Page 74 of Command

She swallowed hard, something visceral stirring as the spikes at his skull and nape flattened at her words, though the apertures peeking from beneath his neck and at his cheek flashed wide momentarily. He really was a whole other creature. A whole otherspecies. They had learned to speak the same language, but part of him was all beast. That was thepart everyone else on the ship saw. Animals come to ruin their lives, and their afterlives. That was what he was doing, after all.

“Not you,” Threxin grunted, turning his head just enough for her to see the cut of his jaw and the cyan burn in his right eye. His hand flexed when she hooked her index finger into his thumb. She had never felt the texture of his hand around hers, the warmth of it in the quiet stillness as she was the one who reached out first. The sound of dripping behind her dampened the sensation as she remembered the man bleeding onto the floor.

“I don’t think you’re bad either,” Alina whispered, stepping into his side.

It should’ve been a lie. She almost wished it were. But there was something in Threxin that no other person on this ship had gotten to see, and she couldn’t put her finger on it, but it spoke to something other than the surprisingly logical human-hating killing machine everyone saw him as. He had a history. Something—someone, likely—made him this way.

Alina remembered what he’d told her about his adoptive father, the one he’d killed. Whatever had made Threxin act like this coldblooded killer, it wasn’t limited to his feelings for humans. Alina thought back to the nonchalant way he’d ripped his own kind’s fangs out back in that dock. She suspected if he weren’t concerned with the uhyre’s minimal population, he’d have slit their throats just as easily as he had those of the humans they’d associated with.

Great, Alina, so he’s just an all-around murderous asshole. That makes it better.

She’d noticed with a sort of detachment that her pulse had increased, spurred by the charge crackling between them. She wanted to step out of it and back to safety. At least the ice of the Harmonapam felt safe. It let her think.

Threxin did not let her think. Threxin froze her in place ashe turned to face her, staring her down with a heat that looked physically painful, eyes pinging between hers like he was looking for something. With the full weight of his attention on her, the ozone crackling between them solidified into a bolt of lightning that prickled her skin like a million delicious cuts. Alina couldn’t take it. She leaned back, breaking the contact in their fingers, but his hand—previously limp, letting her touch but not reciprocating—tightened around hers.

He craned his neck, bending himself to her ear. “I have seen your history records, female. Both onElysianand here on myColossal. You blame my kind for everything that happened to you even as you continue to destroy yourselves. It is an abomination, how you have lived so long.”

“And you?” she asked pointedly. “You told me about massacres. Are you any better?”

“I do not blame another species for my problems,” Threxin said coolly into her ear.

Alina had to steady herself against the thrum induced by his baritone mutter. She hated the way his proximity alone could make her feel it. As if the words themselves were of no consequence—as if something more carnal took precedence as far as he was concerned. The way his other hand raised to stroke up her bare arm made her wonder if it wasn’t the same for him. If maybe she could say anything and he’d still be there too, leaning in and chasing that touch. Maybe they were both fucked up.

A cough behind them broke the link. Alina tried to ignore the pang of disappointment and the sudden cold, empty feeling when Threxin broke contact and stepped around her. She turned just in time to see Per Halen drop to the floor in a scarlet heap. He wasn’t that high up—the fall wouldn’t hurt him any more than the rest of it already had.

“Come.” Threxin grabbed her then and pulled her from the room. She struggled to keep up with his long strides as hetraversed to the part of his suite farthest from the torture scene, as if to tuck them away from the reality of it.

For a moment he looked unsure of where to go. Then he settled on his bedroom. Once there, she spun to face him, but he didn’t stop. He walked her back with the bulk of himself until they were in the corner, Alina’s back trapped against the wall of the cabin behind her and the wall of his chest in front. He flattened both hands on the wall at either side of her neck, framing her in the cage of his body.

She should have felt cornered, should’ve wanted to make more space to breathe, extract herself. Instead, something in her relaxed into the constriction. It unfurled and settled in for whatever ride this was about to be, and her body buzzed with the hunger to find out. The selfish curiosity drew out an impulse to reach out again and run her palms up his chest, to his shoulders. To hold him there for balance as she rose to her tiptoes, needing to be closer.

Lifting herself high as she could put her at the height of his throat, and she took it, pressing her lips to the aperture pulsing its color and heat with a hammering beat.

The kiss drew a low, shuddering groan. It vibrated through his body, palpable beneath her lips. His exposed forearms clenched in her peripheral as he bent himself lower, into her mouth. His reaction sent a spike of thrill up her spine and a flood of heat to her core. It emboldened her to press the flat of her tongue to the aperture beneath her lips, running it slowly along the burning edge. She’d never felt him like this before—her hands had worked on these sensitive parts of him countless times, but tasting them was a new dimension.

Alina lowered her mouth to his collarbone, reaching up to tug down the collar of his shirt, tugging the clasps free to expose the top of his chest for her perusal. His hand had slid to the back of her waist, the other still bracketing her in at the wall. She paused at the puckered edge of his fresh scar, observing its uneven landscape. His hand at her waist slidlower, tightening at the meat of her hip. When she pressed her lips to the scar, feeling the unnaturally smooth texture of it on her tongue, Threxin rolled forward, jerking her against him.

“Alina…” he exhaled a warning.

A charged iron scent mingled with the musk of him. It invoked a primal fear deep in her chest—an instinct warning her that danger was near. It mingled with the fluttering in her belly to pool between her thighs, twisting the defensive instinct into a perverse, heightened arousal as her confused body reacted to danger with hunger.

Alina trailed one hand beneath the edge of his shirt, running it up the ridge of his abdomen. The other moved lower until fingers tucked beneath the clasp of his belt. She pulled, dragging him toward her as she herself arched back, her shoulder blades hitting the wall. Looking down, the hard bulge of his groin made her pause and bring her eyes up to him. The look on his face was worse. His jaw slack and his eyes a burning, solid blue, Threxin was gone. When his devouring gaze raked up to hers, she fell into it willingly.

She glanced at the black line between his lips, watching him swallow as he held himself back.

“Please kiss me.” Her voice was thick with hunger.

Threxin groaned, clenching his claws in her hip until she was sure he broke skin beneath the fabric of her leggings. “The exorin…”

Somewhere deep down, or maybe not even that deep, she knew this was a terrible idea. She was taking this too far, to a place of no return. But when the Harmonapam chill in her brain met the fire of need in her body, they melted together in this weird way that made her just not give much of a shit.

She’d have plenty of time to regret this tomorrow.

“Please,” she repeated, bringing her hands up to twine them at the nape of his neck, stroking an index finger carefully along the spike there. “Just this one time.”

That was a lie, if only to herself. There was rarely a “just one time” with exorin. She may never be able to say no to this man again. He may kill her. She was only hoping—betting—that the connection they’d built would be enough to sway him and make him question his cruel ways. First in relation to her… Maybe later in relation to everyone.

Her head was fuzzy and her skin paper-thin, on the verge of splitting with bubbling desire, and Alina wondered just how much worse exorin addiction could possibly be than this pure, heady need. She saw it returned in his eye, his apertures pulsing, his throat working in hitched swallows. She glued her attention to his mouth, then back to the cold blaze of his eyes. Tilting her chin up further, hands firm at his nape, she closed her eyes, leaving herself bare for his decision.

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