He soothed her as she floated down, petting her hair and stroking her skin until her gills quit flapping and she relaxed completely. “Perfect,” he whispered in her ear before letting her go.
“Varik,” the captain snapped at the engineer who still stared at Cyra. “Go check the cargo.”
“Is that really the best use of my time, Captain? Shouldn’t your Med crew or your transport crew be in charge of your creepy crawly cargo?”
Cyra shivered, both at Varik’s snide tone and the thought of the poisonous spiders running around the ship. Technically, they were confined to the cargo hold designed for the purpose, but she still recoiled at the idea of having such dangerous creatures on board. They weren’t the only dangerous beings on the ship. The Captain could be just as deadly as the spider’s bite, if he was in the wrong mood to put up with an impudent crew member. Something Varik should keep in mind.
“I gave you an order.” Auvi released her, and she rushed from the deck to avoid the brewing fight. The wet room would provide the relief she sought after a successful launch. On any other ship, she would struggle to stay healthy, coating her skin in salt water washes as many times a day as she could. Captain Auvi, also from Chalcanth, had fitted the ship with its own special tank, the salt water chemically altered to remain in gel form until it was warmed with body heat. He was kind enough to allow her to use it freely. But she only did so when Varik was on duty. She dreaded ever running into him in the closed rooms.
In the wet room, she removed her dress, closed the watertight interior door, and slipped through the seal into the tank. The gel liquefied around her, allowing her to swim underwater without ever encountering a solid spot. Captain Auvi often complained that the medium didn’t liquefy sufficiently, but she still found him in the chamber more often than not. Would he stay on deck or join her?
She preferred solo swims, using the private time to think and imagine. To dream of what her life might be like whenshewas a transport ship captain. How would she deal with crew in-fighting? How would she run the ship? What changes would she make? One thing she’d decided: she would have a water chamber on her ship, no matter the cost.
What would have happened to her if Captain Auvi hadn’t taken in the ragged runaway five galactic years ago? She owed him her life. He’d taught her everything about running a ship from maintenance to navigation. Only recently had she become his launch assistant. The first time he’d wrapped his tentacles around her and explained what he was going to do, she’d nearly come just from his description.
“Take off your panties, Cyra. Don’t wear them on deck again. Now, I will wrap you in my arms and stroke every bit of your skin, covering you in my oil. It will excite you, lighting up every nerve ending until my touch won’t be enough, you’ll beg me to touch you more intimately. Beg me to fuck you. I won’t, but I’ll make you come like you’ve never experienced. And all of that energy will be transferred directly to the ship’s launch engines. You will power us into space.”
Since then, she’d been eager to help the Captain every chance she had. She loved him. Not in a romantic way, despite their interactions, but in a hero, savior kind of way. It was messy, not entirely healthy, but she’d left her planet to avoid having a mate. Captain Auvi provided the perfect excuse to hold herself aloof from the crew and she still got her needs met. It was a perfectly, imperfect compromise.
Cyra roused herself to exit the water chamber. In the ante-chamber, she dried off and dropped her dress over her head and reached for the door. A sharp pain razored through her taking her to her knees. She ran her hands over her clothes, panting to release the terrifying pain, searching for a source. There was nothing physically wrong with her. But she’d been stabbed in the brain and the heart simultaneously. As quickly as it hit her, the pain passed. An empty ache remained that made no sense. Silent tears fell from her eyes. The urge to curl into a ball on the floor was nearly overwhelming. But the risk of being discovered in a weakened state by Varik gave her the motivation to drag herself to her quarters.
Chapter3
“Captain, a word?”Varik’s seductive voice echoed up the tubular hallway that connected the bridge to the rest of the ship.
Auvi swiveled his upper torso to face his former lover. The male was still as captivating as the first moment Auvi had seen him. Tall, lean, pale blue skin, eyes and hair so dark Auvi would’ve sworn they were black instead of the deepest shade of green. But his aching, racing-heart reaction to the Chalcanthian male had been replaced with the sick, swirling bile of betrayal. The only reason he kept him on the crew was there was no better engineer to be had in the galaxy.
No that was a lie.
In truth, he couldn’t quite give up his attachment to the love of his life. Even if the male’s presence made Auvi murderous, sending Varik away would be unrecoverable. He was the only being who’d ever tied Auvi’s tentacles in knots.
Auvi sighed, longing for a future that didn’t exist. “Make it quick. I’m meeting Cyra.”
“We need to talk about her and her place on this ship.” Varik closed the distance between them.
Auvi resisted the urges to step back or to clutch the male to his chest, both of which warred within him. “Why would her role onmyship be any of your business?”
“There was a time you trusted my opinion.” Varik’s voice took on a coaxing quality and Auvi shifted away.
“I think we both know why that ship sailed.”
“You got it all wrong.” Varik shook his head. “But I’m not here to talk about us.”
Another lie. Auvi glanced down the hall, longing for the privacy of his quarters.
“What do you really know about this girl? A vagabond you picked up because of some sob story. And now, she’s like your first mate, in all the senses of the word.”
So Varik believed Cyra was Auvi’s lover? That explained some of his angst and gave Auvi a perverse pleasure.
“In a short time she’s gone from being an underfoot intern who could barely run a coms unit to launch assistant?” Varik crossed his arms. “What’s next? Engineering?”
Auvi would never put Cyra under Varik’s authority. “I’m the captain. I place people where they are best suited.” Except, Varik was best suited to be shot out an airlock, but Auvi couldn’t bring himself to murder the treasonous bastard. Or even kick him offThe Treasureat the next port as he should have done when he’d first discovered Varik’s double-crossing plans. If only he knew why, but even if he asked, Varik would lie. Their conversation had dragged on too long.
“I know what I did was wrong. But it was one lapse. I’ve been loyal to you for years. I’m still loyal.” Varik grazed his fingers down one of Auvi’s tentacles. “You have to miss us as much as I do.”
Auvi shuddered internally. His former lover’s touch still ignited him, but the involuntary reaction disgusted him. There was no future with the betrayer.
“I’m going to prove myself to you again, get back what we had. And if it exposes that female for the fraud she is at the same time, so be it.”
