His chuckle came out with a cough.
I remembered Malahki had said to wait for ten minutes. The clock was still by the door, but thanks to its huge dial, I could make out the time even from a distance.
Ten minutes.
I wasn’t sure if I should try to keep Vrateus awake. Would it be better to let him rest for a few minutes while we waited for the results?
I reined in the fear. Holding Vrateus to me with my arm across his chest, I rested my cheek against his head. The many golden hoops in his pointy ear pressed into my skin.
“Please stay with me, Vrateus,” I whispered, not sure if he could hear or comprehend what I was saying. “You said you wanted me to live. Well, I need you to stay alive, too. I’m still not sure if this life is worth living, but it definitely would be so much worse without you.” I patted his chest through the soft material of his shirt, feeling the straps and the sheath of the dagger underneath. “I know things haven’t always been great between us, but I don’t hate you as much as I thought I did.” With a sigh, I nuzzled his high cheekbone. “In fact, there are many things I like and respect about you. I hope we can be friends.”
Maybe even more than friends? I thought back to the kiss we’d shared.
Not that it mattered now. Nothing would matter if he were to die in my arms.
A sudden convulsion ran through his body, sending me to my feet.
“Are you okay?” Fear and worry spiked in me. I tried to focus. “You’ll need to throw up, now.” I attempted to get him up, to lead him back into the bathroom. With no cooperation from him this time though, it proved impossible. He was just too heavy for me to lift on my own.
Bending to the side, he retched on the floor. I stared in horror at the black tar-like contents of his stomach on the glass as the pleasant aroma of the loathed mushrooms rose into the air.
“This is good,” I forced the words out. “At least this shit is out of you, now.”
Fetching some water from the bathroom, I cleaned up after him, forced another cupful of water into him, then cleaned whatever came out again.
When the shudders of dry heaving stopped wracking his body, I brought the pillow and blanket from the bed.
“Rest now.” I tucked the pillow under his head, hoping that everything I had just put him through would be worth it.
I unbuckled the straps around his chest, loosening them to ease his breathing. When I pulled his tall boots off, two knives dropped out of them, clanking to the floor. I also found guns in some elaborate mechanical holders strapped around each of his forearms and concealed by the wide sleeves of his shirt. Those looked too complicated to remove, and I left them, taking off the holsters around his thighs instead.
“You’re just like a walking munitions storage,” I muttered, tucking the blanket around him.
Vrateus had always seemed tense and alert, always ready to pull the trigger. He acted like a cocked gun himself, ready to strike at any minute.
“It couldn’t be easy to go through life while constantly having to look over your shoulder,” I said, sitting on the floor next to him.
He didn’t respond, didn’t even appear to hear me at all. But talking felt so much better than sitting in silence, listening to his labored breathing, and watching the glow of the Anomaly lights reflecting off his white shirt.
“Being alert didn’t help you, Vrateus. They still got you.” Heaving a sigh, I lay on the floor next to him. “I know it’s all my fault. With my escape attempt, I’ve knocked you off balance when nothing else ever did. When you’re better—because you have to get better—I promise I’ll make it up to you. You know I could be useful if you let me. I am a well-educated, highly trained specialist. I scored in the top ten percent of my graduating class. And I could most definitely cook a better meal than Krakhil. You can also trust me to never add these freaking mushrooms to any of your food or drink.”
I didn’t tell him I was feeling scared and insignificant, uncertain if I could prevent his possible death, or what to do about errocks taking over at this very moment. It was just a matter of time before they came for me.
Scooting closer to him, I draped my arm around his middle.
“Just get better, please.” I buried my face in the voluminous fabric of the sleeve over his bicep. “That’s the only thing that matters.”
Chapter 17
VRATEUS
Every part of his body hurt, as if he had been slammed against the hard edge of the Dark Anomaly without the protection of a spaceship around him.
He tried to move, shifting his legs. A groan tore from his sore throat, hurting on its way out.
Something held his arm down. He rolled his head over, finding Svetlana clinging to his side. She was asleep, and he took a minute watching her, momentarily forgetting about the pain.
With her eyes closed, the frown she usually had when she looked at him wasn’t there. She appeared relaxed and peaceful, almost childish in her vulnerability.
A moment later, she stirred, probably sensing that he was awake. Her slim dark eyebrows moved together, the usual worry wrinkle forming between them.
“Vrateus?” Letting go of his arm, she patted his chest while blinking her eyes open. “You’re up? Awake?” Questions rushed out of her mouth as she jerked herself into a sitting position. “How are you?”
“Um...not sure.” He rose on his elbows, and she leaned over him.
“You’re alive,” she breathed out, pushing the curl of fur over his face back and letting her hand linger on the side of his head.
The caress was unexpected, even more so was the warmth in her dark-brown eyes directed at him and the shy smile on her lips.
“Are you really happy about that?” he asked, skeptically.
“Of course I am.” She straightened under his stare, removing her hand from him. He immediately missed the contact. “With you dead, they could’ve made someone with tentacles or pincers, or lobster claws touch me weekly.” Her voices sounded light, cheerful even. “I’d rather it’d be you, with your hands—claws and all.”
“So, you like my hands on you?” A smile tugged up a corner of his mouth.
“That was absolutely not what I just said.” A lovely blush spread on her cheeks in response. He fought the urge to cup her face.
What did she say?
He tried to concentrate, but his thoughts remained cloudy. Pushing off the floor, he hauled himself into a sitting position. His head swam with dizziness, his muscles ached, and his throat hurt with each swallow.
“How are you feeling?” She peered at him intently. “Can I get you anything?”
“Water?”
She jumped to her feet, rushing to the bathroom with a glass, then returned, crouching in front of him.
The cold water soothed his parched throat, settling in his stomach with a fresh cooling sensation.
“What exactly happened?” he asked, wishing he could rinse the fog out of his brain the way he had just gotten rid of the thirst. The only thing that remained clear was Svetlana’s face in front of him.
“You don’t remember?” Her eyes widened with worry.
“I do. Parts. I just need some help organizing them.”
She nodded, drawing in a breath.
“Okay. So. You took a sip of wine, from the canteen of someone who looked like a, um... He is lanky, with six arms and a sectional tail that curves up.” She swung her arm backwards then over her head. “Like this.”
“Tunkrox.” The description jolted his memory.
“Right. The wine had been laced with fuhnid mushroom juice. It made you sick. You also told me there was no antidote and that I should run and hide in the gardens because you were about to die.”
“You didn’t run,” he stated. Some of what she was saying he already knew. The rest was filling in the blanks as his memory cleared.
“No. Well I did, but I came back. I went to the gardens, found Malahki, and convinced it to help me save you.”
“You saved me. How?”<
br />
“Malahki told me to feed you a dehydrated mushroom, to draw the poison out. There was also some drinking of water and puking involved, but that’s a messy part not worth mentioning. That’s pretty much it—about the sick part. Though I do need to talk to you about something else, now.”
“There was also a kiss, wasn’t there?” The memory of it flooded his mind. He’d seen people bringing their mouths together in videos. Some kissing was friendly, some sexual. When Svetlana had kissed him, though, it was more than anything he could have expected. “I couldn’t have dreamed that. I simply wouldn’t be able to conjure that on my own.”
The pink on her cheeks deepened. It went well with the sweet smile that curved her lips.
“It was pretty amazing, wasn’t it?” She dropped her gaze to his chest, then slowly raised it back to his face.
He pondered the best way to tell her how he felt but couldn’t come up with anything smooth or romantic.
“I want to do that again,” he said simply, choosing the most direct route to get his point across. “The kissing. And more. I want to have sex with you, too. Real sex.”
Maybe he should have thought about it longer before blurting it out. Something about his words or his tone must have been wrong because Svetlana’s expression changed from the sweet and unguarded back to her usual frown.
“Hold your horses, Romeo.” She pushed to her feet. “You’ve just come back from the dead. Plus, there are a lot of other issues.”
Not all of what she’d said made sense to him, but the essence was clear. There’d be no sex right now.
“What issues?”
“Crux is taking over your ship as we speak.”
“Crux?”
“Yes. I overheard him speaking with Wyck about it. I have a suspicion he’s behind the wine poisoning, too.”
“Most likely.”
He tried to get up. His head swam violently, sending him down to his knees.
“Careful.” She grabbed his arm, steadying him. “You need some time to recuperate, get better, and come up with a plan while Crux thinks you’re dead and out of the picture.”
She was right. He was still too weak. If Crux thought him dead, it could be used to their advantage.
“One thing I’d love to do as soon as possible is to get out of this room.” Holding on to his arm, she rubbed her forehead with her other hand. “I have a feeling they’ll be coming for me any minute.”
“Right.” Svetlana was the bounty Crux wouldn’t wait long to claim. “We need to leave.”
“Your room might be better,” she suggested. “If they think you’re dead, they may leave you alone for a while. Especially since Crux is not fond of places made entirely of glass and has no interest in taking your room for himself.”
“Not the room, but he’d want to get to my weapon storage, eventually.”
“You store weapons in your bedroom?” she asked, then slid her gaze to his chest. “That shouldn’t surprise me since you store a lot of them on your body, too.”
He patted his chest, remembering giving her the dagger and the gun. “You went out there on your own.”
“Yes. That’s why you’re still alive.” She brought his boots over, placing them in front of him. “Get ready.”
He hadn’t even realized he had his boots off. The blanket he was standing on with his knees had been draped over his legs when he woke up.
“Did you...take my boots off?” He stared at them. The only time he had ever had them off was when he removed them himself. He only ever had a blanket over him when he remembered to cover himself before falling asleep. “No one has ever done things like that for me before...”
“Like what? Looking after you while you’re sick?” She gave him her arm for support as he put his boots back on. “Someone had to. I’m glad I was around.” She picked up the blanket, taking it back to the bed.
Regret suddenly tugged at his heart. He would have liked to be awake and aware when she had been tucking that blanket around him. For the first time, someone had taken care of him, and he was too out of it to even know what it felt like.
“I’m...um, grateful.” He raked his claws through the fur on his nape. “Thank you—”
A screeching noise suddenly came from the door, as if someone scraped it with a metal blade. Or a tool.
Svetlana jerked her head toward the sound, color draining from her face.
“Here they are,” she said.
Chapter 18
A SICKENING FEELING of déjà vu churned in my stomach. The noise of the tool digging into the door, followed by the sparks of fire and the smell of melted metal, made my mind flash back to the day of my crash on the Dark Anomaly. Only now I knew for sure that nothing good waited for me on the other side.
“Stand back.” Vrateus moved to the doors, still unsteady on his feet.
Flicking his wrists, he made both of his guns slide out from his sleeves. I searched around, finding my laser gun on the floor.
Not waiting for those in the corridor to cut through the doors, Vrateus hit the panel, opening the doors himself.
The males, at least a dozen of them, stared at him in astonishment, either surprised at finding him still in my room or shocked at seeing him alive, or both.
They recovered quickly.
“Get him!”
Four of them rushed Vrateus.
Lifting his guns, he fired, immediately killing two. Before they rushed the room, he leaped into the corridor then hit the panel on the other side, closing the door in my face.
He must have done it instinctively. Because if he really thought about it, his going alone against all of them could easily result in him being killed, especially in his condition. And with him dead, it wouldn’t take them long to finish what they’d started and break through the door. Locking me in did not save me, but it deprived me of the possibility of helping him.
I huffed in frustration. His protectiveness would get both of us killed.
Vrateus had been doing everything on his own, all his life. Having someone on his side, ready to help, must be new to him.
Hadn’t I made it clear I was on his side? Or did he still have doubts about trusting me?
Luckily, since I had tampered with the panel before, he could no longer lock the doors from the outside. All I had to do now was to slide them open, which I did.
About half of the aliens lay on the floor, dead. The other half, however, were swarming Vrateus.
Shoved by one, he fell on his back. A burly alien, with a crown of horns growing on his head and a row of them rising from his spine, lifted the tool they had used to cut through the door.
With the rest of them holding Vrateus down, the one with the tool leaned over him, clearly intending to use the device to cut their captain’s throat.
I swallowed a cry of horror, quickly raising my gun.
Aiming at a spot between the horns on the male’s head, I pulled the trigger. With a flash of the laser, the alien staggered back, dropping the tool. Vrateus jerked to the side, letting the blade embed in the floor instead of his flesh.
Steadying my trembling hand, I fired again. This time, I aimed at one of the aliens holding him down. Two of them let go of him to rush me. I promptly retreated into the room, taking cover behind the wall. Peeking out, I shot them one by one while Vrateus made quick work of the others.
The last one glanced at me then at the approaching Vrateus, then took off down the corridor.
“Stop!” Vrateus shouted, shooting at the back of the escaping male. He skidded to a stop before tumbling down to the floor, face first.
“Are you okay?” Vrateus hurried to me. Grabbing my shoulders, he spun me around. Patting down my arms, back, and sides, he inspected me for injuries.
“I’m fine,” I assured him. “Are you okay?”
He nodded.
“No more shutting the doors in my face,” I said, grimly.
“Sorry. That was reflex.” He had the decency to look remorseful.
&
nbsp; “From now on, please, try to treat me as an asset rather than a liability.”
He stared at me for a moment. “That will be an adjustment for me. It’ll take a while getting used to having someone I can fully trust. I’ve never had that.”
At least he realized he could trust me.
“Well, I got your back.” I gazed over the floor littered with dead aliens. “We have to get out of here.”
He grabbed the nearest dead body by the legs. “We need to lock them all in here. Without the bodies, it will take some time for Crux to figure out what happened.”
I shook my head.
“Sorry. I’ve tampered with the panel. You can’t lock the doors from the outside anymore.”
Vrateus dropped the legs of the dead alien down again.
“What else have you done?” He stared at me with a mix of shock and admiration.
“Nothing else. Promise. And, Vrateus,” I added, desperately wishing to keep his newly found trust. “I will not do anything behind your back, anymore. Okay? From now on, you’ll be a part of everything I do.”
He gave me a long look, then a brief nod, before retrieving the cutting tool from the floor.
I slid the doors closed, even if they couldn’t be locked anymore.
“Come.” He took my hand in his, tugging me down the corridor. “We’ll need to get more weapons.”
More weapons?
I’d say we needed to come up with a plan of action. But sure, why not start by arming ourselves to the teeth?
“SO, THIS IS YOUR ROOM?” I took in the capsule's interior, identical to mine in size, but vastly different in décor.
The floor was bare, just like mine, but he’d plastered his walls with maps and charts. Papers, scrolls, and tablet inserts were piled on every piece of furniture, including the narrow metal bed.
“I had no idea you stayed this close to me.” I glanced toward the glass capsule next door. In the lights of the Anomaly, I could clearly see the clothing rack and my bed. “No idea that I was living in a fishbowl all this time, either.” I turned to face him. “Have you been watching me?”
Gravity (Dark Anomaly Book 1) Page 14
