Chapter 34

CHAPTER 34

ALINA

A lina stood beneath the hot stream of the unfamiliar shower, tracing the edges of dark granite tiles with her eyes as the water washed away the evidence of her transgression.

She tried to figure out how she was supposed to feel now. Ashamed maybe. Scared probably. The Harmonapam was still in her system, helping her deal with the consequences.

Mostly it was fine. Alina had gone into this with open eyes. She came to try to use whatever favor she'd built with Threxin to help her people and turn her betrayal into something useful. And that was what she was doing.

The fact that she loved every second of it was beside the point and inconsequential.

Alina rubbed a spot of black from her upper arm where the water hadn't reached it yet, watching as it turned to silver and slipped into the stream. Her stomach tightened at the memory of Threxin's tongue putting it there, the warmth between her legs indicating her body's readiness.

Never knew I was such a slut, Alina thought wryly.

Sex had always been just... well, okay. Okay to the point of her not really bothering with it in recent years, especially since moving up from the CRD. At first she was just too busy and excited with her new job assisting Kaia and getting settled on the command deck, and later… Well, after a couple of mediocre trysts, Alina decided she'd rather spend her time watching sitcoms.

But this… it wasn't even sex. They hadn't even kissed. Yet chills at her nape made her shiver in the hot water as she replayed fragmented scenes of what they'd done.

Alina forced herself to turn off the water. She'd been there too long, abusing Threxin's increased rations. Upon exiting the shower cubicle, Alina realized she had nothing to wear. Her leggings had been shredded and her shirt hadn't fared much better. Her eyes fell on the oversized slate gray fluffy robe hanging from a stainless steel hook. Would Threxin be mad? But unless he wanted her to march back to her cabin completely naked, he'd just have to deal with it.

The bedroom was empty. She wrapped the robe more tightly around herself like armor and padded back toward Threxin's office to face the real world, stepping carefully so as not to trip over the hem of the robe as it dragged around her feet. Time to put her efforts to the test.

Threxin stood near the office door with his arms crossed over his chest, his shirt rebuttoned and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He stared down at Per Halen, who had managed to crawl to the corner and prop himself against the wall. His bleeding had stopped, the scratches running along the entirety of his naked body having darkened as they dried.

Per Halen looked between Threxin and Alina, somehow calmer than she'd have imagined.

"Threxin…" she began, her voice thick in her throat with nerves even though she'd tried to steel herself for this.

The uhyre grunted in acknowledgment but kept his eyes on Orion's father.

Alina wavered between where she should go—to the tortured man on the floor or the uhyre she was trying to convince. She came silently to stand at Threxin's side .

"Please don't hurt him." Alina looked up at him as she said it, but he wasn't looking back, still keeping his gaze firmly on Per Halen.

It took Threxin a few seconds to speak. "Still, human? After he's witnessed us? Once he tells his son, what do you think Orion Halen and his female will do to you?"

Alina looked to Per Halen for any semblance of denial or defense, but he remained entirely silent, watching the interaction with a shrewd coldness unbefitting a man just sliced and diced and strung up on the ceiling.

"I'm not sure what you're implying. Do you really want to kill him to keep him quiet?"

"Do you not?"

"God, no!" Alina exclaimed, incredulous. Threxin killing people wasn't surprising to her, but him thinking that would be the logical solution for her as well was preposterous. God, he didn't know her at all. "If I were okay with murdering someone for personal safety, I'd have killed you when you first showed up at my cabin."

In the corner of her eye, Per Halen cocked his head.

Threxin stared at her with an ominous stillness, the only movement the slow rise and fall of his chest and the faint flutter of his apertures.

"Shit, Threxin, I… I didn't mean to…"

If her goal was to keep Orion's father alive and Threxin's hesitation was in how much he knew, she was only making it worse by fucking blabbing about what had happened. Was he thinking about how stupid she was again? Or deciding that she was hopeless, and that he may as well kill her too?

Alina dismissed the latter, which meant maybe she truly was stupid, but something in her was convinced that Threxin would not hurt her. Not after everything. Maybe that delusional confidence was what made her put a hand on his bicep, hoping maybe she could bridge the chasm rapidly forming between them .

"My mistakes are not worth anyone else dying over," she said.

His lip curled then, a low hiss escaping his teeth as he pulled away from her. "Your mistakes have more consequences than just to you, human."

Alina chewed her lip. "Why did you have him here in the first place? You needed him for something. You wouldn't do this for fun. You said yourself, your kind isn't like that anymore. Don't you still need him?"

Threxin flicked his fingers dismissively. "Not anymore. He did not provide the information I require."

Alina somehow wasn't surprised. Per Halen looked defiant even in his present state, exuding either stubbornness or stupidity. She wondered how much of that had rubbed off on his son.

"Let me talk to him," Alina suggested. "Alone, just for a few minutes. Maybe we can… I can find another way."

"Oh, for God's sake, I won't tell anyone your little secret."

Per Halen's voice was hoarse and broken, like he'd been screaming. It was the first time she'd heard him speak, and both she and Threxin stared as the man adjusted himself against the wall with a pained expression before continuing, "You're fulfilling your purpose."

"Purpose?" Alina frowned. "What are you?—"

"He wants me to breed you," Threxin answered for him. "That's why this Colossal was sent to Apth. To find me so I can fuck offspring into you."

"To save us all," Per Halen interjected.

Alina had been gawking, but that comment made her scoff. "Because cross-species interaction worked so well for us last time?"

"Your commander will explain it to you," Per Halen groaned. "I don't have the strength to rehash this with a traitorous servant bitch."

Alina hadn't had a chance to react by the time Threxin was at Per Halen's side, slamming his boot into the side of his face. His head snapped sideways, blood bursting from his nose and mouth. He tried to lift a shaking hand to capture it, but it only gushed over his palms. It took several moments for Alina to register the brutality of it and get moving.

"Threxin, stop!" She grabbed his arm and was shoved away as he reared back for another kick. Through the tears welling in her eyes, she could barely see his face, but what she could see appeared entirely without affect. How could someone be so calm while beating a man to a pulp? Alina lurched for him again only to be shrugged off like a rag doll, stumbling back over her feet.

There was no reasoning with this creature. There was only escape. The hard edge of the doorframe at her spine jolted her to her senses. She could feel the fears that had been suppressed in the chilled depths of her head poking their way out, hot pokers melting their way through the ice.

Per Halen was unconscious. Threxin stood over him, neck bent, spikes and apertures rising and falling with his breathing. When his hardened face turned toward her, Alina saw him in his full otherness. This alien monster was just pinning her against the wall not twenty minutes ago. It was marking her with its lips and teeth, scraping at her with its rough tongue. It slathered her with poison all over her skin and she had taken it, even fought the filthy craving to consume it despite the consequences. It had left her on the floor and forced her to pose for it while it used her for its pleasure, and how fucked up was she that her first thought was to taste the result of it all?

Alina's mouth was dry and her skin on fire with shame.

She numbly watched Threxin lift his inner wrist to his mouth, where she saw the flash of a comms device adhered to the skin. He spoke and she didn't hear what he was mumbling, but she could tell by the movement of his mouth and throat that he was speaking Apthian. His eyes remained locked on her beneath his hooded brows as he spoke.

When he approached, Alina remained frozen in place. When he took her by the arm in a firm grip and steered her from the room, she followed numbly. When he shoved her back into the bedroom, Alina balked, staring at the wall where he'd used her and the floor where he'd had her kneel. He must have felt her seize because he tightened his hold on her and pulled her back against his chest with force. She dug her nails into the flesh of her palms when she felt his breath at the back of her ear.

"Stay here," he commanded. When she did not respond, he jerked her against him roughly. "Do you recognize?"

Alina swallowed dry chalk and forced herself to move her head up and down, but it wasn't enough.

"Say it," Threxin insisted against her ear.

"I understand."

His touch disappeared abruptly. Finally alone, a hollowness expanded in her chest, like she had no organs at all. Like there were only a cold, empty cavity beneath her ribs.

Alina turned and stared at the door. The monster had left her alone in its bedroom with the door shut, keeping her from witnessing whatever awful thing he was doing to the man on the other side. In his absence the rest of her senses crept back into her body, until Alina heard the alien voices behind the door. She struggled to make out what they were. It was something about a human, but which one? Her, or Per Halen? She thought she made out the Apthian equivalent to a male pronoun. Take him?

There was shuffling and a distinctly human groan, then some more guttural grunts. Then silence, but she could tell whoever else was there hadn't left. Alina waited with bated breath, knowing her fate would be sealed when she and Threxin were alone.

"You are in trouble, k'riar." Alina held her breath at the sudden proximity of the voice, which appeared now to be right outside the door as Renza made his comment in Universal.

"Go," was Threxin's flat reply in Apthian.

Heavy footsteps retreated. A door hissed open, then clicked shut, and then hissed open again as Threxin reentered the bedroom, shadowing the doorway.