Chapter 21

CHAPTER 21

THREXIN

T he blood passages were sparsely lit. There was something comforting in the blackness of their narrow walls. Threxin scented Alina Argoud's curiosity as she followed half a step behind him. He also smelled her trepidation. She was frightened still, as she should be.

The passages contained many shortcuts, but Threxin had not yet explored them all. They took the winding trip in silence as usual, her short steps scurrying to keep up with him.

Threxin's long strides were too speedy for her, but he did not intend to linger in her presence any longer than necessary. Not while her kneeling form was fresh in his mind, lashes splayed across sharp cheeks as her hands hovered at his chest. And especially not when the vision of her stare as he delivered his punishment in the dock kept surfacing. She had leaned forward as she latched onto him, even in the violence of it all, and saw nothing else. Threxin could have kept her locked on him until someone—or everyone—noticed, and she would do nothing.

Someone did notice. Renza. Threxin hissed to himself, and Alina faltered behind him, pace stuttering in his peripheral vision.

He thought the next sound he heard may have come from her, and it took a tick to recognize otherwise. Threxin ducked into the side passage they had been passing. In the same sweep, he clasped Alina by the back of the neck and dragged her behind him. Her back slammed into the front of him and he felt the breath that would soon turn into a scream in her throat—one he cut off by slapping a large palm over her small mouth as he backed them farther into the shadows.

He'd been just fast enough; a tick later, the source of the sound came into view: Orion Halen's red female, running. She stumbled and fell, hard. The adrenaline roiled off her in waves, cloying in its musk. It kicked up his pulse and cinched his ribcage. Alina made a muffled sound, and Threxin jerked her tighter to himself in a warning to shut up, crushing her against him with the arm he had clasped across her stomach.

After several ticks, another scent broke through the heavy stench of the female's adrenaline: the cold crackle of uhyre arousal wafted forth. Orion Halen came into view in the passage ahead. The air around him may as well have been a black hole. He sensed that Alina felt it too—she shuddered and recoiled against him, her hands finding his forearm and folding across it in a desperate grip.

His red female had begun to clamber to her feet, but Orion Halen stopped her with a boot on her back.

"Stay down," he commanded.

Threxin flashed a fang. Orion Halen should not be commanding anything on this ship with such delusional authority.

A moment later his human-kin was on his knees above the female, rolling her to her back. She resisted with all her strength, clawing at the front of his shirt, scraping for his face. The female against him shivered, but Threxin grew progressively stiller as he observed the savage scene. He fought to ignore the scent of fear evaporating from Alina Argoud's sweat glands, yet his grip tightened on her waist.

Threxin fought to bring himself down, sensing the warning signs of the limiter at the base of his skull, but it was difficult to not be infected by the smell of it all, especially with the soft body pressed flat against him. Alina Argoud clutched at his arm as if that would save her. Threxin nearly scoffed at the notion. He resisted making a sound only by putting his chin atop her head and drawing in the frightened female scent of her. Curled around her with her blunt claws digging divots into his arm, Threxin watched the scene before them even as the limiter spun up to a dull warning buzz in his head.

Orion Halen's eyes glowed and a hint of silver already colored his lips. That must have been his version of exorin, diluted with human saline and not the potent black of a full-blooded uhyre. With a vicious snarl, Orion pinned his female's flailing hands above her head and kicked her legs apart with a knee. His other hand unclasped his belt with practiced ease, then hiked up the female's loose skirt around her hips.

Threxin swallowed iron, choking it down to prevent exorin spilling from his lips and onto the female shivering against him. His body was acutely aware of her heat seeping into his skin, but his eyes were glued to the scene before him.