Page 18 of Fallen from the Stars

Vasil nodded.

Ahem. Kane?she pulsed through the link.

“I should not have jumped to conclusions before you shared more of your story,” Kane said aloud. “Please accept my apologies. I did not mean to provoke you.”

Yes, you did.

“I amtryingto do the right thing, Theodora. I’m swallowing my pride for you. If I had a throat, I’d be choking right now.”

Theo frowned.

Vasil’s lips fell into a frown to mirror hers.

Theo stood and closed the small space separating her from the kraken. Up close, it was impossible not to notice how large he was. She couldn’t stop her eyes from straying over the muscles of his abdomen and chest before they finally met his gaze.

She swallowed and extended a hand. “It’s late. Maybe we can start over tomorrow?”

He looked at her hand, his expression shifting to something unreadable.

She cleared her throat. “If you’re not accustomed to the gesture, you—”

“I am familiar with it,” he said hurriedly.

“Oh. Okay, then.” Theo began lowering her hand.

Vasil reached forward and took her hand in his — his hand engulfed hers almost entirely, but it was surprisingly warm and gentle. She’d expected cold, slimy skin befitting a sea creature, not smooth velvet over firm muscle.

As she stared at their hands, something spread through her fingers and along her arm. Something…arousing. It heated her from the inside out, soon swirling low in her belly. The sensation was as tantalizing as it was shocking. It didn’t seem to matter that he had claws that could rip her to shreds or teeth made for tearing into meat.

Theo snatched her hand back. She cleared her throat, retreated a couple steps, and offered him a smile. “I suppose this is goodnight.”

For a few moments, he held his hand in the air, turned slightly as he stared at his palm. Then he shook his head as though waking from a trance. He pulled his arm back and nodded. The tube-like growths where his ears should’ve been expanded and contracted. “Yes. Goodnight.”

Before she could say anything else, he was gone, restoring her view of the dark, star-sprinkled sky.

Chapter 5

The sound of waves crashing against the shore was the first thing Theo was aware of when she woke. She shifted her head, and light struck her eyelids, staining the comfortable darkness of sleep bright red. When she slitted her eyes open, she was blinded by the harsh sunlight. Groaning, she covered her face with one hand. She wasn’t sure she could get used to this; on an interstellar ship, there was no true day or night. There was only a tightly-maintained schedule. Lights went off, lights came on, shifts changed.

But even at their worst, the lights on a ship were never this uncomfortably bright.

Turning her face away from the pod’s opening, she lifted her hand to shield her face. Her eyelids fluttered open, and her eyes adjusted slowly to the brightness.

“I’m in hell,” she muttered.

“Now you know how I’ve felt all these years,” Kane said through the neural link.

She dropped her hand to her side and glared at the open hatch. “If you’re that miserable, maybe I should trade you for an AI who actually enjoys my company.”

“You’d be lost without me, Theodora.”

She snorted. “I’m already lostwithyou.”

“That’s beside the point.”

Smirking, she slowly sat up, tugged the blanket off her lap, and draped it over the back of the seat. She stretched her legs, arms, and back as she stood and moved to the open hatch to look outside.

“Vasil?” she called. He made no reply, and she saw no sign of him. “Did he come by while I was sleeping?”

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