Page 36 of Command

White heat flashed in Threxin’s eye sockets, clattering against his skull and tearing his attention away in a blindingflash. He jerked back once, then again as the movement drew pain from his chest wound.

“Shoq,” he swore, slamming the heel of his hand to his forehead, eyes squeezed shut.

“Shit,” she mirrored as the limiter churned his brain to mush. Threxin collapsed back onto the bed, riding the bolts of pain.

The small alien hands on him were what he felt first. He wished to strike them away, but he couldn’t move. As the agony behind his eyelids subsided into a dull throb, Threxin opened his eyes to find the female gnawing her bottom lip, staring at his chest. She pressed damp fabric to the wound, dabbing away red.

“You’re bleeding,” she muttered the obvious, rummaging in a box at the side of the bed.

“As are you.”

She didn’t meet his eyes as she swiped the back of one hand under her chin before resuming attending to his wound. Humans were stupid.

And he had been stupid too. Threxin found himself prying the wet towel from her stupid hand before he could think to press it under her chin because evidently she was not going to do it for herself.

Something in him stirred only enough for its existence to be recognized, not deciphered, before the limiter kicked in once more—this time not in an incapacitating blaze. Threxin shook his head a little to clear the remaining fog.

He still had not received the answer he needed, and his voice was quiet as he asked again, “Why were you not surprised, female? About my wound not healing as it should.”

“My name is Alina Argoud.” She looked pointedly at his neck, not his face, as she submitted to the pressure of the rag beneath her jaw. Her chin shifted against his hand when she swallowed.

“Ahhlina,” Threxin tried the name. “I will not ask again, Ahlina Argood.”

She fidgeted, shifting from one knee to the other on the floor. “I was doing this last night. Hydrating your apertures. I fell, and you grabbed me in your sleep.”

Threxin cocked his head.

“I couldn’t get out.” The words came fast now. “You dragged me into your wound pretty hard. It got scraped up.”

“I hurt you?”

She took the rag from his hand with clammy little fingers. “A little, but it was whatever. I was fine. I just mean that… that’s what reopened your wound.”

Threxin lifted his chin in acknowledgement. So his subpar healing was his own doing. He said nothing as Alina Argoud finished dressing his stitches and went directly back to the work of dampening his apertures after fetching a clean piece of fabric.

Renza thought Threxin should spend another night in this cabin, but he didn’t know that he could. He had work to do, trajectories to verify. A port to install. The jump was nearing. But as he stared at the ceiling and pressed his fingers to the smooth wall at his side, Threxin found his motivation to move fading. The space was small enough to almost feel safe. Of course, it never would—not with a human in it. But it was a small human who had had opportunities to kill him and had not.

He drifted, mind heavy after the flaying of the limiter. He resigned to tolerate the spindly fingers working at his skin. Relaxing, it felt even better, for his apertures opened to receive and absorb the moisture applied. But soon the female’s movements grew too methodical once more, harsh and impersonal, like she was working a slab of meat.

“Slowly,” he commanded through the fog of exhaustion. He kept his eyes closed as he captured her hand and forced itto slow, guiding it along the aperture which cut a line through his hip. “Like so.”

The pulse in the fleshy part between her thumb and finger jumped beneath his palm, but she did not complain, resigned to his guidance. Fear could be a wonderful thing.

Threxin thought of Silarra and her debacle with the human. Then of Orion Halen’s female, who was so dosed on exorin that she didn’t have the brains to shut up in Threxin’s presence. Then he thought of the female kneeling by his bedside, who was so preoccupied with caring for his injury that she had just ignored her own.

Everyone else seemed content to make stupid decisions on his ship. Perhaps Threxin could permit himself to be a little stupid too. He guided the female’s hand up the sensitive aperture running along the side of his abdomen, letting himself drift.

CHAPTER 16

ALINA

Alina didn’t know why she’d gone over Threxin’s apertures again once she was done. He was fast asleep by that point, and that was the first time she permitted herself to look once more at his face. She had no idea what that thing he did before was, but she knew better than to meet his eyes again. When he’d stared at her like that, she had wanted to look away, but he may as well have grabbed her eyeballs and held them immobilized in his talons. It was as though he were peeling off her skin and exposing the flesh, theeverything, beneath.

Alina swallowed, chin stinging. It wasn’t a bad cut. Alina was ashamed to realize, once his hypnotizing gaze had let her go, that it was her own fault.

What was her plan going to be if he hadn’t broken whatever trance he’d had her in? How far would she fall into the depths of those eyes before she remembered herself? What was she evendoing? And what was his goal with all that anyway? To embarrass her?

Well, it worked. Alina groaned as she took the bowl of lukewarm water to the bathroom, using the rest to brush her teeth.

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