by Lucas, Naomi
Pigeon laughed. “Yeah, an alien. But we both know our captain isn’t that.”
She joined Pigeon in his laughter, almost comforted by the absurdity of her situation. It was funny if she thought about it. The absurdity. She was a half-breed pretending to be a human, working for a Cyborg—a being who would kill her without a thought if he knew what she was—and she wanted him, even though he killed her father.
And he had no idea about any of it.
Alexa laughed a little harder.
“That’a girl,” Pigeon said, patting her back. “Whether you take up with the captain or not is no one’s choice but your own, Dear. No one can take that freedom from you. And if you do take up with him, he’ll be one lucky man. But be careful, whatever your choice ends up being. Our jobs don’t allow us to settle down, or have meaningful relationships. We’re constantly moving, traveling across the universe, visiting dangerous places. Sometimes it’s years before we find ourselves back home, and our families? They may not be waiting around for you when you do.”
Alexa nodded. It wasn’t really the situation she was in. She’d never put any thought into her future. She had no family as it stood anyway. But it was something to consider…if she managed to survive.
“Thank you, Pigeon,” she said. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.”
“Good. There isn’t any harm when it comes to thinking.” His head snapped up. “Where the fuck is Raul? He’s an hour late.”
Alexa straightened and looked around with Pigeon, having forgotten about Raul. She looked at her wristcon, but there were no messages from him. I’ll break things off with him tonight. Before anything else happens… She decided, even if she stayed away from Hysterian, she still needed to break things off with Raul. There just wasn’t a spark for her when it came to him.
“Maybe he forgot?” she said.
Pigeon snorted. “Wouldn’t put it past him. Are you going to order a drink?”
Alexa closed her hand around her bag, catching Pigeon’s gaze. “No. I think I’m going to see if he’s looking for us outside. I’ll be back.”
He seemed to know what she was saying. “Be careful. Let him down gently. I don’t want to have to carry him back to the ship in the morning. He’s a fat fuck.”
Alexa laughed.
“I’ll try,” she said, slipping off the stool with a smile. She left Pigeon with his beer and made her way out. She hadn’t seen Raul inside. If she could catch him alone, it would be easier, and she wanted to do it while they weren’t on the ship.
There wasn’t enough space on the ship for a breakup.
The crowd thinned once she left the bar. Looking down into the port below, she saw that fewer people were gathered, and most of the shops were closed or were in the process of closing. As she glimpsed the lingerie shop, the shopfront lights blinked off.
Damn. She wasn’t getting her money back.
Still, she didn’t see Raul. Maybe he went back to the ship? Alexa sighed, wondering if she should return to Pigeon and wait with him inside. Spying a trash receptacle below, she yanked the lingerie out of her bag, heading for it.
A large wall of chest slid into her path.
“Where the hell have you been? Do you know how fucking late it is?”
Her gaze shot to Hysterian’s face. Her lips parted.
A brief flash of teal sparked within his eyes.
“Captain,” Alexa gasped.
“Where have you been?” He grabbed her arm and turned for the docking bay, dragging her with him. “I’ve been searching everywhere for you.”
Her feet fell over each other as she caught up. He tugged her into his side.
Alexa stilled as cloying heat closed in around her. Hard, heavy, metal heat. The scent of it eclipsed everything, and it was mixed with a spicy, leathery musk.
“I asked you a question,” he snapped.
She jerked out from his side and tugged her arm from his grip. He grabbed it again without missing a step.
She gritted her teeth. “None of your business. Let go of me!”
Hysterian swiveled on her, his eyes fully teal. Alexa stopped, the intensity of the color stunned her.
“I’m your captain. Your business is my business when we’re on the job. I found the gun in the ship’s recycling, Dear. The Questor alerted me of the find. Did you think that was smart? Being given a weapon, by your captain no less, only to toss it out on his own ship? You’re lucky I don’t fucking fire you. Wandering a scummy port like Libra alone, without a weapon? I thought you were smarter than that.” Long fingers threaded through his hair.
Her cheeks burned. “I didn’t want you to track me.”
Hysterian’s eyes flicked over her face, the fury evident. “With the gun? It didn’t have one on it. But it fucking should’ve.” His eyes shot away to look around them before returning to her. “Do you know how easy it is to be hurt in a place like this? Even with security around? One wrong turn, one opportunistic shop clerk, and you’re dead, with a body being broken down for fertilizer in the pits below.”
He ran his hand down his face, briefly dislodging his mask. He tugged it back up but not before she glimpsed his face.
It wasn’t fair. How handsome he was.
“I know all about wrong turns and opportunistic shop clerks. I grew up in the Elyrian slums,” she said tightly. “I don’t need a gun from you to protect myself. I don’t need this either!” She waved between them and his hold on her and the few people hanging around, watching them. “Everyone’s watching us.” In the corner of her eye, Alexa saw the beautiful android shopkeeper.
“Then we’d better get out of sight.” He started dragging her toward his ship again.
“Let me go!”
“No.”
“I’m not some fucking child! I’m your coworker.” They passed through Libra’s security and started down the ramp toward the Questor. “You’re being an asshole!”
She didn’t want to be alone with him. She didn’t want to be on his ship, alone with him. He could lock her inside, and she’d have no way to escape. He could keep everyone else out. She knew what a Cyborg was capable of. How powerful they were. How they could manipulate technology and so much more.
But above all, she didn’t trust herself to be alone with him.
They passed through the Questor’s hatch, and she heard the thud of it shutting behind her, followed by the pressurized blast. She tore out of Hysterian’s grip as he turned to face her.
Alexa held her hand to her chest so he wouldn’t grab it again. “You didn’t have to drag me,” she quipped. “If you weren’t such an asshole, I would have just followed you.”
She hoped it was a lie.
“Right,” he said.
She pursed her lips.
His eyes hardened. “Where have you been?”
“On Libra, shopping, of course.” She held up her bag.
He snatched it from her before she could pull it back. He tugged it open and looked inside.
She grabbed it back and fled with it toward the lab. She heard him follow.
“You have no right,” she hissed, storming to her quarters and tossing the bag in her sleeping bunk. She shut the privacy screen and turned to face him where he stood at the threshold of her quarters. “You’re not my keeper, my husband, or even my friend. What I do with my free time is my choice, same with who I spend it with, and what I do during it.”
“The night shift is half over,” he said, leaning his shoulder on the frame.
“So? I was with Pigeon and Raul at Termite, having a drink. You and I have no plans.”
Hysterian cocked his head. “Raul?”
“I was looking for him when I found you.”
“You mean when I found you. Alone, where you could have easily been abducted, or worse.”
She threw up her hands. “I can take care of myself!” Her face was flushed, and frustration weeded through her. Why did she want this man? This Cyborg? He was insane. “I don’t need you or a gun. I
don’t need you checking up on me or giving me gifts. I need nothing from you!” Alexa exhaled. The sexy things in the bag behind her? She was never going to wear them for Hysterian. “Get out.”
He stepped into her room. “You forget, Dear, you’re on my ship. This is my room I’m letting you stay in. If you want to continue being on this ship, you have to follow the rules.”
She guffawed. “Have I ever stopped following your rules? Tell me. I don’t see you dragging Pigeon or Horace to the ship—and in public!”
He stalked forward, trapping her against the bed screens. “Address me as captain,” he ordered.
Alexa ducked under his arm, but he lowered it, stopping her. “I think we’re past that.”
“Until you hand me your resignation and walk off this ship, I am your captain. I’m in charge of you. As for Pigeon and Horace, they don’t fight me tooth and nail.”
She stopped trying to escape and faced him again. “That’s not how things work.”
He leaned in. Her heart shot into overdrive as his presence closed in on every side.
His hands settled on the screen behind her, and his face slid close to hers.
She licked her lips. If his mouth was free from his suit, only a hairsbreadth of space would be between them. Every fiber of her body paid attention now, waiting for the moment when Hysterian touched her again.
“Get out of my room,” she whispered. Please.
“Not without you,” he whispered right back.
Her lips flattened, and she threw herself against him, pushing him away, hitting him with her fists.
Hysterian straightened as Alexa attacked him with everything she had.
“Why do I want you?” she screamed, beating her fists against him, trying to make him back up. “Why do I want you? You’re a monster. A fucking monster!” Alexa pushed him as hard as she could, shoving her body against him, but he didn’t budge, not an inch. She let out a cry as she pushed and shoved and railed against the wall of his chest, trying her hardest to move him.
She needed to hurt him like he had hurt her.
She needed something.
“I hate you,” she cried. “I hate you!” Everything she’d been feeling exploded out from her, all the thoughts, emotions, the confusion.
She fought until she tired. Still, he didn’t stop her. He just stood there, letting her try and hurt him, letting her use him as a punching bag. Alexa sobbed, shaking, falling into his chest. She was never going to be able to hurt him how she wanted.
Because she loved him.
She fucking loved Hysterian in a twisted, dependent way. She’d been consumed by him her whole life, and at some point, it stopped being all about vengeance. It became an obsession. A dangerous one. One she couldn’t shake, no matter how hard she tried. An obsession she loved.
She wanted to deny it. For years she had.
Alexa coiled her fingers into his suit and cried. “I shouldn’t want a monster like you.”
His arms gently embraced her, holding her like she was some delicate egg, and a torrent of tears burst forth. Why does he have to be gentle? Why had he killed her dad?
She pressed into him, knowing she’d lost the battle. She’d lost long before she stepped aboard the Questor. Long before Hysterian knew she existed. There was never going to be a good ending for her.
He lifted her into his arms and carried her out of her quarters, through his ship, and into his room. She didn’t fight it.
It’s what she had wanted all along.
Sixteen
Hysterian placed Alexa on the edge of his bed. She sat upright to rub the last of her tears from her face. He watched as she composed herself. He kneeled in front of her.
She met his gaze when her courage returned. His eyes hadn’t stopped glowing. She shivered, knowing she was at his mercy now. Whatever happened, there was nowhere she could go where he wouldn’t follow.
The realization made her shiver.
I’m just as much his enemy as he is mine.
Part of her wanted to do to Hysterian what she’d almost done with Pigeon. She wanted to tell him everything. To spill all of her secrets so they wouldn’t be hers alone anymore, so the burden wouldn’t be so heavy… To tell him she was a half-breed—that she had alien blood coursing through her veins. The same aliens Hysterian and his Cyborg brothers had once killed by the thousands. Hundreds of thousands.
Would he kill her right now if he knew? If she told him?
What would he do if she mentioned her father?
Would he remember…?
What if she told him she had spent the last decade stalking him, watching him, studying him and his kind from afar, hoping to one day kill him? Possibly the rest someday too.
Should she pull out the faded picture she had of him from the liner of her duffle bag? A picture she had stared at for years? The one of him staring off at something out of frame? Where he was handsomely decked in his military uniform?
She’d always wondered what it was he had been staring at.
Alexa grabbed hold of the bedding, wrenching it in her hands. His eyes dropped to them before flicking back to her face.
She waited for him to do something, anything, so she wouldn’t sign her death warrant and tell him all her secrets. Let the chips fall where they may…
Because despite all her choices so far, she didn’t want to die.
“Hysterian,” she started when he continued to stare at her, like he was trying to figure her out. “I—”
“Stop talking.”
She shut her mouth and released the bedding bunched up in her hands. He reached out, and she flinched. His eyes exploded with light.
“Why did you flinch?” he demanded.
She shook her head.
“Do you think I’m going to fucking hurt you? I’m not going to hurt you,” he growled.
“I can’t help it...”
Some of the light faded from his eyes. “Whatever shit happened to you, Dear, I’m going to want to know all about it someday, because I’m not going to fucking hurt you—no one is—if I have my way about it. It’s clear there’s something you’re dealing with and I hate secrets. But tonight, we’re not going there, you got it?”
Hysterian kept his hand poised between them, waiting for her to respond. Alexa calmed, knowing he wasn’t going to demand an answer out of her. At least not right now.
She nodded.
“I want to hear you say it.”
“I got it.”
He pulled down his mask, settling the excess material around his neck. “Good.”
Alexa’s breath hitched. He’d removed the mask without her asking.
Perfectly shaped, masculine lips—with the barest hint of deviance—revealed themselves, along with a sharp chin and jawline. Hysterian wasn’t just an angel, she realized, but a fallen one. Because despite the attractive deity kneeling before her, she could still see the marks of a long and traumatic life etched into him.
She didn’t think Cyborgs had the capacity to suffer like humans.
“Give me your feet,” he said.
“What?”
“Your. Feet. Lift them. Now.”
Alexa furrowed her brow when she realized her legs were clamped together between their bodies. Did he want her to lift them—?
“Now, Alexa,” he ordered.
She popped her feet off the ground. Hysterian cupped the back of one of her ankles and tugged off her boot. He did the same for the other. He cupped her sock-covered feet and pressed his thumbs into her arches, kneading them.
She held herself stiffly. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
“Massaging my feet?”
“Proving to you that you have nothing to fear from me.”
“By massaging my feet?”
But his words made her toes curl. Oh, how she wanted to give in. A breath whizzed out from her parted lips. Hysterian pinned her with his dazzling eyes. She wanted to believe him. So much it h
urt.
“Lie back,” he said, lowering his voice.
There was a hint of something else in it, a challenge, like he wanted to see if she would do it. If she was willing to take the risk. She stared at him hard, searching for a hint of evil that would send her running—maybe her sanity—but all she found was him.
Just him.
Alexa slowly leaned back. With one final look at Hysterian, she lay down on his bed. The lights dimmed. His hands closed around her feet and shifted them so she lay straight. He stood, looked down at her, and ran a hand over his mouth.
She remained tense, uncertain of what he was planning.
Gone was the light in his eyes, and the golden hue from the room’s lights. His face was cast in shadows, his body a dark silhouette. Some of her tension melted away. The darkness shielded her, made things easier.
Hysterian unbuttoned his jacket. He shrugged out of it, folded it over his arm, and placed it on the small table next to the bed. Returning, sat on the edge of the bed and removed his boots.
It was such a simple act, done by such a strange man. A Cyborg, no less. Alexa curled onto her side to watch him more comfortably.
Excitement filled her, wondering if Hysterian was going to take off all his clothes, if he was going to be so vulnerable with her. Would he be just as stunning under his uniform?
Would there be scars?
He stopped after his boots.
Alexa rolled her tongue before she offered comfort or encouragement. He needed neither, especially from her. She had scars she didn’t want him to see either.
Hysterian turned toward her, placing his hand on the bed on the other side of her body, leaning above. She rolled onto her back.
“You never need to fear me, Alexa,” he said. “I would have you come to me, not run from me. Whatever happened in your past, whatever’s been done to you, I will fucking fix it.” His words were spoken with conviction and without anger. He was being sincere.
It broke her heart. “You can’t.”
“Let me try?”
She shuddered, unable to tell him what he wanted to hear. He would know it was a lie. She nodded instead.
Some of the strain left him.
