Page 28 of Shielded in the Shadows

The frantic way he’d used my cloak to staunch the blood pouring from my shoulder. How he’d ripped his arm open with his own fangs to share his blood with me so I wouldn’t die before he could get me into the medpod.

His coo, which had swept away my pain and comforted me when nothing else could, and proven we were indeed physiologically true mates. Even I couldn’t deny the truth of it anymore, as much as I wanted to.

I’d have to face him and figure out where we’d go from here.

Might as well get it over with. According to the medbay door controls, he’d been waiting for me to come out for more than six hours.

“No, don’t lock him in,” I said finally. “But do continue monitoring for unexpected hostile actions and maintain security on key locations unless I order otherwise.”

“Confirmed, Captain. Medbay security locks disengaging now.”

When the door slid open, Jarrix was already in the corridor and headed my way. He stopped just short of the medbay doorway, though, presumably to give me space.

He took up nearly the whole damn corridor. His horns were maybe ten centimeters or less from the ceiling, and his shoulders almost brushed the walls. My ship had never once felt small until this moment.

He’d apparently put the clothing synth to good use and made himself a jumpsuit the same basic design as mine, scaled up significantly for his size and modified for his wings and tail. Did he think it was the Nivilus’s official uniform? And why had he chosen to dress this way when the machine could have produced a hundred different possible options, most of which wouldn’t have clung to his body quite this well?

Quite this much, I meant. Not that I was noticing the fit of his clothing.

I definitely didn’t note the way the jumpsuit stretched across his shoulders or showcased a pair of thick, muscular thighs, or hugged an objectively perfect ass I wanted to sink my nails into.

I snapped my gaze back up to meet his.

His dark eyes raked over me from the top of my head to my bare feet and back up again. His expression was an even hungrier echo of how he’d gazed at me in the maintenance shaft: full of awe and edged with disbelief, as if he still couldn’t quite believe I was really here.

I couldn’t quite believe I’d let him aboard my ship, so we were even.

Belatedly, I realized I was no longer disguised as a brunette. The sonic cleanser in the medpod had removed the artificial coloring from my hair. Now it was its natural red again. My temporary facial tattoos were gone too, along with the lenses that had changed my eye color from green to brown.

In a way, Jarrix was seeing me for the first time.

Part of me hated that I was wrapped in a damn blanket and barefoot instead of armed to the teeth and wearing my flight suit and boots.

Another part of me liked the gobsmacked way he stared at me in my state of undress, as if a herd of Gandarian mule-ox could have come thundering down the corridor and he wouldn’t have spared them a glance. In fact, I worried he was going to kneel again and I’d have to shoot him on principle.

Thankfully, he stayed on his feet and focused his gaze on my healed shoulder as if he could see through my skin to the muscles and bones beneath.

“How is it?” he asked.

Gods above, his low rumble went straight to places it had no business going—specifically, my clit and my suddenly rubbery knees. Was this some bullshit side effect of him sharing his blood for healing?

I steadied myself against the doorway and glared at him. “Shoulder’s fine.”

He tilted his head, seemingly unruffled by my tone and scowl. “One hundred percent fine? Or more like seventy-five percent?”

I hesitated a beat too long in answering, apparently. “Seventy-five, then,” he murmured. “Still, we’re very lucky the damage wasn’t worse, and your ship contains a state-of-the-art medpod.”

His use of the pronoun we didn’t escape my notice. The audacity of this male. We were not a we.

“You’ll want to dress and then eat, I assume?” he continued. His mouth turned up at the corners just enough to reveal the points of his fangs. “Allow me to prepare a meal for us. I believe I’ve mastered the nuances of your food synth unit.”

“I’ll make my own food.” I brushed past him, intending to head straight for my quarters, but stopped short in front of the port door. “What happened to the mess we left here? Where’s all the blood?”

“I cleaned.” He folded his hands behind his back and nodded at the wall, where slight indentations and faint scorch marks indicated where several errant plasma bolts had struck. “And did some light repairs.”

I opened my mouth to tell him not to do things on my ship without permission, then swallowed the words because I hadn’t really been looking forward to cleaning up all that blood and patching the walls.

“Thanks,” I said instead.