Tentacles and darkness, writhing above me and howling in the most ungodly, inhuman fashion. They clashed with pure, bright silver, like a star itself had turned into human form. A muscled silver arm, a long leg—also bright silver—braced above me, protecting me. I think I might have muttered Davidson’s name in confusion, and then I passed out. I’d never passed out before, but I think, given the circumstances, I could forgive myself this one time. This was too much for any normal human, wasn’t it?
Chapter 6
Frederique
I woke up with my heart pounding, adrenaline surging through my body. I was ready to fight, but the fight surely had to be over. My eyes were open, but everything was dark around me, and my body was locked in place, stuck. I couldn’t move, and that made the panic—the will to fight—only stronger. No sight, no sound, except for the rapid, ragged noise of my breathing. There were no words to describe how utterly terrifying that was.
Restrained, in the dark, completely deprived of any sensory input, and right after what had appeared to be a vicious attack followed by certain death, I fought against what bound me, hands clawing at my legs in sharp pricks of pain, but not budging otherwise. Fear so sharp it felt blinding filled me, and then it felt like there was a pull on it, dragging that bright feeling through my chest and right out of me. At the same time, I sensed something move above me, and my fear only grew brighter.
Silver gleamed and swirled, a pair of eyes glowing with light before they dimmed, flicking away as though lashes had shuttered them. “Aaah,” a dark voice drawled, “your fear tastes so good, human.” There was a hiss, as if someone were sighing in pleasure. My fear was dulling, as if it was draining away. As if it were blood and a vampire was sucking it straight out of me. A ridiculous thought to be having, especially for a scientist.
At least I wasn’t alone anymore, but whether that was an improvement or not remained to be seen. Through the fading remnants of my terror, I tried to formulate an answer, but wasblinded instead when a light was flicked on. I blinked, struggling to make my eyes work faster than they could to adjust. I needed to know who I was dealing with, and I didn’t have time for my stupid eyes to flounder now.
Whoever had me in their clutches wasn’t harming me—at least, not yet. That sinful voice, which spoke such bizarre, horrible things, didn’t bode anything good, though. I could make out the silhouette of a man: tall, broad-shouldered, and surrounded by something silver that glittered all around him. I blinked, and my eyes adjusted a bit more. He seemed to be waiting for that, crouched next to me and looming threateningly.
Gray skin with the slightest hint of purple covered strong cheekbones and a hairless head. His eyes were silver, as were the brows that slashed sharply above them. His jaw was sharp enough to cut and clenched tight, his lips unfairly lush. Armor covered him from chin to toe—black and sleek, it outlined every bit of muscle—and there was a lot of it packed into his big but lean frame. “You’re a Talac,” I whispered, surprised to see him. Had we never even made it out of the Alpha Quadrant? That was even more horrible to think, that we’d failed before getting even halfway through our journey.
Things shifted then, more silver. It coiled from around me, sliding away like liquid, and suddenly I was free. Pooling along the floor, it rolled toward the Talacan’s feet and over the toes of his black boots, climbing all over him in curling, undulating waves until all of him gleamed silver, except for his face. I stared, entranced, fascinated, and also slightly confused. Given my chosen field of science, I had a more-than-average knowledge of what creatures made a home in our quadrant. There was onlyone answer that matched these parameters to some degree, and it wasn’t quite right.
“Son of Ragnar,” I whispered anyway, just to test what his response would be. Only, the symbiont of a Son of Ragnar was always black, like the armor he wore beneath that slick silver sheen. I’d never heard of a silver symbiont, but that was the only answer that made any kind of sense. Having never met one in person—they were almost more myth than reality—I couldn’t be certain, of course.
My companion hissed furiously, as if those words had greatly offended him. His hand slashed through the air, waving them away like cobwebs. “There aren’t many who know what I am—not out here—but then, you’re a long way from home, aren’t you?” Everything in his tone implied the “little woman” at the end of that sentence, all condescending and mean. Whoever this guy was, Son of Ragnar, Talacan, outlaw, he was definitely an asshole. He was also my lifeline, as much as I hated that. He’d saved me from that weird, dark, tentacle thing that had attacked me on the bridge. And, given the state of my ship and my crew, possibly my only way out of here.
“So you really are a Son of Ragnar?” I asked, despite my better judgment. He hadn’t liked being called that, though he’d hardly denied it. I must be crazy, poking the bear with the sore tooth that way, but my curiosity had a hold of me now. After all, xenobiology was my specialty—a job with surprisingly many applications. I loved learning about new, strange species and discovering their genetic makeup. I was already eyeing the shimmering silver that covered him and wondering if he’d let me stick a piece of it under a microscope for a better look. That, I definitely didn’t say out loud, though.
He shrugged, then abruptly rose to his impressive height. Still half-sprawled awkwardly on the floor myself, I hurried to follow suit. He already had too many advantages over me; I didn’t need to add “towering intimidatingly” to the list. Granted, even when I stood on wobbly legs, he loomed. He was tall, big, and every silver ebb and flow of his symbiont emphasized his sleek muscles. He was one hell of a sexy specimen for a Talac.
Now that the thought had crossed my mind, that he wasn’t just scary but also sexy, something tickled at my brain. His scent. He had that same appealing, tauntingly arousing scent that I had struggled to put into words back in the med bay. His scent had lingered in the room as I woke, which meant… he was the one who woke me. He’d been in there, and for some reason, he’d walked off before I could see him. Why? What the hell was going on?
“I’m leaving,” he drawled. His hand dropped to his hip, and for the first time, I realized he had a small light hanging from his belt, left exposed by his symbiont. It emitted a soft, diffuse light that was easy on the eyes but still dispelled the darkness around us. We were in the hold of the ship, where most of our supplies were food- and power-related—nothing of great value. We’d left Earth to make promises, not barter with goods. The hold was pretty far from the bridge, on the opposite end of the ship. That meant this guy had carried me a long way; not the kind of action someone would take unless they intended to save me. His callousness now seemed to imply the opposite, though, and I was intrigued.
“Why is your symbiont silver instead of black?” I asked, as he began to turn away, dismissing me with his broad shoulders and the sneer on his face. There was something extremely dark andcold about him, maybe even cruel. I should still be terrified, still feel gutted with grief over the deaths of my friends, but I felt oddly calm instead. A bit empty, even, but perhaps I was simply in shock.
“It simply is,” he growled, and then he spun back so quickly that silver danced in front of my eyes, a blur of shiny, shimmering symbiont. It was pretty, but I doubted he wanted to hear that. I must have pushed him a bit too much, because he leaned back in, and now he inhaled, drawing my scent into his lungs in a manner that said he was enjoying himself. Far too many alien species relied heavily on their noses, having far more developed olfactory senses than humans did. Talacan were no exception. My nipples hardened, and something pulsed between my thighs.
His words splashed like ice down my spine: “You are bleeding, it smells divine. Like prey.” Bleeding? I jerked back, shocked and scared again. His smile was wicked, sinful, and all sharp fang. For a brief, terrifying moment, I thought he might lunge forward and sink those sharp teeth into my jugular. His inhale was so smug, so full of satisfaction, that fear morphed, turned aroused. I could not explain that response; it was as if I could not hold on to the scary, bad feelings when they rose. They slipped away like the quicksilver he wore as armor, and in their wake, only the startling attraction I felt for him remained.
He lowered his eyes from my face, followed the curve of my throat, and lingered over my chest. I was wearing my uniform, and normally that felt like armor, a cloak that hid any femininity. Not with him. No, that look was like a caress: clinging, teasing, tasting. When it dipped to my thighs, my fists clenched against them, and I winced in pain. Now I understood: when I woke in a panic, restrained by his creature, held in the complete dark, I’dclawed my own legs open with my nails. That was the blood he smelled.
Staring into my eyes again, he reached out, like he was daring me to flinch away, to step back and show him my fear. His hand was coated in silver, like the rest of him, and he pressed it against my thigh, then slid it across to the other side, leaving tingles in its wake. It was a charged moment, and the caress sent my pulse soaring. Was he flirting? Was he trying to intimidate me? What was this? I could not make any sense of it.
As strange and sudden as that moment was, just as abruptly it was over. He spun on his heels, and this time, he said not a word as he stalked away. Faced with the sudden possibility of being left alone, I jogged after him. The hold was dark and vast, stacked with crates that cast shadows, twists and turns like a maze capable of hiding anything. Knowing I was not alone on this ship was actually worse, well, not worse, exactly. I was pretty relieved I’d found one stranger that though rude, had not harmed me. But that other thing? I was very certain itwouldharm me if it had the chance, and I didn’t plan to give it one.
“Wait up,” I called out, my eyes locked on the silver of his broad back. Was it my imagination, or was it oddly streaked here? Like… well, like there were wounds beneath it that the silver had covered, healed wounds. Didn’t a Son of Ragnar’s fabled symbiotic relationship with a morphing alien creature allow them to heal at astonishing rates? I cursed internally and wondered if I’d loaded the scientific journals—with what little information there was on his kind—onto my personal tablet or not. Did it still work, and would I have a chance to grab it at some point?
My silver companion had long legs, and he did not adjust his pacing for me. In fact, it appeared he was purposefully stalking away so as to create distance. That was another mystery, one I puzzled over as I followed him. Not scared, and currently not overwhelmed by any heavy feelings, I had plenty of space to think. Why had he come here, onto my ship, if not to find us? Whatwashis purpose aboard theLancing Light? He was the most unlikely rescuer I’d ever come across. I doubted he even knew how to say a kind thing.
So I didn’t pull any punches either; that wasn’t what I was known for anyway. “Hey, why are you running off like a coward now? Huh? You woke me, you’re responsible now.” I had to be crazy to mock him that way, to taunt a deviant version of a Son of Ragnar without knowing anything about him. Not even his name. He’d given me nothing at all, just toyed with me like I was a mouse and he was the cat.
The laughter my words pulled from him was anything but amused; it was a cold, cruel crackle of sound that echoed against the dark, metal ship walls. “No, I’m not,” he drawled, his head tilting just enough to glance over his shoulder my way. I saw fang, and I saw the hint of his dark silver eye beneath his pale brow. All derision and mockery, all cold anger and fury. I had definitely pissed him off with that remark, and the last thing I needed to do was anger the one person out here who could help me. My diplomatic parents would roll over in their graves if they knew how I was handling this situation; anything but tactful.
Like the devil had hold of my tongue, I couldn’t stop the next taunt from slipping from my lips. Everything about this stranger made me want to… get under his skin, in the worst way—maybe even the best way too. “Yes, you are,” I said to him, and it wasincredible how close I came to sticking out my tongue at him. That was childish; all of this was stupid and dangerous. But I was a woman with nothing to lose, wasn’t I? Mission over, slept through like Sleeping Beauty, or rather, the sleeping nerd, in my case. All my friends and family were dead and long gone. The UAR was probably solidly in control of everything, and all of Earth had gone to hell in a handbasket.
I never saw him move. There was a rush of air that preceded him. That was it. He leaped across the hallway, right at me, and I found myself slammed into the wall. He was pressed against me, all solid muscle and heat against my much softer, smaller body. For a guy furiously slamming a lady into a wall, he was oddly careful about it. That didn’t mean my heart rate stayed anywhere near steady, or that fear didn’t surge through my flesh. It was instinct to want to squirm away, to fawn over this guy so he wouldn’t hurt me.
His voice was like a knife as it cut through the dark, his silver eyes gleaming in his face, shadowed by his brow. Up close, I could see faint markings lying beneath his gray skin, the hints of mating marks that were dormant until he found his grouping, his people. Talac always mated several males to one female; their population numbers were oddly skewed toward a heavy male presence. None of that was relevant as he threatened me.
“Leave me alone, human! You want nothing to do with a monster like me. Go back to your pod and sleep another thousand years.” So he knew how long I’d been in stasis, and how crazy it was to wake up to this. He called himself a monster, and the truth was, I could see it: the rage and darkness in his eyes as he pierced me with a glare that withered me to my soul. I was shaking in hisgrip, trembling from terror as acute and terrible as what I’d felt on the bridge.
