Page 27 of Command

“Did he kill them?” It didn’t even matter. Threxin was their commander—no matter who killed them, it washisfault. She realized she’d picked the cuticle of her thumb raw when she felt the blood on her fingertip. Alina raised it to her mouth, sucking the skin clean.

Renza finally spoke. “No.”

“Are you just saying that so I help him?”

“No. You will help him regardless, as you know if you do notIwill kill them myself and make you watch.”

Right.Alina swallowed and, for the first time, looked at Threxin’s face. His eyelids shifted slightly and so he was still alive. There was more work to do. She wiped her thumb on her thigh and turned back to rummaging in the med kit. She withdrew a can of antiseptic foam and slathered it over the sutured wound. Then she applied a layer of synthskin paste on top, evening it out as much as she could with the pads of her fingers to create a flat seal.

“Shit,” she muttered suddenly.

“Speak.”

“I forgot that your skin is different from ours. I’m not sure synthskin will… I don’t know how he’ll react to it, or the sutures.”

“It is good enough.” At least Renza sounded confident.

“What now?” Alina asked. “You’ll need a cart to move him.”

“He stays here.”

No way was there going to be an unconscious fuckinguhyre on her bed for some indeterminate amount of time. “What? Why? He’ll really be better off in?—”

“I will not have him seen. He heals here. You watch.”

“I have a job,” Alina protested. She was already late to check on Kaia, something shecouldhave been doing remotely if the bastard on her floor hadn’t cut off their comms.

“Your job is to make sure your commander lives,” Renza said.

My commander.

Orion Halen was her commander.

But was he really, when she had a chance to make him so again and gave it up?

It was treason—that was what she’d done. Had anyone seen her in the halls? People tried to stay in their cabins when not on shift these days, and there weren’t many of them left on this deck. But surely she wasn’t the only one who noticed the uhyre guards missing.

“And you?” she asked. “What will you do?”

Renza rose, a glowing crimson column in her periphery. “I find out who did this.”

“He’s dead.”

“Doubtful he was alone.”

That made sense. It could have been a wider plot to regain control of the ship. It could have beenOrion.

What if… what if those people under the tarp were part of a bigger mutiny?

What if she just ruined everything?

CHAPTER 13

THREXIN

The first time Threxin drifted into consciousness, it was to the sound of words that had no meaning to his ear.

The reply, at least, he did understand. “Shoq.”

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