Chapter Four
Nayan had worked all rest cycle, forgoing sleep. Her eyes burned. Her back ached. But the mechanical fingers were done. She placed them in a small pack.
They were based on the technology used to create cyborgs; were strong, durable, and, once they were calibrated to Qulpa’s hand, they should give him an interface with ships no organic fingers could.
The other possible uses excited her. She could incorporate the science into hand coverings, weapons, numerous other areas. If successful, and she was certain the technology would work, it could change the future for many Chameles.
That wasn’t why she’d crafted them. Her dominant male had been right about that. She’d manufactured them for one specific Chamele, for him.
The mechanical fingers were all she could give her warrior, a piece of her he could keep forever. The connection between them had to be severed.
She walked toward the medic bay, carrying the pack. The plan was to drop the mechanical fingers off and leave, limiting the time they spent together.
The human medic appeared competent. Qulpa would have to rest after the fingers were attached, recover from the procedure.
They would test and tweak her creation the following planet rotation, fine-tune them to her barbarian’s unique form.
She entered the medic bay. Chameles in white jackets passed her.
Her heart pounded. Medics were dangerous. They were skilled observers, knowledgeable about ailments and abnormalities, that combination perilous to someone like her.
Nayan lowered her head, avoiding their curious gazes. She didn’t want them to stop her, to question why she was there.
To see she wasn’t the normal Chamele she was pretending to be.
Her strategy worked. No one looked at her closely or halted her progress.
She arrived at the designated chamber, paused for a moment, collecting her resolve, and strode though the doors. Qulpa’s scent, male and primal, hit her. Her body reacted, need stampeding through her, wild and unruly.
Her barbarian lay face down on a sleeping support, his top half bare, his long black hair pushed to his left side. A deep silver scar carved his back diagonally in half, disappearing under the blue covering cloth draped over his ass. Judging by that shape, that had been a war wound, likely a remnant of the Succession Wars. Lesser scars, also appearing to have been honorably obtained, either in battle or in previous crashes, decorated his golden skin.
He was all warrior, and that turned her on.
His right arm was stretched out, his wrist strapped to a horizontal support. The gauze had been removed. His hand was set in a container of blue gel.
The tortured stubs of his fingers, raw and red and horrific, made her wince. He must be in extreme agony.
And he was currently alone.
The medic was missing from the chamber. That wasn’t unusual. Medics were busy, tended multiple patients.
But no one else occupied the space. Normal Chameles were social beings, always surrounded by friends and family members. During procedures she’d witnessed in the past, loved ones had to be ejected from the chambers. Many beings would show up to support the patients.
Qulpa was alone.
Her brave, strong warrior was facing the pain, the uncertainty of a life-changing operation without company, without any emotional backing.
Sympathy for him pulled at Nayan. She understood what it was like to have no one, to face every challenge solo.
“Are you going to run again?” His deep voice verbally caressed her skin.
That was her default strategy. She ran. And she wasn’t ashamed of it. Much.
When she was a child, running was her only logical option. She tugged on her hand coverings. Standing and fighting meant falling and hurting.
“I know you’re there.” Her warrior sniffed the air. “I can smell you.”
“You can’t sense me?” She stepped closer. All normal Chameles could sense others. They weren’t being-detection blind like she was.
“Of course, I sense you.” He said that as though it were a foolish question, as though everyone had that ability.
Disappointment swept over her. They might both be alone, but they weren’t alike, and he’d never accept her. She was fooling herself, wanting to believe that.
“Of course you do.” Why was she lingering? She set the pack on the horizontal support positioned closest to the wall. “Tell your medic I brought the mechanical fingers.”
“Sit down.” That was an order, not a request.
She wanted to obey it. The chair situated beside his sleeping support looked comfortable and she was exhausted, so very weary of working and running and being solitary.
“I-I-I…” She looked in her brain for an excuse to leave, couldn’t find any. Her yearning for him wrapped tighter and tighter around her, strangling her thoughts, dousing her willpower.
She was already in the chamber. Nothing would change if she remained for a few more heartbeats. He couldn’t move far. The Medic would return soon.
“I’ll stay for a moment.” Decided, Nayan walked to the seat, lowered her weary body.
Her warrior turned his head and gazed at her. She gazed back at him.
Silence stretched.
He appealed to her. Too much. She was taking risks she shouldn’t take. Connections were dangerous. She shifted in the chair. They led to rejection, pain, death.
“Don’t run.” His voice was soft, his tone firm. “You’re safe with me, Nayan.”
She longed for that to be true. “I’m not afraid.” She told that lie while holding his gaze. Fear of discovery was her constant companion, but that didn’t stop her from achieving tasks.
One planet rotation, her secrets would be revealed and she would be banished, stripped of her role. She’d accepted that future yet longed to delay it.
“You shouldn’t be afraid.” He didn’t challenge her on that untruth. “I’ll protect you with my lifespan if necessary.”
She snorted, unable to hide her disbelief. “You don’t know me.”
“You’re my gerel.” He said that as though it meant something.
She was her father’s daughter, her mother’s daughter, her two older sisters’ sibling, and they had discarded her with no hesitation, sending her, a girl with eight solar cycles, to live in isolation with a great-aunt everyone considered to be insane, never contacting either of them again.
“You don’t want me for your gerel.” She stood.
“Stay.” He grabbed her left wrist with his uninjured hand. “Please.”
Please. That was what she’d said to her parents when she’d begged them not to send her away. It was the last time she’d said that word.
She sat once more. He didn’t release her.
“Tell me about your hand coverings.” He turned her hand to examine it.
“I’m testing them.” That wasn’t entirely a lie. She’d been testing hand coverings since her great-aunt suggested she make a pair.
Her barbarian studied her. Lines were etched between his black eyebrows. What did he see when he looked at her?
“Tell me how they work,” he finally said.
Mechanics she could talk about. She relaxed. There was truth in design. She explained how they functioned, the features the hand coverings had.
He caressed the worn leather with his thumb; asked questions; listened, truly listened to the answers; and he gazed at her as though she was normal, worthy. His attention was addictive. She could—
The doors opened and she yanked her hand out of his grip.
Qulpa’s Medic stopped short when she saw Nayan. “Did you bring the mechanical fingers?” She pulled on her hand coverings.
Those were different from Nayan’s. The female’s fingers were also enwrapped in enhanced leather. But it was a link between them.
The Medic was unlikely to ask about her hand coverings, question her need to wear them. In that small way, she was safe.
“I have the mechanical fingers.” She bounced out of her seat, needing to move, to retreat from Qulpa and the danger he presented. “The procedure will take longer.” Avoiding the warrior’s gaze, she opened the pack and handed her creations to the Medic. “There are more points of contact.”
“I assumed that was the case.” The Medic sprayed the mechanical fingers with a substance, likely some type of disinfectant. “Other than that, do I follow the same process when attaching them?”
“It will be exactly the same process.” She had modified the cyborg design to make the mechanical fingers easier to attach.
“Then I can handle it from here.” The Medic nodded. “You can go.”
“She’s staying.” Qulpa informed both of them.
“I have tasks to complete.” Nayan frowned at her arrogant male.
And he was hers, even though she couldn’t keep him.
“Those tasks can wait.” His lips flattened. “You designed these mechanical fingers. Don’t you want to be one of the first beings to see them operate?”
She would like to see that.
“I’m staying only for that reason,” she informed him. It had nothing to do with her yearning to touch him, smell him, hear his voice.
She returned to the chair she’d claimed.
“Your not wanting an audience stipulation must not apply to females.” The Medic shook her head, repositioning herself near his right hand.
“I am a male.” Qulpa’s gaze remained fixed on Nayan.
It wasn’t necessary for him to watch her. Her chin lifted. She said she’d stay and planned to do exactly that.
“Pull your chair closer to me.” He reached for her.
She moved nearer to him…because that gave her a better view of the procedure, not because she wanted to be closer to him.
Qulpa left his arm extended.
He was a stubborn male. She rolled her eyes and slid her palm into his.
The contact was slight, yet it immediately eased the tension inside her, lightening the weight bearing down on her shoulders.
Her warrior must have felt it too. His eyes gleamed. But he didn’t say anything and neither did she, both of them holding that secret close to them.
They held hands as the Medic painstakingly attached the mechanical fingers. The procedure was, as Nayan predicted, slow.
Time passed. Her muscles relaxed. Her breathing leveled. Her eyelids grew heavy. She battled the weariness, fought it with everything she had left.
And she lost. The blackness claimed her.
* * *
The attack happened over twenty solar cycles in the past, yet, in her dreams, it never lost its vividness. She smelled the grass as it swayed around her, felt the heat of the sun on her bare shoulders, heard the murmurs of the crowd, saw the darkness in Saruk’s eyes as she approached.
Nayan was the smallest girl with her number of solar cycles. Saruk was the largest, the broadest, the meanest. She was always looking for a fight, something all Chameles encouraged, as it honed their skills.
When Saruk fought, opponents got hurt. There was no surrendering. She struck the losing girl until her arms tired.
Nayan would be the losing girl this planet rotation. Saruk was normal. She was not. Winning would take a miracle and Nayan had stopped believing in those long ago.
“Fight me, coward.” The girl waved her claws. They were long and sharp.
Nayan folded her fingers into fists and concentrated. Fiercely.
Her father said she was lazy. He said if she tried hard enough, if she wanted it hard enough, she could extend her claws like the other girls. Then she wouldn’t be an embarrassment to him, to her mother, to their entire family.
She wanted with everything she had, with all of the passion in her young heart, focusing on her hands.
Nothing happened.
“I said, fight me.” Saruk stalked toward her.
Panic swelled within Nayan. She couldn’t do this, couldn’t fight, knowing she’d lose, she’d hurt.
She turned around and ran.
“Have you no honor?” The girl yelled. “Come back here.” Footsteps sounded behind her.
Nayan would outpace her. She might be small but she was fast. No one—
She tripped and fell, landing face-first on the path. Hurt specked her chin, her palms. Fear gripped her. She had to escape.
The laughter edged with cruelty told her she was too late. Her foe had caught up with her. She braced herself for torment.
Five stripes of pure pain streaked down her back. She screamed, red rimming her vision.
“Don’t damage her face.”
She recognized that voice. Looking upward, she met her father’s gaze. His eyes were as hard as stone.
He was angry with her, but she had no one else to turn to, and he was her father. Fathers protected their children.
“Help me, Father.” She reached out to him, pleading for his assistance.
He pressed his lips into an unforgiving line and turned away from her, his silence, his rejection hurting her more than the wounds on her back.
“No one’s helping you, freak.” Saruk sneered.
More lines of agony raced along Nayan’s form. She curled into a ball and waited for it to be over.
* * *
She woke to warmth and darkness and the scent of clean male. A heavy form weighed down on her. Nayan turned, blinking at the sudden brightness.
The initial lack of light had been due to Qulpa. She had somehow crawled onto the sleeping support and had wedged herself under his big form.
Had she been looking for a place to hide, trying to escape her dreams? She glanced at him, seeking to understand her bizarre actions.
Their gazes met. Her barbarian was awake, was watching her again.
Her gaze darted to the door.
“Don’t run.” He gripped her wrist with his uninjured hand. His other hand was covered with gauze again, although the shape was different. He now had a full set of fingers, some of them organic, some of them mechanical.
“I fell asleep.” She tried to shake her disorientation.
“You must have been exhausted.” Qulpa pulled her closer to him and she didn’t fight his arrogant handling of her. He was enthrallingly warm and solid and conveyed the illusion of safety. “Did you sleep at all during the rest cycle or did you spend every moment of it crafting my new fingers?”
“I have other tasks to complete.” She told him tritely. Her entire planet rotation didn’t revolve around him.
“You spent every moment of it crafting my new fingers.” He concluded correctly, holding up his wrapped hand for her to inspect. “I’m not to move them or remove the gauze for another shift.”
“Was there pain?” She examined what she could see of his hand. There didn’t appear to be swelling.
“I’m high on pain inhibitors.” His lips lifted into the smallest of smiles.
“I shouldn’t be sitting here.” She pulled on her arm. “When the Medic returns—”
“Lead Medic is with Second.” He didn’t release her. “She won’t return for a while.” His tone was dry.
Many Chameles would disapprove of the Medic. They wouldn’t deem her worthy of being a Chamele’s gerel. “Does it bother you—that they’re together? That Second’s gerel is…human?”
Humans lacked claws, couldn’t blend into backgrounds, couldn’t sense other Chameles.
“It doesn’t bother me.” Qulpa shrugged. “She’s strong and brave and makes him happy.”
Nayan wasn’t brave but she was as strong as the human Medic was. She could make a male happy…maybe. If the male didn’t care she was a freak.
“Second likes females with tiny guns.” Her warrior’s eyes glowed. “I like mine with claws.”
Nayan didn’t laugh at his joke. Because she didn’t have claws…of her own.
She tugged on her hand coverings. “I’m not one of your females.”
“You are the only female for me.” He must have been high on pain inhibitors. Her warrior lowered his face as though to kiss her.
She turned her head. His lips grazed over her cheek, leaving a trail of warmth.
His chest shook against her. “You’re fierce, gerel. I like that.”
She liked him. Too much. He tempted her to take risks she shouldn’t.
“I should return to my private chambers.” She had more tasks to complete.
“You’re lying again.” He shook his head. “You want to return to your laboratory.”
“They’re the same place.” She wiggled toward the edge of the sleeping support.
He drew her back to him, not allowing her to escape. “You sleep in your laboratory?” He said that as though it was a bad thing.
“You sleep on your ship.” She called him on his hypocrisy. “It’s the same thing.”
“Hmmm…” He captured his face between his big hands and leaned his forehead against hers. His breath wafted over her cheeks.
Normally, she would pull away, but he was injured and his judgment was impaired from the pain inhibitors. He might try to hold onto her and undo all of the Medic’s hard work.
Her gaze lowered to his lips. She also wanted to taste him again. No bonding. One brief kiss, something they’d done in the past. That hadn’t hurt them, wouldn’t shackle him to her. “If I kiss you, will you let me go?”
“Yes, kiss me.” He brushed his lips over hers.
“I kiss you. You let me go.” She mumbled, not opening to him. “Give me your vow.”
He pulled back and frowned at her. “My word is my vow. I have honor.”
She didn’t have any of that but she did have vast amounts of wanting. “Good. I’m holding you to your word.” She surged forward, plastered her lips against his, driving him backward.
He hesitated for a heartbeat and counterattacked. The fingers of his uninjured hand sank into her hair. He held her to him and ravished her mouth, claiming that terrain, stroking into her with his tongue, a rumble vibrating his chest.
She moaned her response and pressed against him, his dominance sweeping her away. He tasted good, appealed to her in every way, his embrace making her head spin and her blood pulse.
She sucked on his tongue and opened wider to him, giving him all of her, every broken piece, and he took it, accepting it with a gratifying eagerness.
They kissed until their souls merged, until past and future dropped away, leaving only now and them. She’d been alone for so long. The connection was intoxicating.
It tempted her to share her secrets, and that scared her.
She drew away from him, her chest heaving. “I kissed you.”
His face darkened. For a moment, she feared he’d fight her. But her warrior was a true Chamele. Honor was everything to him. “I’m letting you go.” He lowered his hands.
Her heart screamed at her to stay, told her she was making a mistake, but he was right. She ran. That is what she always did.
And that was what she did now, slipping off the sleeping support, out the doors, and into solitude once more.