In Enemy Hands by K.S. Augustin

like—was night-black and shiny. It was only the expression on her face that chilled, turning generous lips into a censorious line, and the chocolate-brown of her eyes into hard stone.
    Yet, he could see that there was something bubbling under that cold surface, something in Dr. Thadin that made her worth remembering, worth pursuing. He tried putting his physical awareness of her to one side, but it was difficult. Her figure was broader-hipped than Yalona’s, but the unconscious sway of her body as she walked beckoned to him. He hadn’t felt like this since—since Yalona. And felt a pang of betrayal even as he recollected the stellar physicist’s sultry features. Using his rising guilt as a lever, he steered his mind to more rational avenues.
    Rather than concentrating on her physical attributes, or the hint of fire hidden in her eyes, Srin tried to analyse the physicist in a more dispassionate fashion. Finally, he nodded. Yes, he could see why he might identify Moon Thadin as the weak link. No matter how she tried to hide it, he knew there was vulnerability behind the otherwise impervious slate of her gaze. And he wasn’t so blind that he hadn’t noticed the guarded fear on her face whenever she looked at Hen Savic. She kept the expression well camouflaged when talking with his therapist/minder, but couldn’t suppress her distaste when his back was turned. Interestingly enough, her look at Hen was invariably followed by a quick furtive dart over to him, wherever he happened to be in the lab.
    Yes, Dr. Thadin definitely knew more than mere stellar-forming. She knew something about him that even he didn’t know about himself. Just that one thought was enough to make Srin angry, feeding the violation he felt at being the ignorant pawn in a game he couldn’t begin to comprehend.
    But Moon Thadin comprehended it. And he was determined to get an answer to the puzzle of his life. If only he could remember how to do it.
     
    “How’s the research going?”
    Moon smiled and sipped at her drink. Since her altercation with Savic, her dinners with the captain of the Differential had become a semi-regular event. She knew it was a way of running from a problem, but she couldn’t help herself. Drue’s conversation didn’t send her thoughts into tumult the way Savic’s barbed comments did. And unlike the grey depths of Srin’s intense gaze, the captain’s looks were appreciative. But Moon thought they appeared that way because he thought that was how he was meant to behave, rather than because there was any depth of feeling behind them. In a way, the time she spent with Drue was a lot like the time she spent with Kad. Both were attractive men, but there were other things on their mind than her. For Kad, it was research. For Drue, it was her experiment. She was almost at the periphery of their focus, and happy to remain so.
    “Things seem to be going well,” she said, after a breath.
    The remains of their meal was scattered on the table before them. They often used the snatches of silence while eating to briefly catch up on news. Moon was too busy in her lab to link in with the normal nets, and her dinner partner seemed to enjoy relating the latest items to her, and adding his comments. He was, she found out, a perceptive observer of life in the Republic.
    His eyebrows rose. “Just, ‘well?’”
    She grinned at his deadpan comment. “What do you want me to say, Drue?” They had moved from “Doctor” and “Captain” to “Moon” and “Drue” two dinners ago. The old Moon may have clung to her reserve and still kept the relationship formal, despite Drue’s invitation to use his given name. But the new Moon was a woman who realised that her studied ignorance of the people who surrounded her had indirectly led to three years of incarceration. She was determined not to be so aloof. Getting to know people better, to accept them at a more intimate level, was the first step towards this, although she wondered if she