He brought the hook to her face. The cold of the metal pressed against the white of her eye.
“He’s my husband,” Nia choked out, hoping it protected her even as a civilian.
His knuckles relaxed against her cheek. Foley backed off the tool, separating it from her eye. “You’re lying.”
She latched onto his doubt. “I was emancipated, but he didn’t divorce me. It’s the old laws. He’s still my husband.”
When he stepped back, his hold on her hair lessened. The relief swelling through her body made her bold. “You should have done your research, asshole.”
He jerked her head, and she cried out. It felt like he’d ripped out a chunk of her hair.
The door slid open, and Mace tumbled in with Cache and Grey. A flurry of movement between the three of them, and a knife shot passed Nia’s head. With a thud and a scream from behind her, the hold on her hair released.
Mace stumbled toward her, his eyes wild, and collapsed with his arms around her waist, face buried between her breasts. With her hands bound to the table, Nia could only close her eyes and lean into him, rub her cheek across his silky black hair.
Grey circled behind her, and Nia turned her head. The knife was lodged through Foley’s eye, the man dead and slumped against the bulkhead.
“Quite a throw,” Grey said. He yanked the knife out. Nia winced at the squelching sound.
“I was aiming for his hand,” Mace muttered, the words muffled against her chest.
Cache released Nia’s bonds. With her hands freed, Nia buried her face in Mace’s throat and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Her fingers came away bloody.
“What the hell are you doing?” she yelled, pulling away. His glazed eyes filled with confusion. He shouldn’t have been able to walk on his own. “You’ve wrecked all the work on your back. You’ve lost too much blood already. What did you give him?” She turned accusing eyes onto Cache. “How is he standing?”
The commodore lifted her hands in surrender. “Nothing. I was going to, but I didn’t want to kill him. He’s been pushing himself like this to get here.” Cache stared at Foley, a disgusted expression twisting her face, and shook her head.
Nia caught Mace’s face between her hands and said, “Mace?”
His glazed eyes partly focused on her. Her breath caught in her throat at the raw emotion swimming there. He kissed her cheeks one at a time, cradling her face.
“I thought I’d lost you.” His hands shook.
Nia pressed her forehead to his. “I’m here,izar. I’m here.”
His embrace wrapped her so tight she couldn’t draw a proper breath. She let him crush her, melting into his chest. Breathing wasn’t so important right now, not when his strength surrounded her.
His grip lessened, and Nia pulled away to look into his icy blue eyes. “Now, get your gorgeous butt to a med bay so I can fix your back.”
Chapter forty-six
Someonemustbeplayinga joke on her.
Nia stared at Dee, the most obvious culprit. But she and Kessy were both adamant this was how Tellusians got married in the “traditional way.”
All three of them stood in Dee’s shop. Her friend had closed it for the day so they could prepare. Nia understood their cultures were different.
But this….
Her hair piled in loops on the top of her head, she wore only the smallest of underwear—she would have had more coverage holding a palette in front of her—as Dee and Kessypaintedher. Blue swirls covered her body from the tips of her toes to her ears and spiraled everywhere in between. Arms, legs, stomach, breasts, no place was left unadorned by the pattern of Mace’s family.
“If you think I’m going out there in only blue paint, you’re—”
“No, no,” Dee insisted. “There’s the traditional gown too.”
Some of her tension eased, but she resentfully stared at the blue dresses the other two wore. While Nia stood practically naked, Dee and Kessy were swathed from throat, to wrist, to ankle entirely in blue. The material hugged all their curves, leaving nothing to the imagination, but at least their skin was covered. Their hair was also piled on the top of their heads in large curls.
Her friends’ gazes focused, they continued to paint. The process was taking forever, and Nia fidgeted, though tried not to for fear of smudging the paint before it dried. All she could do was stand there and think. And worry. And fret.
