Page 49 of The Captain's Bounty
Jaw clenching, he came back far enough to see her through the half open heavy-ass door. “Lissa….”
“I can’t, “ she said.
He tipped his head. “Can’t or won’t?”
Because if it was the latter, he didn’t feel anywhere near badly enough about his comment to see if her obedience wouldn’t be improved by a collar and leash, and making her crawl at his feet all the way to the kitchen. He’d bet her little bare ass would peep out from under the hem of his shirt every step of the way.
She glared as if she could read his thoughts, then looked at her lap and finally huffed a frustrated breath. “I can’t. My legs are shaking. I don’t think they’ll hold me.”
His stomach dropped. That startled him almost as much as her announcement about her legs, and then, just as surprisingly, at how quickly he found himself across the threshold and at her bedside.
“Are you injured?” He was already assessing her. No blood that he could see. Her wrists were raw and discolored from injuries the bactalplast gel hadn’t fully healed, which was why it was always better to soak in the stuff instead of smearing it on.
He didn’t see her burned and blistering fingertips until she tried to wave off his concern.
“I’m fine.” Already the coldness was leeching from her voice, leaving her sounding depressed instead.
He’d think about that later. For now, her burns had his whole attention. He caught her hand, but she immediately made a fist so he couldn’t see.
He glared at her. “Show me.”
“No.” She tugged, but he wasn’t about to relinquish her hand.
“Now, woman.”
Her mouth flattened again, and she glared too, at his hand. As if she wasn’t quite brave enough to cast that look directly into his reddening eyes.
“Now!” he barked.
She huffed. She also unfurled the fingers of her other hand, all but shoving them at his face as she waved in a petulant version of the obedience he required, and which she wasn’t inclined to give. He could see how badly her hand trembled as she did it, too.
“There. Happy?”
Not by a long shot.
She needed discipline, she needed healing, and she needed feeding, but not in that order.
Releasing her wrist, he yanked her onto her feet. Her only protest was the slight catch in her breath as he lifted her off the bed, hupping her more securely into his arms before carrying her from the room.
Demin was on the bridge, possibly even under it as he worked with Kelys to get the electrical systems back online. That was too important to disturb, not even for Lissa’s blistering, swollen fingers.
He’d never had to be anyone’s nursemaid before, but then he hadn’t been a captain before either until the Reformers and his father decided he should be. He took her to Medibay, set her on Demin’s examining table and did exactly what he’d done from the first day he’d set foot on this damn ship: he found the doctor’s manual and looked up how to treat her.
She winced when he put her hands to soak in a small bowl of bactalplast. It had to be a relief, though. The tension fled from her shoulders almost immediately. She even closed her eyes, but only for a moment.
“This happened on the bridge?” he asked, doing his best to keep his displeasure at her behavior to himself. He supposed his own behavior hadn’t been quite so stellar. He wasn’t used to having to modify himself for the approval of others.
She was different though. She wasn’t one of his crew.
She was his bounty.
“When it melted the cuffs links,” she admitted, for the first time without a trace of combativeness in her tone.
That helped him to soften even more.
“It?”
“I don’t know if it’s male or female. Female, I think.” Her mouth flattened again. “ I stand corrected. Their race has long evolved beyond our primitive concepts of gender and to explain their…” She paused, her brow furrowing and head tipping ever so slightly, as if she were indeed listening to someone else. It would have convinced him, if he’d needed convincing. For some reason, he realized he didn’t doubt her unbelievable story for a moment. “Okay, he’s right. That would take too much explanation and probably a flowchart. Point is, if he had a gender as humans understood it, he would be biologically male, but it’s all vestigial and anyway, he’s in—I’m sorry, it’s in astral form, so all titles derived by physicality are no longer applicable.”
