Page 55 of Star-Crossed Captive
She lifted her head, eyes round. “Of what?”
“To denounce CORE authority. The warrior would rather die than be taken prisoner. Once inked, the tattoo is impossible to remove, something about the process.” He paused, thinking of the damage to his own ink. “Unless you remove the skin entirely.”
Her eyes shuttered, and she returned to pulling grass. He added, “Warriors often get them if a loved one dies in battle. Or, quite often, the warrior gets a prominent tattoo because they weren’t born Tellusian and it’s their way of declaring they would never go back to the CORE.”
There was something about her movements, a jerkiness, which made him say, “Why did you ask that question?”
She didn’t answer but let the torn bits of green fall to the ground through her fingers.
“Nia?”
Her head snapped up, eyes narrowing. “You weren’t the first Tellusian to take me hostage.”
His entire body went rigid. “Tell me.”
Keeping his gaze, she propped her hands on knees, and rested her chin on the backs of her fingers. “My first post was on a medical aid vessel, theDiligence. We were positioned near Jupiter during the alignment. A Guardian was heavily damaged, and we were close enough to help without waiting for medical transports. We docked with it.” She closed her eyes. “It was a trap, a Destroyer came out of high speed, attacked, then boarded. They were raiding for medical officers.” Her eyes popped open. “You could have been on board that ship.”
He shook his head. “I had no part of the raids during the alignment.”
“How come?”
He hesitated, not sure how much he should say about their politics. But who would she tell? “At the time, the council was split. There were those who wanted to take advantage of Jupiter’s orbit, claim all its colonies, and those who wanted to remain true to the treaties of the time. I belonged to the latter.”
“And now? Is there still a split?”
Again, he hesitated. “Right now, there is full agreement with the members.” But that wasn’t the full truth. He knew of those who would change their stance if certain people had their way, like Admiral Ricker. “Continue with your story,” he encouraged.
She settled her chin on her hands again. “I was young and stupid. I should have evacuated with the rest of my bay, but I tried to save the life of my patient. The main power was out, the equipment dead. If I stopped my compressions, he would have died.”
“You were brave. Doing your duty.”
She shook her head. “Doing my duty killed my CO and a colleague.” A haunted expression passed over her features. “I was the last to leave. I heard them coming, the gunfire and the screams. I hid, but a warrior found me. He had a bird tattoo on his face.” She touched her eyebrow. “Here.” Her fingers trailed the side of cheek and jaw. “A hawk frozen in the act of eating his eyeball. He held a knife to my throat and tried to take me. Defenders stopped him. Killed him and saved my life. When you did the same thing—” She stopped speaking, her words choked.
Pain sliced through his chest, quickly followed by the need to track down the man who’d done that to her. There couldn’t be that many warriors with hawks on their faces. But his volatile reaction made no sense since he’d done the same thing.
“I would change it if I could.”
Her body stilled. She lifted her head, her brow wrinkled. “What do you mean?”
He rushed ahead with the confession he hadn’t known he needed to voice. “I should have left you.” Silence rang between them, their gazes locked.
Even as he said the words, he wasn’t sure he would have been able to leave her if given a second chance.
“Why didn’t you?” she whispered.
Excuses froze on his lips. When he’d first taken her hostage, he’d planned on leaving her as soon as she’d served her purpose. His shift in thinking hadn’t occurred until the first explosion ripped throughElara Five. It had been a subtle change in his plans, one he didn’t acknowledge until she’d screamed at him to let her go on the Raven—a demand he found impossible to obey.
Nia swallowed, shaking her head. “If you hadn’t taken me, I probably would have died. Or been taken by another and ended up here anyway.”
Both scenarios made his insides clench with pain. Both were unacceptable.
They stared at each other a long while, searching for answers neither of them could provide.
Then, Nia closed her eyes and flopped onto her back, arms spread wide. Mace remained where he was, watching her, wondering what had happened between them. Would she hate him more because of his confession?
He didn’t understand why he cared.
A communique beeped on his vambrace, a personal request from Cache to meet in her quarters. He tensed. It had been a long time since she’d communicated with him in other than a professional capacity, as she would with any of her commanders. With all the side glances she’d been sending him over the past ten days, he knew it wouldn’t be about anything good.
