Page 34 of Command

“I didn’t think about it,” Alina said. “By the time I did, I couldn’t.”

Buthehad killed people. He and his brother had both killed people who were defending her ship from him, and Alina had no doubt they’d do it again. Threxin had been ready to vent every person onColossalinto space until Orion Halen tempted him with a deal. And then there were those bodies under that tarp…

“You feared the consequences. Of my brother killing you all,” Threxin pressed the suggestion that should’ve been enough of a reason if Alina had had the guts for it.

She frowned, shaking her head. “No—I mean, yeah, but that’s not why.”

“Then?” he pressed.

Why couldn’t he just say thanks and leave it the fuck alone?

“MaybeI’mnot a murderer, okay?” Alina snapped. That was all she had, and it should damn well be good enough.

Threxin and Renza exchanged looks, and the latter cocked his head to the side in that way they had.

Alina took a steadying breath. “You should drink.”

She offered the glass again, and Threxin’s apertures flicked in a quick gesture she could now interpret as dismissive.

“We do not drink,” Renza explained.

“Not at all?”

Renza sighed, but elaborated, “We absorb humidity through our apertures. He has been drinking. You have been hydrating him.”

A strange expression flashed on Threxin’s face. His chin snapped to his brother with a deadly glare.

“—stupid—reveal—female—” She caught shreds of Threxin’s gurgled Uhyreish.

“She is safe, brother,” Renza replied in Universal.

Renza actually trusted her? Even Kaia hadn’t trusted her with anything real in the years she’d known her. Not a single intimate exchange, no request that might reveal a shred of vulnerability.

For a moment the fact that such faith came from an alien occupying her ship, threatening her and her people if she had failed him, was secondary to the flush rising beneath her ribs.

The spikes atop Threxin’s scalp rose forward with a chilling crack. His apertures snapped wide open, then shut into barely visible slits. That was surprise, Alina decided with some satisfaction. She understood them… sort of.

“You should stay here another day.” Renza rose to his feet. “The female will bring food and hydrate your apertures.”

And just like that, the warm glow inside her shriveled. Alina had been looking forward to getting her cabin to herself again. Sleeping on the floor was doing her back in, and she had been expecting Threxin to leave just as soon as he woke up.

Threxin didn’t look happy with the idea either. How much of the past days did he remember anyway? Alina batted a curtain of bangs from her forehead and downed the water she’d gotten for him just to give herself something to do.

“The jump.” Threxin grunted. “The humans.”

“The ship is fine, and who gives a shoq about the humans? We are five ship days from the jump. I have told everyone you are isolating, reviewing ship data to prepare.”

“The riot from that night?”

Riot?

“Suppressed.” Renza rattled off some elaboration in their own language.

“The sire?” Threxin pressed.

“Still looking.” Renza followed Threxin’s gaze to Alina, then back to his k’riar.

Threxin nodded and then, to her dismay, turned to her.

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