by Presley Hall
I fill the syringe as quickly as I can in the dim light, bending close to his thigh as I gently slide the needle into his muscle. I feel him tense, but in the moments that pass afterward, his body begins to relax against mine as the medicine takes effect and the pain ebbs.
“How long will that last for?” I ask quietly.
“I don’t know,” he admits. “It’s a temporary solution at best. But if we can avoid another fight…”
I can hear in his voice how likely he thinks that is. Anything could happen now. We have no idea if we’re still headed for Damia, or if we’ve redirected somewhere else. And if the ship has changed course, we don’t know if that new direction is better or worse for us. We also have no way to find out unless we can get out of here—which seems difficult, since we also have no way of knowing how much weaponry or how many more killer robots the ship has in reserve.
“What is it?” I ask finally. “This thing that’s hurting you.”
I’ve never pried before. It wasn’t my concern, I figured. I just helped him because he needed it, and no one else could. Or would. Or… I don’t know. I just accepted that he had his secrets, and I had mine. But now, trapped against him with death waiting for us just outside the door, I want to know the answer. I want to know what his secret is.
He hesitates for a moment. His gaze falls out of focus a little, as if he’s looking into the past, seeing something from another time and place.
“I was pierced by the claw of a Gronak years ago, in battle,” he says at last, not looking at me. “Their claws secrete a deadly venom that enters the blood and kills slowly, over a long period of time, causing excruciating pain as it does so. Adrenaline fuels it, makes it work faster, eating away at muscle and tissue bit by bit.”
I stare at him. “That sounds horrifying. Isn’t there a cure?”
He tenses, and I see his jaw harden, the muscles working as he turns away from me as best he can. “There is,” he says finally, his voice emotionless. “Back on Kalix.”
“So we go back there!” For a moment I forget about my need to return to Earth, about my own plan to get back home, my quest for justice. I forget about everything but taking care of Malav. Keeping him alive. “We go to Kalix, and you get the treatment you need.”
“If I request the treatment, I would be removed from Alpha Force. An injury this grievous is grounds for immediate medical discharge. It would be an honorable discharge, but even so, I would no longer be a warrior. I could no longer fight for Kalix, or my people.”
I can hear the pain seeping into his voice as he speaks, and I know it isn’t physical pain. I can feel it, the deep ache that passes through him at the thought of leaving his men.
“My whole life, I’ve fought for one thing,” he continues, his voice low and dark. “Without that, I would not know who I am. If I am not a Kalixian warrior, I don’t know what my purpose is.”
“And what happens if you don’t get the treatment?” I ask quietly. I’m terrified of the answer, but I need to hear him say it aloud.
He looks away from me again, and the silence stretches out between us. I wonder for a moment if he isn’t going to tell me, if this is the end of the conversation. But then he speaks, with a terrible finality that sends a shiver down to my bones.
“The poison will progress, and eventually, I will die.”
I stare at him in horror.
He curses aloud, turning away and slamming his fist against the wall.
“It’s my fault,” he grinds out, his back rigid and shoulders tense. “I’m too weak. I don’t deserve you, or the title of warrior. But I keep fighting anyway. If only…” He slams his fist against the wall again, pressing his forehead against it. “If only I weren’t so deshing weak.”
15
Harper
The impact of his words hits me, and I look at him in astonishment.
“What?” I stammer, when I can find my voice again. “You, weak?” I reach for his arm and turn him toward me, not a difficult feat in the tiny space. “You’re the bravest, strongest man I’ve ever met, Malav,” I tell him, looking up into his eyes as I lay my hand against his cheek. “There’s no reason in this world for you to ever believe that you’re weak.”
And then, rising up on my toes and taking his face in both of my hands, I kiss him.
It’s the first time, I realize, that I’ve kissed him first. And what’s more, the first time I’ve kissed him not out of lust, but out of caring, affection, the need to comfort him with my touch. It’s something deeper than what we’ve shared before, and it sends a dart of fear through me, but I ignore it.
Because this moment is more important than my fears, more important than my need to be independent. Whatever comes after this, in this moment, I’m Malav’s mate. And he needs me more than he ever has before.
His arms wrap around me as he returns the kiss, his lips soft and full against mine. He doesn’t press it further, only kisses me softly until I at last pull back to catch my breath, and then I lean against the crates behind me, my heart thudding in my chest.
“I have a secret, too,” I tell him, my gaze flicking up to meet his. “Back on Earth, before the Orkun took me, I was the CEO of a company.” I see the confusion on his face, and I laugh. “It’s the most important position in a business. A big business can make millions of dollars or more, and the CEO—chief executive officer—is the one in charge of all of it.”
“You were an officer?” His eyes skim over me, and I laugh again.
“It’s not like the military,” I tell him. “It’s a business position. Sitting behind a desk, lots of paperwork.”
“That sounds terrible.” His voice is utterly serious.
“It wasn’t always fun.” I grin at him. “But it satisfied my need to compete, to win, to be the best. I was the best. Until I found out that my partner was defrauding investors—people who gave money to the business,” I explain. “They trusted us with their money, assuming we would use it to make them a profit as well as ourselves. And he lied to them.”
“And you didn’t agree with that.” Malav looks down at me, and I can see that he’s remembering what he shouted at me on the bridge about my lack of honor. I can see in his face that he regrets it. What’s more, I can feel it.
“I had honor,” I say softly. “I did what was right. I reported him, but he managed to turn it all around on me, make me look like the liar and the fraud. He got the board—the people who help manage the company—to fire me. I barely avoided criminal charges for the things that he did.”
I can see Malav’s eyes burning with fury. “I should never have said that about you,” he says, his voice low and angry. “That man—he is the one without honor. He is the one who should have been punished.”
I shrug regretfully. “That’s not always the way things work on my world.”
“Then it’s not a place you should wish to return to. It’s not a place where any decent person should wish to live.”
“Well, there are good things there too.” I smile wistfully. “I’ll tell you about all of it sometime.”
“So what happened?” Malav folds his arms across his chest, frowning. “After that man’s betrayal?”
“It was the lowest point of my life,” I murmur, feeling the old tightness in my chest at the memory. “I’d lost everything. But I was determined to get back on my feet and take him down, make the right person pay for what he did. But then…” I bite my lip. “He saw me coming, I guess. And then I was abducted. He’s responsible for it, I’m sure of it.”
I can see the understanding fill Malav’s eyes. “So that’s why you want so badly to go back. To see justice done for what others have done to you.”
I nod, biting my lip. “We’re not so unlike, you and I,” I say softly. “I’m stubborn, but so are you. You live with one purpose, and so have I. But… sometimes that purpose might have blinded me to other possibilities. Other options besides the ones that I could clearly see.”
I look up at him,
meeting his eyes. “I wanted to go back to Earth so badly,” I echo. “But… maybe that’s not what I really needed.”
Malav moves closer to me in the small space, and his arms slide around me as he pulls me against him. He doesn’t move to kiss me, only looks down at me with those deep, dark green eyes.
“I’m sorry for stealing the ship,” I whisper.
And then he kisses me. I don’t know if all is forgiven, but it feels as if it is, here in this tiny storage closet in the corner of a spaceship, hurtling out into the unknown. I forget all of my fears for a moment, all of my hesitance about this bond between us, and let myself melt into him, into the strength of his arms and the solidity of his body.
The need for him wells up inside of me, fierce and demanding, and I know it’s dangerous to do more here. We could make noise, we could alert some scanner, we could give ourselves away.
But I don’t care.
I want him desperately, and I don’t know how much time we have left. In this moment it’s clear to me—I want to take advantage of every second we still have.
Malav’s body is pressed against mine, and I can feel his arousal as he kisses my jaw, his mouth moving back to my lips with a small, muffled groan as he crushes me tighter against him.
He feels the same things I do, and it’s intoxicating, the knowledge that this man, this warrior, wants me just as desperately as I do him. He could have anyone he wanted, and yet I’m the one who brings him to the very edge of control.
I reach down boldly and push his loincloth aside, my hand brushing against the rigid length of his cock as it pushes against my thigh. I can feel the lust in him, the desire throbbing through him as I wrap my hand around his shaft and slide it along him once. The stifled groan that spills from his lips sends a shiver of electricity through me.
That’s all it takes for me—the press of his body, his kiss, and I want him more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. It’s like wanting to breathe, a desperate ache for relief.
As I grip him tighter, he pulls back from the kiss a fraction, looking at me questioningly.
“Please,” I whisper, and that’s all the encouragement he needs.
There’s no time to get undressed, no time for buildup, but that doesn’t matter. I’m drenched with arousal, and he shoves my pants down over my hips with a sharp motion of his hand. I kick them off a second before he picks me up by the waist and leans me back against the crates. My legs wind around him, urging him on.
He’s inside of me in a second. This is no teasing slide, no careful push of his body into mine. His cock is sheathed inside of me in one hard thrust, made easy by my own desire. He groans, one hand knotting in my hair as he pulls my mouth to his, his tongue tangling with mine.
I can feel the urgency of his need, matching my own, and I cling to him with my arms around his neck, moving my hips with his in time to every thrust. I’m sure I’ll have bruises on my lower back later from the hard material of the crates, but I don’t even care. Each movement of his body inside of mine, each powerful thrust, sends waves of pleasure over me.
I moan against his lips, trying not to make too much noise, and I can feel that same effort in him as well. It’s almost impossible, because nothing has ever felt as good as him inside of me.
Far from slaking my need for him, every time we touch each other only seems to intensify it. I want him more than I ever have, and I don’t know how that’s possible. I only know that every kiss, every stroke of his cock inside my body, every shudder that ripples through him as he thrusts into me, makes me feel more connected to him than ever.
He whispers my name against my ear, his hand still knotted in my hair as he presses his forehead to mine. His hips move erratically as he suddenly pushes me back hard against the crates. For a terrifying second, I think they’ll topple over and give us away—and then I forget all about it, because his hand is between my legs, his thumb rolling over my clit as he grunts.
“Come with me, Harper.”
I can’t deny him. I don’t want to.
The orgasm breaks over me in a stunning wave as I feel him harden and throb inside of me. I cling to him as ecstasy burns through me, kissing him hard in an effort to stifle both of our moans.
When the last shivers of pleasure pass over us both, he pulls out and gently sets me down, pressing one more kiss on my lips.
I clean up as best I can and tug my pants back on. As I rearrange my clothing, a soft whirr and click comes from outside, and Malav tenses.
“What’s that?” I whisper, and he holds a finger to his lips.
I freeze, keeping absolutely quiet until the sounds have passed. When the whirrs have faded to a faint hum, I glance up at Malav.
“Scanners,” he whispers. “The AI is trying to find us. We need to stay very quiet.”
It goes on that way for another day—or that’s what I guess, anyway. There’s really no way to know how much time has passed. We sleep a bit, but it’s not easy since there’s no room for either of us to comfortably lie down.
And we wait.
Malav and I talk a little, but exhaustion soon makes it almost impossible to hold a conversation. I’m to the point of almost wanting the ship to go ahead and land on whatever planet the AI has picked. Surely that would be better than this interminable waiting. And here, in the closet, there’s no food or water either.
I’ve never known what it’s like to be truly hungry or thirsty in my life.
The hunger is still manageable, more like a long day at work where I haven’t had a chance to stop and eat, but the thirst is already almost unbearable. My earlier… exertion with Malav didn’t help matters either. My mouth feels parched and dry, and I want desperately to get out of this small space.
The relief I feel is palpable when the gravity goes out again, and Malav and I once more find ourselves lifting off of the floor, although this time there’s much less space to float in.
When the lights and artificial gravity come back on again, we both tense, waiting to hear the voice of the AI.
“Good afternoon, travelers,” the voice says, pleasant and neutral. “I hope that your experience so far has been a good one. Please let me know if I may assist you further in any way.”
Malav mutters something under his breath and looks at me.
The same thought passes between us both. Unlike the last one, this version of the AI doesn’t see us as a threat.
We have to get out of here before it changes again.
16
Malav
I help Harper up and back through the ducts as quickly as possible, my muscles tense with anxiety. We need to find some way to shut off the AI before it changes again, and we don’t have long to do that. The times between glitches seem to be shortening.
By my estimation, we should have at least a day before it glitches—but there’s no way to know for sure.
And no way to know that the next version of the artificial intelligence won’t once again be one that wants to kill us.
“Let’s go deeper into the ship,” I suggest. “There may be a manual override down there that we didn’t find before, when the AI sent the ship into quarantine.”
I keep my voice low, hoping not to alert the AI into thinking we need help. It’s probably best if we don’t let it overhear what we’re saying. I have no idea how much capacity it has to understand us, but it’s seemed fairly lifelike up to this point.
Harper nods her agreement, and we make our way down to the lower level of the ship. It’s darker down here, full of machinery and wires, with long metal catwalks leading from one section to another. This sort of thing is familiar to me, but not at all to Harper, who gazes around with an almost childlike wonder.
“It really doesn’t look anything like it does in movies,” she says, her voice awed, and I furrow my brow at her.
She looks at me. “You have computers and all this technology, but no movies? No television?”
I frown.
“Stories made with peop
le acting like characters, in a machine that lets you view them,” she explains, sounding a little exasperated. “It’s entertainment.”
“I have never had much time for entertainment,” I tell her truthfully. “But no, this is not a thing that we have on Kalix. However, I believe I’ve encountered something like this on other planets.” I look at her with some amusement. “You make these ‘movies’ about spaceships?”
She flushes a little. “About space, yeah. And… um…”
“Aliens?” I suggest, enjoying her discomfort a little. It’s amusing to watch Harper, as proud and stubborn as she can be, squirm a bit.
“I mean… maybe.” She glances away. “So what about this box over there?” She points toward a console. “Maybe that’s the AI tech.”
I laugh as I follow her. “So tell me about these movie aliens. Are they very handsome?” I come up behind her as she pokes at the console, trying to get it open. “Do they charm Terran women into bed and make them scream with pleasure?”
She glances over her shoulder and glares at me. “You didn’t charm me into bed.”
“Oh?” I cock my head. “But I think I did make you scream.”
A slight shudder goes through her at my words. “Keep teasing me and you’ll never make me scream again,” she mutters, and I put my hands gently on her waist.
“I happen to like teasing you.”
She laughs, and the sounds goes straight to my heart, filling it with the sweetest ache.
“I mean… oh, damnit.” She lets go of the latch, moving away. “I can’t get it open.”
“Let me try.”
I watch her out of the corner of my eye as I fiddle with the catch. It’s incredible to me that this woman, who clashed with me and drove me insane for so long, has somehow turned out to be the perfect match for me.
What I once thought was insufferable stubbornness and disregard turned out to be spirit and bravery, and the fact that she will stand up to me is something I now find attractive instead of irritating. She might not be a warrior like me physically—although she certainly held her own in the fight against the ship’s robots—but she has the spirit of one.
