Page 44 of Savage Union (Brutal Universe #2)

43

TURK

T he trip to Dovix Centra took some time. In fact, longer than it should have. I was certain we would have gotten there much sooner if Jessina had been plotting the course. But I had confined her to my quarters and there she was going to stay—I was determined.

The rest of the Crew just thought that “Cass” was sick and was spending time in bed to recover. None of them had seen her since the removal of the Synth implant and that was how I wanted to keep it. Jessina was too obviously female now. She’d stopped wearing the compression tank that she had claimed helped with an old rib injury when she was still pretending to be Cass. Without it, her full breasts and tight nipples were easy to see—though I did my damndest not to look whenever I was in the same room with her. Which wasn’t often.

I brought her meals three times a day but I still wasn’t speaking to her, though she tried to talk to me every time I went into my rooms. I had started sleeping in my Ready Room. My desk chair converted into a kind of cot and while it wasn’t very comfortable, it was at least less awkward and forbidden than sleeping in the same bed as my best friend’s little sister.

I won’t lie—I thirsted for her. I could feel the itching tickle of The Thirst every time I went near her and smelled her sweet, feminine scent—which I now seemed to be extra fucking sensitive to. I did my best to ignore it. I was determined to keep my distance from her until we got home to Rigelis Nine.

But as it turned out, things didn’t work out that way. Before we even got to Dovix Centra, Jessina got sick.