Cosmic Captain: Chapter 28

Three days passed before Torvan got sick of waiting.

I was hoping it would be longer, that my bum hand would put him off or something. It seemed like it had, for a while. I kept bleeding through the bandages every few hours, and Torvan made this disgusted noise every time he had to change them.

His quarters were meticulous, so I imagined the thought of getting my blood everywhere had been a good deterrent for the first few days. Every time he opened my cage door, I wondered if I could get at the tool I’d hidden under his mattress, then discarded the idea.

I needed to be smart about when I used it, and Torvan hadn’t done anything horrible yet. From what I remembered, the halls of his spaceship were wide and winding, so if I timed it right and caught him off guard, I’d bet I could stab through to his jabber.

Then he’d have no way to contact his security detail. It might give me enough time to make a run for the hold that Qwexil had landed in. There had to be ships there, maybe even escape pods, and I was confident I could jailbreak a panel to get one unlocked.

Flying it? Different problem. But if I could get out of Torvan’s ship and find a way to signal Talisaar on the Event Horizon then I’d be golden. Even if Torvan re-captured me, Lovath would be able to find me. He’d know I was alive.

Every day that passed made me worry that Qwexil had succeeded and Lovath thought I was dead. If I couldn’t find an opportunity to get to the hold, I at least needed to find a way to broadcast a signal. Torvan didn’t know I was decent at handling alien tech and I planned on using that to my advantage.

While my cage did lock with a panel, it was on the wall far out of reach from me. I knew if I could get to it, I could hack it. But my human arms were way too short to even try. So I needed to wait until Torvan got comfortable.

Except he’d gotten too comfortable.

Sitting on his bed, I held still as he wrapped a fresh set of gauze around my arm. They would soak through quickly, but he probably wouldn’t bother changing them again until night. This time though, he didn’t just lock me up in my cage. His scaly fingers lingered on the back of my wrist, then slowly traveled up.

I froze. Torvan didn’t stop, lightly trailing across my skin until he got to my neck. The hickeys and bruises Lovath had left were probably starting the fade a bit, and I didn’t really like that idea. He’d have to find me soon and put all the marks back.

“No stranger to a traakian drekking you, hm?” Torvan sneered from under his hood, and I tensed. It took everything I had not to shy away from his fingers on my skin, to just sit there like a deer in headlights.

Finally, I swallowed and lied, “He didn’t give me a choice.”

Torvan scoffed. “You’re an exotic, why would he? Thought Lovath at least had enough decency to buy his own.” Then he gripped both my arms and dragged me close to him. “I should make him pay for every time he put his cock in you.”

Which would be a lot of credits.

This close up I could almost see through Torvan’s shroud, which I’d come to the conclusion was some kind of tech in his hood. His eyes flashed through the darkness and I shivered in disgust. Those three-fingered hands on me sent horrible goosebumps across my skin, and I wanted to take a shower to scrape the feeling off.

Chatter started up on Torvan’s jabber, but he silenced it. Then without warning, he gripped both my arms and spun me around. With one shove, I was face first on the mattress, keenly aware that only my underwear was protecting me from exposure.

Had I thought I’d be compliant to win Torvan’s trust? Fuck that. I struggled and kicked as he pinned me down, and he hissed in pain when my heel caught his face. With a swear, he finally got me under control, but my hand crept over the edge of the bed and under the mattress.

The tool I’d stolen was still there.

Torvan’s jabber went off again, and he barked words into it that I didn’t hear. Was there a commotion outside? My ears rang, heart hammering loudly in my chest as I fitted the tool in my hand with the sharp edge pointed out.

My traakian captor’s grip on me had loosened just a little, and I had to take the opportunity. I had to. Despite the fear pulsing through me, I tore myself from Torvan’s grip and whipped around. When I’d kicked him in the face, it had dislodged his hood, and I saw his face for the first time.

Not unlike Lovath, he had dark scaly patches for brows that also lined his cheekbones. Xivpa hung from his head like locs, his skin was a pale green, and his eyes were a solid amber color with no sclerae and thin pupil slits. The similarities ended there, halted by the angry purple welts all over his face. Some of them were sunken, dark pits of torn skin, and my stomach turned.

Baring his teeth at me, Torvan growled, but I didn’t give him a chance to do anything else. Lunging forwards, I sank the sharp tool directly into one of his eyes. It gave easily under the force of my hand, making a horrific squelch when I twisted my wrist for good measure.

My captor screamed, knocking my hand away, but the tool remained in his eye. He reached for me, but I skittered back on the mattress, knowing I had to take my opportunity to get out. The door made a whooshing sound behind me as Torvan lunged again, and then my ears were assaulted by a deafening boom.

Torvan toppled to the ground, clutching at a smoking hole in his shoulder that was spewing deep purple blood. When I turned to look, Lovath stood in the doorway, green eyes murderous and he stalked forward. My entire body sagged with relief at the sight of him and I want to throw myself in his arms. But he had other ideas.

Tossing his phaser towards me on the bed, he climbed on top of Torvan and pinned him down. “A shot to the face is too good for you.” He growled, and there was a sickening crunch when his fist made contact with Torvan's nose. Lovath did it again, again, again, drawing cries of pain from Torvan’s lips as he begged pathetically for his life. The crack of each hit made my body jolt with the horror of it, and when Torvan finally stopped making noise Lovath was still seething with rage.

But when he turned to look at me, trembling on Torvan’s bed in only my underwear, his eyes flared and he made a distressed noise in the back of his throat. Climbing onto the mattress in a rush, he cupped my face with bloody, shaky hands and kissed me with a desperate fervor. I clutched at his shoulders as I wrapped my legs around him, letting his tongue press insistently into my mouth. His hands were sticky with Torvan’s blood on my skin but, oh fuck, I was so happy he came for me.

“Gray…Gray, did he drekking hurt you?” He managed to drag his lips away from mine and I mewled in protest.

“Not yet, I…Qwexil cut out my jabber.” I let my throbbing left arm fall from around his shoulders as he pulled back enough to look. Fury built back up in his eyes as he examined my wrapped wrist, which had already bled through the bandages again. My left fingers still spasmed with pain every few minutes, and I couldn’t really move them. When Lovath gently ran his fingers over mine, I jerked them away with a hiss.

“You need to see Kryn.” He swept me in his arms, and despite how much my wrist still hurt, I let myself relax. Was I supposed to be struggling with the fact that I’d just watched Lovath violently kill a person with no hesitation or regret? The sounds of Torvan’s skull cracking and crunching wetly as Lovath made mincemeat of his face echoed in my head. As we walked by I could see the pulpy mess of his caved-in face. Maybe the act was appalling but knowing Lovath beat a man’s head in for me was churning up no negative feelings.

I wanted to show Lovath how much I fucking loved him, carnally, more than I even wanted my hand fixed.

“How did you find me?” I asked softly as Lovath carried me through the halls. It was silent, and all the dead bodies we passed made me want to kiss him. My mind still hadn’t fully accepted that Lovath was here, that he’d saved me, that he and the crew had killed all these people for the slight of taking me.

“Kryn figured out we were gassed. Qwexil had to give him extra and hoped he’d forget everything, but he was able to give himself an antidote that counteracts the effect.” Through gritted teeth, Lovath added, “He still didn’t wake up until yesterday morning to tell us what happened.”

“But you came for me.”

“Talisaar burned all of our fuel to get here in a cycle.”

Something warm filled my heart. Fuck anyone who ever said the crew of the Horizon didn’t care for me. And I owed Talisaar an apology for even considering he was the culprit.

Lovath didn’t take me to the hold where Qwexil’s ship had landed. I had a feeling the Event Horizon was too big to fit. Instead he took me through an airlock where the ships were connected—more dead bodies lined the walkway—and when the airlock door slid up to reveal the hallways of Lovath’s ship I could’ve cried with relief.

I was home.