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He ripped his stare away from her. “Your ship’s slow. I’m making it faster.”
His jaw locked hard and flexed repeatedly, drawing her attention to his face. Whatever emotions she’d incited were visible. He hated her and it broke her heart. His tail flicked like an aggravated cat’s as he fished down a blue wire and touched it to the orange in his hand. The pop of electricity made her cringe. She could sense the dangerous buzz on the air.
“These wires arelive, Caligher! You can’t just do that.”
He ignored her.
“You’ll start a fire,” she pressed. “You’ll get electrocuted.”
On cue, his body flashed with its inner light. The overhead lamps briefly dimmed and he absorbed the power surge without incident.
Right… He conducted electricity.
“OrI’llget electrocuted,” she persisted. “I’m covered in water, by the way. Electricity, water,humans?Not a great mix!”
He continued to ignore her tirade as tension radiated from his form. Every notion of groveling vanished. When he slowly reached for a green wire, she screamed at him.
“DoNOTtouch that under any circumstances! Green is the life support!”
His hand recoiled back.
But his expression hardened as he touched another orange wire to blue. Her beautiful engine room had been mangled beyond recognition… and now she knew he was trying to kill her.
The ship shuddered violently and she yelped, nearly losing her towel just as she lost her handhold. Another sickening shudder sent her crashing to the floor.
Gravity was back online.
Groaning, she sprawled on the floor feeling too many unhappy things to move.
“Sorry, Lucca. I forgot how clumsy humans are without gravity.”
“What?!” She shoved herself to her elbows to seethe at him. “What do you mean, Caligher? You’ve brought that up so many times, I was pretty sure it was your favorite feature!”
Lucca didn’t usually pick fights with someone who could murder her—but when she did, she chose the person who couldreallymurder her.
“‘Oh, ruin their gravity drives,’” she said, parroting his melodic speech. “‘It’s hilarious to watch them try to swim away! It’s evenfunnierwhen they realize they have nowhere to go. They’ll die if they leave the ship. They’ll die if they stay!’ Does that sound familiar?”
His jaw was pulsing, his face a wash of fury. Every fin on his body rose straight up—like one of those acid-spitting dinosaurs. Was this attack mode?
For the first time in her existence, she hoped it was, because she would claw his eyes out.
Another pop of electricity made her shriek. The lights all went off, giving way to the metallic pitch-blackness of the sinking Titanic and the hair-raising drop of her computer shutting down.
She absolutely hated that sound.
They were thrust into darkness. Her heart thumped erratically, her rapid breath loud in her ears. All that blazing bravado drained out of her.
“Jesus, I can’t see.”
Spaceships were frightening. Darkness was frightening. The combination of the two was downright petrifying, especially when she shared it with a pissed-off, human-killing alien.
She stumbled blindly to her feet and yelped when a vivid outline of light moved her way. Eyes with malicious intent centered on her, shadowed in the set of his face under a shifting cast of colors.
He was beautiful. Heart-stopping.
For a terrifying moment, she froze in his path like a deer. She barely found the nerve to whisper, “If you’re trying to kill me, don’t do it with my own ship. Please.”
“Kill you?”
