Page 87 of Saved By the Alien Hybrid
A wicked grin split Yelir’s face. He leaned toward her, sending long strands of black hair spilling over his shoulder. “And if I don’t?”
Rentir’s stomach sank. He could not lash out at Yelir as he might at any other; the politics between his lot and the surface workers were too tenuous, too vital. It was nothing if Yelir seized upon the opportunity to take his ire out on him, but it was another thing entirely if he laid a finger upon Cordelia. Alliances be damned; he would be compelled to intervene.
“Cordelia, leave me.” Rentir pleaded. “You can find your way to the kitchen from here. Just go.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
Yelir’s grin widened. “Well, look at that.Loyalty. It’s wasted on him—you do know that, don’t you? Rentir wouldn’t know the first thing about it.”
“Stop,” Rentir said, his voice smaller. Dread was a limbless, wriggling creature thrashing in his gut. “Cordelia, please go.”
“Take your fucking hands off him,” she snapped, ignoring him.
“Why should I?” Yelir reached up with a second hand to fist Rentir’s hair. A third hand produced a rough-hewn stone dagger that he pressed to Rentir’s bared throat. “Rentir deserves far worse. Even he knows that. Seems someone’s kept you out of the loop.”
He glanced back at Rentir as he began to press down with his blade, opening a thread of black blood at his throat. Rentir didn’t fight back; he didn’t even flinch. Resignation fell like a blanket over him. He’d rather die like this than see her disappointment when Yelir inevitably dragged out all their bad blood.
Cordelia stepped forward, her own blade in hand. She dove into the space between them, grabbing hard at the sleeve of Yelir’s blade hand and wrenching it away from Rentir. Her knife dug into the arm that was gripping Rentir’s hair, slicing his wrist open as the blade glanced off the bones of his forearm.
“No!” Rentir barked, finally struggling against Yelir’s grip.
Yelir cursed, jerking away as he inspected the injury. Black blood dripped from Cordelia’s blade, the sound oddly thunderous in the cavernous hall. He seemed to decide the cut wasn’t serious, flicking his gaze back up at her. His huge, thick tail thrashed behind him.
“Yelir,” Ven said in a pleading tone. “Contact with the woman could compromise?—”
“I am well aware,” he snapped without looking away from Cordelia. “I was not sure what to expect when they told me there were alien women on Yulaira. My hopes were not high. You surprise me. To lash out at me, minuscule as you are, you are either very brave or very stupid.”
“Just ignorant of alien anatomy,” she replied, shifting her grip on the blade. When he looked askance at her, she pointedtoward his dripping injury with the knife. “Missed the artery. Pretty sure I can find it if you give me another shot, though.”
Rentir made a strangled sound, snapping out of his momentary shock and hastily tucking her behind him.
Yelir gave them both a considering look. “You’re wasted on him.”
“Fuck you,” Cordelia snapped, stepping sidelong so Rentir wasn’t blocking her. When he held up his arm to shield her, she batted it impatiently out of the way.
Yelir shared a questioning look with Ven, who merely shrugged.
Yelir looked back at her, straight down his nose, like he couldn’t decide if she was amusing or vexing. “You’ve thrown your lot in with a traitor, human. You’d do far better to align yourself with us down in the mines. We know how to appreciate loyalty.”
Rentir’s blood ran cold. All the strength in his limbs suddenly flagged.
Not like this. Please, not like this.
“Where do you get off calling him a traitor?” she asked. “He didn’t have any more choice than you did in where he got assigned. Someone else decides that he’s going to work alongside the overseers, and that’s it? He’s scum, just like that? What was he supposed to do, lie down and die over it? Why didn’t you, when they forced you to risk yourself down in those mines? Why didn’t you”—she pointed at Ven—“when they separated you from your twin? Things aren’t that cut and dry, and you know it. He doesn’t deserve to take shit off you for the rest of his life. When it comes down to it, you hybrids need each other if you’re going to overcome the Aurillon, no matter what role you played before.” She sucked in a breath on the tail end of the rant, completely out of air.
Yelir’s brows had climbed as she spoke, and he folded all four of his arms over his broad chest. “She really doesn’t know?”
Rentir ducked his head, too much of a coward to meet Cordelia’s gaze. His scyra retracted as his tail tucked between his legs. Yelir turned his attention back to Cordelia.
“Haven’t you wondered why these halls are so empty, female? Didn’t you see all those vast rooms? Such a production requires workers, and yet there are less than two dozen males still walking these floors. Why is that, do you think?”
A long and heavy silence fell over them.
“Rentir?” Cordelia murmured.
With the taste of bile blooming at the back of his throat, he forced himself to meet her gaze. Her dark brows were knitted together. There was disbelief on her face, but also confusion, hesitancy.
“I am sorry.” The words were thick and clumsy in his mouth, as though his tongue was poisoned by the admission of guilt beneath them. “I was going to tell you. I just… I…”
