“He has only just begun looking, Captain. I’ll have answers for you in an hour. My preliminary findings put this sample in a similar basic configuration to the one I took from the creature Sinny brought back from that waterworld.” Sinny. I muffled the laugh that wanted to come out, low and scathing. Who the hell called the Sineater Sinny like it was no big deal? Only Ysa was crazy enough to do that. I was pretty sure that not even the Sineater’s mate would dare call him that.
“Very well. Are you going to be long with him?” That question was directed at Dravion by the captain. “I need you in for a mission brief, Thatcher.” My veins instantly buzzed with excitement. Good, a mission. That would distract me from Ysa and her inquisitive eyes. The captain wasn’t beingcallous about my injury, either; he knew better than most just how fast I healed, and how resilient my body was. Dravion had once duplicated some of my nanobots to assist in healing the badly injured hands of Asmoded’s mate.
“Not long,” Dravion responded. He had used his hand scanner to check my burns, then switched to the tissue regenerator to aid my nanobots. Already, much of my flesh had knitted back together, and in a few more hours, I would be fine. All I’d need to do was re-ink my skin, because the tattoos I’d had on my knuckles and palm had been seared right off.
“I thought this guy was human?” Grunn huffed, steam snorting through his nostrils as though he were personally offended by my ability to heal. Ysa’s blue eyes seemed to hold the same question. If I looked into them for too long, I might find myself blurting out the answer she was looking for. So I looked away.
“I’ll come with you now, Captain,” I said. “I do not believe the creature will attack a second time. It has to heal first.” Shrugging Dravion’s tentacle off my wrist, I circled around the table and headed toward the engine room’s wide doorway. There, I paused just long enough to glance over my shoulder at the queen of this domain. “I believe my invitation to stay has been rescinded anyway.” Her laughter, bright and surprised, chased me down the hallway.
Chapter 3
Ysathea
“What do you mean?” I said to Ivo. My eye was glued to the microscope’s lens, but my hands were curled around the tip of my braid. Clenching tightly, I prayed very hard that what my engineer had just told me was incorrect. Of course, Ivo was one of the best researchers I had, able to control his four massive hands to work at a microscopic level. Dravion was watching, and now he leaned in to confirm Ivo’s findings, a quick glance, a simple head shake.
“Fuck,” I swore, because I’d rather taken a liking to the versatile, human swearword. Thatcher said it all the time, but not to me, just in briefings. He was probably saying it right now, because he was in amission briefing. One I hadn’t been invited to, because this sample was far more important to study.
“I’d have to take it to my lab to confirm with a hundred percent certainty,” Dravion said. “But it appears you are correct, Ivo. The sample is identical to the one we scraped off the shuttle when the Sineater returned from the waterworld with his mate, Frederique.” It was exactly what I’d expected the moment I’d seen what clung to Thatcher’s hand, but it wasn’t the answer I wanted to hear, not at all.
“That means our containment procedures failed, Dravy. They failed, badly. Not only that, but some portion of the creature that hitched a ride split off and hid on theVarakartoom. Has it been growing? What is it doing? How sentient is it?” Suddenly, the fact that Thatcher had stalked me through every single hallway made me feel a little less annoyed with him. The way he’d spoken made it seem like he’d fully expected an attack all this time. On the heels of that thought, a pang of sadness followed. So he’d just seen that as a task, a job, had he? This wasn’t because he was quietly a little obsessed with me? Ah, yuck, since when did his motivation for following me around like a Riho pup matter anyway?
“So it appears,” Dravion agreed. “I’ll take these remaining samples for my own tests and adjust our containment parameters based on my findings.” He slipped from the engine room without a sound, the samples clutched against his chest and his mind already wandering. I watched him go, but my mind had wandered too—right back to that mission briefing Thatcher was in. I wanted to know what kind of mission, because as much as I hated it, theVarakartoomwasn’t ready for an all-out space battle. Not when a blackout could strike a critical system and I had no way to predict it.
“Go,” Ivo said, flapping three of his four hands toward the doorway. He was grinning, his spots colored with amusement. Grunn was not nearly so cheerful, but he too seemed to think I should head for the bridge. “You’re not going to be able to do any work when you’re worried. Just tell the captain you have to be there.” If only it were as simple as Ivo seemed to think it was.
I didn’t let them think about it, though. If they thought they could handle the engine room and these samples without me, they probably could. They might like to get into fights all the time, but they wouldn’t if I wasn’t around. At least, I didn’t think so; there’d never been any reason to suspect it.
My boots thudded against the floor as I jogged out of my domain and headed for the bridge. Already, my mind was filling with images of what Thatcher looked like sitting at the table in the ready room: the lazy sprawl, bare arms and tattoos, hair in shiny black waves around his shoulders… And that glare—he was always glaring when he was around others. That was perhaps why I’d begun thinking he had a thing for me, because he didn’t glare at me.
It sucked to be wrong, and I couldn’t explain why. He was annoying, overbearing, always there, and he seemed to think my personal boundaries did not exist. So why did I hate learning that he just hung around out of a sense of duty? Maybe a voice whispered at the back of my head, that’s because now you have no reason to deny that you’re attracted. No red flag after all.
The bridge was manned only by a small crew, with the basics covered, but that was it. Raukesh was at the helm without a navigator, and A’varon was monitoring the comms and the weapons station at the same time. That was it—just the two of them—and when I showed up, they both shut their mouths, so I knew they’d been talking that typical guy talk they didn’t want a girl to overhear. I was very used to mouths shutting when I walked into a room, and it made me smirk every single time.
“They in there?” I asked, waving a hand at the ready room. Raukesh opened his mouth, probably to tell me I shouldn’t interrupt, but I barged in anyway. The captainhadasked me to update him on those samples when I knew more, hadn’t he? I was invited. My boots clomped loudly and confidently across the deck, and I happily leaned into that some more. Mandy would call that my war stomp and warn her mate, Asmoded, to get out of my way. That was exactly the kind of energy I needed to channel.
The ready room was a bit gloomy, lit mostly by the hologram projected above the long table. Asmoded sat at the head, flanked by Jaxin and the Sineater. Around the table, the ship’s various officers were sitting, as well as grunts with key skills required for this mission. Like Thatcher, probably, though I wasn’t sure what exactly his special skill was. Heal fast? I’d never seen a hand knit back together the way his had once the acid had been removed. Except him, my eyes flicked to the Sineater lounging darkly at Asmoded’s side, he healed even faster.
Solear and Aramon were present, heads bent together in front of the hologram as they pored over star charts at head-spinning speeds. I was not surprised to seethem; they had been on the crew longer than anyone. As quirky as the pair was, Asmoded trusted them, and that meant I did too. Except, you know, I tried to give Solear a wide berth whenever I met him in the hallway, in case he felt like biting something.
A Ulinial vowed to abstain from all violence when they came of age. That included violence done for the sake of self-protection. I didn’t want to test how strong my vows were if someone like Solear went a little feral. I knew what they said, of course, that Thatcher was just as much of a loose cannon. I’d never once feared that he’d snap my finger off if I wagged it at him wrong.
“Do you have news, Ysa?” Asmoded asked from where he presided over the entire meeting like the captain he was. Like Ivo and Grunn, I had a bit of an issue with authority figures. Something about them always rubbed me the wrong way, but Asmoded was okay. He didn’t hold it against me when I spoke out of turn or objected a little strenuously. He didn’t mind, because I always delivered top-notch work, and I had never failed him or this ship. Until now…
“Yo, Asmo,” I said, and I gave him a two-fingered, casual sort of wave as I went to prop myself up against the edge of the table. Every pair of eyes in the room was on me, and that included Thatcher. The bastard never had a problemlookingat me; he just didn’t talk. I never had an issue speaking in public. I liked talking, and usually I rambled something semi-coherent together in a pinch. This time, my mouth went dry and my pulse spiked, which, given the predators gathered in the room, didn’t go unnoticed.
Aramon snorted a laugh and elbowed his twin like I’d just made the funniest joke ever. I saw Mitnick smirk and leanback in his seat, his wings spreading behind him as he lazily stretched. It was Thatcher’s stare that made me freeze, his dark eyes locked on my face, his mouth pressed into a snarl. Seriously, why had I ever thought he followed me around because he was sort of into me? Like a big, protective shadow with all those delicious touch-her-and-die kind of vibes. Nope, he hated my guts. I was sure of that now.
“Uhm, yeah,” I said, swallowing roughly. I shook my head and forced my eyes away from the pain-in-my-butt human. “So, I can officially confirm that the black sludge somehow in our ship’s systems comes from that waterworld. It’s probably part of that nasty hitchhiker you brought along a couple months ago, Sinny.” I flicked my fingers at the Sineater, and he smiled, a slow, predatory smile, and not a kind one.
“I see,” Asmoded said, his gaze flicking from me to Thatcher, and then to the Sineater at his side. He looked displeased, but I didn’t think it was because I’d interrupted the fancy mission briefing. Now that I’d gotten out my excuse for being here, I sauntered around the table and plunked myself into the nearest chair. I’d chosen carefully, though I hoped nobody realized that. This seat put me at a safe distance from both Thatcher and Solear; no chance of getting bitten that way. Only the Sineater’s cold smirk made me feel like he knew exactly what I’d done.
“Does this mean we need to sweep the ship for hostiles rather than make repairs when we reach Strewn?” Asmoded asked. I kicked back in the seat and tossed my boots onto the table, folding my hands over my belly, where my long braid was curled and secured. I shook my head, then shruggedwordlessly.
The captain’s expression darkened, his nubbed brow ridges lowering over his golden eyes. Not good, but I had the rest of this meeting to come up with answers. I would, because there was no way I was going to let the Strewn Engineers or this yucky black thing get the better of me. Not on my ship, damn it.
***
Thatcher
