Page 19 of Claimed By the Wraiths

“You should sleep,” I said. “I’ll take first watch.”

“There’s nothing to watch. We’re on autopilot.”

“Then there’s no reason not to sleep.”

He looked at the bunk. The single, narrow bunk.

“I’ll sleep when you sleep,” he said.

“That defeats the purpose.”

“I’m aware.”

I turned back to the console. He went back to his schematics. The Ghost hummed, carrying us toward Meridian.

Six hours in, I woke up in the copilot’s chair with a blanket over me that I hadn’t put there.

Serak was at the console, running a systems check. The Meridian schematics were still on his datapad, but he’d switched to a different section. Security camera placements.

“You were supposed to wake me,” I said.

“You needed the sleep.”

“That wasn’t the deal.”

“It is now.”

I pulled the blanket tighter around my shoulders. It should have smelled like Maris’s engine grease, the way it had when we boarded.

It didn’t. It smelled like him.

Warm, something mineral and clean. He’d been sitting on the bunk for hours before he covered me with it, and the blanket had held onto him instead.

I’d been noticing that scent and never let myself think about it.

I let myself think about it now.

“Four hours to the border checkpoint,” he said.

“I should change.”

The refresher was barely wide enough to stand in. I changed into the conference clothes I’d packed.

Formal enough. Plain enough to move in. Comfortable shoes.

When I came out, Serak looked at me and then looked away. Fast. The kind of fast that said he’d seen something he didn’t want to keep seeing.

“What?” I said.

“Nothing. You look...” He stopped. “Ready. You look ready.”

“That’s not what you were going to say.”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

I didn’t sit back down. I crossed the cabin. Two steps, that’s all there was.

I stood in front of him. His knees were against the bunk frame. There was nowhere for him to go.