The male was awake and stared at her with bright silver eyes.
Adaos spoke behind her. “Commander Dagon. The Purveli is conscious.”
He was conscious all right. And his eyes didn’t stray from Eliana’s face as he continued to reach for her.
She heard his heartbeat pick up until it pounded in his damaged chest. But for some reason, she didn’t think the fear she read in his silver eyes was spawned by guilt.
Letting instinct guide her, she covered his hand with hers.
The Purveli instantly clasped it.
Maarev, Liden, and Efren took quick steps forward, voicing objections that blended together as they all spoke at once.
She held up a hand to silence them and kept her gaze locked on the Purveli’s.
“Earthling,” he croaked, his voice deep and hoarse. Moisture filled his eyes, and he grimaced in pain.
“Yes,” she replied in English. When he didn’t seem to understand, she switched to Segonian, doubly glad now that she had swiftly learned the language. She thought the chances of him having a translator that would allow him to understand English were slim. “I’m an Earthling.”
He gave the warriors a wary glance, then met her gaze. “Where?”
“You’re on the Segonian ship you tried to sabotage.” The warriors did not like her revealing that, but she doubted it was news to the Purveli. Those silver eyes gleamed with intelligence. “Have you seen others like me?”
Dagon strode into the infirmary. He took in his men’s alert posture, then focused his attention on Eliana.
The Purveli’s clasp tightened.
Dagon’s expression darkened. “Step away from him, Eliana.”
She met his stormy gaze as he moved to stand on the other side of the bed. “He won’t hurt me.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do. And you do, too. You’ve seen how strong I am. He’s restrained and weak from his injuries. He can’t hurt me.”
“Won’t hurt you,” the Purveli promised her hoarsely.
Dagon glared down at him. “Now that you’re in our custody, you won’t. But you can’t deny that was your intention when you boarded my ship.”
She stared at Dagon. “What?”
He didn’t look away from the Purveli. “Disabling the thrusters was part of a plot you hoped would end with your capturing Eliana for the Gathendiens, was it not?”
Shit. Really? She studied the Purveli.
“How long?” he wheezed.
Dagon arched a brow. “How long have I known?”
The Purveli glanced at the restraints on his wrists, then looked at Dagon. He tried to speak again but ended up growling in frustration and pain.
Eliana frowned. “Do Purveli people not speak the same way we do?” Did his throat hurt because he didn’t normally use it to communicate?
Adaos answered as he moved to stand beside her. “They do. But he’s suffered a great deal of damage from swallowing and inhaling what you refer to as the blue goo. The metals and toxins it utilized to block our scans also burned his flesh.”
Burned it how? “Like a chemical burn?”
“Yes.”
Had the Purveli known it would harm him when he’d donned the blue suit? “Can’t you do anything to alleviate it and make it easier for him to communicate?” She needed to learn whatever he might know about Ava.
Dagon and Adaos visually consulted each other.
“What?” she asked as the moment stretched.
“You gave him nahalae?” Dagon asked.
“Yes,” Adaos responded.
She looked back and forth between them. “What’s nahalae?”
Dagon studied the intruder. “The Purveli are telepathic. The ability enables them to communicate with one another while underwater. But a drug derived from the nahalae plant robs them of that ability.”
So all the Purveli could do now was try to force sound out through a damaged throat? “Can you reverse it? I mean, is there something you can give him to restore his telepathy so we can question him?” When both men were slow to respond, she shook her head. “What? What am I missing?”
A muscle in Dagon’s cheek twitched as he sent the alien a dark look. “There is such a drug, but using it would be unwise. The Purveli can wield their telepathy like a weapon.”
Surprise coursed through her. “They can?” She knew quite a few telepathic Immortal Guardians on Earth. And the only way she had seen any of them use their gift like a weapon was by snooping uninvited into other people’s thoughts and exposing their secrets.
Releasing the Purveli’s hand, she took a couple of steps back. “How?”
“They can emit a sound in your head that deafens you and causes so much pain you collapse,” Dagon told her, his face grim. “If they continue to emit the sound, the damage will be permanent.”
Shit.
“They can also use senshi to increase the pressure inside your skull until your eyes, ears, and nose bleed and you either lose consciousness or die.”
The telepaths on Earth sure as hell couldn’t do that.
Well… maybe Seth could. The eldest Immortal Guardian was so powerful that there was very little he couldn’t do.
“What’s a senshi?” she asked. The earpiece she wore failed to find an English equivalent, and she hadn’t encountered that word in her studies.
Adaos spoke. “It’s a pulse of sound they use to locate each other in the darkest waters.”
Like echolocation? Only deadly to others apparently. “If that’s true,” she said slowly, “then why didn’t he emit a senshi as soon as he realized we’d located him in the walls?”
Adaos motioned to the blue image on the screen behind her. “The blue liquid he breathed and ingested in the suit contained nahalae.”
That didn’t make sense. “Why would he impede his own telepathic abilities?”
Dagon met her gaze. “The nahalae also blocks others with telepathic abilities from reading his thoughts. If he believed Lasarans were on board, he would’ve wanted to keep them from reading his thoughts and intent.”
Or if he and the Gathendiens had already figured out that Eliana and her friends were not your average humans and suspected some of them were telepathic…
“I didn’t know how long it would take the nahalae he ingested in the suit to wear off,” Adaos said, “and did not wish to endanger the crew. So I administered some myself.”
The crew. Not some of the crew or some of his medical staff, but the crew.
As in the whole damned ship.
She looked at Dagon. “Can he do that? Can one Purveli emit a senshi that’s capable of harming everyone aboard the Ranasura?”
“Yes. It’s why the Purveli believe they don’t need allies.”
Well, there was no way in hell she would let the Purveli use that crap on Dagon and the others.
Moving so quickly she blurred, Eliana drew her spare dagger and lunged over the Purveli, positioning the tip of the blade over one eye, her face mere inches from his.
Dagon and the others started. Someone gasped.
The Purveli jerked in surprise and emitted a grunt of pain as his eyes widened and focused on the blade.
“Don’t look at the blade,” she ordered, her voice cold and deadly. “Look at me.”