Just walk out the door, Thane told himself. Walk away before you're totally lost. The scent of sex along with the image of her lying on the bed kept him rooted to the floor.
He heard her moving, and the slight pained groan finally made him turn around. She was sitting on the edge of the bed with one hand pressed up against her head and her eyes closed tight. "Don't run away again, Thane."
He couldn't tell if she was asking or telling. Either way, he didn't care for the implications, but he couldn't deny that she was wrong. He settled for changing the subject. "I didn't expect you to regain lucidity so quickly."
"Cerberus cybernetics. Purges any toxins from my bloodstream in record time. Unfortunately, it also leaves me with a bitch of a hangover."
"You asked for it," he reminded her.
She opened one eye and glared at him. He had a feeling that if she weren't in such pain, he might be feeling her anger more physically. Then she closed her eye and rubbed her temple. "Worth it," she replied with a too smug smile.
Thane frowned. "It's always about you, isn't it, Shepard? You go after what you want. Never mind what anyone else wants."
That brought her to her feet to confront him. "Don't you dare accuse me of that," she snapped. "I could have ignored you when you asked for my help with your son, but I didn't. I used my pull to make sure your kid stayed out of jail. I told Bailey to leave off investigating a rash of murders ten years ago. And not just you, either. Anytime any single one of my crew has asked for my help, I've done it. I fought a fucking thresher maw just so Grunt could pass some stupid manhood ritual, so don't you dare accuse me of being selfish, Thane Krios!"
"You didn't do that out of the goodness of your heart," he denied. "Every time, you had an ulterior motive. You wanted to make sure your crew felt obligated to you. Yes, you saved Kolyat, but you made sure that I knew it was all because of what you did. Just like you reminded me now. I stand by what I said. You're selfish, Shepard." He realized he'd allowed his voice to get much louder than usual.
"So what if I am?" she yelled at him. "No one else is ever going to take care of me. I learned that lesson early on. No one outside of family will ever care about you, and my family's dead! So don't you fucking yell at me for being selfish when I did what no one else would and helped you save your kid!"
"I'm not yelling!" Thane cut himself off abruptly. He had been yelling, and now he felt like a fool. Twice over that it was in front of her. Quieter now, "I don't know that I can continue on as part of your crew, Shepard."
Her eyes widened in shock. "You'd leave? You swore your service to me on Nos Astra!"
"That was when I thought this would simply be another contract. You've changed that."
"How? By having sex a couple of times?" She laughed scathingly. "Here I thought you enjoyed it. Was it so bloody awful that you have to jump ship just because we fucked?"
"No, it's not the sex. Not just the sex," he added, feeling suddenly clumsy. He wasn't used to this, having to parry sharpened words back and forth. He'd never been good with words. He'd never needed to be. He could converse casually about almost any topic thanks to his eidetic memory, and if he needed to engage his target in conversation, he always planned out several options in advance. If it ever degenerated into a shouting match, it meant things had gone seriously wrong, and he usually solved the problem with violence. Now he felt dangerously off-balance with this angry woman pulling emotions out of him that he'd thought safely buried.
"No? Then what is it?" she asked angrily as she crossed her arms under her breasts. He couldn't help but notice that the motion pushed them up and together under the skimpy red dress.
"It's you," he said bluntly. "You push and push to get what you want, never mind what I want. I told you I just wanted to finish this mission in peace, to atone for my past sins. But you wouldn't let it rest. I thought at first it would just be about the killing, that you wanted something more brutal. Not the way I prefer to work, but it's your mission. If you want blood and terror from your enemies, I can do that. But you wanted more from me. You pushed me past where I wanted to go, and I don't like it." He tucked his hands behind his back and stood ramrod straight, staring down at her.
"That's because you deserve more," she said. "I saw those flashes that said you were keeping yourself leashed. You deserve to live, Thane," she challenged.
"I lived a lifetime ago. That time is long past."
"I think you're scared to live again, so you're going to run away," she challenged, looking at him with contempt.
"I don't want to die. No one does. But what I want doesn't matter anymore. I am dying, Shepard. There is no cure."
"So what? You're just going to mope around in your cabin reading sad poetry the rest of your days?"
"Meditating," he corrected sharply. "Death can be a fearful thing, as you well know. I prefer to be in control of my emotions, unlike others I know," he said with a pointed look.
"You aren't just controlling your emotions. You're sleepwalking to your grave. You're ignoring everything that makes life worth living. You're doing nothing more than existing, day to day, until someone gets lucky with a bullet. Frankly, I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet, because you don't have anything to live for."
Her words hit too close for comfort. He'd been in battlesleep for a decade. It was the easiest way to deal with the pain of losing his wife, and he was disturbed that it was this human stirring him to wakefulness again. "You're one to speak of running away," he said to deflect attention away from him. "You keep the hurt and anger from your childhood close at hand, using them to keep everyone away. It works. You have a crew that follows you out of respect, admiration, and no small amount of fear. Not through bonds born of loyalty or friendship."
"What the hell do you know about friendship, Thane? You've avoided friends and family for the past ten years. Besides, I'm not being paid to be liked. When the Alliance needs something dirty done, they send me. It's why I'm a Spectre. It's why Cerberus brought me back. Because I'll do whatever it takes to get the job done, and I don't care whose precious little feelings get hurt along the way," she sneered, but Thane caught the flash of vulnerability in her eyes.
"Then why do you care if I stay or go?" His words were sharp, but he couldn't help but be somewhat curious about her feelings for him. Did she care about him as anything more than a good fuck? Was it even a possibility that she was as addicted to him as he was to her?
"You mean other than the fact that you'd be foreswearing your oath to me? Or that I'd be losing a damn fine fighter? Aren't those enough?"
Suddenly he was furious with her. She was just like all the others in his life, seeing him as nothing more than a tool for their use. It was all about what was best for her and damn his wants.
In that instant, he decided. Never again would he serve any master blindly, never again would he give up his desires for someone else's.
His control must have slipped and let his anger show. Instead of backing down, she bristled in return. Her hand made an abortive movement toward her stomach, and he deduced the presence of a hidden weapon there.
"Not anymore," he growled. "I'm done with being ordered around and prodded into providing your amusement."
"I'm not laughing." She spoke each word individually and low-pitched. She was matching his anger with her own. He realized if one of them didn't back down soon, something would give violently, but he no longer cared.
"No. You're not that kind. You get your pleasure out of manipulating others to give you what you want. I'm warning you, Shepard, I've had enough."
"You've had enough?" she asked with a strangled emphasis on the first word. "What the fuck? You signed up for this mission to earn karma for your soul, and now you're just going to walk away?"
He hesitated. His oath weighed heavily on his conscience, and with his emotions running unchecked it was impossible to be objective. His oath was ordering him to stay, but it was a tiny spark against the roaring inferno of desire to claim this human woman for his own for as long as he could. Only the life-long ingrained lessons in self-restraint were pushing him to leave, and they were fast fraying under the dual assault of her deadly temptation and his warped desire.
"Things cannot continue as they have," he said, hating the way his voice softened and turned a declaration into an admission of weakness.
Her eyebrows pinched together in confusion. "Like what? You didn't like the sex?" A mix of emotions crossed her face - disappointment, anger, resignation. "Fine. We'll just forget it ever happened. No harm, no foul."
He laughed bitterly. "Wrong, Shepard. Drell remember everything. Even now, I recall the feel of you underneath me, and my body yearns to repeat the act. You smell of sex and desperation, and I want nothing more than to throw you on that bed and take advantage of both."
She tensed and eyed him warily, and he laughed again. It was a hard, angry sound. "See. I have only admitted a portion of what you have awakened in me, and now you cannot trust me." He watched her wrestle with her emotions, obviously trying to deny the truth of what he said. Good, he thought savagely. Let her struggle for a change.
"I do trust you," she declared as she thrust her chin out. "You're like me. Angry at the universe for what it took from you but still compelled to do something to save the people in it."
"I'm nothing like you!"
"Liar," she shot back.
His hand clenched at his side as he struggled to maintain control. Walk away. Walk away. If he stayed, if he allowed her to sway him, he would be lost forever. He knew already that the comfort of battlesleep would be forever more denied him. Even on the opposite side of the galaxy, he could never forget this woman or the desires she awakened in him. It wasn't just the sex, either. Even his simple contract on Omega tonight held an extra element of anticipation and thrill that had been missing for over a decade. Even if he left, he would chase a shadow of a dream for the rest of his life.
Yet if he stayed, any modicum of restraint would be annihilated in her company. Killing the batarian at her order had given him far more pleasure than he had any right to feel. She hadn't been wrong. He wanted more, and she gave him the excuse to indulge in those forbidden desires. In fact, she had ordered him to and undoubtedly would again in the future. He envisioned nights filled with dark passion balanced against bloody missions, and damn him for the flood of endorphins that coursed through him at the thought. If he stayed, he would be throwing away every bit of civility and compassion that Irikah had tried to instill in him. Was this human woman worth that?
His fate hung in the balance, trembling and torn between his pride and his desire. Her last word still echoed in the room. He was lying to himself as well as her. They were so well matched that Arashu could have created them from the same soul. Maybe that was why he was so dangerously attracted to her.
"I should have left before you awakened," he said as he pivoted on one foot.
She reached out to grab his arm and yanked him back around. "Don't go!"
As keyed up as he was, he reacted without conscious thought and slammed her up against the wall, arm against her throat as his body pressed hard against hers. An instant later, the tone of her voice penetrated, and he heard the desperation in it. Looking down at her, he saw for the first time her own iron control slipping and the fear and loneliness exposed on her face. He both hated and loved the way her body was so pliant and warm against his.
A memory of Irikah surfaced, kissing her in the dark, holding her gently, his touch reverent as a sinner seeking mercy from his goddess. But Irikah was long dead, and he was so lonely. He hadn't even realized how starved he was for companionship, for touch, for intimacy until this human Spectre had swept him up and destroyed his defenses one by one.
Shepard didn't want reverence. She didn't want pretense. Among the billions of souls in the galaxy, she wanted him precisely because he understood her. And no matter how he tried to deny it or push her away, she understood him.
"Don't go," she said again. Her body trembled against his as she added one more word that cost her dearly. "Please."
He leaned in and brushed his lips across the shell of her ear. "If I stay," he rumbled with an emphasis on the first word, "I need something from you." She waited, silent and tense, for him to name his terms. "Stop pushing at me to get what you want. Stop using me to assuage your pain."
"I want you," she whispered back. "And I won't change my nature. I can't, not if I want to defeat the Collectors." Even with his arm still across her throat, she refused to back down.
He eased his arm away and slid his hand down her side, taking note of the way her breath hitched as he caressed bare skin. "One promise." His breath ghosted over her neck making her shiver. "Don't use my past to try and force me to do what you want. Swear it." Forgetting the past was impossible, but if he stayed, he wanted to make as clean a break as possible. He pulled back just enough to look her in the eyes.
"I swear it," she told him. Unlike him, she was an accomplished liar, but the truth of what she vowed rang clear. "If you stay," she added, "I'm the Commander. You do as I order."
"You're the Commander," he agreed. "I will follow your orders on missions." The caveat of 'not in the bedroom' hung unspoken but understood between them.
"You'll stay?" For both of them, nerves were raw and emotions were high. Try as she might, she couldn't conceal the nervous worry in her question.
"I'll stay," he agreed. He didn't bother to control the audible thrum of pleasure in his chest at the way she relaxed against him. His touch grew possessive, stroking and pulling her against him. "When do you have to be back on the Normandy?" His fingers deliberately glided over sensitive flesh, and he smirked to see her struggle to voice her thoughts.
"I have to see Aria before we..." She gasped and shuddered as his fingers slid between her legs, but she fought back to finish. "Four hours before our scheduled lift," she told him as her fingers dug into his biceps.
He smiled wickedly as he bit the side of her neck. "Then for the next six hours, you're mine, Shepard."
All his life, he had done his best to live up to the expectations of others: the hanar, his wife, the gods. He had paid in blood and loss and misery and loneliness. Enough was enough. His time remaining was short, but with Shepard he would make every moment left to him count.
He picked her up and dropped her on the bed, following immediately to pin her underneath him. "Tonight and every night from now on."
