“An escape route. Evidence that might expose the project. I’ve been investigating all day, trying to find something we can use.” He moved closer, slowly this time, giving her space to retreat if she needed it. “I don’t want this for you. I don’t want this for us—not like this. Not with you as a prisoner. I want?—”
He stopped, the words lodging in his throat.
I want you to choose me. I want you to want me. I want a life with you that doesn’t begin with force and coercion.
“What do you want?” she asked quietly.
“I want to get you out of here. You and Robbie and the other females. I want to burn this whole facility to the ground and watch Naran’s ambitions turn to ash.” His voice roughened with emotion he couldn’t contain. “I want to be the male you deserve, Melissa. Not your jailer. Not your captor. A partner. An equal.”
She was silent for a long moment, and his heart hammered against his chest. He’d said too much. Revealed too much. If she rejected him now?—
“You should have told me.”
“I know, but I wanted to try and find an answer first.”
“I hate being kept in the dark. I hate being managed and handled and protected from the truth like I’m too fragile to handle it.” She turned back to face him, and while her eyes were still bright with anger, some of the terrible coldness had melted away. “I’mnot fragile, Becsul. I’m a mother and a scientist and a survivor. I’ve earned the right to know what’s happening to my own body.”
“You’re right.” He lowered his head in acknowledgment. “I was wrong. It won’t happen again.”
“No,” she agreed. “It won’t.”
She moved towards him then, and his whole body tensed with uncertainty. Was she going to strike him? Push him away? Demand that he leave?
But she just pressed her palm against his chest, her warm brown skin a stark contrast against the variegated green of his own, and let out a long, shuddering breath.
“Six days?”
“Less, if Veyalor decides to accelerate the timeline.”
“Can you do it? Find a way out in time?”
He covered her hand with his. “I don’t know. But I will do everything in my power to try.”
She looked up at him, and for a moment he saw past the anger to the fear underneath—the desperate, consuming terror of a mother fighting to protect her child.
“The other women,” she said. “Sarah and her daughter and… I don’t know the other one’s name.”
“Wei-Lin.”
“They come too. I won’t leave them behind.”
“I know.” His tail wound around her waist, pulling her closer. She let him. “I’ve already started accounting for them in my plans.”
“Good.” She leaned into him, just slightly, and the trust in that small gesture made his throat tight. “And Becsul? If Torvak comes near me again?—”
“He won’t.” The words came out as a growl. “He won’t even breathe the same air as you, I promise you that.”
She nodded against his chest, and for a long moment they stood there in silence, wrapped in a fragile truce that felt somehow more intimate than any kiss.
Then Robbie stirred in his crib, letting out a questioning cry, and she pulled away.
“I need to feed him.”
“I’ll go.”
“No.” She caught his arm before he could turn towards the door. “Stay. Please.”
He looked at her—this fierce, extraordinary woman who had every reason to hate him and yet kept choosing to let him close—and felt something settle in his chest.
