After the doors swished closed, the lady warily eyed Torran. “Thank you,” she murmured. “I know you didn’t do it for me, but that creep was harassing me before you showed up.” She gave him a shy grin. “It was nice to see someone shut him up.”

Torran inclined his head. “You’re welcome.”

We exited the elevator without causing any more potential interstellar incidents. As soon as we were alone, I turned to Torran. “If he reports you, then we’re going to have bigger problems than an asshole who likes to run his mouth.”

“There is nothing to report.”

“You used your ability on a human who wasn’t a threat. That breaks at least a half dozen laws.”

“He was a threat, I did not injure him, and I have diplomatic immunity.” Torran’s narrowed eyes and icy tone told me that he would do the exact same thing again, given the opportunity.

I rolled my eyes. “You insisted on coming with me because you didn’t have time to waste if something happened. Even with diplomatic immunity, it’ll take time for the station authorities to let you go if you cause trouble.”

“If there are repercussions, I will deal with them,” Torran said, “but I will not let someone hurl insults at you when I can prevent it.” He slanted a questioning glance at me. “This is why you did not want me to accompany you.”

I sighed. “I didn’t know that this would happen, but it doesn’t surprise me. Bastion was heavily involved in the war and memories are long. I didn’t want trouble.”

When Torran didn’t respond, I relented a little and grinned. “But did you see that asshole’s expression when he realized he couldn’t talk? Priceless. So thank you for that.”

Torran searched my face for a moment, then he smiled. My breath caught. He was always objectively handsome, but he was gorgeous when he smiled. “You are welcome,” he said softly.

I dipped my head and focused on the levcart. “Let’s get what we need and get off this station,” I murmured.

Now that my anger had worn off, my conscience wouldn’t allow me to take complete advantage of Torran’s generosity, no matter what I’d said earlier. I picked the high-priority parts that Anja needed, but I left the rest for another day—one when I’d be paying my own bill.

Still, the total was high enough that I winced in sympathy for his bank account.

He paid without a whisper of complaint.

Before we left, I checked on the price of a translation module for my comm and grimaced. This close to Valovian space, they were in high demand, and I couldn’t justify the massive expense. Kee and Lexi spoke the language well enough to get us through. For anything else, I’d have to keep looking up Valovan phrases the old-fashioned way.