“Go, I shall take care of him,” Vaen said.“Maybe smack some sense into him.”
Nenn hesitated, cast a glance at Ulvus, then handed over his med-dev to Vaen.He marched out the activities room without looking back.His mind circled, settled, then spun again.Could Tiny be his mate?He almost snorted at that silly hope.Despite their rarity, he could believe Vic was Drafe’s.
“Morning,” Nenn said when he opened the door to Tiny’s room.“Let us start by getting a language nodule inserted into your neck.”
“Really?Just like that?”She gripped her hip.“Not, Tiny, would you mind if I put a foreign object into your body?”
He winced, aware she was wary of augmentation.“Please.It would mean safety, interpretation, and the ability to talk to me directly.”
“Fine.”She huffed.“I suppose it makes sense with me going to strange worlds.Does that mean I’ll be able to understand Ivoyan?”
“Yes, and Qaldreth.”
She smiled.“I’d allow it for that reason alone.”She patted the air.
He stepped into her reach, almost sighing when she splayed her fingers across his chest.
“Where do you want me?”she asked, looping her arm through his.
“My med bay.”
“Oh, at last.”She chuckled.“I finally get to see where you work.”
He gazed upon her upturned face.“Did you sleep well?”
“Lovely,” she said.“But I wasn’t lying.I’m famished.”
“Food or implant first?”he offered because he didn’t like her being hungry, not for a moment.
“Implant.Get it over and done with.”
He grinned.Yes, core of strength.He led her to his med bay tucked between the docking bay and the galley.The bed had to be flipped down in the tight space.He did so, then hoisted her onto it.She swung her feet like a child, her gaze unseeing.As he gathered the tools and nodule he’d need, he snuck glances at her, admiring the shape of her cheek, her breasts rising and falling in yet another loose bold-pink tunic over black-and-yellow horizontal-striped pants, to her nibbling on her bottom lip with her white teeth.
“Tell me, Tiny, if you can, how were you blinded?”
She sucked in a sharp breath and straightened.“You want to know?”
“Please.”
“It all has to do with my brother, Jamie.”Anger and resentment saturated her voice, yet behind the emotion was the haunting note of betrayal.“I was about to graduate from med school…”
As she told her story, he listened, watched, and learned.The darkness she hid lay in her unforgiveness.Had he been able to heal her, she could’ve set this aside.He swabbed her neck, numbing the area, then set to installing the nodule.It didn’t leave a hole but flattened the muscle fibers beneath it.He wiped away the blood before it stained her tunic.
“I know, I shouldn’t hold grudges, but he ruined my life, Nenn.I’m so angry with him that I want to hit him.”She waved a small fist in the air.
“This may sound selfish, but if you had not lost your eyesight, you would not have been on theMula Pesada, and I would not have met you.”
She stilled, her eyes widening.“All true.And as sad as that thought makes me at the thought of not knowing you, I could’ve saved so many lives.I’ve been useless for years.”
“How would you feel if you never saw your family again?”Erasril was his home, but he had no father waiting for him.Sure, he’d love to visit with Tugo, but he wouldn’t return to live there.Not if he didn’t have to.
“Dad would be sad,” was all she said, bowing her head.In doing so, she revealed how it would devastate her not to see her father again.
Nenn gritted his teeth.To keep his promise, he’d steal a ship if he had to.“When we return to Lunar Base, would you introduce me to him?”
She whipped up her head, her eyes glistening.“Of course.”
“I look forward to it,” he said, lifting her off the bed.
