Page 25

This was ridiculous. She was forty-five years old, not some giggling teenager with more hormones than sense. She had work to do. A ship to keep flying. Six women to keep alive. A pilot bleeding in front of her because he’d played hero in a service corridor.

“This is not my first rodeo,” he said, voice low as he crowded her against the wall of the corridor. “I promise.”

She refused to step back. Although it was less a conscious refusal and more the fact that she couldn’t. Her feet seemed to have rooted themselves to the deck, refusing to move no matter how much she mentally screamed at them… which was just bloody fantastic. The ship gave a soft creak around them, but she barely heard it over the pulse beating in her ears.

Lifting her hand between them, she showed him her palm… a palm that was bright red with his blood.

“Barely?” She lifted an eyebrow in challenge.

“Poison, Rann. You could be dying right now.”

His lips twitched, the skin at the corner of his eyes crinkling in amusement. She instantly wanted to slap that damn expression straight off his face.

Why couldn’t he see how damn serious this was? Joe’s people weren’t station idiots with fists and knives. They used whatever got results. Poisons, trackers, little nasties in wounds that killed you three days later when you thought you’d gotten away.

She shoved at his chest again. It did absolutely fuck all.

“Move,” she ordered. “Now.”

“Honestly, B,” he said, “there is no poison that Joe could use that would affect me.”

“You don’t know that,” she growled. “Poison affects everybody.”

“It doesn’t affect me.”

“Oh, well, that’s fine then.” She shoved her bloody hand in his face. “Glad we cleared that up. No need for medbay because apparently you’ve got a magic fucking liver.”

His eyes narrowed slightly, amusement fading into something else. Something quieter.

“I know my own body, B.”

“And I know Joe’s people.” She jabbed a finger into his chest. Which was a bad idea. His shirt was warm beneath her fingertip, stretched tight over muscle that had no right being there. Every feminine instinct she had urged her to put her hand flat and explore. She snatched it back.

Not happening. So not happening.

“They don’t use normal shitty station level poisons that any street thug can get. They use special blends designed to kill… Slow and ugly. You could be dead before you finish telling me how fine you are.”

He shook his head. “Not from poison I won’t be.”

“Prove it.”

The words came out before she could stop them.

Rann went still, and a dangerous light filled those strange blue-and-green eyes.

Her breath caught.

Oh. Shit.

Catching her wrist, he spun them both around and shoved her through the open door of his quarters before she got more than a startled gasp out. She hadn’t even realized they were outside his quarters or that the door was open. How had he done that?

Stumbling backward over the deck plating, her arms windmilled as she tried not to fall on her ass.

He followed, sliding the door shut behind with a flick of his wrist. Her eyes widened. Those doors were heavy. It should take way more than that to move one, even for him.

“How did you⁠—“

She backed up, but there was nowhere to go.