Adrik (Titans #1)

Chapter 15

Ember was more comfortable than she’d been in a long time, which worried her. Sometime during her long rest, she’d roused enough to explore the room in search of a bathroom. She’d had to limp on her still sore leg at first, but the stiffness had faded, and she’d been able to walk almost normally. Locating the bathroom, she was relieved to find amenities suited to humans. It had her thinking that humans and Titans had a lot in common regarding anatomy. After she relieved herself, she slid into what she assumed was a glass-paned shower stall. It took several minutes of poking and prodding at a panel of buttons inside the stall but eventually, a foamy spray shot out from multiple nozzles on all sides, coating her from head to toe. At first, she was startled but then realized that the foam cleanser quickly turned into a water-like substance after a few minutes on her skin. Satisfied that the chemicals wouldn’t do any damage, Ember took the most luxurious foam shower of her life. It felt so damn good to get clean after spending weeks as a prisoner on the Zeifer shuttle. The wet foam hid her tears of appreciation as Ember let the warm foam ease some of the tension and soreness in her muscles. After long minutes of standing and cleaning herself, Ember dragged her discarded clothing into the shower to wash the articles in the thick foam. The scent left by the foam was masculine but not unpleasant, certainly better than the musty, sweaty, blood-encrusted scent she and her clothing had been carrying.

After cleaning her clothes, she turned off the shower and twisted her hair and clothes as dry as she could before hanging them over the glass that encased the shower.

Standing naked in the shower, Ember searched the small bathroom for a towel but found none. Unsure what to do, she considered her options when warm air began blasting from vents in the shower wall. She’d been unsure earlier what the vents were for but quickly decided that she preferred blow drying to air drying.

Once dry, she stepped out of the shower stall and snooped more. Finding what smelled and tasted like some form of toothpaste, Ember used her finger to brush her teeth as best she could before rinsing her mouth and then using her hands to finger comb her mostly dry hair.

Sighing in contentment, guilt only took a moment to hit hard. Here she was, enjoying a luxurious shower and the opportunity to clean her clothes while her sisters were God knew where being treated God knew how. Thoughts of Kyan lying in the med bay near death had Ember eyeing her still-wet clothing. Why had she washed her clothes? She had nothing to wear until they were dry, meaning she couldn’t leave Adrik’s quarters anytime soon.

Shooting her mirrored image a look of self-loathing, Ember pulled down her black gown from where it hung over the shower and began waving it in the air to dry it faster.

***

Striding confidently through one of the ship’s many corridors, Adrik mentally took stock of his vessel. As he often did, he used his enhanced senses to keep tabs on his men and the ship under his command, but things were different. Ever since the women arrived, the air on the Cressida smelled just a hint sweeter. It wasn’t just the air on that ship that was different. The Cressida had always been comparable to a great Lib stone hurtling through space. The ship had been fearless, unstoppable, impenetrable, unbreakable. Now, there was a fragility about her. The precious cargo aboard had Adrik flying in a way he’d never flown before, cautiously. It also had him consistently abandoning navigation duties to check on the “cargo”.

Heaving a weighty sigh, he stifled the urge to stick to reclaim his regimented purpose and return to Command. Safety protocols demanded he check on the prisoner housed in his quarters.

Stopping outside the door to his private accommodations, he took a moment to glide a claw-tipped hand down the front of his armored chest, ensuring he was presentable. His hand froze mid-act, and his lip ticked up in a snarl at the irrational action.

Stepping into his quarters, Adrik was surprised to find the front rooms as he’d left them. Honestly, he’d half expected Ember to trash his place in protest of her captivity, but everything looked untouched. It had unease filling him. Ears straining, he attempted to listen for Ember but heard nothing. Worried, he rushed through his quarters and charged the doors to his sleep chamber. Storming into the room, his eyes instantly sliced to the bed but his worry only heightened when he discovered the area empty. Turning in a slow circle, his eyes took in everything. There was no evidence of Ember anywhere. No discarded clothing, nothing. Even her scent was absent and that had anger slowly starting to simmer as irrational thoughts filled his head. Had one of his men come and taken her? Who? Why?

Shaking his head hard, he gnashed his teeth and forced himself to calm. Annoyance filled him as he considered that perhaps Ember had escaped his room. His annoyance shifted to reticence as he realized his knee-jerk response to her absence had been that one of his men had done something with her rather than Ember being the problem. And she was the problem. She’d been messing with his head since boarded the Cressida.

Anger spiking, Adrik stalked to his cleaning unit to ensure Ember wasn’t inside before he sounded the alarm and alerted his men.

Doors whooshing open, the air left him on almost a similar sound when he found Ember half-naked within. Eyes on her exposed back, he swallowed hard at the criss-crossing of scars marring her delicate skin.

As if sensing him, Ember spun quickly, dress clamped to her chest as a startled gasp escaped her.

But Adrik’s eyes were still on her body. Some scars wrapped over her shoulders and down to her chest, disappearing beneath the garment she used to shield herself. Gut clenching, Adrik’s jaw twitched, realizing that the scars on Ember’s back were comparable to those marring his own flesh. The ones he’d earned in succession after a succession of battles. Blinking, he knew what punishment would have created such devastation on Ember, but why? What could any female have ever done to deserve a punishment that was reserved for warrior-class males?

“Get out!” she hissed, holding her dress higher.

Eyes lifting to Ember’s, Adrik was still too stunned to speak.

Glaring up at him, Ember wasn’t so affected. “I said get! Out !” she snapped.

Guilt and pity warred within him, and unsure what else to do, Adrik silently backed out of the room. The cleansing unit doors hissed as they closed off his view of Ember. Alone in his room, his brows furrowed as he lowered his head. What happened to her? Who’d hurt her? It made no sense for Ember to have suffered so greatly. She was too slight, too delicate, too feminine. Overpowering her would be an easy feat for any captor.

Irritation had him frowning hard. Why hadn’t the med scan informed him? Looking to the side, he wondered if the scanner had ever announced an abundance of scars. Such scarring on Titan males was ignored, so perhaps the scanners didn’t recognize them on any being. He didn’t know how the scanners worked. That was Obaida’s knowledge base, and he left his Medicus to it. Now though, he wished he were more informed. They’d learned from Titans who’d mated human females that scarred human flesh was permanently damaged. It wouldn’t heal overtime like it eventually would for Titans. Worse, the damaged human skin was more delicate than their regular skin—if that could even be possible. Suddenly reflective, Adrik struggled to recall if he or any of his men had been overly rough with Ember. He couldn’t recall any interaction that would have damaged her beyond Kaze’s failed attempt at removing her from her holding cell.

Rage slowly simmering on Ember’s behalf, Adrik considered how long it would take to turn the Cressida around and head back to the Ziefer’s home planet for retribution. But that didn’t make sense. Zeifer’s hadn’t done that to Ember. They didn’t care enough about their “cargo” to damage or improve it. They scavenged and traded, period. Someone else had hurt her. But who? He’d assumed the Ziefers had acquired the females from the Kitness, but the Kitness weren’t known for their savagery. And the damage done to Ember had been savage. But why?

Lost in his thoughts, Adrik was caught off guard when the doors to the cleansing unit opened. Face set into a mask of severe displeasure, Ember stepped forward dressed in her black gown, covering her neck to feet. Her arms, too, were hidden by her sleeves all the way down to her hands, which helped him realize how he’d missed the damage done to her. He hadn’t seen any of her skin other than that of her hands, neck, and face. He wondered if he’d missed more scarring.

“Ever heard of knocking?” Ember snapped, stalking passed him.

Knocking? No. He’d never heard of it, but that didn’t matter. “What happened to you?” he demanded.

Ember went to the resting platform and sat on it, planting her hands on either side of her hips, she lowered her head to glare at the floor. Refusing to look at him, she bit out angrily, “Rude!”

“Who disciplined you?”

His words had her head snapping as she paled, her expression going blank before color slowly stained her cheeks. “ Disciplined ?” she hissed in indignation.

Maybe he’d chosen the wrong word.

“No one disciplined me!” she raged. “I was beaten! Whipped !” she corrected more firmly before shoving to her feet and scowling up at him. “When you’re a captive, and you don’t do what your masters demand, you get hurt!”

“The Ziefers didn’t do this.”

Shaking her head, she looked away, but not before he saw the emotion shimmering in her eyes.

“I don’t know what a Zeifer is! You keep saying that word, and I keep telling you that I don’t know what it means.”

“It’s the beings who held you last. The ship we rescued you from.”

“Rescue?” she snorted. “Those things you saved us from didn’t tranq us. They didn’t shoot us! They fed us slop and ignored us.”

Guilt was a new emotion for Adrik and one he didn’t enjoy.

“And no, it wasn’t them. It was the things before them.”

“Who?” Adrik demanded. “Who held you before the Ziefers?”

“How in the hell would I know? We don’t know any of you scary fucking creatures!”

Ember lumping Adrik and his men in the same category as her previous captors enraged him, and her calling them scary creatures didn’t sit well with him either.

“We’re not creatures,” he snarled.

“Well, you’re not men!”

“We are honorable males!” he countered.

“Define honorable!”

He wanted to argue that they hadn’t hurt the women the way others had, but he knew Ember still considered him shooting her with the med stunner a slight. Silence reigned between them for long tense moments as they glared at each other. Adrik was more enraged than he’d been in many evolutions. Verbally sparring with Ember had him on the losing end, a place he rarely—if ever—experienced. That, coupled with his already present fury at what had been done to her, had him feeling a range of too many emotions. Emotions that he’d been trained to believe were poison. Titans always controlled themselves. No one rattled Adrik…ever! His impassiveness was one of his most intimidating and admirable qualities, but right now, he wasn’t in control. Ember was, and it had him rattled.

Lip ticking up in a snarl, he wanted to shake some sense into her, and that realization had his gut twisting in disgust. Was he truly no better than an animal? Was he just as bad as whoever it was who had hurt her?

Repulsed with himself, he took a step back. He wanted to know who had hurt Ember, the warrior in him demanded the knowledge, but not like this. He wouldn’t get the information from Ember by forcing it from her. He refused to be like the other males she’d encountered. Eyes on hers, he watched her furious countenance soften, her expression becoming confused as he backed up another step. They both needed time, and that’s what he’d give her. Lowering his eyes, he offered a small bow before he turned and exited his quarters without another word.