Page 19 of Seven Oars (Rix Universe #3)

“That is a real game changer,”

Gro said.

“I wish he’d given it to you sooner.”

Rosamma, Eze, and Gro sat cross-legged on the floor in a tight little circle with the gun in the middle like an occult object.

“He never intended for any of us to have a gun,”

Rosamma said morosely.

“He knows the risks. He only gave it to me because of what happened to Daphne.”

As they stared at the gun, as if it were a scrying bowl, Eze remained mostly quiet.

“Yet the Striker did give it to you,”

she pointed out as she picked up the gun, sliding the regulator down and back up. She glanced at Rosamma with silent inquiry.

“Because of Massar,”

Rosamma mumbled.

“He knows he’s dangerous.”

“He knows an awful lot about you, Rosamma.”

Eze put the gun down with a light thud.

“And he very obviously doesn’t want to lose you.”

Eze’s attention unsettled her, and Rosamma lowered her eyes.

“I don’t think he wants to lose anybody.”

Her hand found the end of her braid, following her unbreakable habit.

He’d told her before that he didn’t kill his captives. Only, she hadn’t believed him then.

She wasn’t sure she believed him now or go so far as to call him their protector. But he’d stepped in, subtly, putting the brakes on the pirates’ most dangerous impulses. In his own way, he’d shielded the women, just enough to make a difference… for those who remained alive.

“So what do we want to do with it?”

Gro asked, pointing at the gun.

“We’ll stash it here, at the Cargo Hold,”

Eze said confidently.

“If things get dire, the three of us will know where to reach for it.”

Rosamma nodded, satisfied with this arrangement.

*****

As days passed, life on Seven Oars achieved a weird equilibrium.

The pirates still hung out in the Habitat, doing what they always had under the earsplitting sounds of their “music,”

swathed in toxic smoke from the drugs Thilza had evidently gotten back. Fawn was a fixture there now, absorbed into their degenerate fold.

Anske sequestered herself with Galan somewhere in the Crew Quarters.

Meanwhile, the Cargo Hold with Rosamma, Eze, and Gro might as well have ceased to exist. The pirates showed no interest in them anymore. Even Phex visited rarely, caught in the no-man’s-land: not truly a victim, but neither a part of the savage team that ran this freak show.

Rosamma didn’t complain about the inattention. She treasured the relative peace and the company of her friends.

But the creeping desolation was getting harder to deny.

How could they ever hope to get away when only the three of them even seemed to care?

With each passing day, their hope shrank a little more.

And while they hadn’t spoken about it yet, they all knew their food supply wouldn’t last the rest of their natural lives.

Spend the rest of my natural life on Seven Oars?

The thought alone filled Rosamma with a sinking despair. And that was considering she’d never expected to live very long in the first place.

Restless in the stagnant air of the Cargo Hold, she finally ventured out. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to do. There was no plan, but the golden panel with the transmitter inside drew her toward the Command Center.

When she reached her destination and peeked inside, she found it manned. And not by Tutti.

By Massar.

Rosamma slunk back down the passageway as fast as her legs could carry her.

Well, that was a non-starter.

But she’d try again. Every day, if she had to. Ten times a day. A hundred. She had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Holding that thought, she pulled aside the louvered door to her not-so-secret little room and slipped inside.

“Hello, my stars,”

she whispered, pulling the shades up.

“How are you doing today? Still so bright and shiny, like new. I wish I could say the same.”

She smiled with self-deprecation, lowering herself to the floor and folding her legs underneath her. She rested her forehead against the glass. Weakness, her eternal companion, was chipping away at her resolve. Chip, chip…

She shed crumbs of her health everywhere she went.

No sound reached into her stuffy little room, but suddenly, the air changed, as if it had been sucked out.

He came in and lowered himself beside her, graceful. His shoulder-length hair was unbound, framing his heavily scarred alien face in choppy hunks. He faced the windows, letting his big, black eyes catch the reflection of the stars in their full multitude.

A starry-eyed monster.

They watched each other. His gaze was heavy on her, but not his silence.

“Who are you hiding from?”

he finally asked her.

“No one. I’m not hiding.”

“Why do you come to the Dome and sit here in the dark, alone?”

The Dome. A fitting name for this quiet place with its marvelous view.

Rosamma tore her eyes from his and turned to the window.

“I like being alone. And the stars—have you seen anything more beautiful?”

He must be long used to this view, but Rosamma couldn’t imagine ever getting tired of it.

She felt his attention shift from her to the world outside.

“All I see are tiny white dots in the dark void,”

he said. ”What do you see?”

“Oh, so much more than that,”

she breathed.

“I see a canvas made of darkness, so vast it’s endless, painted with shimmering stardust. The galaxies swirl like magical, vibrant whirlpools. The nebulae bloom and glow like exotic flowers. The planets drift in silence, each filled with its own mystery. The stars, even the rocky asteroids. It’s the very fabric of creation. It’s mesmerizing, Fincros. Our Universe transcends time.”

“Nothing transcends time,”

he said flatly.

“Well, you’re technically right.”

She touched the cold windowpane.

“But when you look at it unfolding, doesn’t it make you want to fly into this eternal wonder?”

“Fly into this wonder?”

He sounded puzzled.

“There’s nothing I want more than for my feet to touch firm ground.”

Rosamma turned to him.

“I thought you liked flying.”

“It’s what I do.”

There was no passion in his words.

She looked at him, gauging if he truly didn’t care or simply hid his emotions well.

No, she just forgot. He didn’t have any emotions.

Self-conscious under his scrutiny, Rosamma gripped her braid.

“I know I’m being foolish, looking at the stars when there are so many things to worry about.”

“Watch them if you like,”

he said, his voice soft.

Reassured and emboldened by the shimmering camaraderie that had sprung between them, she asked, “What do you wish to see out of your window, Striker Fincros?”

He didn’t have to think about it.

“I wish to see no windows. Just trees and sounds of the forest and cold wind on my skin.”

He touched her then, placing his fingers in the crook of her elbow, exposed where her sleeve was pushed up.

His fingers were cool, but his touch burned, shattering Rosamma’s newfound easiness and replacing it with something darker, but no less powerful.

“We have something in common, Rosamma,”

he said, low.

“I, too, like being alone. With you.”

The something dark and powerful expanded, filling the space between them. Rosamma teetered on the edge of what she couldn’t put in words but identified with a feminine instinct.

Her eyes searched Fincros’ face, seeking reassurances and finding nothing but hard planes and scars.

“What happened to your face?”

The question burst out, a desperate attempt to break the spell that threatened to swallow her.

“An acid spill,”

he admitted.

He removed his hand from her, relieving some of her turmoil.

“Who did this to you?”

A corner of his mouth curved up.

“No one. It was an accident at Metalworks.”

“What is Metalworks?”

“It was a place on Sir-Sar where we built and repaired spacecraft. A whole town made up of garages and hangars and welding pits.”

“You were assigned to build ships?”

She dug deeper, unsettled by the need to know bits and pieces of his life journey.

This time, his smile revealed those dark, long teeth, reminding Rosamma again of how unlike they were.

“Assigned… You could say that. Yes, I worked on building ships there.”

His hand made a fist before relaxing.

The flex went through Rosamma. Such raw power. So much of it.

“I’d been taking old damaged fighters apart when the spill happened,”

he said.

“I screwed up and got in the way.”

“You could’ve died then, Fincros.”

He chuckled.

“No, not then. It’s just ugly, and it hurt like fire, especially when my handler beat the living shit out of me for my mistake. I was very young then. It was a long time ago.”

He reached for her again and caressed her cheek, the backs of his fingers rough, his touch tender.

She gave in and leaned into his touch.

She shouldn’t crave it, shouldn’t long for his closeness, shouldn’t yearn for this man. How to stop it?

There was no answer, only the insidious warmth filling her whole being when he was near. Only the rousing dreams that intruded when he was far.

He would never reciprocate her human desires. He wouldn’t know what they were. His alien composition and the hard life he’d led hardly equipped him with the capacity for softness, empathy, or love.

Endurance, yes. Resilience. Fast-twitch muscles.

But not love.

She gazed intently at him. She found his flat, alien eyes beautiful now in the same way she found open space beautiful. A foreign world she’d never fully understand nor become part of.

But oh, so exciting.

He watched her.

Her breath caught. What would it feel like to have his hard body pressed against hers? Skin to skin…

A distant screech of the “music”

announced a new bout of revelry in the Habitat.

She couldn’t suppress a wince.

“You reject our sound,”

he observed.

“Oh, I… No, I don’t reject it.”

Her voice was faint.

“You’re lying to me. Why would you lie to me?”

Rosamma flushed and looked away. The stars glowed in the window.

Fincros wound her braid around a loose fist and let it slip through. He repeated the motion, intent on his task. His fine brows drew together.

He was waiting for her to tell him.

“If I lied to you,”

Rosamma began, “if I didn’t want to tell you something, would you punish me? Kill me?”

“No.”

His brows remained lowered in concentration.

“I can’t kill you.”

“Now, who’s lying?”

“It’s true. If I could, I would have killed you when I caught you. I don’t keep captives. I never have.”

Rosamma didn’t know if she fully believed him. She wanted to…

She used to trust people unconditionally, like Ren, like Paloma. She wanted to feel that trust again. Unshakable.

Sitting close in the dark with him, touching, she didn’t know if any of this was real.

“Your music sounds strange to my ear,”

she confessed.

“How’s that?”

“Unnatural. Like the sounds are not connected. Like they are mixed up on purpose.”

He cocked his head, and his hair shifted. Silky and smooth. Inhuman but beautiful, caressing his scars.

“When you listen, do you let the sounds go in?”

“In my ears.”

“In your chest?”

“Oh? No. How?”

“In the hearts.”

“I only have one, you know.”

She smiled.

He frowned again.

“Do you? How can you live with one heart?”

“Fully.”

“Are you lying to me again?”

Rosamma laughed. Oh, it was glorious in a subtly disturbing but joyous way.

“No. We’re just different, Fincros. Maybe too different…”

“Here.”

He took her hand and placed it high on his chest, right where his markings would be, hidden by the shirt.

Rosamma’s breath stopped.

“No, breathe. Easy. And listen.”

The “music”

kept screeching from afar.

“I am. I can hear.”

“Close your eyes. Feel it from my heartbeat.”

She did as he instructed. She wanted to hear what he heard, even though it was impossible.

The subtle quiver of his heartbeat beneath her palm distracted her.

She flexed her fingers, feeling the ripple of his muscles beneath the scratchy fabric of Phex’s defender shirt, a shirt that, if she were honest with herself, looked good on him.

His hard veins bulged under her touch. His throat vibrated with the increasing rumble of his Rix hearts, smooth, strong. A living machine.

And then it happened. The grating, nails-on-chalkboard sounds began to align with his heartbeat. The high-pitched hum acquired a measured cadence, and the random bass fell into rhythm.

What had always been an assaulting cacophony of notes became an orchestra.

Her eyes flew open. “Finn…”

“That’s what we hear.”

His eyes deepened, pulling her in, and she couldn’t look away.

Temptation overcame her.

She placed her other hand on his shoulder, digging her fingers into his hard flesh, savoring its taut flex, his pure, unadulterated strength. She wanted it. Wanted to touch him everywhere, to slide her hands under his shirt, to feel his heartbeats beneath his skin, to press her face into it.

To own this beast whole.

An ocean of feelings unlocked inside Rosamma. Along came a shock—was it she, the source of something this monumental? She was too weak to harbor this bottomless vortex of sensations churning inside her now.

She yanked her hands off as if burned, her fingers tingling from the sudden emptiness where his flesh had been.

So much male.

For a crazy moment, she'd thought she could drive him, this predator who killed ruthlessly and without remorse.

And the idea had been intoxicating.

“You find me amusing, Striker Fincros, because you’ve never seen anyone as strange as me,”

she whispered.

“But I am a living being. I hurt inside.”

He cocked his head.

“What hurts inside?”

Oh, how to explain emotions to someone who didn’t have any?

“Wanting things one can’t have.”

“You’re afraid,”

he stated flatly.

Rosamma buried her face in her hands, overcome by feelings she couldn’t define.

“I am so tired of being scared,”

she moaned into her hands.

“Yes, I’m so afraid of you.”

But not because he could kill her with one sweep.

His power over her had changed.

Slowly, he rose to his feet, towering over her small frame slumped by the window.

“Work on your fear,”

he said from above her head, totally serious.

“You’re human, and maybe that explains your blindness. Your weakness feeds my strength.”

She gazed at the stars and thought about what he said for a long time after he’d left the Dome.