“I was expecting it. And,” she admitted, the color mounting along her neck again, “I trust you. It wouldn’t work unless I trusted you.”
And the fact that queens were only vulnerable to their consorts, which was more evidence he was the one male in the universe she could be completely vulnerable with and to.
He inclined his head. “Then I am honored you trust me. Thank you.”
“You are welcome,” she replied, a soft rattle in her voice, almost like a purr. His eyes widened and he took a step forward. For a moment she thought he was going to kiss her, especially when he slid a finger under her chin to tilt her head up. Her breathing quickened, her lips parting.
The machine behind him, the one he’d loaded her blood sample into, chirped and he turned, leaving her sitting there as he peered through two lenses into it.
“Fascinating, absolutely fascinating,” he murmured, grabbing a pad and stylus next to him and starting to scribble notes. She watched as strange symbols, like chicken scratches, flowed across the paper.
“What are you doing?” she asked, sliding off her stool to stand next to him. The symbols were unfamiliar.
“Your blood is unique. I’ve never seen a structure like it,” he said, reaching for a flexi-pad and flicking it on. Words flowed over the screen along with an auto-bed readout. Running a strong finger down the page, he pursed his lips, making another note on the page. Those symbols she recognized as Latharian at least, not that they made any sense to her.
She blinked. “You read and write Latharian?”
He nodded, sliding her another sideways glance. She’d noticed he did that a lot when he thought she wasn’t looking.
“It’s not difficult. Once you figure out the cognates, you’re halfway there.”
She bit her lip, feeling stupid. “What’s a cognate?”
Surprise flared in his eyes for a moment and then he smiled. “It’s a word that means the same in another language. Like a Rosetta stone to bridge the gap from one to another.”
She snorted. “Your species still uses stones? How… quaint.”
He ignored the sarcasm.
“Uh-huh. Show me some words in your language,” he said, sliding the pad toward her while holding the stylus out.
“You wouldn’t understand Krynassis,” she huffed, determined not to show off her ignorance. It was bad enough that she had no education to speak of, but if he found out she couldn’t read or write either… what would he think of her? Probably that she was even more of an animal than he’d first thought.
“I’m sure I wouldn’t,” he murmured, making a few more notes on the page. Then he tucked the stylus away in the pocket of his white coat before looking down at her through the lenses attached to his face.
She reached up, brushing the edge of one with her forefinger. “What are these for? Some kind of scientist equipment?”
“My glasses?” He reached up and snatched them off his face. “Errr no. They’re to correct my vision. I had surgery a while back, but it didn’t take, unfortunately.”
“Your vision? You can’t see properly?”
He shook his head slightly. “I’m long-sighted. I can see things far away, but things close by are a little fuzzy.”
Emboldened, she reached up and slid them off. “This way I look more like a human female then.”
“Woman,” he said, his voice husky.
“What’s that?” She leaned in, tilting her chin up.
“Woman. A human female. We call her a woman…”
He bent down and her lips parted. He had to kiss her, he just had to. Just as their lips were about to meet, the inter-ship comm squawked.
“Dr. Archer? Boss wants you on the command deck.”
6
She’d been about to kiss him. He was sure of it. But then he’d been cockblocked by the boss. How the fuck had T’Raal known he’d almost kissed Zad? Were there cameras in his lab or something?
Eric grunted as he slid onto the weight bench. He would be more suspicious of the big Latharian mercenary’s motivations… if he hadn’t so much as flicked a glance toward Zad when she’d slid past them in the corridor. He knew he wasn’t the best at reading people at times, but there had been zero interest there. Zip, nada, fuck all.
“Hey, big guy. You sure you wanna do this?” Sparky asked, loading plates onto the bar.
“Uh-huh. Yeah.” Eric nodded, taking a deep breath as he put his hands on the bar. “I have to.”
“Near death experiences’ll do that to a body,” Sparky said cheerfully, locking the plate into place and moving behind the bench. “And bulking up to make sure you can kick arse… that’s a plan with no drawbacks. Been there myself.”
Eric eyed the lean human mercenary in surprise. He was almost as tall as Eric but where he was… well, less than toned, Sparky was whipcord lean. Most of the time he looked skinny, but stripped to the waist to work out revealed the fact that there was not an ounce of spare fat on him. Probably all that running his mouth, given what the guy ate.
“You have?” He could have sworn Sparky had emerged from the womb ready to fight.
“Uh-huh. Dad was a bastard, especially to my mom.”
“Oh… so, what? You got big enough to protect her?” It was an admirable aim, and not an origin story he’d have expected for the frankly mentally unstable mercenary.
Sparky snorted in amusement. “Did I bollocks. Me ma doesn’t need any man to protect her. If anything, you lot need protecting from her.”
Eric barked a small laugh. “Not what I expected you to say. So what happened?”
“She took me outside and taught me to fight against someone bigger’n me.” Sparky winked. “Made sure I could thrash anyone I went up against.”
“Yeah?” He was interested despite himself, even as he made a mental vow to never meet Sparky’s mother. She sounded scarier than his own. Way scarier. His mother was really only a danger to other women in her social circle. If she thought they were a danger to her position as queen bee, the knives were out.
“Abso-bloody-lutely, and that’s what you’re gonna learn to do. You ready?”
“No, but let’s do it anyway. And thank you.” Eric nodded.
Of all the people on the Warborne crew, he’d never have expected the ex-con to be the one who understood.
“You’re welcome, squire. Let’s see some reps out of you.”
The next hour went from learning the ropes of heavy weightlifting to Eric being convinced that Sparky was, indeed, trying to kill him.
But even though his muscles screamed and even his bones cursed him as he tried, and mostly failed, to lift everything Sparky threw at him, he found his mind clear. Even as he swore at Sparky with sweat pouring down his body, he found his mind as clear as he’d always thought it would be during the meditation he never managed to focus on.
He ran over the almost kiss with Zad in his mind again and again and was almost convinced of two things.
The first was that she’d been about to kiss him… more than that… she’d been flirting with him. He was sure of it. He was a xeno-geneticist and epigeneticist—so he studied how different planetary environments altered humanity—not a xeno-biologist. But he’d done enough biology as an undergrad that he recognized courtship behaviors when he saw them. The coloration along her neck, the new submissive element to her movements… it all stacked up.