“She stabbed you.”
“Hardly. Barely. I am fine,” he says, lying. His face is pale. Probably shock, but it’s also possible I hit something important. I hope I did. I hope it hurts like fucking hell.
“I’m not going to let this little thing think she has the ability to affect me,” he mutters to his men. “I’m fine.”
One of his subordinates tries to talk some sense into him. “She’s done some damage, sir. It’s going to need medical attention.”
“Obviously. She fucking stabbed me,” Drako deadpans.
The knife is still in him, because all these soldiers have done their first aid courses and know better than to try to retrieve an object in the body. That should always be done by medical personnel in a sterile and controllable situation.
“We need to get back to the ship. Call the shuttle. Get the man out of the hole and make damn sure he’s not armed,” Drako says, as if the fact he didn’t check to see ifIwas armed was also somehow their failing.
I am then put under arrest, Thor is taken out of our camp hole, and we are both put on a shuttle bound for the Vikar mothership. Drako was going to spend the whole time gloating and maybe monologuing, but he sits down in a chair very carefully and avoids eye contact with me for the duration of the very short voyage. It would be funny, if not for the fact that our lives are genuinely very much at risk. He might kill Thor in retaliation.
When we reach the mothership, we are separated. Drako goes off to have his stab wound looked at, and Thor and I are taken todifferent places. I don’t know where they take him. Me, I end up in a small bedroom. It’s not a cell. It has too many furnishings for that. It’s also not Drako’s quarters, because it’s only slightly larger than a shoebox.
I get a little sleep, because I am fucking exhausted, so one way or another, it is not all that long before Drako comes to see me. He has more color in his cheeks, and he has been patched up.
“Looks like you’re going to live,” I say upon seeing him. “What a pity.”
“Last time I saw you, you were trying to save my life, thinking I was going to be taken to your city and hung,” Drako says. “And today, you almost killed me.”
“I did?”
“No need to sound excited about it,” he says. “That was an incredibly dangerous thing to do.”
“I know. That is why I did it.” I pause for a moment, cocking my head to the side. “Did you ever really know me at all? Because if you did, me doing something impulsive and dangerous is very on brand. Especially in a situation where I have nothing to lose.”
“You have a lot to lose. Thor’s life hangs in the balance of your behavior.”
“Well, he’s fucked then, isn’t he,” I say with a flippancy I do not really feel. That thought makes me sick. I could be controlled forever with threats to Thor’s safety. They could hurt him to punish me. That is truly sick, and not even in a hot way.
“Do you want me dead, Selene? Have you lost all affection for me? Have you allowed him to brainwash you into hating me?”
I snort at the last part. “Thor’s not really the brainwashing kind.”
“Of course he is. Always about proper this and appropriate that. He turned you in when he discovered you were a stowaway…”
“To be fair to him, I was causing a serious error in the ship’s computers, and trying to fix it was causing more problems. That might even have been why your Vikar ship snuck up on us. We weren’t paying attention. Because of the glitches. Because of me.”
“So you think he did the right thing now?”
“No. I mean, yes. I mean, it doesn’t matter. It’s in the past. I don’t think he’d do it now.”
“Interesting. I think he would.”
“Well, that’s fine because your opinion doesn’t count.”
In an instant I find myself pinned on my back on the bed, Drako’s good hand at my throat as he leans over me.
“You were brave in that cave,” he says. “But there’s not several feet of rock between you and me now. Take that into account when you speak.”
I wish I didn’t feel sexual thrill pulsing deep in my belly as I am manhandled, but I can’t help responding to him with a kind of animal instinct. He is dangerous, he is wounded, and he is in complete control of me. Thor cannot help me now. The world in which we evaded Drako has gone, and a new one exists now, where I am Drako’s captive prisoner.
“What kind of punishment do you think you should suffer for stabbing me, hmm?” He murmurs the question while looking down at me. “See, sweet little thing, I already had quite thelineup of penances for you to perform, and then you went and behaved so badly, all of them feel a little trite.”
“I was defending myself,” I say. “It’s allowed.”
