"Her, you fear?" he asked.
She laughed until his hand lifted and held her chin. She was forced to hold his gaze.
"Am I afraid of Sheena? No. Am I afraid of leaving the airship? Yes."
"Stay. All good it be," he said with a shrug.
Bri chuckled at his simple advice and missed his fingers when they dropped away. Darcone was the strangest mix of gentleman and fierce warrior. He made her feel safe. He'd always made her feel that way. Next to her parents, the alien in front of her was the only person who seemed to accept her for what she truly was, even when she was being bad.
They stopped again outside her door and Bri sighed heavily. She pulled her arm from Darcone's. "Thanks for listening to me whine. I promise to behave with Sheena if you'll wait and walk me back to Erin after I say hello."
She grinned when all she got was a shrug for an answer. What if she left with Sheena and didn't see Darcone again for another gazillion years. Sighing, she shook her head and her strangely sentimental attachment to the alien away. She stared at the door to her quarters with six kinds of dread growing inside her.
"Bri-an-a."
"What?" Her head whipped back to the male still at her side. Darcone had called her many things in the time she'd known him-mostly mean ones in his own language-but never had he said her actual name in hers. Not until today.
His head dipped quickly and his full lips brushed against hers before she could process what was happening. Her mouth was still tingling from pleasure when one of his hands opened her door and the other shoved her roughly inside. She heard the door click and lock firmly behind her.
Staring from the opposite side of the barrier, Bri glared as reality sank in. Coward. Fucking kiss and run alien coward.
Her flat palm hit the door with all the vicious frustration she was feeling. She was over eighty years old, damn it. Why did he still treat her like a child? And how did Darcone make her feel like one?
"You cowardly bastard," she yelled as loudly as she could.
Her eyes narrowed to angry slits when she heard Darcone growl in warning from the other side. Everything south of her waist suddenly started aching. What the hell was happening to her? She wanted to know.
She pounded on the door again. "Open this damn door, you growling piece of alien shit. You and I need to talk."
When everything stayed silent for a full minute, Bri turned a furious glare to her chuckling sister and stalked to the sofa where Sheena calmly sat.
"I'm glad you think my pain is funny," Bri said.
"Has nothing changed in the last century? You and Darcone still get along about as well as Nate and I do."
Bri snorted as she fell into a chair. "I just can't believe the alien bastard did that to me."
"Did what?" Sheena asked.
Bri studied her sister. Sheena was now digging around in her medical satchel and only half listening. No matter what she said at this point, her sister wouldn't take it in, or understand. Sheena had given up the better part of herself when she'd left Nate.
"That growling bastard said my name for the first time ever." And just before he made her tingle in places that hadn't tingled in a good long while.
However, she wasn't about to brag to her man-hating sister about her first ever alien kiss, especially from the alien she'd secretly crushed on for years. Sheena wouldn't react well.
"Darcone said your name? Really, Bri. Just because you look twenty doesn't mean you can't act like you're eighty once in a while. I know you've had to mature at least a little in all those years."
Bri rolled her eyes at the chastisement. "Did you come here and face down a man you hate just to lecture me on acting mature? Carleton and Elsa have taken over for Mom and Dad in that area. You don't have to fill their shoes."
Sheena snorted. "No. I didn't come here to lecture you. I came here to save your brazen ass. Now hold out your damn arm."
"No. I don't trust your science any more. Look at me. I look like a frigging child," Bri said, distrustful of the determination in Sheena's gaze. She held her arms out of her mad scientist sister's reach.
Sheena held up a biomedical delivery instrument. "When you're two hundred and still look thirty, you'll be thanking me. Now hand me your damn arm. I've programmed nanos to seek out and neutralize the bionetic tracers you were shot with. It works on all known kinds."
"Have you tested it on a human yet?" Bri demanded.
"No, but things went very well in the lab simulations."
Bri snorted. "Get the hell away from me, Dr. McNamara. I am not a damn simulation."
"I know. That's why I spent the last three days looking for anomalies. I found none. Now give me your arm, Brianna. No sister of mine is going to have to sell herself to some horny alien just to keep living."