a lot, but we do get a thaw, and the lakes melt enough for us to fish. We even have a festival to celebrate.”
“A festival to celebrate a thaw?”
“And the end of months of darkness.” She sounded a bit offended. “It’s actually quite fun.”
I didn’t comment on her idea of fun. I supposed if you froze most of the year, a melt would be reason to celebrate. It was no different from the many planets that celebrated the birthdays of their gods or the harvesting of crops.
“Do you miss it?” I asked. “Your planet?”
She hesitated. “I miss my people, but the planet itself? I always dreamed of leaving.” Then she added in a rush, “Not like this though.”
I chose not to take offense.
“Do you miss your home?” she asked.
“This is my home,” I said automatically. “I have lived on this ship since before there was scruff on my cheeks.”
“What about your planet?”
I fought the nervous twitch of my tail. “I did not grow up on the home world of Vandar. That was destroyed generations ago by the Zagrath. Like most Vandar now, I was raised in a hidden colony until I was old enough to join a horde. Then the horde became my home.”
She shuddered beside me. “I can’t imagine a spaceship being home.”
I opted not to remind her that a spaceship now was her home. Instead, I closed my eyes and lengthened my breath, ready to return to sleep before I was needed on the command deck.
“That’s it?” she whispered.
I opened my eyes. “What’s it?”
“You’re going back to sleep?”
I twisted so I was facing her and holding myself up on one elbow. I then lowered my head until I could feather my lips across the hollow of her throat. “Not if you don’t want me to.”
Her breath caught in her chest, and she arched into me. Then a siren’s wail sliced through the air.
We were under attack.
I snapped into action, my body moving before my mind fully processed the threat, as I snatched the battle kilt from where I'd dropped it the night before and stepped into it. I shoved my feet into waiting boots.
Jasmine had jumped from the bed and stood with the sheet still clutched around her chest, her eyes wide. Then the ship lurched hard to starboard and she stumbled, her bare feet skittering on the smooth floor, unable to find purchase. I moved instinctively, looping an arm around her waist and pulling her against me before she hit the floor.
