Page 152 of Tracked and Taken

His golden eyes catch mine.

His tail, against the wall behind him, gives one slow flick.

Mine, against the leg of the chair, returns it. Then it remembers her thigh in the steam and has to be told, a second time, to stay down.

“Settled,” he says. Quiet. Dry.

“Settled.”

That is the entire conversation. We males have communicated. The room is calibrated. Neither of us is going to mention it again unless one of us wants to, and neither of us is going to want to, because Xarthians and Draelith do not, as a rule, say more than is required when the bodies have already covered the briefing.

I open the report. The Iris-Nine ops report I wrote at 0400 on adrenaline and the rest of Natalie’s medical patch is, by every operational standard, garbage. I am rewriting it.

I write for ten minutes.

A coffee appears at my elbow.

Petra does not, in placing the coffee, leave my elbow. She is now standing three feet from my throat, where Natalie’s mouth left two small bruised places above the collar. Permanent. Human-sized. Still hot. She sucked on that mark this morning until my knees wanted the wall, and Petra is looking at it like it is a joke she is allowed to tell.

It is not a joke. It is my mate’s teeth.

“Tael.”

“Petra.”

“That’s a small mark.”

“Petra.”

“It is a human-sized mark on a six-foot-five Draelith and it is, structurally, the funniest thing I have ever seen in my life.”

“Petra.”

“Did she stand on something?”

“Petra.”

“Did you kneel?”

“Petra.”

“Vosk, this is field research. SPROUT is taking notes.”

SPROUT, from the desk speaker, flat: “I am not.”

Petra: “You are.”

A pause.

SPROUT: “I am.”

I drink coffee. The coffee not as good as kasa. Petra makes the office coffee at SNAG and it is, by some operational miracle, the best coffee on Junction One, and I am holding the information for the day she needs to be told something nice. Today is not that day.

My comm chirps.

Natalie.

Morrison says hi. She knows about BioSystems. Lunch is still on.