Page 28 of Dark Space
‘I will rephrase.Wehave no idea what we’re doing.’ Alcide dampened his bandage again. ‘How can three beings be so ill-equipped to care for the one that needs it?’
‘Did you not have an apprentice healer?’ Vesper demanded.
‘I think you underestimate the Roth body,’ Alcide answered. ‘We don’t get sick. And when we do, we die. That’s all there is to it. A ship’s medic is like … a diamond. You only have one if you’re rich enough to afford it, and it’s never entirely necessary.’
‘Of all the ships in all the universe,’ Vesper muttered, ‘I get chained on this one with you fleshbags andno fucking healer.’
Alcide leaned back. ‘This looks all wrong,’ he muttered, frowning at Anna’s shoulder. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have killed Dainn.’
‘Of course you should have,’ Vesper growled.
‘I think it’s clean. Well, cleaner,’ Alcide amended. ‘Cal?’
I took the bandage from him and examined Anna’s shoulder. It looked better than it did before – Alcide had swabbed away some of the weeping blood and pus – but it was still swollen and shiny and angry-looking, and Anna hadn’t stirred. ‘It’s definitely cleaner. I’m not sure it’s better.’
‘Maybe she just needs sleep.’ Alcide turned to Vesper. ‘Will you watch her?’
‘How could I do anything else?’ the starling answered.
‘We’ll leave her in peace,’ Alcide decided. ‘Perhaps she will improve in the morning.’
The Prince went to his bed, though I knew he didn’t sleep. I stood outside the cell all night, watching the female I’d stolen – and the other being who seemed equally entranced by her.
We watched Anna forhours.
I knew the Roth –Cal, Alcide had called him – was outside, standing straight-backed and still, his massive arms folded across his chest. I was troubled by our conversation, and by my reaction to him. It wasn’t as if I was a stranger to males – in my experience, they were an easy gender to manipulate, regardless of species, due to their unfortunate tendency to think with their smaller brain – but I was feelingsomething towards the Roth that I wasn’t sure I had a word for.
I liked that he was so loyal to his Prince, and the way his uniform stretched across his shoulders. I liked the way his chest rumbled when he growled and the way his hair settled around his horns. But it wasthis– the way he stood watching over Anna, even though she’d never know it – that troubled me. Moreaccurately, I was troubled by myreactionto it, by the way it made the body’s chest constrict.
I should have been angry. I should have been jealous. I should have wanted to burn him up with a thought and the smallest twitch of a finger.
But instead, Ilikedknowing he was there, watching over our human.
Our human.
‘You’re losing it,’ I muttered to myself.
You’re already lost.
Anna’s temperature changed over time, though I couldn’t confidently say that the change was a good thing. She seemed to go from sweating to shivering, from being too pink in her cheeks to worryingly pale. Her heartbeat was similarly erratic, speeding up and slowing down as she occasionally tossed her small body around on the cot. She got up twice, stumbling behind the screen to use whatever was behind it, but she seemed barely conscious each time, unresponsive to my questions and falling immediately asleep when she made it back to her bed. The light inside her – the many-layered light that I couldn’t stop staring at – flickered in a way that feltwrong.
‘This isn’t working,’ I observed.
The Roth cleared the glass immediately. ‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘She’s worse.’
‘She needs a proper healer. One who knows how humans work.’
He rubbed his eyes. ‘We’re in the ass-end of the universe.’
‘Then take her back to Earth,’ I snapped.
‘If we take her back,youlose her, too,’ he returned.
Something twisted inside me, like the body housed another being within it.Disgusting. ‘Better to be separated by distance than death,’ I said, irritated. ‘How far from Earth are we now?’
‘Further than is helpful,’ he answered. ‘We need another option.’
‘Then tell me what we have, so I canhelp. What is the closest inhabited planet?’
