Page 6 of Alien Devil’s Prey (Vinduthi Stolen Brides #1)

M y hands shook as I connected the final hyperdrive coupling, exhaustion and adrenaline warring in my bloodstream. We'd been working for hours, and my father's ship was finally responding like she was supposed to. The Drifter hummed around us, systems coming back online one by one.

"Hyperdrive motivator is stable," I reported, watching the power readings climb into acceptable ranges. "We can jump, but I wouldn't recommend anything ambitious. One long hop, then we need to find somewhere for proper repairs."

Talon nodded, checking his own displays. "The nearest inhabited system is six hours away. Can she make it?"

"She'll have to." I wiped sweat from my forehead, leaving a smear of grease. "The question is where we go after that. Any port with decent repair facilities will have Conclave connections."

"Leave that to me." He was studying something on his scanner, his expression thoughtful. "There are places the Conclave doesn't reach. Expensive, but secure."

I wanted to ask what he meant, but a proximity alarm interrupted the thought. Not the sharp wail of immediate danger —just a soft chime indicating something had entered sensor range.

"Contact bearing two-seven mark fifteen," I called up the display. "It's... big. Ship-sized."

Talon moved to look over my shoulder, his presence warm against my back. I tried to ignore the way my pulse quickened at his proximity. Adrenaline from the repairs, nothing more.

"Conclave cruiser," he identified, studying the sensor signature. "Search and rescue configuration. They're looking for survivors."

My blood went cold. "How long until they reach us?"

"Twenty minutes, maybe less." His voice was steady, but I could feel the tension radiating from him. "Are we ready to jump?"

I ran through the final checklist, praying nothing critical had been overlooked. "As ready as we're going to be. But if we jump now, they'll detect the hyperspace wake. They'll know someone survived."

"Better than letting them find us here." He moved toward the pilot's station. "Plot a course for... anywhere. We'll refine our destination once we're clear."

I slid into the navigator's seat, my fingers flying over the controls as I calculated jump coordinates. The mathematics were complex, made worse by our damaged sensors and uncertain position. One mistake could drop us into a star or leave us stranded in deep space.

"Course plotted," I said, though the word 'course' was optimistic. "It's not pretty, but it'll get us out of here."

"Execute."

The Drifter shuddered as the hyperdrive engaged, space twisting around us in that stomach-churning moment of transition. Then we were elsewhere, stars wheeling past in the familiar blue-white tunnel of hyperspace.

I slumped back in my chair, finally allowing myself to breathe. We'd made it. Against all odds, we were alive and free.

"Six hours to the Hadrian Belt," I said, checking our course projection. "Assuming nothing else breaks."

Talon settled into the co-pilot's seat, and for the first time since he'd cut through my hull, I got a good look at him without immediate crisis demanding my attention.

The cobalt traceries along his jaw and neck were dark lines against his gray skin, beautiful in an alien way that made my chest tighten.

His red eyes were fixed on the hyperspace display, but I sensed his attention was partly on me.

"You did good work back there," he said quietly.

The unexpected praise caught me off guard. "I nearly got us both killed."

"You saved us. The rest was just... collateral damage." He turned to face me, and I saw something in his expression I hadn't expected. Respect. "Your father was a talented designer. And you understood his work better than he probably ever imagined."

"I've had time to learn." The admission was quiet.

"Eighteen years of it. After I escaped The Maw, I never really got free.

I was just... re-catalogued. Spent fifteen years of scrubbing decks and hauling cargo before I was finally given a navigator's console.

The rage was always there, but the opportunity wasn't. Then, three years ago, they assigned me here. "

I looked around the cockpit. "Three years on this ship.

The irony wasn't lost on me—of all the ships in the Conclave's fleet, they'd assigned me to one my father had helped design.

Maybe it was deliberate cruelty. Maybe they'd just forgotten.

But it was the first time I had access to systems, to information.

The first time I could actually do something. "

"Is that what you did? Made it yours?"

I considered the question seriously. "I made it mine and something else. Something he would have approved of, I think." I touched the console, feeling the familiar responses of systems I'd spent years learning to understand. "A ship that could bite back when cornered."

Something shifted in the air between us—not romantic tension, exactly, but a new kind of understanding.

We were no longer captor and captive, no longer strangers forced together by circumstance.

We were partners who had worked together, trusted each other with our lives, succeeded against impossible odds.

"What happens now?" I asked.

"Now we disappear for a while. Get proper repairs, regroup, figure out our next move." He paused, studying my face. "That includes you, unless you have somewhere else you'd rather be."

I almost laughed. Somewhere else? I was an indentured navigator with a murdered family and a talent for making powerful enemies. The Conclave would be hunting me now, along with anyone else who might have survived their failed ambush.

But more than that—and this was the realization that surprised me—I didn't want to be anywhere else.

Working with Talon, matching my expertise against his, feeling like I was finally doing something important instead of just surviving.

.. it had awakened something in me I thought the Conclave had killed years ago.

"I'm in," I said, and meant it. "Whatever comes next, I'm in."

He smiled then, a real expression that transformed his face from coldly handsome to something warmer. "Good. Because I have a feeling we're going to need each other for what's coming."

The Drifter hummed around us, carrying us toward an uncertain future. But for the first time in years, uncertainty didn't feel like a threat.

It felt like possibility.

The Drifter held together on our jury-rigged repairs, systems running on the partnership we'd forged in those desperate hours.

Navigation systems hummed their familiar tune, though with an occasional flicker in the console lights that reminded me of the failsafe's violence.

Stars wheeled in their predictable patterns beyond the viewscreen. Everything was as it should be.

Except for the way I kept stealing glances at him.

Talon moved through the cockpit with that easy confidence I'd come to recognize during our hours working together.

His presence filled the space in ways that had nothing to do with his size.

The cobalt traceries along his arms caught the console light when he moved, alien and beautiful in a way that made my chest tighten.

When he'd been just the intruder, the threat, it had been simple. Fear was clean, uncomplicated. But now that I'd seen his competence, felt the careful way he'd guided my hands through unfamiliar repairs, watched his quiet strength when everything was falling apart...

Now it was dangerous.

"What's our status?" he asked, his voice carefully neutral as he settled into the co-pilot's seat.

"All systems stable." I pulled up another display, anything to avoid looking at him directly. "The power coupling is holding better than expected. We should reach the Hadrian Belt without incident."

"Good work." His voice carried a warmth that did things to my pulse I refused to acknowledge. "We made a solid team back there."

That was the problem. We had made a good team. I'd felt safer working beside him than I had in years, and that terrified me more than any weapon he could have pointed at me.

"So now what?" I asked, finally turning to meet his eyes.

Mistake. The moment our gazes met, something electric sparked between us. His red eyes held mine, and I saw my own awareness reflected there.

"That depends on what you want," he said quietly.

The question hung between us, loaded with implications that made my throat dry.

During the crisis, during the repairs, there had been no time for want.

Only survival, only the work that needed doing.

Now, in the quiet of hyperspace with nothing but time ahead of us, the awareness I'd been pushing down came rushing back.

He smiled then, a real expression that transformed his face from coldly handsome to something warmer. "Good. Because I have a feeling we're going to need each other for what's coming."

The moment of connection hung in the air, a quiet promise of a future. But as the adrenaline of the escape finally faded, it left a tremor in its wake. My hands, which had been so steady on the controls, began to shake.

A shadow fell over me as Talon stood. His hand settled on my shoulder, a steadying, solid anchor.

"Tamsin," he asked, his voice a rough murmur. "Are you afraid of me?"

I should have flinched. Should have pulled away.

But I was frozen, trapped between the instinct to fight and a deeper, traitorous stillness.

The simple weight of his palm, the warmth that seeped through my jumpsuit, sent a jolt through my system that had nothing to do with fear.

Then his thumb moved, a slow, deliberate stroke against the side of my neck.

The gesture was no longer comforting. It was a question. A claim.

I looked up, and he must have seen it all in my eyes—the exhaustion, the terror, and the raw, undeniable awareness that sparked between us.

He saw that I wasn't pulling away. The careful control in his expression fractured. The warrior who just fought for my life was gone, replaced by the predator I’d first met.

His hand tightened, not with anger, but with a possessive strength that stole the air from my lungs. In one fluid motion, he pulled me from the chair and pinned me against the main viewscreen, the swirl of stars at my back and his hands braced on either side of my head.

I expected a threat. Instead, he leaned closer, and I saw something in his expression that made my heart stutter. Not anger. Not calculation. Hunger.

"You think you know what this is," he said, his voice a rough murmur against my skin. "You think you understand the game we're playing."

"I understand perfectly." The words came out breathier than I intended. "You're a predator. I'm prey. It's simple."

His lips curved in a way that wasn't quite a smile. "Simple."

Then his mouth was on my throat.

His lips traced my pulse, and a rush of heat bloomed beneath my skin. The alien intimacy of it was a current I’d never felt, so potent it stole the air from my lungs. I felt the slow, deliberate path of his tongue against my skin, and the world tilted sideways.

My mind screamed no, but my body betrayed me completely. Every muscle went liquid, melting against him as waves of pleasure crashed through me with terrifying intensity. A soft moan spilled from my lips, an involuntary surrender I hated myself for.

When he pulled back, I saw something in his eyes I'd never seen before—uncertainty. As if he hadn't expected this any more than I had. This wasn't calculated. And that made it so much worse.

The reality of it crashed over me like ice water.

What was I doing? This was exactly how they broke you—made you feel safe, made you trust, made you want. Then they used that want to destroy you.

I jerked back, my hand flying to my throat where his touch still burned like phantom heat. "No."

He froze, his hand still extended toward me, confusion flickering across his features. "Tamsin?—"

"No." The word came out sharper this time, edged with the fury I was directing as much at myself as at him. "I won't be another conquest. Another asset you collect along the way."

"That's not what this is?—"

"Isn't it?" I backed away until the console pressed against my spine. "You're a predator, remember? It's what you do. You find weaknesses and exploit them."

Something that might have been hurt flickered in his eyes. "Is that what you think? That this is manipulation?"

"I think you're very good at making people feel safe before you devour them." My voice shook, but I forced the words out anyway. "And I think I almost let you."

He stared at me for a long moment, and I saw the careful mask slide back into place. The gentle man who'd guided me through repairs disappeared, replaced by the cold efficiency I'd first encountered.

"Perhaps you're right," he said quietly. "Perhaps it would be better to keep things... professional."

He turned and walked away, leaving me alone with the hum of the ship's systems and the bitter taste of my own cowardice.

I stood alone in the cockpit, surrounded by the familiar hum of the Drifter's systems and the cold light of distant stars. My reflection stared back at me from the darkened console screens—pale, shaken, with lips that were still swollen from that soft sound I'd made.

I touched my throat where his mouth had been, and my skin still tingled with phantom heat.

The line between us had been crossed, and my fury at him—and myself—burned cold and clean as starlight.