Page 25 of Venomous Lust
Hazel
Her head hurt and her eyelids were heavy, but Hazel forced them open anyway. She stared at the white ceiling, blinking until her mind cleared and she could think straight.
Or just about straight enough.
She sat up in the bed, wincing as the pounding of her headache made her feel like her brains wanted to jump out of her skull and crawl away. Her mouth felt like she’d swallowed a bucket of sand, and her eyes were itchy and dry.
She must have slept longer than she’d thought. She was dehydrated and weak.
I can’t hide in this room forever.
She groaned as her entire body screamed in protest when she got to her feet. It took a moment before she could move and then, she was walking. And she didn’t stop.
The interior of the Myrador was familiar now and soon, Hazel’s feet took her to the kitchen. It didn’t take long for her to find a pouch of water and to drink it greedily.
“Space travel takes a lot out of anyone, but I’ve heard humans are especially vulnerable.”
Hazel turned to see the towering figure of Khal walking in. The Eok was as imposing as always, but there was a weariness to his face that hadn’t been there before, his eyes sunken just a little, fine lines around his mouth.
“You look like the rear-end of a Mantrilla.”
Khal lifted surprised brows and a quick, easy chuckle escaped his lips. He shook his head and gave her a wry grin. His deep blue eyes gleamed with a sad kind of humor.
“You really are an insolent little thing!”
Hazel stared, wordless as the smile transformed Khal’s face. It lifted some of the weariness from his eyes and softened the hard angles of his face, making him appear almost vulnerable and, at the same time, a thousand times stronger. Once more she saw the ghost of another Eok—a younger, carefree Eok. One who laughed easily and enjoyed the sweet things in life.
What made him this way, turned his heart to stone and stole his smile?
Something churned deep in Hazel’s belly. A need roared to life inside her body; feminine and imperious. Hazel locked gazes with Khal as his smile faded and the same raw, primal attraction glittered in his alien eyes.
This is wrong. This is the worst kind of wrong.
“How long was I asleep for?” She cleared her throat and tried to look away, but she couldn’t peel her eyes away from Khal.
“Fourteen hours, give or take.”
She gasped, then frowned. “Why did you let me sleep that long?” Shock gave Hazel the ability to look away from Khal and she sat down heavily on a kitchen chair. “Did you and Zaxis manage to repair the hyper-propulsion?”
She watched as Khal came to stand beside her, drinking an entire water packet within a single long stride.
“The Myrador has resumed its course to Garana, but Zaxis still hasn’t fixed our communication.” Khal looked at her with a strange, almost reluctant expression. As he stood so close, Hazel could smell him in the nearly aseptic air of the kitchen. That good male scent, woodsy and musky, made her fingers twitch with the desire to reach up and trace those tiny scars along his muscular, powerful arm.
Focus.
Hazel mentally shook the attraction away. Losing herself in that direction wasn’t only a surefire way to get hurt, it was a dangerous way to get hurt.
“Then you’re going to send me away.” She shouldn’t feel pain at the idea of Khal leaving her on Garana. She should be glad for it, but she wasn’t. All it made her feel was a hollow kind of pain, nagging and aching somewhere between her ribs.
“I have already notified Commander Gerkin.” Khal nodded soberly, his face unreadable. “He will send you an escort back to Aveyn as soon as possible. From there, you will be granted passage to Earth within a week.”
This was it. Everything she wanted on a silver platter.
Then why do I feel like screaming?
“But I will never see you again.”
His face remained unreadable as he took a step closer, his broad chest almost touching her. Without meaning to, she found herself on her feet, standing just in front of the Eok’s towering form. She had to tilt her head all the way back to keep looking into his eyes. Her chest heaved deep and fast, her breasts straining against the confines of her tank top.
