Chapter 164: No One Touches You

Her mouth was hanging open.

"Broken glass," he grunted.

Vocabulary had left the building. She was sitting on a bathroom counter after being carried by an Alpha who had just arrested his own mate and she was supposed to produce words.

Perched on his countertop, Nova sat there while Alpha Thunderfang stepped in between her legs the way Derek used to, and for one disorienting second the whole thing felt like Derek, same stance, same crowding heat, wrong man entirely.

Her brain corrected it. The correction arrived fast and cold.

He moved her hair aside and studied something along her throat. Nova’s fingers drifted up to her neck, which still wore its bruises like jewelry she had not asked for. She had forgotten those were even there.

"No one touches you."

Nova opened her mouth, then shut it, then opened it again. "That ship may have sailed, Alpha."

It was a joke. Sort of. It was also the truth. Alpha Thunderfang did not laugh. Noted.

"It’s coming back to port," he said after a moment. Then he unwrapped her shoulder with a gentleness that did not match the size of his hands.

When he finished, he stepped back for a moment and frowned at her shoulder. She looked down at it, then back up at him. It dawned on her that he might not understand how slaves heal. Though the bruising on her shoulder was a lot worse yesterday.

"Stay," he ordered before she could say anything.

He left the bathing chamber and returned carrying a leather tote that was definitely different from the bag he had given her the night before, and a jar of something.

Then he started a bath and her jaw dropped all over again. She watched him twist the faucets until the temperature was just right. She had no earthly clue what was happening.

He twisted the jar open and dumped the contents in.

Water bloomed blue. Of course it was blue. Everything in Thunderfang was blue. The Lightning Nectars were blue. The Moonseals were blue. The electricity was blue.

He turned back to her. "Astra made this for your bruises. Twenty minutes in. Don’t leave my chambers until I come back."

The words took a moment to land. The scariest Alpha in the territory had just run her a soak. Which the alternative was running himself a soak while she sat there so this was the best case.

"Yes, Alpha. Thank you," she managed.

He turned and left without another word.

Somewhere out there, Celeste was cuffed with diluted silver, and Nova was about to have a spa day.

She lowered herself into the blue bath and her skin lit up with a thousand tiny sparks, a tingling fizz that dissolved every ache. If this was a trap, it was the single best trap anyone had ever set, and she would walk into it again gladly.

Warmth sank past the bruises and into the muscle underneath, and for the first time in what felt like forever her body stopped bracing for the next bad thing. She could have drowned happily right there and sent Astra a thank-you note from the afterlife.

She dried off when her time was up. The tote bag had been packed with a care that bordered on supernatural, boots tucked in and everything folded into its right place, and whoever had done it had to be the same someone who had packed the bag the night before.

Someone in this Keep was an invisible ally with better organizational skills than Nova. Nova owed that invisible genius a double thank you, and a possible blood oath.

She changed, working slow and mindful around her shoulder.

She turned to leave the bathing chamber. When she reached for the door handle, the door swung open the exact instant.

Alpha Thunderfang stood there with a fresh wrap in hand, and before she could say a word he caught her by the waist and lifted her clean off the floor.

Confusing didn’t cover it, but maybe the man was still rattled about the broken glass. She definitely had shoes on, both of them, laced and accounted for, so that remained the only explanation her brain could assemble for why she kept getting carried like luggage.

He set her down on the couch.

He rewrapped her shoulder, worked cream into the bruises along her neck, the whole performance of a man caring for her entirely against her will, and Nova had no idea what to do with any of it. He pressed ice where it was needed, draped a blanket over her, and said, "Stay here. Ice for twenty. Don’t leave. I’ll take you to Derek."

He turned into his bathing chamber. Water hissed on behind the door.

It dawned on her that he had prepared her bath before his own shower. The Alpha of the most powerful pack in the territory had let her go first. Nova stared at the blanket and genuinely lost track of which way was up.

???

THIRTY MINUTES LATER

Alpha Thunderfang walked out of his bathing chamber in a towel and nothing else, all abs and water.

He strolled into his closet like a man who’d never once considered that a stranger was occupying his couch, and he didn’t shut the closet door.

The towel dropped.

Nova hadn’t meant to look. She quickly turned her head and closed her eyes, committing to the bit that she had dozed off.

A moment later he was kneeling in front of her. She peeled her eyes open slow, performing a woman surfacing from a lovely nap, even as her heart went full hummingbird against her ribs.

He was fully clothed now, thank every god in the registry.

He looked at the bruises climbing her neck.

"Thank you for taking care of me," Nova whispered. "The soak made a big difference."

"You’re welcome," he answered, then drew her gently to her feet, hooked an arm around her waist, and was carrying her again.

This time she rode taller than him.

He opened his chamber doors. He likely hadn’t realized he was still doing it. Carrying her had apparently become muscle memory ever since the broken glass.

"Alpha, I can walk," she said gently.

He grunted and kept walking.

She blinked down at him, thoroughly confused but didn’t try again. He didn’t set her down until they’d reached the bottom of the main stairs.

"Follow me," he ordered.

Nova trailed him through the Keep, walking a careful step behind like a duckling who had imprinted on the wrong predator. People stared at her, then at him, then back at her, the holo-feed of their eyeballs refreshing in real time. Nova had no answer for them either, so at least they matched.

A captain stopped him. Alpha Thunderfang thumbed something off on a holo, barked a short instruction, and they moved on. A second captain intercepted him with another question Nova did not catch, and he signed off again without breaking stride. This man did not fuck around.

A man stepped in next, one Nova had seen before and was the head omega if she were to guess. He handed Alpha Thunderfang a small box. Alpha Thunderfang handed it to Nova, without looking at her.

Nova took it on reflex, understanding nothing, but happy to hold whatever he needed.

"It’s the newest model," the head omega said.

Nova blinked at him.

"For you. Alpha Thunderfang ordered it yesterday."