TESSA RAN LIKE ALL the demons of hell were chasing her.

Kayleb. Here. In New York.

Bile rose in her throat as she remembered the sickening crack that the wood had made as it scraped against his face. Her hands would have been shaking if she weren’t sprinting so fast, and she wanted to throw up at the thought that she’d done him harm.

Really?!

She hadn’t seen the man in months and now he was somehow in proximity to the pirates who were following and her only thought was for his well-being? Clearly something had broken in her back on the Kella. She needed to get her head examined when she got out of this damned city.

Though she’d been able to sleep through the whole night, she’d been running from almost the second she stepped out of the hotel door. It wasn’t just the two brutes that she’d seen both now and the day before—there were more combing the streets, mostly human and rough enough to look like they belonged in this neighborhood.

Tessa darted past the stairway down to a subway stop without giving it a backward glance. The train might take her somewhere slightly safer, but if one of those men got down into the subway tunnels with her, she’d be a goner. She couldn’t outrun someone on a narrow train, and her only hope for survival was to be smarter and faster.

For the first time in two days, her shoulders relaxed a fraction and she couldn’t sense any of the pirates around her. She’d never believed in psychics before, but her sixth sense had been keeping her alive for more than a month and she wasn’t about to turn down that guidance now. Tessa took the opportunity to enter a half-abandoned building. The windows on the bottom floor had all been boarded up, but the chain that held the door closed was loose and there was plenty of room for her to slip in.

Once inside, she saw the evidence of humanity: blankets and food wrappers, the stench of bodily waste, and an abandoned sweater piled in the corner. She found the stairs and climbed. She wasn’t the only person in the building, but she hoped that the dilapidated structure would be overlooked by her pursuers. When she heard the chain rattle, Tessa picked up her pace. All she had to do was hide away for a little while. She’d been running for hours and her legs burned and her stomach rumbled. Just a little rest.

Please.

On the third floor she found a promising room. It looked like the place might have once been a doctor’s office. She could recognize an exam room on any planet. One of the cabinets had been torn off the wall and when she tested the tap on the sink nothing came out, but there was a little cot that supported her weight and she didn’t see any mice or rats. Practically paradise. Even better, the door closed and locked.

If the pirates found her, she’d be trapped, the window was too high to jump out of, and even if she’d been on a lower floor, her hips would have never wriggled through it. But that was a problem for a little later. If they couldn’t find her, they couldn’t trap her.

Tessa dug into her bag and pulled out a small device she’d purchased at a kiosk in the space port when she landed on Earth. With a simple press of a button it disabled all wireless signals from coming to her devices or leaving them. Parents normally used them to control the content on their children’s devices and teenagers used them for cheap pranks.

Tessa needed it to survive.

The pirates kept finding her and she worried that they had some kind of tracker on the technology that she’d stolen. But she couldn’t ditch the device, so she’d taken to tampering with the potential transmission. And since her sleep hadn’t been interrupted by pirates for the past few nights, it seemed to work. Unfortunately, the device only worked for a max of six hours at a time and she didn’t have the cash to find a new one. Even worse, they were technically illegal. She’d had to tamper with the toy she’d purchased to make it fit her purposes. If she was caught with the dampener, she could be arrested, and then she’d be a sitting duck for the men who hunted her.

Heavy footsteps pounded up the stairs and Tessa’s heart beat in time, anticipation licking through her veins, but not fear.

Kayleb.

There was nothing about that step that betrayed who it was. It could have just as easily been the squid man, but Tessa knew. She’d spent so long fearing this moment just as much as she secretly hoped for it and now her palms were sweaty and she couldn’t pull in a deep enough breath. She’d hit him with a fucking plank of wood. He had to be furious. Why had he found her, today of all days? How? Was he somehow working for the pirates? There’d always been an undercurrent of violence to him, unrestrained and feral.

And by God had Tessa loved it.

Right now she should be afraid of him. She’d done him physical harm, he was near the men who were chasing her, he might even be working with them. He’d abandoned her in space and not sent any word, not even that he’d made it to his destination safely. He’d made it abundantly clear that anything she’d thought was between them was nothing more than a delusion.

The footsteps stopped in front of her door and Tessa spotted the shadow of feet under the crack over the floor tile. She gave the window another look as her heart beat wildly, but it hadn’t grown any wider in the few minutes that she’d been sitting here, waiting and hoping that her hiding place was secure.

He didn’t knock, and for a wild moment Tessa thought he might go away. Her stomach lurched at the thought and she tried to bring her mind back into some kind of order. She wanted him to go away. That was the only way she’d stay sane. She couldn’t do this again.

“I don’t think they followed me,” Kayleb said, his voice traveling easily through the rotted wood of the door.

Tessa clenched her fists as those words washed over her. She’d barely heard what he’d said in the alley, her mind too preoccupied with freaking out over the fact that Kayleb, the man who’d said she was his forever, was standing right there. And now she could do nothing but hear him.

She could leave him out there, stay silent as a mouse and hope he gave up. But if he didn’t, if he decided to sit and wait in the hall like some patient suitor, then he’d give away her hiding place just as surely as a brightly colored sign.

It was okay, she tried to tell herself. This had to be done. Kayleb didn’t get to just waltz back into her life and pretend he’d never left. She’d give him a piece of her mind and send him on his way. That was all. Never mind the thrill that went through her as she stood back up or the hum of anticipation that sang in her blood.

This was over.

She swung the door open, bracing herself for the onslaught of emotion that the supposed bond between them would throw at her.

God he was beautiful. Even in the dim light, his skin practically glowed a rich blue. His dark clan markings trailed down one of his arms and she could remember tracing the pattern one night, promising herself that she’d learn every inch of him. She’d followed those markings down his side, over his hip, and traced her tongue over the single mark that ended on the muscular flesh of his ass and he’d paid her back by throwing her on her bunk and tasting her until she writhed under him and promised to do any wicked thing he wanted so long as he brought her off.

He’d cut his hair, she realized with a start. Now it was cropped close to his head, not enough for her to grab onto and enjoy. And those dark eyes of his weren’t the same passionate red she’d dreamed of. Now they were dark and a question settled there, though she must have lost the knack for interpreting his looks, because whatever he was asking her right now didn’t make any sense.

Kayleb stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, somehow dwarfing all of the space until she couldn’t find any place to move without this damned awareness of him. How did he do it? Was it some trick of his species? Or was it just Kayleb and all his height and muscles and that scent that smelled like coming home?

He stared at her and his throat worked as he swallowed. His eyes roamed up and down, but she didn’t see any of that affection that they’d built in their days together on the Kella. Her heart dropped as a nasty thought formed within her and she took another involuntary step back, her calves bumping into the cot.

“I’ve met you before,” he said, as if he’d never promised the universe to her. “You’re my...”

“Don’t say it.” Once she said anything to him, the words were easier to form. And she didn’t know what he was playing at now, if this were a trick or a joke or some sick punishment from a god she’d never met, but if he said anything else she was either going to cry or scream and he didn’t have the right to those things. Not anymore.

“Who are you?”

***

SIX MONTHS AGO

The regen gel did its job, though Tessa insisted that Kayleb stay in the med bay for longer than was strictly necessary. His brother and friends had tried to move in, visiting at all hours to make sure he healed. And every second Tessa could steal away from them and from work, she was next to Kayleb, finding little excuses to touch him, to meddle with his sheets, or just talk.

They could talk for hours.

It started when she was fiddling with one of the medbots that had been broken for a long time. The power system didn’t cycle steadily and it had a bad habit of turning off or short circuiting at inopportune moments. Like in the middle of surgery. Rather than risk patients, the doctor had decommissioned the device, but Tessa was determined to bring it back online.

“I thought you were a medic, not an engineer.” Kayleb had a clear view of everything she did. The walls around his bed were retractable and during the day hours she let him sit out with her. It was a little against protocol, but the doctor hadn’t said anything about it. She liked the company.

“With cyborgs running around these days, all medics have to know a little engineering.” Tessa flicked her eyes up with a grin. “And on a ship, a crewman is useless if she can’t do at least three jobs.”

Kayleb’s flirtatious smile turned into a laugh and he winced as the movement upset his still healing insides. Tessa put the bot down and went to his side, sitting on the edge of the bed instead of the perfectly functional chair that was right there. She’d gotten into the habit with him and it was too much of a bother to try anything else.

“I’m fine,” Kayleb said as she placed her hands on his abdomen and flicked his shirt up to examine the wound. He placed a hand over hers, letting those big blue fingers of his lace with her own. “Really, I just pulled at it.”

She shouldn’t let him touch her like this. They weren’t on Earth, the rules were different, but she still couldn’t get involved with a patient directly under her care. It wasn’t right. But his fingers were warm and a little heavy, present in a way nothing else on the ship was. Tessa couldn’t make herself pull away. “I still have to check,” she reminded him. “I think your brother would throw me out the air lock if something happened to you.” She meant it as a joke, but Kayleb stiffened and some noise—a growl? No, it couldn’t be—lodged in his throat.

He slid his hand up to circle her wrist. “He’ll never hurt you, I won’t allow it.” His eyes glowed red and Tessa had to look away before she did something stupid.

Like kiss him.

She didn’t get off on playing doctor, didn’t have fantasies about her patients falling in love with her due to her bedside care. But every moment away from Kayleb was a moment where she was thinking about him, wanting him, wondering if she had the nerve to lean in and kiss him.

Not while he’s still in sick bed. She made the bargain with herself, though she had no clue if she’d be able to keep it. “You’re going to get better,” she said, her voice firmer than she felt. “I highly doubt that your brother will do me any harm either way.”

Though she’d seen him when Kayleb lay on the floor, blood in a pool around him. She doubted there was anything Krayter wouldn’t do for his brother, and that went the same for Kayleb.

Unless there was a threat to her.

She was going crazy. Tessa knew she needed to pull back, to put distance between them, but the soft weight of Kayleb’s fingers around her wrist warmed her, made her feel safe. She didn’t want him to let go. But she needed to do something, she couldn’t just sit there and stare into his eyes all day. She reached over and fluffed up one side of his pillow, moving it around until he looked a little more comfortable.

Some of the red leached out of his eyes and he smiled that dangerous smile that did things to her secret places. “How much longer are you going to keep me here?” he asked.

She couldn’t help but grin back. “How much longer do you want to stay?”

“By your side? Or in this room?” His grip tightened for a moment, not painful, but a reminder of his strength.

This was the time to pull back. She had to do it, had to put up the wall for her own sanity and professionalism. “I think I—”

“Because I’m eager to be on my feet again,” he said, “and I’d love to show you my room.”

She didn’t kiss him. Not on the lips. But Tessa’s cheeks flamed all the promise in his voice and she leaned down, brushing her lips against his forehead. “Impress me with your recovery and we’ll see.”

He let her go then, but Tessa could feel the warmth of his fingers on her for the rest of the day.