Page 16

My mind is a hot soup of heavy shadows that strain to pull me under. Inky threads leach into my mind, encapsulate me with chilling fingers, and squeeze my body until I cannot breathe. My lungs move, but no air enters. I am drowning in their grasp while eyes black as the voids between the stars watch me with sickening delight.

A pulse ripples through the darkness, then another, carrying a hint of glitter on its tidal wave. Gold light breaks above me. The watching eyes shy away. Something rattles in my chest. Pressure eases into something new.

Warm. Wet. Soft.

The jabbing in my right lung becomes noticeable again. But it slowly fades and is replaced by the comfort of a mysterious fizzy sensation.

My body convulses. I feel it now. Something is inside my mouth, my throat. Then I feel nothing and see only bright light beyond my eyelids that won’t open.

I’m left hanging in a strange high, like the first long nap after two days without rest. Fear of drowning slips away. A new electricity tingles beneath my skin. It won’t let me have enough peace in the silence to sleep, not completely. My entire body throbs like it has taken one big punch and then been dropped in some gigantic bath of soda.

“Zariah.”

My guard says my name now and then. It is a gentle sound, yet it still thunders through my thoughts. I can’t find him in the swirls of light.

Gold eyes. Hard muscles.

My guard is an alien.

Hours pass, or days, I can’t tell.

What does he want with me?

A damp, plush texture glides over a pulsing spot on my shoulder. It cools, and the pressure dissipates. The soft fizzling sensation finally registers as my consciousness comes back in longer stretches. I’m certain almost all of my flesh has been under the same healing remedy.

Heat rises beneath me from the bed. It blazes down on me from overhead. Fingers curl around mine. Warm breath grazes the back of my hand in gentle bursts.

I blink and find my vision nearly useless.

“I’m here,” he says.

I try to move, but I’m weak and stiff. Straps hold me in place. Questions race through my thoughts, but only a groan escapes me.

“Hang on.” He rattles through a nearby drawer, then opens each of my eyes and drips a liquid into them that clears my vision.

He shuts the drawer, then unstraps me. “You’re going to have a cough for a while. But you’re going to be fine, otherwise.”

I turn my aching neck so I can track him as he moves around the medical bed, unstrapping me. He looks like hell: dirty with dried blood and splits on his green face and his armor.

Wait—

From beneath his black ball cap, he steals a glance back at me, and I know exactly who he is.

“E-Elix?” No sound comes out but a rasp of air.

He hangs his head, nods once, and finishes cleaning up the room with a sigh.

For several breaths, I just let it sink in that he’s been my guard this whole time, and I didn’t notice or even think about it.

He seemed human, looked human. Sure, he’s bigger than most in height and muscle mass, but he has no tail or wings or strange exterior texture like scales or scutes, nothing to clue me in.

Other than his eyes.

But I never expected it to be Elix. We always and only ever saw one another in passing.

He finally sits on a stool beside me, clasps his hands together, and avoids my gaze by reading the screens in the room. “I overheard the Ginarigons talking about you in the next Abr transport after you’d boarded. So I got myself assigned as your private security detail based on a Life Debt.”

“You don’t owe me one.” It comes out only as a whisper. My whole body aches, but I still try to sit up. In my clumsy attempt, my left hand slips and I smash it into the bed’s medical table.

I grimace and slump back, frustrated to tears that my body is so helpless. “Ow.”

“I owe you more.” He lifts my hand, eyes the fresh scrape on my knuckle, licks his thumb, then runs his thumb over the red mark. My skin heats, then cools beneath his touch. I watch the redness disappear, staring at it in shock.

“This is why my people died off.” He rests my hand on the table again. “They did not come to kill us. Not the Novarks or the Denarso. Not even the Nebulous. They came to drain us. I was just banished before my home planet’s final battle. But this is why I became a medic on the outer rim. I hide in plain sight, conceal myself as a human. I am private security, yes. I am good because I can do what most can’t.

“You should be dead. You’re not because I am not your average guard.”

I rotate my hand and weakly take his in mine, grateful to have someone fight for me but broken by what he’s been through.

“The serum will not heal from near death if we cannot taste our patient,” he adds.

“Taste?”

“I need to sample DNA to modify the serum from the ooligilli gland in the back of my throat. I cannot tell you how I modify it. That is as much instinct as breathing.”

His fingers are warm, strong, and far larger than mine. Yet he is gentle when he cups my hand.

“But why?” I can’t fathom why anyone would sacrifice so much for me. “Are you just after treasure?”

Elix leans closer. He scans me, pain in his eyes. Then he reaches across my body, rests his arm beside my head, and grazes my cheek with a thumb, looking at me like I’m some sort of golden challis.

I don’t believe it.

My instinct is to reject the notion he’s the one who wants me, if only because he doesn’t deserve to be dragged down by my life. I expected to be targeted by the likes of a Ginarigon: brutish, pissy, not picky about mates, a pain in the ass with an imperfect moral background like me—not gorgeous, ripped, sweet , Elix.

“When did you feel this?” I ask.

His mouth squirms like he can’t find the words. He looks away.

“Elix.” I try my best to squeeze his hand and bring his gaze back to mine. “How long?” How long have I ignored this and left you feeling like this was one-sided?

My body feels like garbage, but now my heart aches, too.

“When you stayed behind to make sure I escaped the spaceport.” He rubs his face with a hand.

“That’s well over a decade ago —”

Elix covers his mouth and nods. “I didn’t understand the tearing feeling inside me then. I was too young. But every time I’ve seen you since and lost you, I felt it again.”

He guides my fingers to his lips, then supports my hand with both of his and rests his mouth against my skin. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t control it this time.”

I soak in the softness of his kiss and how delicate the moment feels despite knowing he’d bashed into Ginarigons and other monsters just to free us not long ago.

“I understand if you’re not interested,” he adds. “I just want to be sure you’re safe and healthy before I let you go this time.”

The hurt in his voice makes my own throat ache. I don’t want him to let me go. Ever. “I always wondered where you were and if you were safe.”

“Usually not.”

“Same.” I laugh softly, thrusting fluid out of my lungs. One cough turns into a fit I can’t seem to stop. Bloody mist coats the pillow beside me.

Elix immediately slips his arms around me, helps me sit up, and then snatches an inhaler from a nearby tray. “Deep breath. Three, two, one.”

I inhale as he pumps the mist into my lungs.

My coughing fit calms to a strangely sweet and metallic-flavored medicine.

“Hold it.” He half-sits on the bed beside me and supports me until I’m trembling.

“Okay.”

I let it out, and breathing becomes easier.

“What is that?” I ask, working my tongue around in my mouth at the strange taste.

The apprehension on his face concerns me. “I aerated my serum. I’ve never tried it before, but it was a last resort to keep your right lung from collapsing. You were bleeding internally.”

One of his eyes squints in doubt. “I don’t know what the consequences might be. Usually, serum stays local on patients because it’s applied topically. It doesn’t survive in the stomach due to acid, but in the lungs— I’ve never tried it before, nor have I heard of this being attempted elsewhere. So please tell me if you feel unusual.”

“I’ve had a lot of alien bites and injuries. Never a punctured lung.” I admit, thinking back to all my distant world munitions drops for the federation. I catch my breath then add, “I can’t say I’ll know if something’s more abnormal than normal for this.”

“Right. We’ll just have to monitor you, then.” He runs a hand through my hair, gently combing it with his fingers. “Please don’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t.” But I’m more concerned with his appearance. I uncurl my hand from his and reach up to his face. “Why aren’t you healing?”

Elix supports my cold fingers in the heat of his hand. “Taxed my gland’s serum to save you. I just need rest and nutrients.”

He casually motions to the tube plugged into the back of his neck like it’s a daily occurrence for him. “Gave you one, too. It’s a bit better than an IV. One of the things my people invented.”

I reach a shaking hand back and find the tube connected to my neck. That explains the strange stiffness. “So you do know a little about your people?”

“Salvaged what I could.” He nuzzles into my palm. Water shimmers in his eyes.

“What happened?” To you? To them? How the hell did we get here?

He spreads out my fingers over the side of his face like he can’t get enough of my affection. “Many had their glands cut out. Their bodies were left to freeze in fields, ships, and homes. I gave them back to the ice as ash. There is no point trying to bury anything on my homeworld.”

I think of Earth, a place I’ve never actually landed on, and how I would feel if humanity had suffered such a catastrophic loss. I do my best to shift on the bed so I can wrap my arms around him. But my attempt is pretty pathetic.

“Can you help?” I eke out, fighting to sit up. “I just—”

He draws in a sharp breath, leans over me, and slides his arms around my back.

“Who would do such an awful thing?” I whisper. “I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. But you least of all.”

When he doesn’t reply, I draw him closer. “Elix?”

His arms snug up around me, and he buries his nose in my neck. “Everyone. Nebs, Terrans, Ginarigons, bounty hunters.”

My stomach turns. Bounty hunters? “My father?”

He’s quiet for a long time.

I lean back and inspect his eyes, the ones that try to avoid mine.

“You saw him?”

He clenches his teeth hard enough that the muscles in his jaw dance. “I tried to stop him and his men.”

“That was nearly impossible for even the most elite crews,” I offer.

Elix pushes aside the collar of his jacket, exposing a long scar down his neck.

I run my fingers over the mark, knowing how close he had come to dying. Rage over my father’s heartlessness clashes with my pity for Elix and his species. “I’m so sorry.”

He clutches my hand in his, rests his nose against my wrist, and inhales. “Me too. For once, I just want to see our kinds work together, help one another.”

“Fear makes us do terrible things.”

“Your father feared nothing.”

I can’t hold my arms up any longer. They’re too heavy, and I’m too weak. “Everyone has something they fear, something that drives them. His was fear of being powerless. He wanted money and immortality because he felt those would be all he needed for life.”

“What do you want?” Elix asks.

I rest back on the bed. “For someone to give a damn. You?”

“I didn’t know until I met you.” Then he kisses my forehead and slips my grasp. “Rest.”

I watch him walk to another med station, sit on the bed, unbuckle his chest armor, and unzip his jacket. In the screen that lights up before him, I get a view of his stacked torso and the wound on his side. He cleans his injury, keeping his back to mine, then rubs some sort of paste on it from a small tub he pulls from a nearby bin.

He grunts and sways his head like he’s in pain. The injury fizzles much like I remember my lungs doing in my dream.

Elix shivers in waves, every glorious muscle flexing. I want to comfort and help him as he has done for me. Instead, I’m drifting off in my exhaustion, staring at his gorgeous body, my most delicate flesh slicking and aching for a taste of the brutal body that brought me back to life.