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“I’m exhausted,” I admit to him. “I haven’t rested well aside from being knocked unconscious.”
He frowns. “Sleep if you can. I know it isn’t the most comfortable situation, but if you relax your body, floating is not the worst way to rest.”
“You’re serious?”
“Yes. I’ve slept in zero gravity before. In fact, I was once on a ship where the gravity controls were on the fritz. There was no other choice than to sleep while floating.”
I chuckle. “Did you wake up in strange positions?”
“I learned to rope myself to the bed frame. That way, if the gravity blipped on, I’d fall on the bed. Although I still smacked my head a couple times.”
“How many ships have you been on?” I ask, the curiosity coming to me so suddenly that I don’t have time to think that I might be asking too many questions. Am I sharing too much? Asking too much? But we’re out here alone, and there’s nothing else to do. The more we learn about one another, the more intimate this feels. If I were to fall asleep here with him, that would only make it more intimate.
“I’ve lost count,” he replies. “I don’t like to stay in one place for too long.”
He sounds about as restless as me.
“I could try to sleep. But what are you going to do, stare at me?”
“I’ve nothing else to do,” he says. “Luckily, you are a very fine-looking female to stare at.”
I don’t know how to react to this, so I ignore it.
“Sorry, should I stop complimenting you?” He asks. “Do you not like it?”
“I don’t care,” I mutter. “If I start drooling, I don’t wanna hear about it.”
“Noted,” he says, amused.
I shiver as my eyes droop, and Niko pulls me against him.
“Come closer,” he whispers. “Drool on my shoulder. I’ll keep you warm.”
I’m too tired to disagree or read into this transaction. We’re surviving, and he is comforting me. That’s it. It doesn’t mean anything that melting into his chest feels akin to a luxury hotel bed at this point. It doesn’t mean anything that his strong arms supporting me release all the tension in my body.
It’s only a necessity for our situation.
I drift off to sleep, both weightless and held, frozen and warmed, strangely aware even in my dreams that if not for Niko’s presence, terror might overtake me. The black heaviness of closed eyelids is nothing to the unending blackness that surrounds us.
CHAPTERELEVEN
NIKO
Raina sleeps in my arms.It isn’t a restful sleep for her. At first, she drifted off peacefully, but soon her small, gloved hands were grasping at the front of my airseal suit. I hugged her closer, hushed her, and murmured the kind of Kar’Kali words reserved for small children and beloved mates. This seemed to calm her slightly, but she’s woken a couple times now, disoriented and soft.
I can tell she needs real rest. She needs a safe reprieve from what she’s been struggling through. The situation I found her in was just one in a slew of many difficult situations since she was taken from her home. Weeks, she had said.
Weeks in captivity.
And owing to the lifestyle I’ve led for going on ten passings now, I’m acutely aware of all the ugly possibilities. She didn’t tell me the details, but I can imagine them. I’ve crossed paths with many of the slaving kind. The kind that take lives without thinking of consequences. The kind that see bodies as credit chips, and females as even juicier credit chips.
Yet it seems she has no intention of resting. She is going to head straight back into thekaia’s den to find her companions. With what plan, I don’t know. It would be easy enough to call Rossa or Mak. One call, and I could end passings of avoiding them with a cry for help. To ask a favor of another Kar’Kali after all the time I’ve spent on the run? It might be pitiful, but luckily, I’m shameless. They would make it painful, but this is my mate. It wouldn’t matter whether Rossa wanted to wring my neck and make me clean the fuel filters.
But they would pick me up and solve my problems. They would know what to do. They could find the human girls.
The difficult part will be convincing Raina to accept help.
I think of Raina’s claims about not wanting children or settling down, and it reminds me of Rossa. The two would make quite the pair if I got them in a room together. Rossa’s the same. She might have her little brother to care for, but she’s an angry little girl that grew up too quickly. She wanted to burn down the universe. Even now that her fire has cooled, she lets her anger hold her back from having a simpler life.
