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K erra is injured because I wasn’t paying attention. She ended up in the pulsar trap because I failed her. It makes my blood rage.

It makes me want to destroy this place. Destroy everything in it.

But I can’t rage, as I have her in my arms, and I don’t ever want to let her go.

“Get the generator,” I order my warriors. “We’ll take it back to Vorostor Central. We’ll see if we can trace the manufacturer there.”

Two scurry off to do my bidding.

“Bring the females.” I turn, heading back to the ship.

My head is filled with the mating mix, the one thing which stopped me getting blown to smithereens by the generator.

We pass the remains of the thing, pocked with teethmarks as my warriors shift to their Sarkarnii form and lift into the air.

I hear gasps from the other females, but I’m not interested in them.

I’m more concerned with Kerra. Her breathing seems shallow and given her past behavior, I was expecting a fight. There is no fight. Instead she lies in my arms, her eyes not leaving the other females.

Desire and jealousy fight themselves. I want her full attention, but I understand her concern. She has found not only her friend but others like her, one of which is also injured.

Except, in the process, she got hurt too, and I loathe myself. I am no Sarkarnii warrior if I cannot protect her.

I call myself a warlord, but my sector has a pulsar trap I didn’t set.

I call myself a descendant of the High Bask. I don’t deserve to.

Not if the female I rut for ends up injured in my arms.

We reach the ship, and I give the order to return to Vorostor Central before taking Kerra through to the small clinic most Sarkarnii ships have.

“What is this place?” Kerra asks.

“Clinic,” I growl, hating the fact I have to bring her here. “Sarkarnii are tough. We don’t need much in the way of medical assistance. Our shift usually fixes any physical problems. This was already installed when we took it from the original owners.”

The warrior bringing the other female has already put her in one of the two medical pods. It hums into life over her.

“I’m not going in one of those,” Kerra says.

“You need to. You were injured.”

“What makes you think I can’t heal myself?” She wriggles but then hisses with pain.

“If you could, you would have done so by now.” I stride over to the other pod and activate it.

Kerra squirms more in my arms.

“No! Really, Darax, I can’t go in there. I can’t!” Her voice rises in pitch and the bitter scent I’ve had from her before increases.

“You will,” I growl as the pod opens.

“Darax. No,” Kerra says, her voice hoarse. “I’m claustrophobic. I can’t go in small spaces like this. It was bad enough on the Bloar pirate ship, but not here…”

“I wish for you to be well.” I place her on the edge of the pod. Her feet don’t reach the ground. “And to be well, you need to go in this.”

Kerra has her arm wrapped around her abdomen. Her body is stiff like the way a warrior holds himself before I have to bawl him out to shift and get healed.

“I can’t.” She shakes her head, refusing to look at me. “If there’s no other way, I’ll just have to heal on my own.”

“And how long will that take?”

“I’m guessing I broke a rib or two, so I don’t know, a few weeks,” she breathes out at the floor.

“What if I come in with you?” I suggest.

“Darax, the whole concept of fear of small spaces means if you get in with me, it’ll be even smaller and even more scary.” Kerra laughs harshly, her breath hitching in pain as she does.

“I can be a distraction,” I rumble.

My female looks up at me, her eyes filled with pain and fear, neither of which I like in the least.

“If I’m in there with you, we can get out anytime,” I add.

“Yeah, I’ve seen how you deal with getting into places,” she mutters, still staring at her feet, or maybe mine.

“Then, should you be frightened, you will have an idea of how fast I can get out of places, wherever I am.”

Kerra lifts her head, and there is a hint of a smile.

“It does hurt.”

The flash of rage I feel at whoever set the pulsar trap is almost overwhelming. I manage, just, to tamp it down inside me, to hold onto an element of decorum which I rarely do.

Kerra makes me.

“This machine can make it not hurt.”

Kerra looks over her shoulder at the pod. Then she looks around me at the other pod with the hoo-man inside. It’s translucent, the female inside clearly visible.

“Okay,” Kerra says, biting at her bottom lip with her blunt teeth.

My cock pushes hard at my pouch, but as I’m now pantsless, I do my level best to think about calculating wormhole tolerances in order to stop it from emerging.

I cannot, I should not, rut for this little creature. Not only is she too fragile for me, but rutting is death.

I am not ready to meet the ancestors yet.