by A. G. Wilde
She just had to find it.
As Yce’s eyelids fell lower, he almost collapsed backward.
Struggling to support his weight, she rested him on the sand as her eyes searched the area.
She had no idea where it was and with all the carnage littering the desert floor, it would be difficult to find it.
Still...she had to try.
A glance at Yce made her heart lurch.
He was in a bad state.
His eyes were hardly open now but she could see that he was looking at her underneath his almost-closed lids.
“I’m going to get something to make you feel better,” she said, smoothing a hand over his forehead.
He blinked slowly but didn’t say a word.
With that, she stood on shaky feet, ignoring the way her skin felt with the slime still sticking to it, and began walking in the direction she thought he’d brought them from.
If she headed the right way, she should see the cloth bag somewhere in the sand close to the zehmip he’d slain to rescue her.
She began walking, stepping over the bodies ripped apart on the ground, but then she began to run, the urgency stressing on her mind.
Where was that damn bag?
Using her foot to push some of the smaller dead sand cats, she checked underneath where they lay.
But as she moved cat after cat, she couldn’t find it.
She knew it was there somewhere. It had to be.
Hands raising to grip her hair, she pulled on the strands even though they were thickened with slime.
This was just one of those cases where you couldn’t find the thing you’re looking for but it was right in the open underneath your nose.
Trying to calm her mind, she took a few deep breaths.
If she was calm, she could find it. She just needed to be calm and think rationally.
But that was hard when the one other being you cared about in this wilderness was bleeding to death!
With a groan of frustration, she gave a nearby dead zehmip a kick.
She was frustrated, but she wasn’t going to give up.
Not now.
Not after he’d fought so hard to rescue her.
She would do all she could to help him.
Walking a few more feet, Diana squinted at the sand ahead of her.
The dead zehmip up ahead had something poking out of the slice in its head that looked like...no, it was...it was a boot.
His boot!
She almost hooted as she dashed toward the dead plant, searching frantically in the sand around it for the discarded bag.
When she finally found it, she clutched it to her chest and whispered silent thanks.
As she stood, she stared at the zehmip that had swallowed her and tried to digest her just hours before.
Giving it a forceful kick before she headed off on a run, she gripped the bag to her chest as if it was treasure.
When she reached him, he was still lying there on the sand. He was still bleeding and his eyes were now closed but as she fell to her knees beside him, his eyelids rose a little.
“Yce?” Her whisper was soft, but he seemed to hear her.
“I am here,” he answered telepathically and his voice felt like it caressed her mind.
It seemed he didn’t have enough energy to speak and it only made what she needed to do more urgent.
Pulling the little first-aid kit from the box, she turned it over in her hand, trying to figure out how to open it.
There was only a button on top, and when she pressed it, the lower half of the box slid out like a drawer.
Glancing over the items, she hoped it wouldn’t be too different from the items on Earth.
She could see something that looked like gauze and there were several teardrop-shaped items with liquids in them. They were all labeled. Only, she couldn’t read whatever language they were labeled in.
“Shit,” she breathed.
She needed some antiseptic, some cleansing wipes, and some astringent at least.
Picking up teardrop packet after teardrop packet, she had no idea what to use. The last thing she wanted to do was put something on him that would make his wounds worse.
Glancing at him, she realized his eyes were closed again.
Dammit, what should she do?
“Hjek hair,” his voice reached her mind, “use the blue ones first. Then the green. Then the yellow.”
Hjek hair?
She’d think about that later.
Grabbing as many of the blue packets as she could, she ripped them open and emptied the contents over the wounds on his chest and arms.
She’d need something to wipe the wound, but as she turned to search the first-aid kit again, she realized that whatever she’d just squeezed into his wounds was causing a strange reaction.
The wounds were getting cloudy...no...they were filling with foam and the foam was rising.
“Is that supposed to happen?” she breathed, feeling completely out of her element.
“Yes.”
She’d take his word for it.
As the foam built to a few centimeters, it suddenly stopped then began to shrink. Soon, the foam disappeared and turned to liquid, running down his skin.
“Green now,” he instructed.
Diana nodded, grabbing the green packets and applying them to the wounds.
She winced as she heard the liquid fizz in his wounds. The wounds were deep—deep claw marks and bites.
He’d been mauled.
“Mauled?”
She glanced at him and despite the pain he should be feeling there was a slight smile on his lips.
“I’d say they were the ones that got mauled.”
Diana snorted but she let the smile that came to her lips stay there.
If he had the energy to joke, it meant that whatever these liquids were doing was working already.
Good.
Yellow next.
Taking the yellow packets, she squeezed them into the wounds and watched them settle.
It seemed the yellow teardrops had the astringent in it because the bleeding slowed considerably before stopping completely.
It worked fast. Faster than any medicine she was used to.
“Thank you,” he said and she raised her eyes to his.
“No. Thank you.”
He gazed back at her for a few seconds. “Shelter,” he whispered.
Right. They needed to camp and recuperate.
Only, the thought of resting underneath a zehmip again made her shiver. There was no way she could rest underneath one of those man-eating plants ever again.
As Yce struggled, she stood by his side, supporting him as he stood. Draping one of his arms over her shoulder, she held the cloth bag in one hand as she helped him support his weight.
It wasn’t even something she thought about. It was just something that she did. It was automatic and it wasn’t until she felt his gaze on her that what she was doing occurred to her.
Well, it was the least she could do. He needed the help.
As they hobbled together from their position, Diana glanced around the desert in front of them.
She could see some dunes a little way off and she knew what that meant. Living zehmips. But as before, she was definitely not going to even entertain the thought of resting underneath one again.
They’d just have to find an alternative.
Chapter Twenty
When her grip had left his fingers, a sort of panic he’d never felt before had suddenly surrounded him.
Rescuing her from the zehmip’s clutch should have been easy.
He just had to slaughter it. But the sand cats had chosen that moment to pounce.
Usually, he’d have been ready, knowing their moment of attack before they actually leaped into the air.
But this time, he didn’t.
He’d been too focused on the human. Diana.
The fear that had been in her eyes had been too evident...too real.
It
had clutched at something within him, something that reminded him of what it was like to be alive.
With his abilities, it was easy to forget that life was not a predictable string of events.
Of all the beings he’d encountered while traveling to different worlds, he hadn’t found a species where he couldn’t predict their next move.
Even his brothers. They thought they were different, but most beings were the same.
Predictable.
Especially when you could go so deep into their head you understood who they were at their core.
But she...she was unpredictable, and in that moment, when he’d seen that look in her eyes when she’d realized that she was close to losing her life, he had realized that of all the things he’d encountered so far on his missions, she was the only thing he couldn’t predict.
She was the only thing that made him uneasy.
She was the only thing that took him out of his own head to question reality.
And he liked that.
He fucking liked it.
Now, she was being even more unpredictable.
Her small body was supporting his as they walked, and even though he could walk on his own, he found what she was doing to be curious.
He’d pretend he couldn’t walk on his own for a little longer, just to see what she would do.
Maybe it was the shock of almost dying. Had it knocked the wildness out of the little human?
She’d even smiled at him earlier.
He thought she hated him.
Well, maybe her hate would return later.
At the moment, he’d enjoy this unpredictable behavior of hers.
“I don’t want to rest under one of those things again,” she said suddenly, breaking the silence around them.
To him, her voice sounded different. Small.
Was she scared of the zehmips now?
The ones they rested under were dead. There was no need to fear them.
“It will be dead,” he stated the obvious, but he was trying to understand why there had been a quiver in her voice.
“I know. I just...” She trailed off and he didn’t push it any further.
He didn’t quite understand the reasoning, but it was obvious she was traumatized by what had happened. He wouldn’t force her to sleep under a zehmip if she didn’t want to. The only problem was there was no other way to shelter in this desert unless they managed to find an abandoned cave, and those were hard to find.
The twin suns were rising and soon it would be too hot to travel. Plus, they needed to rest.
“I just...” She trailed off again.
“It is fine, Diana. We will find an alternative.”
Her voice, her words, her whole demeanor was so different from what he was used to that it was bothering him.
He didn’t like Diana like this, he realized. He much preferred the feisty, feral Diana that hated him.
Maybe to take her mind off things he should remind her that he wasn’t her favorite person in the world.
The thought almost made him chuckle.
He’d never felt the need to remind someone that they hated him before.
The thought came to him immediately, and he knew what he needed to do.
Removing his arm from around her shoulders, he pushed her away from him harshly, faking an annoyed look.
“I can walk fine. If you want to be helpful, don’t get eaten next time.”
He looked at her long enough to see her look of shock as if he had suddenly gone mad. Then a flare erupted in her eyes and he turned away, a small smile on his face.
There it was.
Her fire was still there.
Hjek-colored hair. Hjek-colored spirit.
She was predictable after all.
He expected her to unleash some kind of verbal assault on him but what he didn’t expect was too sticky hands to press into his back forcefully as she flung her body weight into him with a push.
It caught him unaware, and it seemed as if her small hands had found the exact spot where there were wounds on his back.
Wincing, he bit back the laugh that came to his throat.
“Why do you have to be such a dick?!” He heard her scream. He had no idea why she was calling him a male sex organ but he had no time to ask as she pushed him again.
Maybe she thought she was strong enough to push him over? Maybe he should oblige her. It would probably lift her spirits.
Stumbling, he fell to the ground.
“You dick!” she shouted. “You absolutely insufferable blue dick!”
He could hear the anger in her voice and logically, it shouldn’t make him feel so good.
“You think I look like a male’s sex organ?” He turned over on his back and eased himself up on his elbows. She was still glaring at him with balled fists.
“No.” She screwed her face up a bit before frowning again. “You’re a different type of dick.” Her eyes flamed. “You think I purposefully got eaten by that thing? You think I willingly decided I wanted to be something’s dinner?”
She was a sight to behold.
The zehmip’s digestive juices were still all over her and it had turned into sticky goo. The zehmip skins she was wearing clung to her body, her hair clung to her head, and apart from that, with her glaring at him so, he couldn’t help the chuckle that shook his shoulders.
“You’re laughing?” Her anger only seemed to rise. “You think this is funny?”
He just looked back at her, not bothering to hide the smile on his lips and he watched as her anger slowly faded.
“You did that on purpose, didn’t you,” she finally said.
“Did what?”
Diana rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why you’re trying to rile me up. Now is not the time.”
But it had worked. She wasn’t being dejected anymore.
“Rain,” he informed her.
Diana glanced up at the sky. “We should hurry to find somewhere to shelter then.”
“Too late.”
He knew he was still smiling at her. He could even feel the strange look he had in his eyes. But he couldn’t help himself as he watched the first fat raindrop hit her in the face and she gasped.
Diana gasped.
The surprise on her face changed instantly to delight as she lifted her head to the incoming raindrops.
As the torrent began, she dropped the cloth bag to her feet and raised her hands in the air, spinning slowly.
It must feel good, getting the fresh water to wash away the zehmip’s digestive juices.
Actually, he knew it felt good. He could feel her relief spreading through him as if the emotion was his own.
He lay there on the ground watching her as the rain beat down on his own skin.
It felt good—like a nice way to wash away the terror of the night before.
It was falling hard enough now that he had to sit upright but his gaze didn’t move from her the entire time.
She was still turning around on the spot, her eyes now closed and a soft smile on her face.
And then she did something that he didn’t expect.
Lowering her arms, she slowly shrugged off the zehmip coat to expose her bare shoulders.
And when he thought she was going to stop there, she didn’t.
The entire cloak went falling to the ground, leaving her entire upper half unclothed.
Naked.
Bare.
Right in front of him.
Qrak.
She was back to being as unpredictable as a tree n’jyst.
He couldn’t stop looking at her now, even if he wanted to.
And when he thought she would stop there, she went further.
In the next few seconds, her trousers came off and she was standing in front of him naked.
His wide-eyed gaze rose to hers but she still had her eyes closed.
Had she forgotten he was there?
Should he make a sound?
Should he turn away?
&
nbsp; He should. He should do both.
Instead, he did neither.
He couldn’t take his eyes off her.
As the droplets ran down her skin, his eyes followed their paths.
She was beautiful.
So pale and soft.
So...
Yce gulped.
He could feel his cock harden in his pants and when she turned to face him, it jerked against the fabric, begging for release.
Qrak.
Was she doing this on purpose?
Was she...
Surely she remembered that he was right there. After all, they’d been together since the Elysium had crashed.
She couldn’t have forgotten his presence so suddenly. Could she?
When she finally opened her eyes to look at him, the look she gave him was one he couldn’t read.
For a second, he wanted to read her mind but a part of him was scared of what he’d find there.
She stood there, completely naked in front of him, unmoving, the raindrops running down her body as she looked at him, not saying a word.
He didn’t realize he’d stood and moved toward her until he was looming over her and she was looking up at him.
“You...” he said, noting the sudden hoarseness in his voice.
“What about me?” Her voice was light, so light it was like a caress aimed directly at his cock and he felt himself jerk again.
His eyes searched hers.
What was she doing?
They were standing close now and she didn’t move away. The fact that his cock was straining against his pants wasn’t helping either. Coupled with the hardened little buds on her bosom, he could hardly concentrate.
All his mind was telling him to do was one thing.
Touch her.
He wanted to touch her.
The urge was strong. So strong, he was only stopping himself by balling his hands into fists.
Then this unpredictable woman...qrak.
She did something he hadn’t seen coming.
Closing the distance between them, she wrapped her arms around his neck, tipping on her toes so she could raise her face closer to his.
“Kiss me.” Her eyes fell to his mouth as the words left her lips.
What?
Kiss her?
He had no idea what she meant but something deep inside him told him that whatever it was, it was about to blow his mind.
She must have seen the confusion in his eyes because she didn’t wait to clarify.