Page 21 of Commander’s Mate

My jaw tightened. “I know.”

“Do you?”

I said nothing.

“She was taken from her world. Stripped. Processed. Nearly sold. Now she is aboard a warship full of armed strangers, and you already know what she is to you.”

“I have not told her.”

“Then when you do, remember what happened to her today.”

The warning landed harder than approval would have.

Degatu lowered his voice. “Wanting to protect her is natural. Wanting to keep her is natural. But if she cannot tell the difference between your protection and her captivity, you will lose her even if she stays.”

The words struck too close to thoughts I had not allowed to form.

“I will not be a slaver.”

“No. But a cage built from devotion is still a cage.”

I looked toward the bridge doors.

Harper Avery from Earth. From a world I could not find. A female whose scent had moved through me like first breath after drowning. A woman who had looked me in the eye and refused to be cowed by rank or armor.

My instincts snarled at the idea.

My honor answered again.

Then suffer.

“I understand,” I said.

“I hope so,” Degatu replied. “Because if you do not, she will teach you. Human women seem inclined toward that.”

I thought of the way Harper had looked at me in the hangar, as if she wanted answers and did not trust anyone else to provide them.

Despite everything, my mouth curved.

“Yes,” I said. “They do.”

The conference room was intact. When the door opened, several women startled. Others looked relieved. Scarlet Andrews muttered something that translated as a rude compliment about not being dead. Nora Reed was checking a woman’s pulse. Zoe Addison sat beside a trembling captive and guided her through slow breaths.

Harper stood.

She did not run to me. She did not swoon. She looked me over from head to foot with narrowed eyes, assessing damage.

“You are alive,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

A simple word. It warmed me more than it should have.

“The threat is past,” I told the room. “We have jumped to faster-than-light travel. You are safe for now.”

For now.