shouldn’t want a monster like you.”
His arms gently embraced her, holding her like she was some delicate egg, and a torrent of tears burst forth. Why does he have to be gentle? Why had he killed her dad?
She pressed into him, knowing she’d lost the battle. She’d lost long before she stepped aboard the Questor. Long before Hysterian knew she existed. There was never going to be a good ending for her.
He lifted her into his arms and carried her out of her quarters, through his ship, and into his room. She didn’t fight it.
It’s what she had wanted all along.
Sixteen
Hysterian placed Alexa on the edge of his bed. She sat upright to rub the last of her tears from her face. He watched as she composed herself. He kneeled in front of her.
She met his gaze when her courage returned. His eyes hadn’t stopped glowing. She shivered, knowing she was at his mercy now. Whatever happened, there was nowhere she could go where he wouldn’t follow.
The realization made her shiver.
I’m just as much his enemy as he is mine.
Part of her wanted to do to Hysterian what she’d almost done with Pigeon. She wanted to tell him everything. To spill all of her secrets so they wouldn’t be hers alone anymore, so the burden wouldn’t be so heavy… To tell him she was a half-breed—that she had alien blood coursing through her veins. The same aliens Hysterian and his Cyborg brothers had once killed by the thousands. Hundreds of thousands.
Would he kill her right now if he knew? If she told him?
What would he do if she mentioned her father?
Would he remember…?
What if she told him she had spent the last decade stalking him, watching him, studying him and his kind from afar, hoping to one day kill him? Possibly the rest someday too.
Should she pull out the faded picture she had of him from the liner of her duffle bag? A picture she had stared at for years? The one of him staring off at something out of frame? Where he was handsomely decked in his military uniform?
She’d always wondered what it was he had been staring at.
Alexa grabbed hold of the bedding, wrenching it in her hands. His eyes dropped to them before flicking back to her face.
She waited for him to do something, anything, so she wouldn’t sign her death warrant and tell him all her secrets. Let the chips fall where they may…
Because despite all her choices so far, she didn’t want to die.
“Hysterian,” she started when he continued to stare at her, like he was trying to figure her out. “I—”
“Stop talking.”
She shut her mouth and released the bedding bunched up in her hands. He reached out, and she flinched. His eyes exploded with light.
“Why did you flinch?” he demanded.
She shook her head.
“Do you think I’m going to fucking hurt you? I’m not going to hurt you,” he growled.
“I can’t help it...”
Some of the light faded from his eyes. “Whatever shit happened to you, Dear, I’m going to want to know all about it someday, because I’m not going to fucking hurt you—no one is—if I have my way about it. It’s clear there’s something you’re dealing with and I hate secrets. But tonight, we’re not going there, you got it?”
Hysterian kept his hand poised between them, waiting for her to respond. Alexa calmed, knowing he wasn’t going to demand an answer out of her. At least not right now.
She nodded.
“I want to hear you say it.”
“I got it.”
He pulled down his mask, settling the excess material around his neck. “Good.”
Alexa’s breath hitched. He’d removed the mask without her asking.
Perfectly shaped, masculine lips—with the barest hint of deviance—revealed themselves, along with a sharp chin and jawline. Hysterian wasn’t just an angel, she realized, but a fallen one. Because despite the attractive deity kneeling before her, she could still see the marks of a long and traumatic life etched into him.
She didn’t think Cyborgs had the capacity to suffer like humans.
“Give me your feet,” he said.
“What?”
“Your. Feet. Lift them. Now.”
Alexa furrowed her brow when she realized her legs were clamped together between their bodies. Did he want her to lift them—?
“Now, Alexa,” he ordered.
She popped her feet off the ground. Hysterian cupped the back of one of her ankles and tugged off her boot. He did the same for the other. He cupped her sock-covered feet and pressed his thumbs into her arches, kneading them.
She held herself stiffly. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look