When she turned to face me, blood drying on her forearms and exhaustion carved into every line of her body, I wanted to acknowledge what she had done. What she was. I gave her nothing because giving is not what I do. Softness is a vulnerability I cannot afford. My father's lessons live in my bones, and I don't have time for complications.
I tell myself that all the way back to my office.
I almost believe it.
Chapter Five
MAEVE
Isaved a male's life today. I held his liver together with my hands while his blood slicked my fingers and his pulse threatened to flatline. Talked him through the worst of it using bad jokes and stubbornness because that's what I had, because medicine is only half science and the other half is convincing people they're going to survive. And when it was done, when I turned to face the alien who owns my contract with Krel's blood still drying on my forearms, he gave me nothing.
“Rest. You'll be needed again.”
Like I'm a scalpel. A tool to be cleaned and stored until next time. I can deal with that.
The quarters they've given me are too comfortable for the thoughts circling through my head. I've been lying on this bed for hours, staring at the carved stone ceiling, and sleep refuses to come. Every time I close my eyes, plasma-scorched tissue floods my vision, the flutter of vital signs stabilizing. Veth's hands trembling as he passed me instruments. Krel's mouth moving,forming words I couldn't quite hear through the roar of focus that takes over when a life hangs in the balance.
Drazex appears at the observation window in my memory, watching. Not moving. Not speaking. Watching with an intensity that pressed against my awareness through the glass.
And then, after. His face giving nothing away. His voice flat as stone.
I shouldn't care. I don't care. I'm here to work off a debt, not to earn praise from a crime lord who wouldn't recognize humanity if it bled out on his operating table. So why does his silence sit in my chest like shrapnel I can't remove?
Obviously I'm lying to myself about dealing.
The exhaustion has teeth now. The surgery burned through whatever reserves I had left, and my body is demanding payment I can't afford to give. I should sleep. He ordered me to rest, and following orders is what property does.
Sleep refuses to come, but my mind won't stop working. The surgery replays behind my closed eyes. Not the success. The moment my hands went still because Krel's secondary pulse did something I didn't expect.
The room terminal glows when I activate it, House Draven's medical database opening at my thumbprint. He coded my access without asking, without ceremony. The resources here outstrip anything I had during military service. Detailed Draveki cardiovascular documentation. The secondary pulse spike explained in clinical language: a compensatory mechanism evolved for a species built to survive catastrophic damage and keep fighting.
I read. Cross-reference what I observed with formal documentation. File the information alongside everything else I'm learning about Draveki bodies.
Three species I treated during the wars. Dozens of physiological variations learned through necessity and blood.The Draveki are different in ways I'm only beginning to map. I have the foundation. I need to build on it.
The database holds more than one sleepless night can absorb. I bookmark sections for later and close the terminal.
If rest won't come, I can at least check on my patient. I push myself upright and reach for my med kit, and the tension in my chest eases by a fraction. That's practical. Purposeful. The kind of thing a tool does when it's functioning properly.
The corridor outside my quarters is quiet, the compound settling into whatever passes for evening this deep in the canyon. Staff members move past without acknowledging me, their focus on their own tasks, their gazes sliding over me like I'm part of the architecture. One exception. The female with the throat scar watches from a corridor intersection, her attention tracking me until I turn the corner and almost bump into Teshra.
She has fresh linens stacked in her arms. She takes in my appearance without comment. “The medic who doesn't sleep. I've known the type.” She shifts the linens to one hip. “Still better than where my family wanted to put me. At least here I chose my cage.” She continues past before I can respond.
The medical bay's lights dim to a soft amber glow, preservation mode for a patient who needs rest. Krel lies on the central bed, monitors tracking the steady rhythm of his vitals. The numbers look good. Better than I hoped, given the extent of the damage. He'll scar, but he'll live.
Temperature, blood pressure, the readings from the internal sensors placed during surgery. Everything stable. Everything healing the way it should. I'm adjusting the IV flow when the awareness hits.
That particular pressure against the back of my neck prickles my skin. I don't turn around. “He's stable. Vitals improving. The internal damage was significant but repairable. Three weeks minimum recovery, but he should regain full function.”
No response. He doesn't move, doesn't speak. I wait for the dismissal, the new orders, whatever brought him here at this hour.
What comes instead is a question.
“How did you know?”
The question pulls me around to face him. He's standing inside the doorway, eyes catching the medical bay's amber light. His angular face gives nothing away, but his posture lacks the rigid formality of our previous encounters. He's not here to issue commands.
The amber glow catches the silver threading through his charcoal skin, traces the breadth of shoulders that block out the corridor behind him. Seven feet of coiled stillness, watching me with the patience of something that learned to hunt before it learned to speak. My pulse quickens in my throat, and I hate I notice the way his nostrils flare, scenting me.
