Page 27 of Sheltered in the Storm

CHAPTER 9

CALLA

Vos hadn’t fooledme with his cool and distant façade. He probably knew he hadn’t. We both knew he was trying to fool himself.

The real depth of his feelings showed plainly in the way his body seemed to turn to stone in the wake of my words, and how his tentacles that weren’t holding me swirled around, sending a wave of bathwater over the side of the tub.

“So you can fill in the rest for yourself, probably,” I continued, my voice calm, as if I hadn’t noticed what was a simple statement of fact for me caused Vos to transform from reluctant bathtub lifeguard back to sea monster—as if the villains of the story weren’t light-years away from this place.

As if I couldn’t still smell the bloody dirt of the arena, or feel the cold metal of my child-sized but very deadly weapons in my hands.

A low, dangerous sound rumbled in his chest.

I kept talking because my voice might calm him. I didn’t fear Vos anymore, but I also didn’t want him enraged on my behalf.We were having a relaxing bath—or trying to—and no amount of anger could change the past anyway.

“I’m the one Ganaian child gladiator in fifty who survived to sixteen and earned her freedom,” I said. “I bartered my way off Ganai, put on an Alliance Defense uniform, and busted my ass to earn myself a flight suit.” And a fighter, which now lay scattered in a million pieces across the ocean floor.

Strangely, that mental image didn’t hurt as much as I’d expected. Part of me still wanted to reenlist and get that big bonus that would enable me to chase my dream of traveling the galaxy in relative freedom…but that goal had lost some of its luster. I’d spent the last several days lying in bed thinking about the fact getting that bonus would require me to serve two more years in the Defense, dodging death at every turn, either in battle or the kind of mishap that had caused my crash on Iosa. The odds of surviving long enough to see those credits show up in my savings account were slim.

Meanwhile, Vos’s silence felt heavier and thicker than the steam that filled the bathroom. I lifted my head from where it rested so comfortably on his tentacle and looked up.

His expression had gone so cold, so deadly, and so utterly ferocious that it sent a chill through my entire body from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. But it wasn’t fear that caused it.

It was desire.

His warmth…the hard muscles of his body…his selflessness…the way he held me as if I was the most precious thing in the world, even when he wanted to convince himself that he could crush his need for me under the weight of his will alone. It all made me wonder: was I wrong to have shot him down so quickly?

When we’d first met and he’d said I smelled like his true mate, I hadn’t been remotely clear-headed at the time. I’d barelygiven him a moment’s consideration before telling him thanks but no thanks.

Was I more clear-headed now, or simply grateful for his kindness and flattered that he looked ready to rend anything and anyone to pieces that posed a danger to me, while his tentacle around my ankle remained as gentle as ever? I wasn’t sure.

His eyes turned that silvery-blue that had so terrified me on the raiders’ boat. Now all I could think was how beautifully they glowed.

I couldn’t help it; I reached up and cupped his face with my hand. His bioluminescence pulsed faster, moving along his skin toward my touch.

“It was a long time ago,” I reminded him, stroking his jaw with my thumb. “I’m alive, and most of the people responsible for what happened to us are dead. Ganai is still a shithole, but it’s a shithole without arenas where rich bastards from across the galaxy watch children fight to the death anymore. No need to be angry at a memory.”

Vos held my hand against his face as if my touch comforted him. Maybe it did.

“I am always angry at memories.” His voice was rough. “Mine, and now yours as well.”

“My past isn’t a burden you need to carry,” I said, because I didn’t want to cause him any more anguish than I already had. “That’s not why I told you where I came from. I wanted you to understand why I don’t trust easily—well, why Iusuallydon’t trust easily.”

Vos’s hand closed around mine and lowered it back to my lap. “I am not someone you should trust.” His tone had gone cold again. “I am a monster.”

He’d probably said it to shock and scare me because we’d had a moment of tenderness and that wasn’t part of his plan tokeep me at arm’s length. But it didn’t shockorscare me, for a lot of reasons.

I’d met monsters—real ones. Monsters who looked like monsters, and monsters who didn’t. I had learned very early in my life that nothing about monstrosity was ever simple. In this case, I doubted Vos thought he was a monster because he was genetically engineered or had these beautiful deadly tentacles. His shame seemed to come from somewhere much deeper than that.

He’d asked me about my past. I was curious about him too—most especially why he considered himself a monster.

Vos had always been so candid when we spoke. I actually found that refreshing. I preferred forthrightness myself. Evasiveness and diplomacy, even about difficult or contentious topics, had never suited me. Really, that was a major reason I couldn’t get along with the literally and metaphorically slimy Squad Captain Proos, who talked in circles and whose opinions always mirrored those above him in the chain of command whose favor served him best.

“Why do you call yourself a monster?” I asked.

Rather than appear offended by my bluntness, Vos tilted his head. “It would be difficult to find someone in all the galaxy who would not automatically consider a member of the Silent Guard a monster.”

My heart twinged. The child gladiators of Ganai were certainly pitied, but many called us monsters too. We’d been trained to kill from an early age. Those who survived the arena often became mercenaries or worse in adulthood. Some of usweremonsters, but most of us weren’t. Most of us were just survivors.

---