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He paused at the entrance to her cabin. After hesitating a tick, Threxin authed the door open with his blood and stepped inside. He dropped the female onto the bed, where she tucked her knees and bent her head between them, tiny skin bumps spreading to pepper her bare arms and the back of her neck. Threxin shoved at his erection through his pants, closing his eyes to will it away.
“We were not seen,” he said gruffly to the female falling apart in front of him. The crown of her head bobbed up and down between her legs.
“I know,” she breathed. “I just… need a minute. You… can… go…” She sucked in a wheezy breath between each word.
But instead of getting out of there as he knew he should, Threxin glanced back at the tiny human shaking in her bed, fear and pheromones thick in the air around her. Shehadbeen through a lot, everything considered. She’d watched him killher kind, cared for his wound, and then was forced to watch Orion Halen fuck her charge into oblivion. It had aroused her too—he had scented it. But Alina Argoud was clearly unstable, and if he wanted her to remain useful, it was only logical that it was up to him to bring some… comfort.
Shoq.Threxin raked a hand over the spikes atop his scalp, tilting his face to the ceiling.
“Stop panicking,” he said.
Alina’s shoulders rolled in a silent spasm.
“Are you refusing my command, human?”
The question only made her tremble more aggressively. How ironic it was that the humans thought his kind were the ones unable to control their emotions.
Well, at that time they were. But not just them. And now his kind had evolved. At least his cohort did. The humans were the uncontrollable ones.
He would control them.
Threxin sighed, lowering to his haunches at the side of the bed in front of her as the human continued her breakdown. Threxin’s fingers traced the edges of the dressing on his chest, where the ghost of her touch still lingered. Giving his head a shake, he withdrew the firedagger from its sheath on his belt.
She glanced at his hand with the movement, and when her slow human brain processed the weapon, something like resignation flashed across her features. Threxin dug in his pocket for the roll of hak he’d kept there. He squeezed the hilt of the dagger in his fist, just enough to heat it without producing the blade. Holding the charred end of the roll to the heat until it sparked, it sent up a puff of mineral dust.
He cupped the twist of hak to his face and inhaled the dust floating up from the burnt end. He held it there for a few ticks, then puffed the filtered vapor from his mouth and held the hak out to her.
“What is it?” she asked, wiping tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand.
“Take it.”
She did, and Threxin nodded his approval. “Something that may help. Swallow it deep.”
Alina frowned as he nudged her hand to her face and curled his palms around her hand, directing the hak toward her.
“Breathe,” he said.
She kept her gaze lowered as she inhaled. She wasted a bit of it with a series of little coughs, but that was normal for a beginner. The female got the hang of it soon enough, her hand replacing her own to cup the air around the roll of hak and direct it to herself. She would be feeling that spark now, in her throat.
“It burns a little. Scratches.” She coughed behind her hand.
“It is supposed to.”
Threxin hadn’t considered it before and now wondered if humans’ airways were made from more delicate materials. It was probable, which would mean the hak could either injure the tissue or, more likely, penetrate more deeply for greater effect.
His theory was proven correct when Alina relaxed. He took note as her shoulders unwound. The flow of sickening adrenaline weeping from every pore abated, staling into a musty remnant.
“That was fast,” Threxin observed.
She lowered the roll of hak in her hand to her knee and leaned her head against the wall. When she looked up, the relief in her eyes melted right in, unwinding a heaviness he hadn’t even recognized weighing on him.
Threxin looked around her cabin as if for the first time, taking in the weird objects and colorful fabrics. It all looked out of place on his ship, but here, in the confines of her cabin, they seemed to fit right in. Her bed was small and safe,comfortably constricting in contrast with the oversized one in his own quarters.
He would sit for a tick, only to relax. Taking his place against the wall beside her, Threxin watched Alina take another inhale of the hak and accepted it when she passed it back.
“What a fucking mess, huh?” she said, voice a little hoarse.
He chuckled quietly at the frankness in her voice, taking his turn.
