He doesn't touch me.
I can see what that withdrawal costs him. His tightening jaw. A flex of muscle along his forearm as he forces his hand back to his side.
“We begin now.” He steps back, and I am colder for the absence of his warmth. “I'll have the scene and medical records transferred to your access by midday. The analysis equipment you require will be arranged.”
“And Krel? I need to examine his blood work again, search for traces that standard screening missed.”
“He remains in the medical bay. You have full access to his records and his person.”
The conversation shifts into logistics. I track the details, file them for later. The rest of me stands outside the moment, watching myself cross a threshold I can't uncross.
I didn't anticipate this.
He asked for my help. Gave me a choice. Almost touched me with a gentleness I never expected. And I chose to stay. Not because my position demanded it, but because the work matters. Because my skills might prevent more deaths. Because the part of me that couldn’t save my mother, or my brother from himself, refuses to stand aside while people die from causes I might identify.
Those are the reasons I can name.
The others run deeper. Phantom warmth where his fingers almost touched my face. Hunger in his eyes before he banked it. An ache settling low, the one that has nothing to do with medicine and everything to do with his expression when he asked for my help.
He turns toward the door. I follow. The body lies cold and still behind us as we leave, carrying death into the corridor, into the investigation that will consume the coming days, into whatever waits on the other side of the line I’ve crossed.
Chapter Seven
MAEVE
The data tablet waits outside my door like a promise kept, placed in the center of my threshold by someone who wanted me to understand this was intentional. Only one male in this compound would do something like this. I carry it inside before unlocking the screen, some instinct warning me that what lives in these files shouldn't be seen in corridors where anyone might pass. The screen asks for my fingerprint, and when I press my thumb to the sensor, it unlocks. He's already coded it to me.
Four personnel files. Four autopsy reports. Security logs and patrol schedules and supply manifests spanning the past month, information that no property should ever see, the kind that could destroy House Draven if it reached the wrong hands. He's trusting me with his vulnerabilities, and I have thirty minutes to make sense of that before I'm expected in the medical bay.
The shower runs hot for four minutes before the compound's water rationing kicks in, enough time to scrub the restless night from my skin and let the temperature soak into muscles thatache from tension I couldn't release. I slept poorly, yesterday's revelations pressing down whenever I closed my eyes. Torvin's contracted fingers. The injection site no one else noticed. The hunger in intelligent silver eyes before he banked it and walked away.
I told myself not to think about that last part, but the thinking happened anyway, circling through the dark hours and replaying the moment his fingers hovered near my jaw. The restraint in his withdrawal. The rough edge to his words when he said he'd be outside.
Work has always been my refuge from things I cannot control, so I focus on the familiar weight of the med kit strap crossing my shoulder and my tension eases. Whatever else happens today, I have a purpose that doesn't require me to examine wanting a male to whom I'd best not think of in that way.
The attraction isn't merely foolish; it's the kind of reckless that gets people killed on planets like this one. Wanting clouds judgment, and clouded judgment means mistakes, and mistakes on Vahiri Prime don't come with second chances. The smart thing would be to lock whatever this is behind professional detachment and leave it there until my contract expires or my usefulness runs out. The smart thing would be to stop noticing the way he moves, the timbre of his voice, the restraint coiled beneath all that violence.
I've already failed at the smart thing. I failed the moment I stopped fearing him and started wondering instead.
The medical bay doors slide open at 0658, and he's already there, seven feet of coiled stillness leaning against the central console with his arms crossed and his attention fixed on my approach. I wonder if he slept at all. If he ever sleeps.
Veth hovers near the surgical suite, his pale grey features carrying the particular tension of someone who doesn't understand what's happening and fears the answer.
“You're early.” Drazex's words roll through the medical bay. “I expected you to take longer with the files.”
“Then you should have sent less.” I stop three feet away, the distance that has become our default, close enough to speak without raising volume but far enough that I can't sense his temperature. “You’ve handed a lot of vulnerability to someone who's been here four days.”
“You earned it yesterday.”
Veth shifts in my peripheral vision, his confusion growing more obvious by the second. I speak to fill in the awkward moment. “The files you sent are a start, but I'll need the full archives to trace deeper patterns. And the records room access is restricted.”
“I'll be your access.”
He addresses his medic without looking away from my face. “Veth. This female has full access to all medical records and supplies. If she requires assistance, you will provide it. If she requires equipment we don't own, you will tell me.”
“Yes, my lord. Understood.”
Drazex shifts from the wall and stalks away. “Come.”
