For a while there, she’d been grieving, in turmoil, full of fear from all the changes in her life. It had fed Val and me, and the hunger always gnawing at my gut had gone away. Now, she washappy,and although her smile did things to me that were good, it also made me ache. These weeks were proving that I couldn’t have her; I didn’t have a future after all. She wasn’t somehow special, capable of sustaining my symbiont’s dark needs. She’d been going through the worst time in her life, and like an evil parasite, I’d fed off that. It made me feel sick to my stomach; utterly disgusted with myself and with Val.
My symbiont was at my side, mewling softly and sadly as she projected her hunger onto me. We were standing in a shadowed alcove near the crew bunkrooms, where most of the grunts stayed, the unmated ones, the temporary ones. They were my best shot at dark, angry, pained feelings. This was what I’d been forced to stoop to, to remain strong, to live. It wouldn’t last, and the thought of dragging Frederique to the underbelly of thequadrant just to get a full belly sat wrong with me. It wasn’t right. None of this was right.
The light in the hallway flickered, then briefly went out entirely. I could hear Ysa curse furiously from somewhere in the distance. Our engineer had been on a tear through the ship all week, ever since these weird light issues had started. She had assured the captain the situation was under control and that no major systems were affected, but it had us all a little on edge. This wasn’t normal, theVarakartoomwas a well-oiled machine, always running smoothly.
Then the lights came back on, and I caught sight of Ysa charging down the hallway with a murderous expression on her pale blue face. She made a rather frazzled, messy appearance, a far cry from her usual fashion-conscious choices in overalls. Her long braid was not wrapped properly around her middle but swung behind her in a long rope, the tip of it dragging across the floor with the clacking of beads. She had a scanner in one hand and a wrench in the other, swinging it like a club.
Behind her, sticking to the shadows, Thatcher hovered. He probably thought she hadn’t seen him, he’d be wrong. At least he was smart enough to keep just enough distance that she didn’t turn on him. Perhaps he’d already found out the hard way not to get underfoot when our engineer was in a tizzy. Ysa passed me without paying me any attention, but then, most people were used to my skulking around the ship at odd hours.
Thatcher shot me a glare when he passed, and I soaked up the anger that always clung to him like a second skin. Too bad that, of late, all of his feelings had centered on Ysa, and they tastedlike love and lust now. Useless. I wondered if I needed to figure out a way to get these two to stop dancing around the truth.
“Captain wants you on the bridge,” he muttered, his eyes already back on his object of fascination, the words barely given any thought. They disappeared around a corner, where the lights had begun flickering next. It couldn’t be urgent, whatever the captain wanted, or he would have hailed my comm. I dropped my eyes to the device on my wrist and wondered if I should check in, but, like the engineer-obsessed human, I was not the only one with an obsession.
My feet brought me to Frederique instead. She was in the mess hall, where I’d dropped her off that morning so she could put her head together with Harper and do “research.” She hadn’t said about what, but it was probably more lessons on the ins and outs of the Zeta Quadrant and the changes in the Alpha Quadrant. Harper was intensely curious, and, considering our communication specialist was her mate, she had unlimited access to information. There was nobody better suited than Harper to answer all of Frederique’s questions.
I found them exactly as I’d left them that morning, huddled together over their datapads by the large viewscreen. There were several empty cups and plates on the table, evidence that Brace had taken care of them. Ever since Ysa had brought my mate her own datapad, which had apparently been stuck in the muck Davidson had tossed onto my shuttle, Frederique had been on a mission. That was her nature: to throw herself wholeheartedly into something. Be it a harebrained plan to save Earth from the UAR or convincing me I was her mate, she took everything she did seriously.
Pausing by the door, I watched the two of them for a little while longer. Unease coiled in my gut, the hunger growing stronger. Not only was I starving again, but I was failing at giving my mate what she needed from me. I could see it everyday, her disappointment, her eyes losing a bit more of that happy spark. It made me furious, and that wasn’t fair, but it was the only way I knew how to cope.
“Okay, so tell me again about Xio,” Frederique said firmly, and she pointed at something on Harper’s tablet. My belly flipped because that was where our next mission was, and it was coming soon. We were almost there. Knowing my female, she was planning something, but I could not let her come. I also could not bow out of the mission; I had a very pivotal role in it.
Harper answered, but there was a rushing in my ears that told me I was about to have a problem. The temptation to throw my mate over my shoulder and lock her up in my quarters was overwhelming. She’d sternly warned me that I couldn’t do that, but what did that leave me? The sense of imminent danger to her was so powerful I shook from it. My fists clenched tightly against my thighs, and my teeth bit down so hard on my lip that I bled. Of course Val would not leave me with that kind of physical ache, and she rushed in to heal me.
“You’re a control freak,” Asmoded drawled from behind me, and I winced, because I’d been so fixated on my mate that I had not even noticed his approach. He propped himself against the doorway across from me and flicked his gold eyes over the two humans at the table. They had noticed us now, and Frederique smiled and waved as if she were happy to see me. I struggled to believe that, as she’d been frustrated with my growing inability to voice what was going on with me. I had to tell her, tell herabout Val’s needs and how she was starving, again. It tasted like failure, like I wasn’t good enough for either of the ladies who mattered in my life.
“So?” I drawled, shrugging carelessly. Asmoded was no different—he planned all our missions down to the last detail, made sure there were always contingencies upon contingencies. Each male on his crew knew they were going into battle with a captain who cared about their safe return. No man left behind. I also knew that, despite his mate’s annoyance about the situation, he let his adult son, Saisir, shadow her every move. Mandy had a deadly sniper as a bodyguard, and Frederique always had a bit of Val with her to protect her for the same reason. We could not let go.
Asmoded smirked as if I’d said something funny, and his body coiled into a more relaxed pose, gold glinting at the edges of his scales. “So, they don’t like that. You’ve got to go, and she’s got to stay.” My mind wanted to think the worst, and I briefly wondered if Asmoded wanted to get rid of me and keep my mate. Then I realized he was only talking about the mission on Xio. We’d been hired to clear out a nest of Shade Stalkers so a power plant could be built for Xio’s growing needs. It was a mission no other crew in the quadrant was willing to take, and they were paying us exorbitantly for the job. That’s how desperate they were, and how scared they were of the creatures.
“I will go,” I agreed, torn between duty to the crew and the need to protect my mate. But protect her from what? TheVarakartoomwas heavily armed and heavily shielded; it was one of the safest places in the quadrant. There was no danger on the ship, except for a wrench-wielding engineer with a power fluctuation problem.
Asmoded gave a long look that said he wasn’t sure if he believed me. He inclined his head and, silently, slipped away. “Yeah, will you go?” Frederique asked. She’d gotten up and walked toward me while I’d watched the captain depart. Her I’d heard, of course, because all my senses were attuned to her. I had not realized that she’d been aware of my turmoil over this mission, but as I stared into her earnest face, I knew she saw right through me.
“That is my duty,” I told her, though duty sure tasted like ashes right now. She was my duty, and I wasn’t good enough. If this went on, I’d make her sad, but I did not want to feed off her. If I admitted the problem, I’d have to drag her to dark places I never wanted to take her.
“Just checking, you’re not going to lock me up again, are you?” she said with a smile, as if she were telling a joke. I knew she wanted a true answer; she knew how close I was to doing exactly that.
I was relieved when a ship-wide call went out to announce that we’d reached Xio and were entering the planet’s orbit. All crew members needed to report for their assigned duties. That meant I had to go, too. Relieved? No, this was terrible news. Now I had to make my choice, and quickly. Her green eyes pierced me, growing sharper and more pointed the longer I hesitated to answer.
“No locks,” I said gruffly. “Just…” I shrugged helplessly, looked away from her green eyes, and then winced when I discovered Harper staring at me, full of judgment. I’d meddled with her and Mitnick, and it hadworked—they were together now—but she had not forgiven me for scaring her one bit.
“I’ll stick to our quarters, Sin,” Frederique conceded with grace. She had far more tact than I ever would, but I felt ‘handled’ rather than seen. Like she was placating me in something she felt I had no right to ask. “But you need to figure this out, and fast. I can’t deal with the hot and cold.” Then she waved her hand. “Go. Don’t keep them waiting.”
I was the coward she’d once called me because I said nothing, but turned tail and fled.
***
Frederique
Three weeks wasn’t an awfully long time when you thought about it. It felt like a lifetime had passed since I’d woken from stasis. That was good in many ways. It already made the failed mission, my dead friends, and the loss of Earth feel like distant scars. There was this vague worry that it might come crashing down around my ears at some point, but being with Sin had felt so good for a while that I hadn’t cared.
That night we’d talked, and he’d told me a bit about his past, which had made me see the wounded, scarred man beneath the armor. It made me want him with all my heart, and to prove to him that hewasenough, that he was good and true and deserving. And the more time we spent together, the more it all seemed to fall apart. He withdrew a little, day by day, so slight a change that at first I hadn’t noticed. Not until yesterday morning, when I’d woken up to a cold bed and realized he’d been slipping away.
Not only had he put the walls back up and begun to roam the ship at night, but he’d grown thinner in his face. It seemed to me that he was not eating, but since I saw what he ate, that hardly seemed possible. Val had also begun to act listless, and where she’d stuck to my side the first week, she too had begun to slip away. Now, all the connection that remained between my mate, Val, and me were a few thin strands of silver. As if that was all she could stand to touch me with.
“You’re a tough lady, Freddie,” Harper said from behind me. She hooked her arm through mine and hugged me to her side, but it wasn’t much comfort. Over the past three weeks, I had realized how hopelessly easy it had been to fall in love with Sin. Had, from the moment he’d exposed that first vulnerable spot. It wasn’t so hard to picture a life with him in it, aboard this ship, with these people. I liked it here, and there was no way I ever wanted to return to Earth. That would be too painful. Now, the guy I was in love with was walking away, and he might as well have slammed the door in my face. That’s how distant things felt between us.
“Tough?” I scoffed. “Please… I feel ready to fall to pieces right this instant.” It wasn’t even a bad idea to retreat to Sin’s quarters—our rooms—and just be alone for a while. I knew some of the ladies liked to go onto the bridge during missions to keep tabs on how things went, but I didn’t think I could stand the thought. Until Sin let me in, this relationship wasn’t going to work. I didn’t want to add worrying about his safety to the mix.
