Page 115 of Command

“You just went through a fifteen-hour surgery for your people and for…”Stop being presumptuous, Alina.“And now we don’t even know if it worked.”

Butsomethingtold her that he would not hurt her. She had to prove it to him though. Alina stepped forward. Threxin began to recoil, but she was already reaching for his hand, taking it in hers, brushing her thumbs across his knuckles. Threxin’s upper lip curled, eyes closing, apertures narrowing to almost nothing.

“I’m done caring about what Kaia thinks,” she said quietly. “And when she sees how far you’ve been willing to go and learns about the limiters… she might even understand. And if she doesn’t… Well, I’m choosing you.”

Threxin’s spikes relaxed at his scalp. His apertures melted and his hand squeezed on hers. He opened his eyes and looked past her, over her shoulder at Renza back at the door. Then Threxin lifted his chin in an unspoken instruction.

CHAPTER 48

THREXIN

Alina grew increasingly more nervous with each passing tick while they waited. Threxin did not know what time it was—whether it was early or late. Honestly, he wished for nothing more than to retire to Alina Argoud’s cabin and sleep in her bed for a week. Something he could barely afford to do considering their next jump was fast approaching.

When the door hissed open, Alina practically jumped off the bed, making every hunting instinct in Threxin jump to life. He shoved his tongue into his cheek, squeezing his eyes shut against the impulse. Alina settled and even moved resolutely closer to Threxin’s side—stupid,stupidhuman. Threxin was so busy observing the nervous lines etched into her face that he didn’t see who entered until the red female’s voice reached him.

“What the fuck…” Kaia Halena was standing behind her male in the doorway. “What the fuck are you doing to her?”

Alina bit her lip, and Threxin saw the tension tremble in her as she met her charge’s eyes. Kaia Halena looked enraged. Orion Halen looked utterly bored.

“Kaia…” Alina started, clearing her throat as her voice cracked.

Kaia’s eyes narrowed. “Alina, what are you doing?”

“We need your help.” His female stepped between them, cutting his line of sight to Kaia Halena’s poison glare, and a good thing too, because the red female could really use a shoqing lesson in glaring at an uhyre like that. Threxin felt a growl rising in his throat, and Alina must’ve heard it, because she cleared her throat again and stepped forward to the red female.

“Kaia, I can explain everything, but for now we need your help.”

“My help.” Kaia looked to Orion, whose arm snaked around her waist and held her to his side.

“You got your Neurosync late. What… How did you learn to control it?”

Threxin saw the realization dawn on his distant kin as he looked from Alina Argoud to him in the bed.

“How did you know it worked?” Alina pressed.

Kaia Halena raised a brow. “So, what, uhyre are getting our implants now too?”

“Do not talk to me of implants, human,” Threxin growled, reaching up from the bed to shove Alina to the side with a sweep of his arm. She faltered, making a pained sound as her weight landed on her previously injured leg.

Humans really were deliciously breakable.

“My kind have had implants drilled into our brains years before you had yours, shredding our brains until there’s nothing left,” Threxin snarled, glowering at the red female now that his Alina was not blocking the way. “If you want your people to live, you should hope this procedure worked.”

His human-kin’s female must have seen the change in Threxin because no retort came from her tongue. Then again, it could have been more about Orion Halen clamping a firm hand on the curve between her neck and shoulder and delivering a decisive squeeze. He leaned forward to mutter something in her ear. When his eyes came up to land on his Alina,Threxin began to rise so he could rip his eyeballs from their sockets. Black fury tightened on his ribs, constricting his chest and clawing up his throat. It seeped through the veins in his tongue, drawing spikes and exorin to the roof of his mouth.

Renza noticed.

“Everyone out,” his brother snapped, stepping between them.

“What? No, we—” But Renza didn’t wait for Alina Argoud to finish before he grabbed for her arm and began pulling her toward him.

Threxin was there in less than a tick. His fangs were bared and exorin spittle flying as he landed a fist into his brother’s sharp jaw, sending Renza back before he could gather the female or his bearings.

“Stay the shoq away from her,” Threxin hissed in Apthian, yanking the female violently against his chest with one hand on her belly and the other on her chest. He felt the moment her taut body went limp against him, each muscle relaxing, one by one. Alina Argoud was not a relaxed person by nature, which is how he knew she was doing it on purpose.

“Are you trying not to provoke me, female?” He ground out against her ear, mouth twitching up with a satisfied smirk. “You are a good learner.”

The problem, of course, and the reason his talons still grappled for her, had nothing at all to do with her submission. It wasthem.Theywere all staring at him. They would try to take her away from him any moment. They would strike, and he would be ready.

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