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infected.”
    She couldn’t protect Sabine if she suffered from an infection, and laser burns could be nasty. Bryn reluctantly stalked around to the other bed, unstrapped her weapon belt and stripped her stolen jacket off. The doctor appeared as unaffected by Bryn’s nudity as Bryn was.
    The jacket’s owner was probably dead, and she didn’t even know the man’s name. Guilt twisted her stomach. The man didn’t deserve that end. In general, Bryn didn’t hate her customers. Sex was a natural need, like hunger or thirst, and she understood the importance of satisfying it, particularly for spacers who spent their lives crammed inside the confines of a ship. But there was no forgiving that Bryn and the other females were forced into their roles in the brothel, so she saved her venom for her master. He deserved the fiery death he’d gotten, unlike the many innocents who had died on the station. Bryn still didn’t know the reason behind the attack, and Dr. Morgan was tight-lipped with information.
    Bryn glanced down at the wound on her hip and frowned. Bryn had forgotten how ugly a laser burn could be, even just a graze. Luckily it looked far worse than it felt. Blackened flesh gouged a straight line across her hip—a few inches higher and to the left and she would’ve died from a gut shot.
    The doors to the med bay opened as the doctor treated her, and Bryn tensed as a human woman entered.
    “I’m Captain Hawke. Don’t worry, I ordered the males to stay away.” Like Bryn she was tall for a female, but she had a human’s bland skin tone—a sort of bronzed beige. The captain’s face was marred by an old burn scar, but Bryn was most interested in the Cy’ren markings inked in black on the side of her throat. No slave marks, and she bore odd heritage runes, but she had two mate marks from House Sunsinger.
    “I won’t let them take her,” Bryn blurted.
    “Agreed. My mate, Talena, was in phase recently. I understand how difficult that can be. I won’t let anything be forced on your friend,” Captain Hawke said.
    “Sabine is my mate,” Bryn corrected. “I’ve never heard of a human with Cy’ren mates.”
    “Well, now you have. And you are?”
    “Brynnaren Viera, shadow sword of House Wintersend. I served as a lieutenant aboard the Sabre .”
    “I’m not familiar with that ship.”
    “The Sabre was destroyed almost six years ago. Five of us made it to an escape pod. We were captured. I don’t know what happened to the others after—” Bryn stopped, the words vanishing as her throat squeezed shut. After I was sold. She rather hoped her crewmates were dead. Death would have been an honorable end, and easier to bear than the hell she’d been through.
    Bryn squared her shoulders. “I don’t want the males near Sabine.”
    “I understand. But you’ll have to let her mate with a male if you want to end her phase.”
    “And when we get to Cyprena, we will find one for her.”
    “Lieutenant Viera, your mate is in very poor health. I’ve never seen a Cy’ren affected so strongly by the phase,” Dr. Morgan said. “The strain of the phase combined with withdrawal symptoms could cause a complete collapse.”
    “I know. It’s because of…our work,” Bryn explained. “It brought Sabine’s phase on early. Her urges are stronger because we’re constantly surrounded by sex. In most females the phase is like a bonfire. In Sabine it’s like a wildfire.”
    “Then let her end it before it consumes her,” Captain Hawke said. “Help her.”
    “Handing her over to the first male who catches her scent isn’t helping ,” Bryn snarled. “Letting some stranger impregnate her just ties her to a new master. She’s never been free. She deserves a chance to live her own life.”
    The captain sighed, but before she could reply the doors opened again and a male Cy’ren entered—the male from the station, Harrow. He was still armed and armored, and Bryn automatically began looking for weak spots to exploit