Page 8 of Alien Devil's Prey
TheDriftershuddered as the hyperdrive engaged, space twisting around us in that stomach-churning moment of transition. Then we were elsewhere, stars wheeling past in the familiar blue-white tunnel of hyperspace.
I slumped back in my chair, finally allowing myself to breathe. We'd made it. Against all odds, we were alive and free.
"Six hours to the Hadrian Belt," I said, checking our course projection. "Assuming nothing else breaks."
Talon settled into the co-pilot's seat, and for the first time since he'd cut through my hull, I got a good look at him without immediate crisis demanding my attention. The cobalt traceries along his jaw and neck were dark lines against his gray skin, beautiful in an alien way that made my chest tighten. His red eyes were fixed on the hyperspace display, but I sensed his attention was partly on me.
"You did good work back there," he said quietly.
The unexpected praise caught me off guard. "I nearly got us both killed."
"You saved us. The rest was just... collateral damage." He turned to face me, and I saw something in his expression I hadn't expected. Respect. "Your father was a talented designer. And you understood his work better than he probably ever imagined."
"I've had time to learn." The admission was quiet. "Eighteen years of it. After I escaped The Maw, I never really got free. I was just... re-catalogued. Spent fifteen years of scrubbing decks and hauling cargo before I was finally given a navigator's console. The rage was always there, but the opportunity wasn't. Then, three years ago, they assigned me here."
I looked around the cockpit. "Three years on this ship. The irony wasn't lost on me—of all the ships in the Conclave's fleet, they'd assigned me to one my father had helped design. Maybe it was deliberate cruelty. Maybe they'd just forgotten. But it was the first time I had access to systems, to information. The first time I could actuallydosomething."
"Is that what you did? Made it yours?"
I considered the question seriously. "I made it mine and something else. Something he would have approved of, I think." I touched the console, feeling the familiar responses of systems I'd spent years learning to understand. "A ship that could bite back when cornered."
Something shifted in the air between us—not romantic tension, exactly, but a new kind of understanding. We were no longer captor and captive, no longer strangers forced together by circumstance. We were partners who had worked together, trusted each other with our lives, succeeded against impossible odds.
"What happens now?" I asked.
"Now we disappear for a while. Get proper repairs, regroup, figure out our next move." He paused, studying my face. "That includes you, unless you have somewhere else you'd rather be."
I almost laughed. Somewhere else? I was an indentured navigator with a murdered family and a talent for making powerful enemies. The Conclave would be hunting me now, along with anyone else who might have survived their failed ambush.
But more than that—and this was the realization that surprised me—I didn't want to be anywhere else. Working with Talon, matching my expertise against his, feeling like I was finally doing something important instead of just surviving... it had awakened something in me I thought the Conclave had killed years ago.
"I'm in," I said, and meant it. "Whatever comes next, I'm in."
He smiled then, a real expression that transformed his face from coldly handsome to something warmer. "Good. Because I have a feeling we're going to need each other for what's coming."
TheDrifterhummed around us, carrying us toward an uncertain future. But for the first time in years, uncertainty didn't feel like a threat.
It felt like possibility.
TheDrifterheld togetheron our jury-rigged repairs, systems running on the partnership we'd forged in those desperate hours. Navigation systems hummed their familiar tune, though with an occasional flicker in the console lights that reminded me of the failsafe's violence. Stars wheeled in their predictable patterns beyond the viewscreen. Everything was as it should be.
Except for the way I kept stealing glances at him.
Talon moved through the cockpit with that easy confidence I'd come to recognize during our hours working together. His presence filled the space in ways that had nothing to do with his size. The cobalt traceries along his arms caught the console light when he moved, alien and beautiful in a way that made my chest tighten.
When he'd been just the intruder, the threat, it had been simple. Fear was clean, uncomplicated. But now that I'd seen his competence, felt the careful way he'd guided my hands through unfamiliar repairs, watched his quiet strength when everything was falling apart...
Now it was dangerous.
"What's our status?" he asked, his voice carefully neutral as he settled into the co-pilot's seat.
"All systems stable." I pulled up another display, anything to avoid looking at him directly. "The power coupling is holding better than expected. We should reach the Hadrian Belt without incident."
"Good work." His voice carried a warmth that did things to my pulse I refused to acknowledge. "We made a solid team back there."
That was the problem. We had made a good team. I'd felt safer working beside him than I had in years, and that terrified me more than any weapon he could have pointed at me.
"So now what?" I asked, finally turning to meet his eyes.
