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“You’re being ridiculous,” I bite, embarrassment sharpening my voice. “I’ve cleanedallof you about a thousand times. Being elbow-deep in your guts is not sexy.”
“That was different. You weren’t… my mate then.” To my utter surprise, the faintest color heats his cheeks. “I can’t work with them unless they know I’ll defend my claim. One wrong look, and it’ll end in a fight. It’s instinct—I can’t control that.”
Stupid alphas and their stupid instincts.“They won’t know we’re… that I’m your…”
AX2 stares at the scar on my neck, and only now do I realize I didn’t put the gauze on in our rush to get out the door this morning. I clasp a hand to the pink flesh.
“They’ll know. And even if they didn’t, I will. Unless it’s falling off and you need to sew it back on, you’re not touching any dicks.”
I huff at his crudeness and wish I could order him to remember his place. But I’m all too aware that the power between us has shifted, so instead I move up to AX21’s navel and continue cleaning him off.
When I’m done, I check his vitals and ensure the IV is still trickling at a steady pace before I push off the bench. Normally I’d type in his data before finishing off, but since I’m not allowed near computers, there’s nothing more I can do for him before his stasis is complete.
“I’ve never seen this before.”
“Hm?” I look up at AX2. He’s leaning against the door with his arms across his chest, but his face is less… tight than before.
“How much care you put into patching us up.” He nods at AX21.
“You’ve been awake during recalibrations,” I say, arching my eyebrows. His demand to put AX21 under still grates.
“Mm. Hard to notice much when you’re digging a scalpel into my bone.”
I huff, annoyed, and make my way toward him and the door, intent on finding somewhere to rest outside the stasis chamber.
AX2 doesn’t move out of my way. When I glare up at him, there’s a weird expression in his eyes. It’s almost… gentle.
“Why are you like this, Adelaide? You’re so skilled… so clever. Why did you choose to cause so much hurt when you could have been someone who helps people?”
I’ve been called cold more times than I can remember. Cruel too. It never bothers me. Why would it? Males expect women to be sweet and kind and always willing to bend. That they won’t get their expectations met with me is their problem. And yet…
I stare up into AX2’s green eyes, and that tightness in my chest constricts around my lungs to the point of pain. It’s infuriating.
“Icouldhave been someone who helps?” My voice is icy, and I level him with a stare that would have made lesser men wither on the spot. “Do you have any idea how many lives have been saved thanks to Project Fireshield? Wars have been stopped before they could even get started. And please do try to remember that without mycruelty,you wouldn’t be alive.”
“Am I alive?” he asks softly. “Are machines alive, Adelaide?”
The tightness drops into my gut, and from it, coldness seeps through my flesh in icy tendrils, and suddenly I can’t stand to look at him for another second.
“Move,”I hiss.
Startlingly, he obeys. I flee out of the stasis chamber, intent on the lab exit, but before I can touch the door handle, the hook in my chest yanks me to a stop.
Shaking andangry,I glare over my shoulder at the alpha tethering me, but his focus has shifted to the man on the examination bench. I watch him through the window to the stasis chamber as he moves to the side of the bench and clasps AX21’s hand in his, careful not to disturb his IV.
His profile is visible through the window, and I can see concern and regret playing across his features as clearly as I feel them ghosting through our bond and deep into my heart muscle.
No, machines aren’t alive. And they don’t feel, either.
I stare mutely at the alpha whose emotions I can no longer blame on primitive urges coming alive with our mating. He cares for this other alpha’s fate, for his suffering, and it’s got nothing to do with instincts or DNA.
He cares simply because he is a man.
A man I have done unspeakable things to.
THREE
JACOB
