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Torgus made a tsking sound from the back seat, confirming my fears, but I ignored him.
I cut the engines and brought the ship around to align with the docking bay. There was a low hum and a thud as the Vaclanheim brought us in, its docking doors closing around us, blocking out the darkness of space and replacing it with an unnatural white light.
I pressed the button to open the cockpit hatch, laying my heavy mechanical hand across Cosma’s lap to stop her from leaping out of the seat as soon as she had a chance. Whether or not she knew it, she was an intruder in this place, and one wrong move would get her killed. I had every intention of releasing her, but I wouldn’t be able to save her if she started acting out.
“Stay calm and let me do the talking,” I advised, whispering the words against her ear. I felt her stiffen against me in response, and I stifled a groan as my cock took notice.
The sound of footsteps echoed in the cavernous space, assuring me that my commander was on his way. I waited patiently until his face appeared over the edge of the cockpit and I met his glowering eyes. He narrowed his gaze at Cosma, giving a small huff before looking to Torgus.
“Don’t ask me. I told him it was a bad idea,” Torgus said, peeling himself out of his seat and dropping alongside Nivek.
“Welcome back, Tor. It’s good to see you,” Nivek remarked dryly.
Tor didn’t waste any time dismissing himself, hurrying away down the long dock and leaving the three of us alone.
“Follow me,” Nivek commanded, stepping back and waiting for me to help Cosma out of the ship before joining them on the dock. Beyond that, he didn’t say a word until we were behind closed doors in his private office. He even waited until he had walked around to the far side of his desk before leaning forward and fixing me with a piercing stare with his dark eyes.
“Malik, you know this is no place to bring your playthings, so I’m going to assume you have an excellent reason for bringing her here.”
“Hey! I’m not his plaything!” Cosma protested, and I instinctively threw an arm around her, yanking her backwards against me to keep her from charging at him.
Nivek spared her a look before returning his attention to me, dropping into his chair and waiting impatiently for my answer as she continued to huff and puff behind me.
“Her name is Cosma. And as she says, she is not my plaything. There was an incident at the outpost, and I brought her here for questioning.” Cosma gave another defiant yelp at this revelation, trying to wriggle out of my grasp. “On the way in, a second ship arrived. According to her, they are friends. I do not know who they are working for or what their purpose is, but they did significant damage to the Sovann'ash’s numbers at that post, and I think it would be wise for us to gather more information.”
Nivek looked from me to Cosma, his expression turning from anger to disbelief as his eyes trailed up her body. I felt a defensive need to block his view of her, to keep him from examining her closely lest he have the same thoughts that I had been tortured with on the long ride here. All the same, it would have been improper to move just then.
“Is it true, then?” Nivek asked her directly.
7
COSMA
“Yes,”I answered, shrugging free of Malik’s grip and coming to stand on my own.
I could not tell if I was a prisoner of war yet or not, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to let Malik speak for me. If it was answers they wanted, answers they would get.
“Tell me about your friends, then.”
The man behind the desk gestured at a chair but I made no move toward it.
“I’d rather stand,” I answered curtly, trying to hold my ground. “It was a long ride.”
He merely nodded and waved for me to carry on. I wondered if he could sense my uneasiness, or if he noticed the way my eyes roved around the room, seeking an escape that I knew wasn’t possible.
“I don’t know what to tell you about them. In fact, I don’t know much about them myself.” I realized too late that I was fumbling. The ruby-skinned men exchanged a look, but continued watching me, suspicion growing on their faces. Malik shot me a warning look, and I stumbled over my next words, trying to explain myself, all while growing more furious with him by the second. I hadn’t asked to come here, after all.
“Why don’t you just start by telling us what you were doing there in the first place,” Malik suggested gently, as if throwing me a lifeboat now would ingratiate me to him.
I rolled my eyes in exasperation. “I told you what we were doing. We were there to free the women that those slime balls were holding prisoner and using in their sick experiments. If you’ll recall, I asked for your assistance on this matter, and you denied me.”
Nivek made a questioning face at Malik, who merely shrugged his acknowledgement that this exchange had happened exactly as I recounted. I pressed on anyway, worried that if I stopped talking, either of them might decide that they didn’t need to hear any more before they passed judgement on me.
“Before I ran into you, my partner and I were on our way to shut down the outpost’s security system. Something went wrong, and we got separated. Everything went to hell after that. All I could think to do was climb to the highest point I could find and start taking out those drones so everyone else could get away. And that’s where Malik picked me up.”
“And what do you know about the organization running that outpost?” Nivek pressed.
I could practically feel his scrutiny, waiting for me to fuck up. Even Malik appeared not to fully believe what I was saying, which seemed outrageous because he was there to break someone out of the prison himself. But now was not the time to argue about that.
