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eyes. He had known
what he was doing when he had hit the bars and he hadn’t cared
about the pain it would cause him. Had he wanted to scare the
commander?

    Or was it the thought of
his family coming for him that had made him react so violently, had
made him want to fight?

    Tres heaved a sigh and
visibly relaxed. Renie’s gaze shifted to his face again. He looked
calm at last, his head tilted back and his shoulders lowered. His
blue pupils remained fixed on the commander though.

    The commander grinned, as
though Tres’s change in temperament was a victory for
him.

    Tres frowned and then
relaxed again.

    “ If I eat,” he
said slowly, his voice smooth and calm, “you will leave her brother
alone.”

    Renie frowned now,
confused by the exchange. How was Tres finally eating important
enough to the Vegans that they wouldn’t hurt her brother? If it was
true and they would do as he had asked then she didn’t care about
the reasoning behind it. She looked at Tres and then at the
commander. No. Tres hadn’t asked the commander. He had told the
commander that he would leave Rezic alone.

    Was Tres of high standing
within society on this side of the barrier? High enough that he
could order the Vegan commander? She almost laughed at that. Given
their current situation, he couldn’t be that important. If he were
then the commander wouldn’t have been holding him in the cells. If
this ship was anything like a Lyran military vessel, then it would
have guest quarters. They would have held Tres in one of those if
he were that important. Perhaps he was trying his luck. Perhaps he
had only risked it sounding like an order to force commander into
making a decision.

    But still.

    How was Tres’s offer of
eating equivalent to the safety of her brother? It didn’t seem like
an equivalent exchange to her.

    Renie looked at the
commander to see what he would do. He looked pensive for a moment
and then nodded.

    “ Bring food for
him, and make sure that he eats it.” The commander’s gaze slid to
her and she stepped back, away from him. “If he doesn’t, then we go
ahead as planned.”

    Renie swallowed and
glanced at Tres. He was looking at her, his expression serene and
unwavering. If it was supposed to reassure her, it did, but she
still wasn’t about to trust these Vegans with her
brother.

    “ You’ll leave
Rezic alone as promised, yes?” she said as the commander went to
pass her.

    He paused and looked down
at her, across his broad shoulders. There was something in his
strange yellow irises that looked like reluctance. He nodded and
then stormed out of the room. One of the guards followed him. The
other remained in the corner, watching her, his expression
empty.

    Renie turned to Tres. He
had sat down again in the same spot that he had occupied before,
leaning with his back against the wall between the light bars of
her cell and the bench in his.

    She walked over and sat
down too. Her hands slipped from her bent knees to the floor and
she looked down at Tres’s hand. Carefully reaching through the
bars, she tentatively stroked the burns on his hand, black marks
against white skin.

    “ I’m sorry,”
she whispered and looked at him, tears trembling on the brink of
falling again. She cursed them, wishing to Iskara that she wasn’t
so weak. The thought of them hurting her brother made her sick
though and she couldn’t stop the tears from coming whenever she
thought about him. She couldn’t lose Rezic. “You’re
hurt.”

    Tres’s eyes narrowed
slightly, a look filling them that made her heart race a little
quicker. His blue pupils mesmerised her, surrounded by inky black
irises and then the white of his eyes. The soft look in them warmed
her, soothed her. She didn’t understand any of what had happened
between him and the commander and she didn’t need to in order to
know that Tres had made a sacrifice for her sake. He had protected
her and her brother by giving in to the commander.

    He had hurt