Page 30 of Shielded in the Shadows

“Siber, compile a file on Iosa and designate it for my eyes only,” I said, my voice rough. “If anything happens to me, destroy the file and remove all traces of these coordinates from the ship’s systems.”

“Of course, Captain.”

I shut off my viewer and finished getting dressed with a new sense of purpose and urgency.

When I finally emerged from my cabin, I felt like myself again, or something close to it. Despite the lingering soreness in my shoulder, I’d successfully braided my hair, put on a clean flight suit fastened all the way to my collar, and polished my boots to a high sheen.

There was no sign of Jarrix in either the galley or his cabin, but the smell of cooked food indicated he’d already made his meal. Sounds from the other end of the corridor alerted me that he was currently in the medbay. He’d mentioned serving as a ship’s medic aboard a privateer vessel, so maybe he was familiarizing himself with the contents of my medbay.

I activated my Bacorian coffeemaker—an upgrade to the galley I’d made immediately after purchasing the Nivilus—and chose a protein and vegetable dish at random from the food synth’s standard offerings.

Since my coffee and food would take a few minutes to be ready, I went into the crew cabin. Jarrix had left the doors wide open. To demonstrate that he wasn’t hiding anything from me?

I found Jarrix’s crossbow, gun, and daggers laid out neatly on the small desk, along with the weapons I’d had on me when we’d escaped Ghira Station. All had been meticulously cleaned. The bunk was neatly made and the bedding had clearly been washed because it smelled fresh and not as if it had been left unused for seven years.

Since it was my ship, I blatantly searched the room, making no effort to be quiet while doing so. But the only other sign of its occupant besides the bedding and weapons were two jumpsuits identical to the one Jarrix was wearing, folded with military precision and left on a shelf in a storage cabinet next to a small stack of underclothes that seemed…very form-fitting. Heat crawled up my chest and neck.

Footsteps in the corridor alerted me to Jarrix’s approach. He could have moved silently, but he hadn’t.

“The flight suit is a good design,” he said from behind me. If he was at all perturbed by my search of his cabin, it didn’t show in his voice. “Very practical.”

“I’ve always thought so.” I shut the cabinet and turned.

His massive body and wings took up the entire doorway, and his horns almost grazed the frame. Even with a gun in one thigh holster and my favorite dagger in the other, I should have felt uneasy with him looming so close, but I didn’t. Instead, he exuded security and confidence, and I hated how much I didn’t hate it.

In his enormous clawed hands, he held a giant bowl of what looked like hot, savory dumplings in broth and an equally large mug of what smelled like tea.

“You look lovely, Captain,” he said quietly. “And lethal.”

I snorted to cover the way his frank admiration made my stomach flutter. “Lethal, yes. Lovely? Hardly.”

His mouth quirked, flashing his fangs in a way that shouldn’t have been sexy but inexplicably was. “Lovely as the most spectacular nebula.” He indicated the bowl he held. “There’s no table in the galley. Where do you typically eat?”

I jerked my chin toward the front of the ship. “In the cockpit, or sitting on my bed in my cabin. There’s a desk in there, but it’s usually covered in weapons.”

“Would you like to eat together?” He gestured toward his bed. “I won’t ask to be let into the cockpit or your quarters, but I have plenty of room in here. Well, enough room,” he amended with a grin that revealed the rest of his fangs.

That grin felt as dangerous as him wielding a blade pointed at my heart. More so, even, because it was a promise of something big and risky that I really couldn’t afford to let get past my armor.

And yet, I feared it was too late.

I’d already allowed him to have my back and fight beside me aboard the station. I’d let him board the Nivilus, when I’d never permitted a passenger before. I’d allowed him to share his blood with me. I’d felt my body’s undeniable reaction to his coo.

I’d noticed the way he looked wearing a flight suit that matched mine, and I liked it. I liked how he smelled too, like smoke and spice and hot skin. It was a scent that would smell good on my pillow. The way his tail swayed and coiled loosely around his leg made me think about all the creative uses for that obviously dextrous appendage.

These…were problems.

If I didn’t put a stop to this right now and drop him off at the next station, I might start liking it all too much.

When I glanced up, Jarrix had traded the pleased expression he’d worn before for the look of a male faced with defusing an explosive ticking down to detonation.

“It’s just a meal, not a marriage proposal,” he said calmly, as if he’d somehow guessed my thoughts or their general direction. “I told you everything is your choice. I don’t expect anything from you.”

“Don’t you?” The words slipped out before I could hold them back.

“There are things I hope for.” He leaned against the wall and folded his wings tighter against his body, offering me enough room to slip past him into the corridor if I wanted to. “Hope isn’t the same as expectation. And I certainly don’t believe you owe me anything. What I offer, I do so freely. There’s no ledger here where one of us owes the other anything.”

“Good,” I snapped, since anger seemed like the safest emotion I could have at the moment. “Then I can drop you at the next station without worrying about owing you for anything.”