Page 17 of Saved By the Alien Hybrid (Hybrids of Yulaira #1)

Cordelia felt like a child being carried to bed from the living room. Her fingers were cold, but the rest of her was blessedly warm. A steady, powerful purring filled her ear, lulling her back toward sleep.

Something warm and smooth brushed over her cheek, tickling her.

She swatted at it, turning her face into the firm muscles that cradled her.

Her cheek bounced as the one cradling her laughed.

She peeled her eyes open to look at him.

Green eyes with cat-like pupils met her own, crinkled at the corners with mirth.

They were so striking against his lavender skin. He looked like the Cheshire cat.

That tickle came again, and she turned toward it, realizing it was the tip of his tail. The scales were all lying flat, no sign of the deadly edge they could take on when stretched into that spearhead shape.

“You’re purring,” she murmured, peering at him.

He cleared his throat, and the sound abruptly stopped. “I apologize.”

“Don’t stop,” she urged, settling back against him.

Obediently, he resumed. The sound made her muscles languid.

She’d had a cat when she was younger, an orange tomcat she would let in out of the cold when her mother wasn’t home.

He’d curled up on her chest when she was lonely and purred just like this, soothing the yawning isolation that plagued her.

The neighborhood hadn’t been all that safe, and she’d often been left to herself as her mother took odd jobs to supplement her meager teacher’s pay.

There was nothing a cat was going to do to save her if a burglar broke in, but it had always comforted her to have the company, anyway.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, his voice warbling from the purr.

“Tired. Pain’s coming back a bit now.” It was no longer the searing pain it had been before; instead, it was a dull, persistent throbbing where the knife had been.

“I am taking you someplace safe.” He ducked low under a branch, turning sideways so the limb wouldn’t catch in her hair.

“What do you mean? Where’s the hovercraft?”

“Destroyed.”

She wriggled in his arms until he stopped, gently lowering her legs to the ground. She let him catch her by the elbow as she swayed on her feet. “What do you mean, destroyed?”

“The Aurillon.” He looked ashamed. “They must have found it while we were fighting Stel—while we were fighting the soldier.”

It all came back to her in a rush. She buried her face in her hands as despair washed over her. They’d taken Thea. The first survivor she’d come across personally, and it had all gone tits up.

“Cordelia.”

She couldn’t meet his gaze. A gasp escaped her as his arms came around her, one big hand cradling the back of her head as he began to purr again. Her hands fell away, and she sank into the warmth of his chest. She didn’t deserve the comfort, but damn if she wasn’t starving for it.

“They won’t harm her,” he said, sifting a hand through her hair. “Your Thea. I’m not sure what they want with her, but I know they have nothing to gain from harming her. If they wanted her dead, they would have killed her, not taken her.”

Death isn’t the worst thing that could happen to her, she thought, but she couldn’t bring herself to give voice to the fear.

She brought her arms around his back and dug her fingers into his shirt.

One of her fingers slipped through a hole in the fabric, likely picked up when he’d been thrashing around with the auretian.

She hadn’t realized it before, but his skin was covered in something like peach fuzz—a dense amount of soft, short little hairs.

Blushing, she pulled her finger out of the errant hole.

“Sorry.” Her apology was muffled by his chest.

His tail swept up the back of her arm. “You may touch me any way you like.”

The words went tumbling through her, jolting somewhere low and inappropriate. Rentir stumbled back from her, his foot sliding awkwardly over a huge mushroom. His nostrils flared wide as his pupils expanded to nearly eclipse his irises.

“I need—” He scrubbed a hand over his face and shook his head hard. “Space. Give me space.”

Frowning, she took a few steps back. She did not feel the sting of rejection. That would have been stupid, and she could not afford to be stupid. “Sure, whatever. We don’t have time for this, anyway. I need to find the others.”

He was leaning against a tree when she turned back around, panting as his darkened eyes scanned over her.

“Not today.” He scrubbed at his jaw. “We’ve lost too much daylight, and you’re injured. I need to get you to safety.”

“And what are my people going to do while I’m curled up in safety tonight?

Wander around barefoot and alone on this alien planet with no means of calling for help, just waiting to be picked off by these fucking auretians?

No, forget it.” She turned and began walking again, ignoring the twinge in her side that plagued her every step.

Twigs cracked behind her as he jogged to catch up, snagging her by her elbow to stop her.

“Cordelia, you must see reason. We cannot—”

She shrugged out of his grip, glaring at him with eyes that were mortifyingly blurring with unshed tears. “I’m not leaving them out there!” she shouted, startling a flock of tiny, winged creatures from a bush nearby. Then, more softly, she said, “I can’t.”

Her voice broke, shaming her. She turned away and took a few more steps, not sure if she was walking in the same direction or if she’d just gone in a circle. She punched a tree and let out a bark of frustration. White-hot pain jolted through the bones and joints all the way to her elbow.

Rentir smoothed a hand up her arm. “Cordelia.”

“No.”

“Cordelia,” he repeated, sliding his hand over her shoulder and up to the bare skin of her neck. She shuddered as his thumb traced up her spine. “We will find them. Tomorrow, when we have the light on our side and your injury is healed.”

She hung her head, curling her hands into fists, agitated by the way he was talking her down, by the knowledge she was going to cave.

Because he was right—there was nothing else to be done.

It was getting dark, which would only slow them down further, and she would have been limping along anyway with the patched-up hole in her gut.

“Where are we going?” she asked, avoiding his gaze.

He held up his little holoscreen for her, showing her a topographical map of the area. There was a small blip in the direction they were headed.

“This is the lodge,” he said, pointing at it. “It will have everything we need to reconvene, but I don’t believe we will reach it before nightfall. We should find shelter.”

She looked around skeptically. There was nothing but trees and foliage for as far as her eye could see in the dimming light. “Any bright ideas?”

Rentir’s focused gaze cast around the forest. His head tipped back to take in the towering tree above them. “Into the boughs. My map does not show any cave systems nearby, and we need to get off the ground before nightfall.”

Her hair stood on end at the ominous declaration. “Why?”

He contemplated the question, eyes flicking back and forth over her face. He shook his head slowly. “You will see.”