Observant as always, Azdrei’in studied Artemis’s reaction to what he had just said. The way she lit up and smiled at him was encouraging, signaling that he’d spoken fluently enough for her to understand him. He was unsure if she was happy because of his newfound ability or because he’d told her that his commander had given him permission to let her live though. Perhaps it was both. She had been eager to talk to him since he’d first woken up on her furniture—or rather, [i]sofa[/i], now that he knew that word too—and anyone would be relieved to find out that they’d been spared from immediate death. He was glad that he didn’t have to kill her too. At least, not yet.

When she asked him a question in return, he was pleased to find that he understood her better as well. However, his vocabulary was still limited, and he didn’t know the name of the device he’d used to practice her language, so he couldn’t answer her with a specific word. “That,” he said instead, gesturing at the small screen he’d left on the table next to the sofa. “After my first sleep I was awake, so I looked for English. There were lessons. I learned them.” And now that he’d figured out the basics, he planned to keep studying the language to improve his skill. It would be beneficial for him to know more if the Om’phaers decided that Artemis’s knowledge of fertility treatments would be useful to their people. Someone had to be able to communicate with her if he brought her on board the ship, after all.

At her inquiry about his commander, he nodded. “Yes, one of many. Her name is Zalla, and she is the leader who talked to me when I called at night. But I have more leaders. Some are males.” The leadership among his people was complex, so he couldn’t easily explain it to her with the few words he’d learned so far. That would have to be a discussion for another day if she expressed interest in hearing more about it.

“They are like you,” he told her about the females of his kind. “Not fully the same. They are bigger and have colors like me, but their shapes are like you.” To further clarify his point, he showed her a mental image of a Lunvalgan female with silvery gray skin and long, white hair that had been pulled back in a top-knot on her head. She had clear irises, clawed hands and fangs but lacked the gendered crest that dominated the foreheads of males. Her hips were also wider than an Earthling’s, suited for childbirth that wasn’t as painful as what humans experienced—as far as he could tell from the pained sounds the human female had made in the video Artemis had shown him.

An amused smile curved his lip when she asked if she would be able to see space now that she’d been allowed to live. Her excitement about it was humorous to him. After he’d lived his entire life on a spaceship, the cosmos had lost some of its charm, but he supposed it could be interesting to someone who’d only seen it from a distance. Whether or not he took her on board the mothership would depend on the decision the Om’phaers made though. It wasn’t up to him.

Lacking a straightforward answer to give her, Azdrei’in said nothing as he followed her back to the room she’d lent to him for the night. He watched her open a closet and pull out a shirt from inside, mildly surprised that she was offering him a replacement for the one he’d stained during his hunt. She was incredibly considerate for a creature that was supposed to be a brutal savage. “Thank you,” he said, taking the shirt from her hand. Briefly, he pondered why she seemed to have had an emotional reaction to the clothes, but he decided not to ask about it.

Setting the shirt she had given him on the bed, he took the one he was wearing by the bottom hem and pulled it up over his head. In his culture, males and females didn’t usually change in front of one another unless they were a mated pair, but since Artemis was a human, not a Lunvalgan, he assumed there was no issue with it. He tossed the bloodstained shirt onto the floor and picked up the new one again, sliding the sleeves over his sinewy, dark-skinned arms. It fit well enough, and he was glad that humans were built similarly enough to his people that they could share clothing. He would just have to remember to change back into his own shirt if he left her hideout, since the sleeveless design of his vanguard uniform offered him better mobility if he needed to fight.

“I don’t know if you will come to our spaceship,” he answered her last question belatedly, rolling his shoulders to adjust the way the shirt laid across his back. Lazily, he left the fastenings on the front of it undone, so the garment was still open, exposing his torso rather than covering it. Finished dressing himself, he turned back to her curiously. “Why do you want to go? Are you not afraid? Even I don’t know what could be done with you if I am told to take you there.”