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  Why are you thinking of Teeny, anyway? I asked myself as I opened the ship’s hatch and ushered the silent Leah inside. She’s gone—far beyond your reach.

  Right. And Leah was even further beyond my reach. A Pure One and a La-ti-zal. She might as well be the Goddess herself, she was so far above me. Best not to let myself get attached.

  We were walking down the long central corridor of my ship as I lectured myself. I keep a pretty clean ship—no mess anyplace. It’s a habit I picked up in prison where you kept your bunk neat or paid the price. And believe me, it’s not a price you’d want to pay.

  “You can have this room,” I told Leah, motioning her to the sleeping chamber beside mine. “It’s not fancy but it’s neat. I, uh, hope you’ll be comfortable there.”

  “Thank you.” Her voice was a whisper and her head was down, her long brown hair hanging like a curtain around her face. Even through her silky hair, I could still see the cuts and bruises her bastard of a mate had put on her lovely face.

  I wished she would let me heal them.

  Males of the Twelve Peoples are able to heal orally—that is, we have antiseptic and healing agents in our saliva and other bodily fluids. But that kind of healing is usually only performed by a male on his bonded or intended mate and I wasn’t sure how Leah would feel about it if I offered to heal her.

  Best to just leave her alone, I told myself.

  “Uh…” I cleared my throat. “I’m going to get some clothes on and set a course for Eloim. Later on I’ll be making something for last meal. If you’d like to join me?” I made the last words a question, not wanting her to feel pressured.

  “Sure. That…that would be nice.” She looked up for a moment and I could tell she was trying to smile. “Thank you,” she said in a low voice. “For everything.”

  I looked into her battered but lovely face and met her eyes.

  “It was my privilege to serve you, my lady,” I told her softly, meaning every word.

  “Oh, um…” Her cheeks got suddenly pink. “Thank you,” she whispered again.

  I nodded and turned to go. I would give her some time to lick her wounds. Maybe we could talk more over last meal. Even if we were only going to be together a short time, I couldn’t help wanting to know her better…to find out more about the lovely little Earth female who was now in my care.

  Chapter Five

  Leah

  After Grav left me alone, I spent some time exploring my new room. It was, as he said, not fancy. In fact, at first glance, I wouldn’t have known it was a room in an alien spacecraft at all. There was a small, neatly made up bunk that folded out of the wall, a metal desk which was bare, and a single metal chair. No windows—no decorations. Actually, it looked more like a prison cell than a guest room but it was, as Grav had said, extremely neat.

  I didn’t care about the room’s Spartan appearance. Anyplace away from the house I shared with Gerald would be fine with me. I still couldn’t believe the way he’d gone after me. The way he’d—

  No. Don’t think about it. Push it away.

  I shook back my hair and took a deep breath but the motion made my face ache sharply. All right—enough avoiding the truth—time to go assess the damage. I wondered if there was a mirror in the tiny bathroom that adjoined the cell-like bedroom.

  In fact, there was, but it took me a little while to figure out how to use it. It was a flat, silver panel mounted above the tiny sink (which, by the way, did that same suction-buzzing thing the sinks in airplanes do when you’re flying) and it had several buttons on one side of it.

  I pressed one experimentally and the silvery panel came to life with a low hum. But when the fuzzy picture sharpened, I found I was looking at the back of my head. What? How was that even possible?

  I tried another button and this time I was staring at myself upside down. Well, that didn’t work either, though even from that angle, I could tell my face was pretty messed up. The third button distorted my features into a weird clown mask, making me think of those wavy, bulging mirrors at the fun house when the carnival comes to town.

  Finally, with the last button, I got it right. My face—from the front and right side up—came into view.

  I bit back a gasp at what I saw.

  My lower lip was cut and tender and a nasty bruise was already forming over my right cheekbone. There was a scrape over one eyebrow that was still trickling blood and my whole face looked swollen and awful.

  I wanted to cry at what the alien mirror revealed but I held back the tears grimly. If I let myself break down now I might never stop weeping. I didn’t want that.

  I splashed cold water in my face and blotted it gently with a thin hand towel I found beside the sink. My face still felt like raw hamburger but at least it looked better once all the blood was washed away.

  Beside the sink was a tall, narrow shower stall with a showerhead shaped a little like a megaphone. Thinking that a hot shower would make me feel better, I stepped inside. But I couldn’t find any way to make the shower work—there were no knobs or buttons or anything. Well, maybe it was like those motion-activated sinks that only worked when you waved your hand under them.

  Experimentally, I waved with both hands.

  “Hello?” I said, trying to get some reaction out of the damn thing. “Hello there—come on. I just want a shower. Please, I—”

  A blast of…something suddenly came out of the strangely shaped showerhead. It was air but not just air. There seemed to be some kind of humming vibration along with it that surrounded my entire body. It pulsed around me like a huge, thrumming heartbeat and I found myself being lifted off my feet.

  “Oh! Oh, no!” I gasped, scrabbling at the slick shower walls. “Stop! Stop it!”

  The wind only got worse. My hair was whipping around my face like it does when you get into the hurricane booth you find at some kid’s museums and the humming buzz filled my head so completely I couldn’t hear my own voice—even though I was screaming by now, at the top of my lungs. “Help!” I shouted. “Help!”

  Suddenly the shower door was ripped open and Grav’s face appeared, looking both worried and protective. He assessed the situation in a glance and then waved one big hand in front of the shower head.

  At once the weird humming buzz went silent, leaving a strange ringing in my ears. The wind died abruptly, dropping me like a bored child drops a toy.

  I would have fallen straight to the metal floor if Grav hadn’t reached out with inhuman grace and caught me, pulling me close to his broad chest. Once more I felt that strange tingle when we touched and then I was gasping and pressing my face to his shoulder, just trying to catch my breath.

  Grav held me without comment as I shivered against him. This close I could smell the warm, spicy scent of his skin and feel the heat radiating off his big body. He was so much bigger than me I almost felt like a child being held by an adult. It made me think of when I was a little girl and my dad would carry me to bed when I fell asleep on the couch. (Sometimes I used to pretend I was asleep, just so he would scoop me up and tuck me in.)

  Somehow that feeling of security, along with the heat of the big blue alien’s body and his deliciously masculine scent, was incredibly comforting.

  I closed my eyes and let myself melt into it. When was the last time I’d been held in the arms of a man who wanted only to protect me, not to hurt me? Probably back when I was a kid, I thought. Back when Dad used to tuck me in.

  “Hey,” Grav rumbled after a long moment, breaking my train of thought. “You okay, darlin’? I heard you shouting and you sounded scared—I wouldn’t have come burstin’ into the fresher otherwise.”

  “I…I…” My voice was hoarse from screaming and I had to clear my throat and start again. “I’m surprised you could hear anything over that noise,” I said at last, shakily. “What…what kind of shower is this anyway?”

  “A sonic shower,” he said promptly. “Water’s fuckin’ scarce in space. Sound used