Waxian Spaceport - Oculus IX:

“What are you doing up?” Edge growled.

Lina teetered for a moment before she fell back against the pillow with a groan of frustration. She needed to use the bathroom and she was ready to do it without Bailey’s help and a bedpan. Struggling to sit up again, she gritted her teeth to keep the moan of pain from slipping out. Sweat beaded on her brow and black dots danced before her eyes. She blinked.

No, black chest hair, not dots, she silently groaned in frustration.

“I need to use the bathroom,” she bit out.

“Bailey…,” he started to say, stopping when she shook her head.

“No! I am not using a damn bedpan again. Now, either help me up or get the hell out of my way,” she snapped, gripping the front of his vest.

Edge grunted, but he didn’t argue with her. She had woken up in a bad mood. While she might be a good wounded patient, she was a bitch of a patient when she was healing. A hiss escaped her when she was gently lifted. She raised her arm and wrapped it around his neck.

She allowed her head the luxury of resting against his shoulder. If she were to be honest, she was exhausted from her attempts to get up. If it hadn’t been for her protesting bladder, she would have said to hell with it.

Her lips twisted when all of the other women turned to look at them. It was obvious from the amused expressions on their faces that they had heard the conversation. Lina decided that curtains made lousy walls.

“I could have helped you, Lina,” Bailey said.

Lina grimaced. “I know. You’ve done enough and I need to get on my feet,” she said as Edge carried her to the bathroom.

She breathed a sigh of relief when he placed her feet on the floor. She sighed again, this time with aggravation, when Edge started to close the door—with him still inside the room. Holding a hand to her side, she raised an eyebrow and looked pointedly at him.

“You’re on the wrong side of the door,” she stated.

He had the nerve to shake his head at her. “No. You should have someone in here with you,” he replied.

Lina ignored the pain in both her side and her bladder. She lifted her hand and gripped the edge of the door frame. There was no way in hell she was going to give in.

“Out! Now!” she ordered, pointing to the door.

She ignored the way his jaw tightened. He was going to try to argue with her. She wasn’t in the mood to negotiate. The pain in her bladder was beginning to overshadow the one in her side.

“You are a frustrating woman,” Edge replied with a scowl.

“Yeah, well, just keep remembering that,” she retorted with a wiggle of her fingers. “If I need you, I’ll holler.”

He opened his mouth to respond before snapping it shut and stepping out of the room. A rueful smile lifted her lips when he closed the door while muttering under his breath. Drawing in a deep breath, she stared at the door for a moment. She could hear the teasing comments the women were giving Edge.

“That man is going to drive me crazy,” she whispered with an amused shake of her head.

* * *

An hour later, Lina sat on a crate and rested her head against the wall as she watched Mechelle and Bailey quiz Edge about life on Rathon, the Trivator home world. She hoped Edge didn’t realize that they were also asking pertinent questions to help them understand if the risk they had taken was the right one. Deep down, Lina’s gut told her it was right despite the complexity of the situation between them.

“So, you know how to fly spaceships?” Mechelle asked. “Like all kinds of spaceships or just Trivator ones?”

Edge frowned. “I can fly anything that has been made. The dynamics of most ships are the same,” he replied.

“What is life like on Rathon? I mean, do all the women have to bow down to the men or do they have some say in what goes on?” Bailey asked.

Lina’s lips twitched at Edge’s startled expression. “If you ask my father, he would say my mother has more say than most. Why should a woman feel she must bow to a man? She is what balances him. Without her, he only has half a soul.” Lina sucked in a breath when Edge turned his glittering gaze to her. “Finding our Amate is a gift from the Goddess. It is her way of showing a warrior that he is worthy,” he said.

She flushed when Mechelle looked at her with wide eyes while Bailey fanned herself. Mirela’s soft ‘What the fuck?’ rang in her ear. Lina bowed her head and tried to pretend she didn’t understand what Edge was publicly telling her. She wasn’t up to dealing with the emotions he was causing inside her.

“Somebody definitely has the hots for you. I think it is more than a one-night stand kind, too,” Mirela murmured.

Lina scowled and shot Mirela a warning look. “He’ll get over it. It’s survivor’s emotions. Once he’s out of here and back on his world, he’ll find some poor Trivator girl and shower her with his affection,” she retorted.

“Mm, yeah. That would be easier to believe if no one had heard the hushed moans and groans coming from your area a few nights ago. If you were trying to keep things a secret, Lina, you need more than a curtain,” Mirela dryly replied.

“It didn’t mean anything, Mirela,” Lina quietly retorted.

She ignored Mirela’s skeptical look. Her eyes turned toward Edge. He was explaining to Bailey what the different medicines in the box were and how to use them.

Even though she had only been up for an hour, she was already exhausted, but she resisted the urge to go lie down again. She knew it was because she was worried about Andy and Gail. The two women had gone topside while she was in the bathroom.

“Changing the subject, when are you going to tell him about the you-know-what?” Mirela asked.

Lina knew what Mirela was asking. They had agreed they wouldn’t mention anything about how they planned to escape until they felt the time was right. Part of that timing included not only getting Edge recovered and detoxed from the drugs, but also knowing that they could trust him.

“He still has the shakes. They aren’t as bad as they were, but he still has them,” she softly replied. “At night, when he thinks I’m sleeping, I can hear him still fighting against the effects. Whatever the Waxian did to him—whatever happened to him before—it continues to affect him.”

Mirela leaned her head against the wall next to Lina and released a long sigh. Lina watched the other woman draw up one leg onto the edge of the crate and wrap her arm around it. She could tell from Mirela’s hard expression that the woman was remembering the things they had lived through.

“We all have our ghosts at night, Lina. I was in the same cell as you and heard your nightmares just as you’ve heard mine. I say he is ready and so do the others. If we are going to get out of here, we need to do it sooner rather than later. He’s the only one out of the lot of us who knows how to pilot one of those damn alien spacecrafts. The longer we stay, the greater the odds are that we’ll be discovered. We’ve already outlasted the statistics for that probability,” Mirela replied in a slightly bitter tone.

Lina watched Edge nod as Bailey repeated what he’d told her as she replaced the items. Mirela was right. The longer they stayed, the more likely it was that something else could happen to one of them.

“I’ll talk to him tonight. Do we have the rest of the supplies loaded?” Lina asked.

Mirela nodded. “Yeah. Mechelle and I did a run yesterday, and Andy and Gail did the last one before they went topside,” she said.

“We don’t even know if it will work. Maybe that is why the ship was left behind,” Lina muttered.

Mirela slid her leg down and sat up. “It has to. I don’t want to fucking die in this shithole,” she replied, standing up. “I’m going to get a drink. Do you want anything?”

“No, thanks, I’m good,” Lina replied.

Lina watched as Mirela walked over to the others. She chatted for a moment before disappearing into the kitchen. Looking down at her hands, she realized that she was playing with the hem of her shirt. A part of her had been dreading this moment ever since she first heard the guards talking about having a Trivator in their custody.

She wanted to get off this rock as much as the rest of them, but she was also worried that their one hope would turn out to be a dud. What if the spaceship they had found during their explorations turned out to be a piece of junk? When they first discovered it, they had been so excited. It was the hope that kept them going day after endless day.

Now, it was time to see if that hope was a pipe dream or a reality. She looked up at Edge, and watched him quietly walk across the room toward her. There was something in the big guy that melted the ice around her heart, and it scared the shit out of her. She had promised herself it would be just one night, but she quickly realized that one night would never be enough.

They had been together pretty much 24/7 since she’d found him. You got to know someone when you spent that much time together in close proximity, and it hurt so much to lose them. Tears burned her eyes for a moment before she blinked them away. She had given up on tears and love a long, long time ago, she reminded herself.

“You should be resting,” Edge said, stopping in front of her.

She tilted her head back and glanced up at him. “I am,” she retorted with a wry smile. “That was nice of you to show Bailey how everything works.”

She smiled when he pressed his lips together at her avoidance. Turning, he sat down on the crate that Mirela had abandoned just a moment before. He leaned against the wall and folded his arms across his chest.

“We are trained in advanced field medicine,” he replied. “Why did Mechelle and Bailey want to know what types of spaceships I can pilot and what my home world is like?”

Lina briefly closed her eyes. She turned her head and gave him a rueful smile. He was looking at her with a raised eyebrow. He had known exactly what the two women had been doing.

“We have a spaceship,” she softly admitted.

He sat up and twisted until he was facing her. The humorous expression in his eyes had quickly faded into an intense look, and he stared at her with a sense of purpose that shook her. She took a deep breath and stiffly straightened.

“Where is it?” he demanded.

“Before you get too excited, we don’t even know if the damn thing will work,” she cautioned.

His jaw tightened, and he studied her face. Lina tried to keep her expression neutral.

“That is why you risked your life to release me—so that I would fly this spaceship. Was that the only reason?” he asked, searching her face.

“Yes,” Lina replied, staring back at him.

His eyes narrowed and she saw a flash of anger in them before he concealed it. She didn’t flinch when he lifted his hand and ran his fingers along her jaw. Her heart pounded in her chest when he rubbed his thumb along her bottom lip.

“And now? Am I just a pilot to you?” he asked softly with a smoldering look.

Lina hesitated, but knew what she had to say. “Nothing has changed, Trivator,” she whispered regretfully.

“You are not a very good liar, Lina Daniels,” he murmured.

Her lips softened when he bent his head. His hand moved along her jaw and his fingers spread along the back of her neck to keep her from turning away from him. Her eyelashes fluttered closed when he captured her lips in a tender kiss.

She could have handled keeping her heart protected if he had just kissed her with heated passion. It was his gentle touch and the tender way his lips moved against hers that melted her resistance. This huge alien warrior confused her. Every time she thought she was beginning to figure him out, he did something totally unexpected.

Her lips parted under his gentle probing. His tongue swept along the smooth surface of her teeth while his other hand came up to cup her heated cheek. He gave her a series of kisses, some deep, while others were light and teasing. The combination was enough to draw a soft moan from her.

“Edge,” she whispered, her hand sliding up the front of his vest.

The sound of something dropping on the floor drew Lina back to the fact that they were not alone. She tilted her head and gazed over his shoulder. Mechelle, Mirela, and Bailey were standing there with their mouths open, staring at the two of them. Mirela had dropped the spoon she was using to stir her tea.

“We need our own space,” he muttered.

Lina started to reply when she heard the soft sound of knocking on the other side of the door. Mechelle quickly turned and hurried to it. The rhythmic knock came again. Mechelle unlocked the door and pulled it open. She had barely opened it far enough for a person to enter when Andy pushed by her followed closely by Gail. They both wore grim expressions as their eyes swept the room before locking with hers.

“We’ve got to go now. The Waxians have some kind of creatures that are tearing apart the lower sections. They are heading this way,” Andy informed them.