“No, it was a creature on my home planet. Like a bird, but it lived in caves and came out at nightfall with all of its fellow creatures.”
“It looks creepy.”
“It’s misunderstood.”
“How are you not an engineer? You have the natural talent.” Blaize couldn’t make sense of everything she knew of him. She’d known he fiddled with the parts he found and made things. But the creations in this room were incredible. He was incredible. Blaize caressed his cheek. “What happened to you?”
He hesitated. Shrugged. The color of his skin shifted to a green tone and back so quickly, she almost missed it.
“You don’t have to share,” she said gently.
“I was young, maybe eight. I’d had a fight with some of the other kids. So, I was by myself when they took me.”
“Took you?” Blaize’s heart crumpled in her chest.
“Pirates. They’d heard about my people, and they wanted one of us. I was—” Cifer hissed out a breath. “Trained. Used. Kept against my will. I didn’t get to complete my formal education or discover what else I might have been good at.”
“But that’s criminal. You could have them arrested. Why didn’t you? Why didn’t you go home? I mean, I assume you’re not still working for them.” She stepped back as the horror of his situation hit her and the possibility that he might still be trapped.
“No, I don’t work for them any longer. I freed myself. But my skills are, let’s say, unusual in polite society. And I can’t go home. That option closed long before I was able to extricate myself.”
Blaize warred with her urge to hold him and offer comfort, but the tilt of his chin and the steel in his spine didn’t invite coddling. “I learned to defend myself young too. But I was lucky. At least for a while. I told you about my mentor. He was like a father to me. When he died, I was no longer allowed to work as an apprentice. When I lost him, I lost my vocation too. And for a long time, I lost my direction. Then my mother passed, and she left me some credits. I sold everything we had and came to Cassan for engineering school. I had to pass the entrance exams because I didn’t have a formal education.” An idea popped into her brain. “That’s something you could do. You could pass the exams and go.”
“You’re fucking brilliant.” He caressed her cheek, nudged her hair behind her ear. His gaze was an unspoken invitation, and she pressed against him. His solid body anchored her in a way she hadn’t felt before but had longed for before she understood exactly what she searched for. He saw her. Beyond the red hair and the desperate talking. He saw her.
“I want to show you my bedroom.” He sounded like he was choking on every word, struggling to make his demand a request.
She handed him the empty glass.
Cifer put the glass down on the few square centimeters of his workbench that wasn’t occupied by his metal sculptures and took her hand in his. There was no hallway, just a door—one of two interior passages.
“It’s not a palace.”
“I live on a transport ship.”
Cifer closed the small gap between them, bodies connecting and his gaze locking to hers. “You deserve a palace.”
Blaize laughed. Her life was so far from royalty.
He palmed the door, and it slid into the wall with a faint scraping sound. With a tap of his hand, the ceiling panel illuminated enough to see without blinding her. She crossed into the room. The screen over the large oval portal, mimicking the shape of the building on its side, reflected their image. He nestled against her back. Her pale skin and red hair contrasted with his dark-brown hair and coppery skin. They looked like an abstract image of the place she’d been born. Coppery clay, fiery sun, crystal underground water. Home, but better.
Her eyes met his in the reflection briefly before she reddened and turned away. The room was the complete opposite of the rusty metallic main room. “It’s so colorful in here.”
The walls and ceiling were vivid blue, and the bedcover was a yellowish-green. For the first time, she wasn’t the most garish part of a room.
“Will you stay?”
He wasn’t just asking her to stay. He was asking for her to trust him. To be vulnerable with him. The last person she’d bared herself to betrayed her. Ruined her.
There was a good chance that Cifer would be a short-term lover. Someone she could be with while she rediscovered trust in herself and they traveled to Hiargus and back. Her future was on The Treasure. His future was unclear after the return trip. Although their time together might be short, it might be enough.
“Yes,” she whispered, scared of her answer but not of him.
He wrapped himself around her and kissed her as if she were the last drink of water on a barren planet. He licked at her lips. She gripped his arms and opened her mouth to his. He had cared for her, fed her. She gave him what she could: her warmth, her passion, her desire. There was a chance she’d regret her choice, but at that moment, the only regret she could see was not staying. Not exploring the connection that had built between them. Each conversation when he’d listened without interrupting. Each time she discovered evidence that he was an amazingly good person who cared about the kids like she did. Each time he’d touched her like she was valuable.
She dug her fingers through his long dark hair and pulled him to her. As close as she was to his solid strength, it wasn’t enough to satisfy or even cool her heat.
He broke their kiss. “Too many clothes.”
