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The fire that burned in the pit of my gut was a mix of anger and the sickness. They twisted my stomach, making me feel like I was riding too close to a black hole. I could have crushed Maisie like a bug between my hands, but I didn’t.
I was incapable of hurting her. She was just about the only person I could trust aboard this infernal ship. But if she helped a human female that’d escaped… Perhaps I shouldn’t put so much faith in her after all.
The anger seeped from me like water from a sponge left out in the sun.
“Don’t do it again,” I said coldly. “Go.”
I feared if she stayed in my presence any longer, I might harm her. Anger management wasn’t exactly a strength of my species.
She nodded her head and shuffled out of the cargo bay.
If even Maisie defied my orders, what chance did I have the rest of the crew would follow them? Did I even deserve them as a crew?
I coughed. It sent shockwaves through my skull.
The crew must have sensed my weakness. Eventually one would take it upon himself to take action and Challenge my leadership. I didn’t blame them. A crew needed a strong leader. That was how I’d become leader, after all.
I Challenged our former captain after he’d lost his mind and ordered us to steer the ship into a blazing sun. I beat him in single combat and stripped him of his mantel. I would have kept him on my crew, except he had clearly lost his mind. I stabbed my blade deep in his chest in a sign of mercy rather than anger. He’d been like a father to us.
And his final words as he took his last gasp? “Destroy us for we destroy worlds.”
Maybe he wasn’t so crazy after all.
I made it to my quarters and immediately stumbled onto my bed. I’d marched with my chest out, my chin raised the entire way, concealing the sickness consuming me from the inside.
It was exhausting. I was lucky no one stopped me in the hallways.
I let the bed absorb my weight as I sank into it. My entire body ached and the drumming in my skull was louder than ever before. I needed sleep—real, genuine rest rather than the fitful bursts of nightmare-filled dreams I endured.
I got comfortable and felt myself slipping off the edge of consciousness. The gray mist of dreams wrapped around me, not as a comforting blanket, but a torture device designed to keep me in place. I frowned, preparing myself for the impending onslaught.
That’s when something straight and, I thought, very sharp slid beneath my chin. It remained there and didn’t move.
The fact it hadn’t moved, hadn’t instantly opened my throat meant it couldn’t possibly be one of my crewmates. Not all of them had honor. Some attacked from the shadows.
Through the misty haze of the sickness, I opened up my senses. I sniffed through my nostrils and caught the scent of her. She smelled exquisitely feminine. She was bold to have come here. Clever too. It was the one place the drones wouldn’t venture. All she had to do was wait for me to turn up and make myself comfortable before sliding into position.
Despite myself, a smile curled my lips.
“Don’t move,” she said.
She had no idea the strength and speed a Titan could move. How could she? Her species hadn’t met any other forms of intelligent life.
I reached for one of the knives I kept tucked in my bed’s frame for such emergencies as this. I fingered the handle, getting a good grip on it. I remained alert but did not act.
“What’s your name?” I said.
She snorted. “You don’t even know the names of the innocent women you kidnap?”
“I could check my files if you let me get up…” I said. Of course, there were no files.
She stiffened with that blade to my throat.
“What do you want?” I said.
“I want my freedom,” she said.
“If you wanted that, you should’ve taken the shuttlecraft earlier,” I said.
