“You haven’t been sitting around on your ass,” he throws back, his dark eyes glinting. “You’ve been healing. You’re not ready to embark on a mission. Too many things could go wrong.”
He’s making sense, but I’m not ready to hear this message. Especially not from Danek, who has always made me feel capable. When everyone else insisted on treating me as if I were wrapped in cotton wool, Danek was bracingly kind and never patronizing. “You’re infuriating, you know that? Who made you the expert on all things Naomi?”
“I might not be able to protect you.”
“I wasn’t asking you to. This isn’t ancient China. You saved my life once, but that doesn’t make you responsible for me.”
He gives me a blank look. “What are you talking about?”
“Never mind.” It’s not like I know enough about ancient China to explain it to an alien. “It’s not important.” I lift my chin. “I can take care of myself. I survived the scientists’ torture, didn’t I?”
“I’m the infuriating one?” He exhales in frustration. “Naomi, you are incredibly strong. You don’t have anything to prove to anyone. What the scientists did, it has left you with deep wounds. It is not a weakness to take time to recover.”
You don’t have anything to prove to anyone. More than anything, I wish Danek was right. But he’s not. I have a burning desire to prove to myself that I am still me. That even though I am afraid to leave my apartment, even though I flinch whenever I see someone wearing the deep blue robes most scientists wear, even though I freaked out when I inserted the translator in my ear, I haven’t been irrevocably altered. I need to know that this terrified version of me isn’t permanent.
“I’m recovered. I’m ready. I left Earth for a space adventure, and I’m going to have one.” I turn back to the others. “Count me in.”
That’s when I realize they’re gone. I’ve been so busy squabbling with Danek that I didn’t notice Raiht’vi, Tarish, and Dariux leave the room.
Huh.
Danek looks around. He appears surprised by the empty room. “Did you see them go?”
“No.”
He shakes his head in bemusement before returning to the argument. “You can’t pronounce yourself better. It doesn’t work that way.”
“I’ll see you in a week.”
He regards me for a long instant, and then his expression changes. His eyes turn inviting. Warm. Sexy as all hell. “You’ll need to pretend to be my bondmate, Naomi.” His voice lowers suggestively. He takes a step closer, and his breath caresses me. “Do you think you can handle it?”
For a second, all thought flees my brain. Can you blame me? Up close, Danek is big and broad and one-hundred-percent sex appeal. Then his words sink in.
Asshole. He’s tried forbidding me from coming along; it hasn’t worked. And so, he’s decided to switch strategies.
He’s watching me now, a trace of smugness in his expression.
Am I supposed to be intimidated by his nearness? Come on, Danek. You’ll have to try a little harder.
“I don’t know,” I murmur. I close the gap between us and stand up on tiptoe. “Can you?”
Then I kiss him.
Danek is hard muscle from head to toe. But unlike the rest of him, his lips are soft. Warm. He smells of pepper and vetiver and smoke, earthy and all male. I inhale deeply as our lips meet.
For an instant—a long instant—he’s stiff with shock. My move has taken him entirely by surprise. I’m starting to wonder if I should pull away when he relaxes. His arm winds around my waist and he tugs me closer, and that’s my signal to keep going.
My tongue darts out, an almost involuntary reaction. I trace the outline of his mouth, and I suck his lower lip between my teeth, greedy for him, greedy for more. I press against him, my breasts mashing against his hard chest—
This is an object lesson, you idiot. You’re showing him he can’t push you around, remember?
I pull my lips off his with difficulty. My pulse is racing. My breath comes out in little gasps. I need more than a moment to collect myself.
Then I give him a sweet smile. “I’ll see you in a week.”
And, before I change my mind and do something stupid, like throw myself at him once again, I run away.
The door shuts behind me. When I’m alone in the corridor, I touch my lips. I can still feel Danek. Feel his touch. I inhale, and I smell him in my nostrils. The pepper and the smoke and the sheer maleness of him.
The next three months are going to be very interesting.
4
Danek
“So.” Ruhan waves me into his workshop with a grin that bodes trouble. “I hear congratulations are in order. A bondmate, and I wasn’t invited to the ceremony? I’m hurt, Danek.”
“Fuck off.”
He laughs and moves some tools off a bench so I can sit. “Oh, come on,” he says. “Allow me my little pleasures. I’ve been working on jokes all day.”
“Hmm. Let’s talk about dome safety checks instead.”
“Why not both?” he quips. “Okay, fine. Dome safety is serious business, for obvious reasons. There are sensors that will detect a hull breach, but sensors are no substitute for manual checks. From what I’ve read about the House of Cindifin, they’re fanatical about safety. They’ll definitely notice if you skip the checks.”
“I wasn’t planning on it.” Five hundred people fly into Noturn every three months to work in the mines. A hull breach could be catastrophic.
For the next hour, Ruhan sets aside his jokes and goes over the various tests I need to run on the domes. I pay careful attention. Halfway through the extended lesson, a thought strikes me. “What happens if something goes seriously wrong?”
“You comm me and I figure it out,” he replies bluntly. “I can’t make you an expert in the next six days. I’ll hack Cindifin’s security and set up a secure comm channel.”
“That’s good.” I pack the equipment I’m going to need into a case.
