by Presley Hall
Despite my lingering worry, I make myself go straight back to my room when we return, without waiting for him or looking to see if he’s all right. For one thing, I don’t want him to know I’m concerned. And for another, I don’t want anyone else thinking I’m getting attached to him, that I’m softening my stance on how I feel about the Kalixians.
Only a few moments after I slip into my pod and shut the door, trying to put Malav out of my head, I hear a knock.
I freeze, my hands going very still at my side where I’ve begun to untie the knot that holds the wrapped fabric of my blouse together. I quickly retie it and walk to the door, pulling it open a crack and peering out.
To my surprise, Malav is standing in the corridor.
“May I come in?” he asks quietly. “Before anyone else sees.”
I blink at him. “Why?”
His gaze meets mine, and I see a tiny bit of defeat in his eyes, a warrior accepting that he needs help. “You know why.”
I’m hesitant to let him into my room, but I also know that it wouldn’t be good for him to be seen hanging around outside of my door. So quickly, reluctantly, I open the door a little wider and let him slip inside.
I immediately notice the falter in his step, and the syringe in his hand.
“The fights…” He hesitates. “It does no good to receive a dose before them, but I can’t afford to delay long afterward. Or else, like last time…” He holds out the hand that has the syringe, and I can see that it’s shaking. “I know you don’t want to help me. But no one else knows about this. Please?”
He looks up at me, his deep green eyes burning as his gaze meets mine, and I can’t tell him no.
I’ve never had any trouble saying it to him before. But this isn’t Malav, the irritatingly strict, straight-laced co-commander who was on my ass about any slight infraction of rules on the ship. Here, now, he seems like a different person. He’s just a man in need of help, and I’m the only one who can give it to him.
Or at least, the only one he’s willing to ask, for some reason that I don’t fully understand.
“Here, sit.” I usher him forward quickly, pointing toward the chair next to the bed. “Give me that.”
He hands me the syringe without question, sinking heavily into the chair. He presses his lips together, the edges white with pain, and the muscles of his face tighten. I can tell he’s trying not to let me see how much it hurts, how much agony he’s in, but I know from what little experience I have of pain—a broken bone once, a sprained wrist, the odd migraine—that trying to fight it only makes it worse.
“It’s okay,” I say calmly, kneeling down next to him. “You don’t have to be brave. I’m not going to think less of you.”
He glances at me sideways, his green eyes full of some expression I can’t quite read. It might be amusement, if he weren’t in so much pain. “Won’t you?”
“No,” I tell him flatly. “Pain is pain. You’re not stronger for gritting your teeth against it.”
“I’m a warrior of Kalix,” he says, and I see his hand curl into a fist as I uncap the syringe. “We bear our pain in silence.”
“Well, you’re not on Kalix at the moment,” I reply dryly. “So if this hurts, feel free to make some noise.”
His gaze meets mine again, and I feel that heat again, the intensity of his stare as he looks at me strangely.
When I plunge the needle into his muscle and empty the syringe, he doesn’t scream or even cry out, but he makes a deep groaning sound, a grunt of pain that I can feel in my own bones.
If that’s pain, what sort of sound does he make for pleasure?
Oh, for fuck’s sake, Harper!
I shove the thought out of my head as quickly as it comes. Why am I even wondering about something like that?
Of course, he is nearly naked, as these men always are. The bulging muscles of his thigh flex under my hands, slicked with sweat and the sweet oil the Kalixians use on their skin. Only a scrap of leather separates my hands and…
I stop myself before I can finish that thought.
You’re just sex-deprived, that’s all.
It’s been a really long time since I’ve gotten laid. Depressingly long, to be honest. The last time was a coworker who was working late with me on a client’s file, and that was over six months ago, and it wasn’t even that good. He wanted a blowjob, and when I distastefully declined, he fucked me quick and hard over the desk. I didn’t even come.
My vibrator has gotten more action than any real live human in my bed in the last couple of years, at least.
I hear Malav’s breathing grow steadier as the medication takes effect, and when I look up, there’s a grateful expression on his face.
“Thank you,” he breathes softly.
“It’s nothing,” I mumble.
His skin suddenly feels hot under my touch, and I pull my hands away from his thigh as my pulse speeds up in my throat.
I’m uncomfortably aware of how close he is; the scent of male sweat and leather and warm skin invades my senses. We’re in my room, close to my bed, and these things all run through my head one after the other, tumbling over each other as I stand up quickly and back away. “Is there anything else?”
Malav is quiet for a second, then he pushes himself up to his feet. “No,” he says softly. “You were very kind.”
And then, without another word, he’s gone.
The next night, I go to another of the fights. And afterward, he comes to my room again, silently, medicine in hand. The night after is the same, and the night after that.
Before long, I find myself walking into my room, shutting the door, and waiting for the knock, my heartbeat quickening when I hear it. Giving him the injection—something that I’ve never done before in my life and was horrified by that first night—stops seeming so strange. Instead, I simply kneel down next to him and slip it into his thigh, each dose becoming easier and easier.
And though I push the thought away every time it surfaces, I start to look forward to the knock, to the sight of him in my doorway.
The tension between us on the ship and during our first days in Monri has dissipated entirely, replaced by a sort of hesitant… friendship. Or at the very least, the camaraderie between two people who share a secret, even if I don’t fully understand what that secret is. I only know that he’s sick in some way, and that he doesn’t want anyone else to know. And though my curiosity is piqued, I leave it alone.
I have my secrets, and he has a right to his.
Besides that, I can’t lose sight of my own goals. I remind myself of this again when he leaves some two weeks after that first fight, and then again the following night, when I go out to the fighting rings as usual to watch with the other women.
You need to leave, I tell myself as I walk down the now-familiar path.
Monri is becoming too comfortable. I have a preferred market stall for breakfast, another that I like for lunch. There’s one man who sells something very like lemonade that’s better than anything I ever had back home. I even discovered someone who sells a sort of wine; I managed to sneak a flagon of it into my room one night and shared it with a few of the other women. I found a seamstress to fix a rip in one of my pairs of pants. I’m enjoying wearing the flowy desert clothing and sleeping in until I rise of my own accord too much.
I need to go home. I need to get back to my old life before I start to like this new one too much.
I spent ten years of my life clawing my way up to the top. It doesn’t matter if I’ve come to enjoy the dry heat or the scent of the desert breeze at night, if I enjoy the simple pleasures of my toes in cool water or purchasing food from outdoor markets more than I ever enjoyed lavish vacations or five-star restaurants with clients. I devoted my life to becoming who I was back home. If I let myself be happy here, stay here, then all of that was a waste. It was all for nothing.
At this evening’s fight, I force myself to ignore what’s going on down in the ring. Instead, I accept the small lea
ther flask of sweet wine that one of the girls is passing around and take a sip from it. It’s quite good, but I wrinkle my nose anyway.
“I miss wine from back home,” I say wistfully. “And gin and tonics, and takeout for dinner. Don’t you miss those things?” I glance at Lucy.
She shrugs. “I guess. But there’s plenty of things here that I didn’t have then.”
Morgan nods. “I don’t have to deal with old ladies demanding refunds for clothes they’ve already worn, or dates ghosting me, or eating the same boring processed crap because it’s all I can afford. This is practically a vacation compared to my life back home.”
“Besides,” Cora says practically. “How would we even get home? The men are going back to Kalix. And after that who knows? They’re not going to change their plans and take us back to Earth.”
“Maybe they’re not the only way home,” I say, keeping my tone casual. “Surely there’s some sort of passenger travel.”
“How would we pay for it?” Morgan shakes her head. “It’s just not worth it. I know you had a better life back there than most of us did, but for the rest of us…” She shrugs. “This has been good. None of us expected to like it, but the Kalixians are kind. They want to take us back to their planet with them. And I, for one… well, I’m kind of looking forward to it.”
“Maybe there’ll be someone for each us, like Rose with Tordax.” Emma’s eyes shine hopefully as she says it. “At least there, we’ll be welcomed.”
Lucy laughs. “I know for sure no one back home ever seemed to want me around.”
I take another deep gulp of the wine and hand it back, my heart sinking.
All around me, the women are talking about the things they’ve come to like about being away from Earth, the Kalixians, and even the things they love about this dry, dusty planet. Some of what they’re saying is stuff I’ve thought myself, but I tell myself quickly that that doesn’t matter. I still need to go home.
As I listen to the chatter around me however, it’s very clear now that I’m on my own. No one else is itching to get away from our Kalixian guardians, or to return to Earth.
If I want to go home, it’ll be alone.
4
Malav
I miss how green Kalix is, I think as Tordax, Sorsir, Vrexen, M’Xelni and I gather in the courtyard to spar and warm up before the fights tonight. Wauru is by far one of the dustiest, driest planets I’ve ever been on, and the thought of mountains and forests and greenery makes me impossibly homesick.
“How much longer do you think we’ll be here?” Sorsir asks Tordax, casually batting away Tordax’s spear as the two men warm up together, as if he’s read my thoughts.
“As long as it takes to earn enough tokens for a ship,” Tordax says wryly, pivoting sharply and faux-thrusting a long knife toward Sorsir’s side. “We’re doing well, though. By my calculations, we should be nearly a third of the way there.”
“Sooner is better than later,” M’Xelni says as he finishes cleaning his weapon and stands up to join Vrexen, moving through footwork exercises. “This may be a planet where no one takes notice of us, but that doesn’t mean that the Orkun might not come through. They could find us here.”
“They’ll find us eventually if we stay here,” Vrexen agrees. “It’s a trading planet with a black market, and the Orkun trade in illegal goods all the time. I don’t know how long it will be, but the longer we stay, the higher the odds.”
“We’ll get out of here soon,” Sorsir says confidently, parrying Tordax’s next thrust. “We’ll earn the tokens we need in no time.”
Sorsir is the youngest of us, besides Vrexen, and his confidence is not reflected in the faces of the other men. He doesn’t seem to notice, however, as he moves quickly around our commander. “If it wasn’t for the threat of the Orkun, though, I wouldn’t be in any hurry to leave. The fighting here is better than anywhere else we’ve been. And the women you find in the cantinas…” His eyes gleam mischievously, and I hear M’Xelni snort.
“Be careful,” M’Xelni says dryly. “Or you might take something away from Monri that you can’t get rid of.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not looking for a mate.” Sorsir laughs.
“I was talking about a disease,” M’Xelni grouses, turning back to Vrexen.
“We’ll be out of here soon.” Tordax’s voice is calm and determined as he changes the subject. “I wouldn’t worry. Sorsir is right about one thing. We’ve all been doing well in the fights. I anticipate no more than a few more months. And then we’ll be back in flight to Kalix.”
He glances my way as he speaks, and I give him a confident smile from the bench where I’m sitting, checking over my weapons. But inwardly, I can feel my heart sink, and my stomach twists with anxiety.
When we escaped the Orkun, I believed I’d see our men back home to Kalix. But with the delays and problems that we’ve encountered on the way…
I feel a phantom twinge of the pain, a reminder of what’s coming later tonight when the fights are done, and I wince. It’s been three years since a Gronak’s poisoned claw cut me in the heat of battle, the same green alien species that Vrexen fought weeks ago in the arena. Just seeing it sent shudders down my spine, and I had to look away. Me, the brave and mighty warrior.
But ever since that battle three years ago, my body has been in a misery of pain. It was manageable, at first. I managed to sneak the doses of antidote from the med-lab without anyone noticing, and it was only worst during and after battle, when adrenaline would mix with the poison in my body and send it rushing through my blood, sending me into spasms of pain that only a heavier dose of the antidote could fix. The more often I fight, the less effective the antidote is. Not only that, but each flare of the poison weakens me, making it more and more likely that I might receive a mortal injury in battle before the Gronak’s poison has a chance to kill me.
Every fight is a risk—a risk of the poison flaring up and killing me, or of me succumbing to my body’s increasing weakness and falling in the ring. And in the future…
I’m not even sure now that I’ll make it back to Kalix with the others, much less fight with my men again on the field of battle, against the Orkun or anyone else. But I plan to die fighting for my people, whether it’s in the arena to get them home, or on the battlefield against our enemies.
Which is exactly why I’ve told no one about my ailment other than Harper.
Since the day I was poisoned, I’ve had a choice. Because there is a cure. Kalixian medicine is among the most advanced in any galaxy, and there is a treatment that would stop the spread of the poison and keep it from eventually killing me.
But to admit to a condition of this kind, one that is chronic and could become terminal, one with effects that will last even beyond the curing of it—that would be a death sentence for my place with the Alpha Force.
Without the treatment, I will die. But with it, I could no longer be a warrior. I could no longer go into battle. And that seems like a death sentence in and of itself.
Tordax is my best friend, my companion since I was twelve, the closest thing I’ve ever had to a brother. But neither he nor anyone else can know.
I want to see Kalix again. I close my eyes briefly as the banter of the other men fades out and I try to picture it in my head.
Anguish at the thought of never going home twists my stomach into knots. It rivals the physical pain of the poison. I want to see my home once more before I die. That alone would be enough to drive me into the arena night after night, to get us back there sooner rather than later.
“Malav? Are you all right?”
I open my eyes to see Tordax standing next to me, looking down at me with furrowed brows.
“Yes,” I say quickly, pushing myself to my feet as I gather my weapons. “The heat here is a little much, that’s all.”
“It’ll be good to get back home.” My friend smiles, clapping one hand on my shoulder. “Soon, brother.”
“Soon,” I echo.
> The men joke and banter as we head out to the fighting rings, the twilight gathering around us. I can see the torchlight in the distance, the crowds starting to gather. The women will be leaving the lodging soon with the warriors not fighting tonight, to watch us.
I wonder if Harper will be there.
The thought surprises me. She’s been kind to me—kinder than I expected—helping me with my injections after the fights and keeping my secret. And she’s come to every fight I’ve competed in since that first night, standing in the crowd with the other women.
As I take my place in the ring, I can’t help but search the crowd for her. She’s there, as she always is, pushing her long dark hair out of her face as she gazes out at the fighters with her bright, keen eyes. I’ve come to enjoy seeing those eyes look up at me as she helps me each night, that odd mix of green and brown flecked with gold. “Hazel,” she said they were called, when I asked.
I can’t help but wonder as I see her lean against the railing that surrounds the arena if she’s here to watch me. And more than that, as the thought crosses my mind, I realize that I hope she is. That it’s not just the fights that draw her, but me in particular.
It doesn’t make any sense. I’ve never had any attraction to her before. She’s been a pain in my ass since the first day. But I can feel her eyes on me as I move into a fighting stance, and as I square my shoulders and prepare to face my opponent, I feel a renewed sense of strength—a need to fight well, not only for my men, but because she’s watching me.
I’ve never fought for a woman. I’ve never had anything but the briefest, most casual of encounters, usually in some spaceport along the way. I’ve never felt someone’s gaze on me the way I feel Harper’s now, and been intensely aware of it. I’ve never known what it was to want to see a woman’s eyes shine with pride because of me.
But I want to see that in hers, if I were to turn and look at her now. I want to see it when the fight is finished.
