Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15

THREXIN

T he human female was nervous. The redness that had spread on her fleshy upper face was a telltale sign of discomfort, as was the way her eyes kept shifting from one spot to another, refusing to linger.

Threxin sighed as she pressed a damp cloth to the dry aperture beneath his chest. It ran diagonally from his sternum to his hip and, being among the longest on his body, was especially prone to dehydration. The warm moisture induced a carnal relief that was inappropriate, perversely drawing out his cyan glow against all senses of propriety.

He had been nervous too, to have weird alien hands on him. It was wrong to have anyone other than a parent or mate care for these parts of him. And Koruth had never been the caring kind.

Threxin's apertures had flinched shut at the human's initial touch some ticks before. He'd had to force himself to relax enough to open to her.

He had also avoided looking at the female at first, occupying himself instead with a mental list of all things he had to prepare for the jump. There were four days left. Renza had suggested postponing, but that was not an option. Threxin's absence would already have been noticed, and missing the jump would only raise more questions.

Despite his best efforts, Threxin's eyes were drawn to the female's small fingers with their blunt claws. They were nimble but uncertain at first, even though the female had apparently done this many times in the past days.

But now he was awake, and the human sensed the discomfort of the situation as well as he did. They were both gritting their way through it, and as the ticks passed her touch grew more assured, falling into practiced, confident motions.

Too confident. Threxin hissed as she pushed the cloth too hard to the aperture, and she flinched back. "Sorry."

She should be. The electric jolt the act induced was far from welcome. The way his apertures parted instantly against his will was even worse, and if he were human he would have reddened then as well. He'd gathered it was a sign of many human emotions, shame being the most relevant in that moment.

Threxin had half a mind to wave the female off and do the job himself, but he had already moved too much. The wound beneath the plaster in his chest had cracked, weeping at the edges.

"It is leaking," he commented gruffly. She must not have cared for it as she should, because Threxin knew for a fact he was a rapid healer.

"I'm not surprised," she muttered under her breath.

Threxin's ears pulled back, apertures tightening. "Why?"

"Never mind." She dabbed her fabric to an aperture that was clenched shut with suspicion. "Can you… just…" She motioned to it uselessly, asking him to open up. Perverse.

"I have been stabbed by one of your kind, human. I say the cause of my delayed healing is very important." Threxin lifted himself on his elbow, glaring .

The action drew her upright, exasperation on her tiny face. "Please. You'll make it worse!"

Perhaps he had another way to get his answer.

He didn't need it. He could threaten her to respond. It was experimental curiosity that made him do it. An inquiring tendril raised its spike, and Threxin, following it, reached a finger to catch its sharp tip beneath the human's chin.

Her brow furrowed. Confusion. Fear too. She tried very hard not to look at him. Her eyes remained downcast even as she lifted her chin under the pointed pressure, thick lashes splayed over fleshy cheek mounds. But eventually with a perplexed and—amusingly— angry look, she flicked them up to his, and that was when Threxin tried his experiment. He took her eyes.

It was pure instinct. It didn't work on his own kind, of course. He'd only heard legends of it done on humans on the homeworld they had called Earth . Something inside Threxin's ribs guided him—black tendrils unfurling underneath his bones. His attention first unfocused, hazy as he fell into the brown of the female's captured stare, and then oscillated back. The circle of his vision honed in, precise as a laser finding its mark.

He almost startled out of it when he saw the black of her pupils expand so suddenly. In nothing but a blink, the brown iris was no longer there, and all that was left were two endless voids. They were wide open and empty with invitation to claw inside them and see what was to be found.

Something warm slid down his finger. He registered that it had to be blood. It took Threxin a few ticks to validate that he had indeed not moved to pierce her. Instead, it was the human herself leaning forward, dragging the underside of her own chin along his talon and drawing blood to his knuckle as she went.

White heat flashed in Threxin's eye sockets, clattering against his skull and tearing his attention away in a blinding flash. He jerked back once, then again as the movement drew pain from his chest wound.

"Shoq," he swore, slamming the heel of his hand to his forehead, eyes squeezed shut.

" Shit ," she mirrored as the limiter churned his brain to mush. Threxin collapsed back onto the bed, riding the bolts of pain.

The small alien hands on him were what he felt first. He wished to strike them away, but he couldn't move. As the agony behind his eyelids subsided into a dull throb, Threxin opened his eyes to find the female gnawing her bottom lip, staring at his chest. She pressed damp fabric to the wound, dabbing away red.

"You're bleeding," she muttered the obvious, rummaging in a box at the side of the bed.

"As are you."

She didn't meet his eyes as she swiped the back of one hand under her chin before resuming attending to his wound. Humans were stupid.

And he had been stupid too. Threxin found himself prying the wet towel from her stupid hand before he could think to press it under her chin because evidently she was not going to do it for herself.

Something in him stirred only enough for its existence to be recognized, not deciphered, before the limiter kicked in once more—this time not in an incapacitating blaze. Threxin shook his head a little to clear the remaining fog.

He still had not received the answer he needed, and his voice was quiet as he asked again, "Why were you not surprised, female? About my wound not healing as it should."

"My name is Alina Argoud." She looked pointedly at his neck, not his face, as she submitted to the pressure of the rag beneath her jaw. Her chin shifted against his hand when she swallowed .

"Ahhlina," Threxin tried the name. "I will not ask again, Ahlina Argood."

She fidgeted, shifting from one knee to the other on the floor. "I was doing this last night. Hydrating your apertures. I fell, and you grabbed me in your sleep."

Threxin cocked his head.

"I couldn't get out." The words came fast now. "You dragged me into your wound pretty hard. It got scraped up."

"I hurt you?"

She took the rag from his hand with clammy little fingers. "A little, but it was whatever. I was fine. I just mean that… that's what reopened your wound."

Threxin lifted his chin in acknowledgement. So his subpar healing was his own doing. He said nothing as Alina Argoud finished dressing his stitches and went directly back to the work of dampening his apertures after fetching a clean piece of fabric.

Renza thought Threxin should spend another night in this cabin, but he didn't know that he could. He had work to do, trajectories to verify. A port to install. The jump was nearing. But as he stared at the ceiling and pressed his fingers to the smooth wall at his side, Threxin found his motivation to move fading. The space was small enough to almost feel safe. Of course, it never would—not with a human in it. But it was a small human who had had opportunities to kill him and had not.

He drifted, mind heavy after the flaying of the limiter. He resigned to tolerate the spindly fingers working at his skin. Relaxing, it felt even better, for his apertures opened to receive and absorb the moisture applied. But soon the female's movements grew too methodical once more, harsh and impersonal, like she was working a slab of meat.

"Slowly," he commanded through the fog of exhaustion. He kept his eyes closed as he captured her hand and forced it to slow, guiding it along the aperture which cut a line through his hip. "Like so."

The pulse in the fleshy part between her thumb and finger jumped beneath his palm, but she did not complain, resigned to his guidance. Fear could be a wonderful thing.

Threxin thought of Silarra and her debacle with the human. Then of Orion Halen's female, who was so dosed on exorin that she didn't have the brains to shut up in Threxin's presence. Then he thought of the female kneeling by his bedside, who was so preoccupied with caring for his injury that she had just ignored her own.

Everyone else seemed content to make stupid decisions on his ship. Perhaps Threxin could permit himself to be a little stupid too. He guided the female's hand up the sensitive aperture running along the side of his abdomen, letting himself drift.