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“You look frightened,” Rhys said, touching my lips with three of his fingers, tracing the shape of them and then running his knuckles gently over my cheek, up to my ear. He moved even closer, making me forget my fear, and my mind. My body temperature seemed to rise, and a flush crept over my cheeks that I could feel. I lowered my eyes.
“You don’t need to concern yourself with any of this,” he said.
I wondered what that meant. I didn’t dare ask him – not after seeing his reaction to Tor’s questioning his authority. I was just curious: what was “this?”
Now that he was close to me, looking at me the way he was looking at me, and I could smell him and feel the heat of his body, and his touch, I wasn’t afraid anymore, either. I looked down, nodding a little. His hand was moving from my ear, down my neck, over my shoulder.
“What are you afraid of, my little mouse?”
I had shaken my head rapidly. “I don’t… I don’t know. I’m just not used to this… to men fighting."
He had pulled me close to him by the back of my neck and kissed my forehead again. I was starting to feel extraordinarily drowsy, and after he folded me into his arms saying not to worry, that he would protect me, and so would any of his men, my eyelids started to feel like they weighed several pounds each.
Rhys had taken me to the bed and set me down in it, and I fought to stay awake.
“I feel so tired,” I said.
“Doc gave you something to help you sleep,” he told me, covering me with a soft blanket that was normally not in his quarters. I wondered why he wanted me here, and not in my own bed. I started to say something about that, but the drug must have been really strong, because the words came out as nonsense.
And that was the last thing I remembered before waking up to Black’s voice.
I didn’t turn over, because I was curious about what they saying. I closed my eyes and tried to eavesdrop.
Black had said, “interesting move.”
Rhys didn’t respond.
“At some point you’re going to have to make a decision.” This was Black again.
I heard something slam on the table. It sounded hard, and hollow.
The sound of a liquid came next.
They were probably drinking some kind of alcohol together. They liked to do this.
“Cap. I want to talk to you seriously about this.” Black had lowered his voice and I could barely make it out. Rhys didn’t respond.
“If you aren’t gonna claim her,” Black began. “Then -”
“No oneis going to claim her.”
This was a curt, loud answer. He cut Black off. The tone sent a chill even through me, and judging by Black’s silence, it had on him as well.
“Alena W-982436 is going to be handed over to the Tyrusa Authority with her crew and these lot. We have no margin for error.”
Black sighed, while my head spun.
“If only those other fuckers hadn’t been dead -”
“But they were. And so this is the situation.”
Black slammed something on the table. He was hissing now. “I don’t accept that,” he seethed. Black was so angry sounding that for a moment I thought he was Cap.
Rhys made no noise, and for several moments there was no sound in the room. A tension hung in the air like a fog, though.
And then Rhys’s voice. It was even-toned, quiet, steady. But something very frightening existed in it, just below the surface.
“Nothing to accept.”
