Page 32 of Command

She was so damn tired. She couldn’t wait for all this to be over, and to be back to her normal routine. One perk of being no one important and being rejected by your super important boss was getting plenty of sleep. Alina wasn’t used to waking up multiple times a night to check on a possibly dying alien, care for his wound, water his apertures…

Eight… Nine…

But he wasn’t dying anymore, that much was clear. So maybe she could just close her eyes for a little bit, considering she had nothing better to do.

Five minutes, and then she’d try getting herself out of this again.

Ten.

CHAPTER 14

THREXIN

The next time Threxin awoke, it was to the growing awareness of his uncomfortably parched, tight apertures.

The jump.

Breathing hurt.

There was a grunt and pain shot through his ribs, which suggested the sound came from him. An intake of breath somewhere beneath him snapped his eyes open.

A brown human head popped up at his side.

Threxin snarled as his limiter kicked in, suppressing his initial reaction. Instead of digging his talons into the thing’s throat, he dug them into the fabric at his hands.

“You’re awake.” The female—for that was what it was—appeared as disoriented as he was. Remnants of sleep washed out her brown eyes. Her elbows were propped at the side of the bed on which he lay. The rest of her was on the floor.

Threxin scanned the room. Why was he in a human’s cabin? He reached toward the ache beckoning in his chest and froze when the female bent forward at once, grabbing his forearm to push it back to his side. And he let her.

“No no no,” her words came fast and urgent. “You can’t touch it.”

It?

Itwas the pink blotch center-left on his bare chest.Itspread along his skin in an uneven pattern, puckering at the edges. Threxin looked at the human’s hands, both folded atop his arm. When her eyes followed his, she jerked them away as though burned.

“Crap.” Something clattered, and she reached to scoop up a tablet that had fallen from her lap. There was footage of humans on its screen, laughter peeling at low volume between quiet speech he could not make out.

“I’ll get Renza.” The female moved to stand, and Threxin grabbed her wrist—a mindless reaction. She froze, color draining from her face.

“When is it?” His voice cracked, several octaves too deep from disuse.

“When is… what?” Her brow furrowed. “Oh, the time? It’s midnight.”

“What did you do?” Threxin was in a strange cabin with a human, and he had clearly been unconscious. The flesh of her arm blanched white as his grip tightened.

“Nothing! You were stabbed,” she rushed. “You had a blood transfusion. I… Renza made me watch you.”

Renza.

The tone with which the human said his brother’s name was too familiar.

“Let me get him. He said to?—”

Threxin stiffened his hold, making her squirm in a shimmy she tried and failed to suppress. When he next spoke, his rusty voice was even. “Who stabbed me?”

“A guy named Peter. Junior cargo pilot. You…” Her gaze shifted from his face and to the wall beside him. “You killed him. Your brother looked into it. He acted alone.”

He doubted that. Did Orion Halen put one of his humans up to this?

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