21. Skylar

21

Skylar

I wake again in Tan's arms as his bokdazi . Mate for eternity. He's not even human, but he feels like my heart's home, if a heart can have a home. The thought of losing him terrifies me.

"Skylar?" he asks, brushing his fingers over my forehead.

"Bokzari," I return, just to see the way his face lights up, to feel his happiness.

And then he wraps his arms around me, presses his mouth against mine, and we lose ourselves in each other.

We finish bathing and—reluctantly on my part—put on clothes. I stand in front of the food dispenser with Tan's arms around my waist.

"Yahila," I say, giggling as Tan presses a kiss to the pulse of my neck. Yahila is the Asheraah equivalent of coffee, a lightly caramel-tasting beverage made from one of their tree barks.

A sound like falling sand greets my request. I look into my cup.

Seeds?

Tan laughs. "Your Asheraahn accent is terrible," he says.

I snort. "Fine, you order it for me. Or deal with un-caffeinated Skylar. You won't like un-caffeinated Skylar."

"I like… no, I love every Skylar."

My face heats. "Flattery will get you everywhere, bokdazi. But your mate needs caffeine."

"My mate is demanding." Tan says, dumping the seeds in the recycler and saying, "Yahila."

Another sand-swooshing rush of seeds .

"Your accent is terrible," I say, grinning.

"Quiet you." Tan says, leaning over me to punch at the manual controls. It takes two more tries before he's filled two steaming mugs with Yahila. It takes another two tries to get something hot and edible.

"I think you need to call maintenance," I say, sitting across the table from him. The Yahila is too sweet and the Asheraahn eggs a little too salty, but I'm not going to complain. It makes me feel a bit more comfortable, to be honest. Technical glitches are common across the universe.

Tan's nose wrinkles as he sips at his Yahila, but he gulps it down and says, "We should speak of what happened yesterday."

My eyebrows go up. "What happened was a pretty amazing orgasm or four."

"Before the orgasms," he says, chuckling. "When I was fighting Quayl. You called out for me to duck."

"Oh," I say. My mind flashes back to those black antennae, the shadow tail. I swallow and stare at him, trying to put into words something that still has no context for me. And in Tan's arms, now, it feels so faraway. But I'd known something was wrong. Off. It was why I'd known I had to see the fight, despite the assurances everyone gave me that Tan would win with ease.

"Remember what I said about the Asheraah with white scales?"

Tan nods. "You said Quayl had them. And another member of the crew. A communication tech?"

"That's what Tylan said. But I didn't tell you everything about Quayl." My face is hot. "You already thought I'd just been knocked too hard on the head, and I didn't want to make myself look even stranger, especially because nobody else saw them."

"What them?"

"The shadow antennae. They were coming out of his shoulders, toward me, when you came. I didn't want to think they were real. I mean, I'm still not sure if they're real or just something going on with my brain. It doesn't have to be a concussion. Once, when Ish and I were thirteen, we found a… lost box of fancy pastries that had fallen off one of the transports. It was addressed to the High Families. Caliban was like that. If you weren't one of the high families, yo u were dirt, and you lived in dirt housing—that's what we called it—and ate standardized food that tasted like dirt if you didn't have credits for spices or couldn't trade. But Ish and I had never seen food like this. We ripped open the box and ate down to the last crumb."

I still remember how it had tasted. And the warm hum that had gone through me with each bite. A reaction, I learned later. "After the second, I began seeing little frogs everywhere. It was raining frogs. Ish saw butterflies, and we were laughing and laughing." It had gotten worse as the effect strengthened, and we were lucky not to have been run over when we danced into the street, convinced the frogs would stop the oncoming trucks. But there was no point in going into that.

"It was hallucinations, then."

"Yeah, a reaction to something in the pastries. I still don't know what. But it happens. And I'm not sure if it's real or if something in the food here or the air is messing with my mind. I was allergic to your anesthetic, remember?"

Tan nods .

"But I told you to duck because Quayl had a shadow tail. Not like yours. It was more like a stinger. And I was scared of what would happen if he hit you with it."

Tan's ears go flat against his head as his expression darkens.

"Is it bad? I should have said something—"

"No. It is not your fault." His voice has gone too flat. "I do not know what this means. But it is worth investigating."

The com pings, and Tan answers, "Raiva."

I recognize Ano's voice, but both he and Tan are speaking Asheraahn, so I don't know what they are saying. It sounds important, though. When they cut the communication, Tan says, "Get dressed. I will need you to come with me."

This isn't my mate, Tan speaking. This is Raiva Tan.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"I do not yet know. But I intend to find out."

Tan is quick and efficient in his dressing. No soft kisses. No subtle touches, though I feel his gaze on me as I dress. It's not cold, but I feel distant. And I don't like it.

He leads me through the corridors and into what looks like a large briefing room. Ano, his second, is there, along with the Ehan Healer.

A cold spike of fear passes through me. Have I done something wrong? Do they suspect me again of intending harm to the ship? I didn't pass the test. But Tan hadn't seemed too concerned with that last night when he was inside me and claiming he wanted to be with me until the end of eternity.

Ano does not look pleased to see me, and he says something rapid-fire in Asheraahn to Tan, who shakes his head, an exaggeration of the human gesture.

Then, Tan says in Second Tongue, "Look around. Do you see anyone here with white scales?"

"No."

Tan visibly relaxes. Ano looks confused and starts to say something in Asheraahn, but Tan lifts his hand. "Speak so my mate will understand."

"You think she can see them? "

"I think she sees something. We have vid inside Quayl's cell, right?"

"Yes, I've called up the feed." Ano waves a hand, and an image of a bronze scaled Asheraahn appears on the far wall. He's asleep on his cell bed.

"He's bronze," I say before Tan can ask. "Nothing strange."

Except he seems almost unnaturally still, his legs straight out, arms at his sides, wings tucked back, his chest barely rising and falling. I don't see any wounds on him, though he's probably had a healer in to see him already.

"Maybe it does not work over vid," Tan says, frowning.

"Then take me to him," I suggest. "We'll see if it's different in person."

"If he is one of them—"

"One of what, Tan? What aren't you telling me? Because if it's important, I need to know so I can help."

Tan looks to Ano, who shakes his head .

"Not yet," Tan says. "I trust you. It is not that. But we need to know it is not your personal feelings that are influencing what you see."

Well, that was fexing vague. It's clear Tan trusts I'm seeing something, though. Which means the shadow antennae and the stinger may be real.

"One of the healers," I say, remembering the awful time of the test. "He had white scales. Or I thought he did. I was also reacting to the sedative."

The Ehan Healer looks grim. "I have had all of my healers tested. And all matched their biometrics. If you order it, I will submit to a full test, but I will require a half shift to recover. And I can do the same for my staff in shifts."

Full test? Like the heart stopping one they wanted to do on me?

It all comes clear.

"You think they're Gice Kohath, don't you?"

Tan averts his gaze while Ano's tail twitches.

Tan says, "We do not know."

"How could they get on the ship? I thought you had scans and procedures."

"We do. But no system is perfect. It is possible something got through our defenses."

That's a big mistake. Quayl was his third in command. If he's a Gice Kohath, how long had he been here, spying? No wonder Tan looks so grim.

It makes sense, though. The best defense is a good offense, and Quayl had been throwing the first punch again and again. "If he's one of them, we need to know."

"We can give him the full test," Tan says, but he sounds reluctant. "But that will kill him before we can interrogate him. Tan, if you think your mate can just look at a Gice Kohath and pick it out, we need her to try. Then we could interrogate him and find out how many more are on our ship."

I'm not sure if I'm buying it will be that easy. Shapeshifting cannibals aren't exactly known for their honest conversation. But it's not like I've chatted with many—or any—shapeshifting cannibals, so what do I know ?

"I will not allow anyone to put my mate in harm's way."

"Have you asked her?" Ano shifts his attention to me. "Skylar Zavien? Will you do this for us?"

I'm scared of seeing Quayl again. Of being in a room with him and getting in reach of his shadow weapons, but if I am to become a member of this crew in truth, if I am to be Tan's mate, then I cannot hide.

"I'll do it," I say, even though fear tightens a knot in my chest.

"Then we shall," Tan says. "And he will have to go through me to get to you.

"And maybe I'm wrong," I add, hoping still this is all just a figment of my imagination. There are times you want to be right, and there are times you'd rather be wrong. I'm definitely in the second camp here. "It could just be something weird with me."

"In truth, Skylar, I hope so," Ano says. "If you are correct, then we are in far deeper trouble than we ever imagined."