captain, and rather level-headed when it came to everything but the two of them. It couldn’t all be a lie.
It would be easier if it was.
Alexa straightened her uniform jacket. I can’t hide forever.
She prepared to leave her quarters. It was the end of the night shift cycle, and she’d managed to dress without waking Raul. His snores filled her ears. Getting a start on the day and catching up on her work would make the transition back into normalcy easier. She wasn’t one to slack off, and the last few days had taken their toll on her in multiple ways.
Alexa prayed Hysterian wouldn’t be on the other side of the door.
She straightened and walked out of the room. Cold and dark, the large menagerie greeted her with blissful silence. She released a sigh of relief and headed for her desk. The lights brightened around her.
She glanced once at the door leading to the rest of the ship, but it remained closed. Comforted by that fact, she rubbed her face and fingerprinted into her station.
A thumping noise pierced the silence.
The male locust was standing on its back legs, staring at her. Its two lower hands banged the glass. But it was its ribbed purplish penis that caught her attention. The tip hit the glass and left a smear of something behind. It wasn’t the only creature on the Questor hungry for something it shouldn’t want.
The male held no intelligence in its gaze. It wanted one thing and one thing only: to breed and only breed. The female locusts, on the other hand, slept peacefully.
I’ll make sure they’ll get time together to play. They’re probably thrilled to be kept away from a male like that.
If the male locust was intent on making her uncomfortable, she was going to make sure he felt the same. She and Raul never let him with the females—they couldn’t risk it. Alexa had read everything released on the network about the locusts of Atrexia. Most of the information came from the research labs that the Questor was currently picking up from and delivering to.
They were the closest related alien species discovered to the long-dead baboons of Earth, even resembling them in small ways. Why anyone cared about this was beyond her, but Raul, who was from Earth, told her Earth peoples had an ongoing initiative to restore the world to its former glory. That very few wild animals still existed on the planet. The rich living on Earth, along with activists, wanted the forests and animals back, if not for their own pleasure, then for bragging rights.
Thump. Thump thump thump thump!
She shivered and looked back at her screens. Related to baboons or not, she didn’t know why anyone would want something like a locust running wild in their backyard.
The male terrified her. In a way that not even Hysterian did. Crazed and wild, she only saw monstrous intent in the locust’s frenzied eyes.
The thumping continued.
“It won’t be here much longer.”
Alexa jumped and swiveled in her chair. Hysterian was standing directly behind her.
She shot to her feet. “Captain,” she gasped.
His piercing gaze, so different than the locust’s—but no less scary—scanned her from head to toe.
“You look like you’re doing better,” he said.
“I am.” She spun her chair around and gripped the back of it, happy it was between them.
Silence clung to the air like molasses.
“I want to apologize,” he said.
He wants to apologize? Now? She pursed her lips, holding back an absurd giggle.
“We land on Libra today,” he continued like he had no idea what kind of turmoil she’d been experiencing the last few days. “Getting off the ship will be good for us, all of us.” Hysterian’s eyes slid to the closed door of her quarters.
Raul?
But he went on, his voice low. “I would have preferred you to have taken over my quarters, Dear.”
“Would you have left them?”
“Be thankful he hasn’t touched you again.”
His words made her stiffen. “How could he? You keep him busy. He can’t do anything more than work and sleep.”
Hysterian cocked his head, twinkles of teal sparked like tiny stars in his irises. His hands reached out and grabbed the back of the chair besides hers. She pulled her hands away before his gloved fingers touched her.
“Then…I’ve successfully saved his life.”
A laugh tore from her throat. “So you are a murderer.”
Hysterian’s eyes flashed, and he dropped his hands from the chair. “I never said I wasn’t.”
Somehow hearing him say it, hearing him confess, righted her head. She knew he was—she’d lived with