Page 65 of Saved By the Alien Hybrid (Hybrids of Yulaira #1)

They limped off the ship together, with Cordelia somehow managing to take the bulk of his considerably greater weight.

She wept the whole time, though stoically.

The tears tracked clean trails through the soot on her pale cheeks, courtesy of some smoking component of the ship.

She coughed and wiped hard at her face, smearing the dark substance.

A hovercraft set down beside them as they left the ramp behind, and familiar faces poured out. Pandora, Haerune, Yelir, and Ven.

Ven.

His heart skipped a beat, seized by despair.

Pandora and Haerune hustled over ahead of the others.

The human doctor caught Cordelia as Haerune studied him.

His brother hissed in horror at the wound on his arm.

It was bad, then. In truth, Rentir couldn’t feel it.

Any of it, actually. He only knew his arm was still attached to him because he could see it dangling there.

“My brother,” Ven called, catching up to them. “Where is my brother?”

“I am sorry,” Rentir rasped in answer, for it was all he could bring himself to say through his tightened throat.

Ven jerked back as if he’d struck him. “No… no, where is he? Where is Thalen?”

Haerune moved to lead Rentir past him, but Ven yanked hard at his good arm.

“What did you do to him, you bastard?” Ven shouted, shaking him.

“Hey!” Cordelia tore away from Pandora to shove at him, situating herself between them. “Lay off! Can’t you see he’s injured?”

“This is none of your business, you alien creature!”

“Creature? That’s a new one,” she muttered.

Ven shoved her aside, and that was the limit of Rentir’s patience. He grabbed the male by his collar and wrenched him nearly off the ground.

“Do not touch her,” he said, his lungs beginning that deep, powerful breath that preceded his mated violence. “Thalen was a hero. Do you hear me? A hero. I should lie in his place, but the decision was not down to me.”

Ven’s eyes filled with tears, and Rentir felt the violence go out of him. He released the male.

Everything that followed was a blur to him as the pain of his injuries finally began swelling. He knew they got on the hovercraft, that they reached the base, that someone tucked him into a medpod. It was all a haze of sound and color.

The world faded in and out. The bitter tang of sedatives coated his tongue, but he was still riding the hormonal high of knowing Cordelia was in danger. His body would fight through the haze, and then the medpod would spray him again, and consciousness would slip away.

“…irreparable damage to tendons, ligaments, nerves, muscles…”

“…local anesthesia applied. Please remain still while…”

“Oh, God.” Cordelia’s voice roused him, prompting a sharp inhale as his mind sought the relief of her scent, the reassurance she was truly with him. “It looks so…”

“Painful,” Haerune said grimly. “Yes. But he will not feel it, not for some time. The medpod has anesthetized him.”

“This is my fault,” she said in a small voice, her distress dragging him closer to consciousness. “If I had done a better job of managing the situation, he wouldn’t be hurt like this now. And Thalen…”

“Thalen died for what he believed in,” Haerune said. “He spoke with me at some length the night before the mission. He understood what he was dying for, Cordelia. He had begun to bond with a female of his own.”

Cordelia gasped softly. “Who…”

“Sophia.”

“Sophia? She almost killed him!”

The ghost of a grin tugged at the corner of Rentir’s mouth.

That’s what I said.

“The bond works in mysterious ways,” Haerune said, and Rentir could almost hear him shudder with horror.

“What is important is that Thalen believed you women were sent here for a reason. He believed you were a sign from the universe that we were meant to thrive here, all of us together. It gave him hope, Cordelia. Something that has been in short supply here.”

She sniffled, and the scent of her tears perfumed the air.

“Don’t torment yourself with what might have been,” he continued. “Look at what you have accomplished. We are free, Cordelia. The Gidalan looms no longer.”

“I just wish he were here to enjoy it.”

Haerune sighed. “As do I. But I am deeply grateful to him. Thanks to his sacrifice, you are still here, and with my brother at your side. I do not think Rentir would have survived your loss.”

“Because of some biological imperative he had no say in,” she murmured.

“Because he loves you,” Haerune said gently.

Rentir sighed in agreement. A hand smoothed over his brow and skimmed down his cheek.

“Rentir? Can you hear me?”

He leaned into her touch, breathing deeply to draw her into his lungs.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, her breath tickling his ear. Then she was peppering kisses over his forehead, his cheeks, his lips.

With a few false starts, he managed to peel open his ponderously heavy eyelids. The world was blurry at first, but he would recognize even the vaguest outline of her profile anywhere.

“Cordelia,” he rasped, reaching for her. He frowned when his hand didn’t come into view.

She made a strangled sound, her breathing breaking into the jagged rhythm of silent tears. Her hand smoothed over his cheek again. “I’m here. I’ll always be here.”

More beautiful words he’d never heard spoken.

“You did it.”

“We did it,” she corrected. “I was lost without you, Ren. Not just on that ship, but all my life. I can’t go back. Do you understand me? You’re stuck with me, for better or worse.”

He smiled dreamily at her. Her face slowly came into focus; her eyes shimmered with unshed tears.

“I will hold you to that,” he said, reaching for her again.

He frowned, looking down. Were the sedatives still…

There was nothing where his arm should have been.

He was sure he could still feel his fingers pricking and tingling, but the evidence was impossible to argue with.

It was gone. His shoulder throbbed, a dull ache layered over a sharper pain that came and went as he tried in futility to lift a limb he no longer possessed.

“My arm?”

Cordelia’s tears spilled over, and her lower lip trembled.

“The damage was extensive,” Haerune interjected.

Rentir’s head lolled toward his brother, who was standing nearby with his hands clasped together—a learned habit to keep from fiddling nervously. It was a tell that had gotten him in trouble when they were young, but now the clasped hands were just as pointed.

“The medpod did its best to reconstruct the joint, but the tissues were greatly damaged. Fendar believes he may be able to come up with a suitable prosthetic, but for now…”

Rentir grunted, reeling now as his mind struggled to grasp onto a new reality. Cordelia leaned closer, the curtain of her hair falling between him and Haerune.

“Everything will be okay,” she soothed, even as she sniffled with sadness. “I promise you that. We’ll figure it all out together.”

“Together,” he echoed, reaching up with the hand he still had to stroke a tear off her cheek.

She smiled weakly, then dipped down to press her salt-slicked lips to his.

He wove his fingers into her hair and closed his eyes, losing himself in the press of her lips.

When he moved beneath her, she indulged him, and then their tongues were tangling, and everything outside of their kiss felt less relevant to him.

She was alive and well and professing her devotion with every third word. That was all he needed out of life. The rest… well, like she said. They’d figure it out.

When she drew back, he groaned a protest.

“Stop that,” he murmured, reaching up to swipe away a fresh trail of tears. “You’ll dehydrate yourself.”

Her expression went from despairing to irritated, and he found he preferred it.

“Don’t start that,” she said.

“Start what?”

“Fussing over me, you deranged alien. You’re the one who just—who just—” Her lips thinned, and she swallowed hard, darting her gaze away from him.

“Just returned safely against impossible odds with the great love of my life, whose existence has solved the mystery of why I endured through all of life’s suffering?”

She gaped at him, a flush rising on her cheeks. “When the hell did you get so eloquent?”

“It’s cruel to insult a male on his sickbed,” he said grimly.

She gave him a droll look.

With a groan, he leveraged himself up to sitting.

Cordelia slipped an arm behind him to brace him while he found his center of gravity.

He felt strange and off balance without his arm.

He was sure that the weight of what he had lost would bear down upon him in time, but at that moment, his heart felt lighter than it ever had.

It was over. It was really over. The Gidalan was no longer in orbit, a looming shadow over the hybrids’ hope of a future. The mistake he’d made during the rebellion could not be undone, but now, no further harm could come from it. They were safe. At least for a while.

Haerune came over to stand at his other side, and together he and Cordelia helped him rise to his feet. He rolled his neck, prompting a little squeak of objection from Cordelia as his horn swung her way.

“How did the others fare?” Rentir asked.

“Yelir will walk with a limp, but otherwise we lost only Thalen,” Haerun answered.

Thalen had been a friend to him when he had least deserved it. A brother in arms. He was gone now, just gone. Forever.

Make it count, he’d said.

He sat back down as his mind reeled. Cordelia petted his cheek, looking at him with mournful understanding.

“He died so I would not lose you,” he rasped. “I owe him a debt that can never be repaid.”

“He was a hero,” she murmured. “We’ll make sure he’s remembered as one.”

“Is that enough?”

She shook her head, smiling sadly. “But it’s all we’ve got.”

A silence fell over them, all of them at a loss for words.

“I’d like to see the others,” he said.