Page 5 of Sheltered in the Storm (The Fortusian Mates # 1)

CHAPTER 4

VOS

The moment we hit the water’s surface, my mate lost consciousness again, probably from pain.

My hearts ached at her suffering, but perhaps this was a blessing in disguise. Unconscious, she could not fight my attempts to care for her—or give me looks of hatred that cut me to the bone more deeply than any blade. In all my years, I had never felt such hurt.

I longed to swim in the deep with her, but unlike me, she did not have gills and could not breathe in the sea. I surfaced again immediately, holding her head above the water with my human arms.

Even almost drunk on her scent and the feeling of her body in my arms, I knew I must cover my tracks.

My tentacles found a damaged section of the boat and ripped the rusted metal apart. The boat, along with the bloody pieces of the raiders’ bodies, disappeared into the inky depths. The creatures of the deep would consume the body parts quickly, leaving no trace of what I had done. As for the torn remains of the boat, the sea contained many large and dangerous predators. They rarely ventured this close to shore, but they would be the likely suspects, not I.

Trembling with fatigue and happiness in equal measures, my tentacles encircled my mate, drinking in her taste and scent through every sensory cell. Her intoxicating, rich, and unique perfume had drawn me to her from the moment I had first caught its traces in the cockpit of her fighter. Its soft notes reminded me of desserts I had enjoyed years ago on faraway planets, but she was no mere sweet. Her scent, her body, her voice, her ferocity when she bit the Atolani and enabled me to get her away from him—everything about her was a wonder.

My desire to take her to the safety of my homestead was nearly all-consuming, but I stole a few rain-soaked moments to float on the ocean’s surface, reveling in the feeling of my mate in my arms.

Even unconscious, she flinched in obvious discomfort. Purely on instinct, I let out that strange coo again. She relaxed against me with a sigh.

I had never made that sound before in all my years, and I had made it without conscious thought. I could comfort her and ease her pain and fear with my own voice. She must be my mate. No other explanation made sense.

Gently, I brushed her wet hair from her face so I could see her better. Even pale, battered, and bloody, she was truly lovely, with full lips, striking features, and enticingly thick lashes. Her long red hair was braided, but many strands had escaped and hung loose.

Her uniform, far more utilitarian than flattering, covered a soft but unmistakably strong body that stirred longing in my heart and sent blood rushing to my cock. I set those desires aside for now.

Lightning illuminated a bloodstained badge on her uniform above her left breast. I read her name, sounding out the strange syllables in Alliance Standard.

“Lieutenant Calla Wren.” I repeated her first name more loudly because I liked how the sound of it felt on my tongue. “ Calla , my mate.”

She moaned. Her eyelashes fluttered, revealing pain-filled green eyes that met mine for a heartsbeat before her lids closed once more and she lapsed back into unconsciousness.

My mate. In my arms. My mind reeled with the enormity of it.

My makers had told me in no uncertain terms that those created to serve in the Guard had been genetically engineered to eliminate the innate desire for a mate. Why would I have studied the details of the most wondrous aspect of being Fortusian, when my makers had made me incapable of it? Doing so would only have poured salt on the wound.

As such, I knew only the basics of Fortusian true mate physiology. My body had recognized a partner with whom I would not only be biologically compatible, but whose very being—mind, heart, and soul—complimented and resonated with my own in every way. None of these concepts had meant much to me before tonight, beyond the bitter knowledge that I would never have such joy.

Whether by error or design, after a lifetime of mourning for what my makers had denied me, I did possess the ability to know and treasure a true mate. To say my world had tilted on its axis would be an understatement to the extreme.

Even so, my many years of Silent Guard training and conditioning held powerful sway over my actions and instincts. They warred with my new, deeper need to heal and keep her.

My tentacles, though, were not undecided. They knew only the desire to protect. They tasted her sweet skin and fiery human blood and cared nothing for what the Guard would have instructed me to do—had indoctrinated me to do. Eliminate the threat. Conceal the evidence of the fighter’s crash. Leave the pilot to her fate. Survive to kill another day.

As if surviving were enough.

A long time before I had completed my requisite twenty years of service to the Guard, I had wanted more than mere survival. I wanted to live , even if I spent my days in hiding far from the Guard’s headquarters on a sparsely populated moon of a planet on the very edge of Alliance space. And by all the gods above and below, I had tried to live, but memories invaded my waking thoughts and twisted my dreams.

I had passed each day of my retirement with little thought to what my future might hold. Until this moment, I had never considered what it might mean to want to live for another.

Calla moaned softly. I drew her closer, offering the warmth and comfort of my body heat. As if by instinct, she rested her head on my chest over my primary heart. Did that simple gesture signify something? I did not know.

Her breath gurgled in her chest. The sound filled me with fear and sharpened my focus. I must take her home quickly and tend to her injuries.

I had no map for what would come next, nor any idea how Calla would react to me when she woke with a clearer mind. She had seen me kill the raiders but did not know why. Her horror at my actions was obvious. She did not know the truth of who I was, or that my existence, like my hearts, now belonged to her.

She did not even know my name.

For now, I could do only what I believed was right: keep her alive. Tend to her injuries. Stay at her side for whatever time we had together and hope she saw something in me I did not see in myself.

Leaving the other raiders to plunder the fighter, at least for now, I turned and swam for home.

I had never been one to curse or praise gods, much less plead with them, but I murmured prayers for much of my long swim back to what I had come to think of as my inlet. Calla’s breathing had become far more labored. Fresh blood ran from her mouth and trickled from her nose. I held her as gently as possible during the journey, but her injuries were severe. She might die in my arms before I could get her home.

The dread in my belly gnawed at my insides and filled me with fear.

Normally, I swam underwater using my human arms and legs together with my tentacles, or just my tentacles. But in deference to my Calla’s inability to breathe underwater, I had to swim against the current at the surface, holding her body in my tentacles to keep her head out of the water, leaving my arms and legs to do nearly all the hard work. The going was slow, and as strong as I was, my muscles ached terribly.

Had I not floated so far, my return would not have been nearly so long or exhausting. But also, had I not traveled such a distance, I might not have seen or heard the fighter’s crash. My mate would now be in the raiders’ cruel hands, and I would not have known of her existence—much less hold her.

The last hundred meters of the swim dragged on interminably. On another night, I would not have minded my tiredness. The exhaustion from a long swim and treacherous walk to my homestead would likely have gifted me a rare night of deep, dreamless sleep.

But sleep was not waiting at home for me tonight. I must take my mate to safety and tend to her wounds before she succumbed to them.

By the time I reached the familiar tiny inlet that served as my hidden, habitual entry point to the sea, Calla shivered uncontrollably and her body temperature had dropped noticeably. She had gone into shock.

Finally, I emerged from the water with aching arms and legs. The muddy bank sucked at my feet until I reached firmer, grassy ground. At least the rain had turned to a drizzle as the worst of the storm passed.

Each time I had climbed this bank, I had immediately missed the sea. This time, the moment my human feet touched firm ground, I ran for home without thinking of the water’s warmth and comfort, and without looking back.

My homestead was nearly two kilometers from the inlet—two kilometers of swamp filled with predators and other hidden dangers. Normally I traversed the distance with caution, treading lightly to not alert the enormous, venomous, and perpetually ravenous reptilian kaory to my presence. They were vicious and difficult to kill even when my arms and tentacles were free of burdens. I could not afford any delays, much less to have to fight one—or gods forbid, more than one—while holding and protecting Calla.

Despite the dangers of predators and the need for a quiet journey, I murmured to Calla as I ran, ducking under branches and leaping over pools of brackish water. I told her my full name, my homeworld, the name of this moon, and where I was taking her. I promised she would survive and I would care for her until she recovered. Talking to her helped distract me from my exhaustion, and I wanted her to hear my voice and sense she was safe with me. I did not want her to fear or hate me.

She had looked at me on the raiders’ boat as if I were a monster. I feared she was right. I was a killer many times over, and some of my targets during my service to the Guard had not deserved their deaths. I could not delude myself into believing otherwise.

No woman could love a monster, or a man who did monstrous things. And yet I hoped if I showed her kindness that someday she might.

If I had not kept myself in the same peak physical condition as during my service to the Guard, and Calla’s life had not depended on me doing so, I could not have carried her and swum so far so quickly—much less run from the inlet to my homestead after. As it was, I had moments of desperation when I was not sure I would make it to safety before Calla’s injuries took her from me.

When my home finally came into view through the trees, I let out a ragged sound of relief.

As if she had heard me or sensed my exhaustion, Calla whimpered and moved uneasily in my tentacles’ gentle embrace. Unlike my legs, they did not ache with tiredness. They knew only the joy of her.

I pressed a kiss to her clammy forehead. “We are home, my mate,” I said, daring to speak above a whisper for the first time. The kaory rarely ventured near my homestead. I had left the unburied bones of their dead brethren around to warn others away. Even primitive reptilian brains recognized a threat of that kind. “Rest, Calla. I will care for you.”

She murmured something I did not understand and went still again except for shallow, raspy breathing that sent chills down my spine.

The cold assassin I had been when I served the Guard would not recognize the man who stood here now in the rain with his hearts in his throat. Would he feel ashamed of me for my fear, or bless my chance at happiness? Perhaps both.

I had built and maintained a tall wall topped with sharp metal shards around my homestead to keep out the venomous serpents that called the surrounding wetlands their home. My Anomuran companion and I dealt with larger predators who occasionally got over the wall.

As I approached the front gate, it swung open. A trio of long eyestalks peered at me over the top of the wall before the entire figure of my companion scuttled into the gate’s opening. Her enormous moss-covered shell blocked my way, and she clacked her claws together in obvious anxiety.

“Poe?” she asked, her voice quavering. Her briny smell increased sharply to signify her distress.

“Let me by, Poe,” I said sternly. “Calla is badly injured and may die. I need your help.”

Poe flickered her long antennae, stirring the air so she could better smell Calla through the chemosensory hairs that covered them from base to tip. Even wet from rain, her senses of smell, taste, and hearing remained sharp. As a guardian of our home, she had proven herself more than adequate, especially against kaory, serpents, and other predators. Her claws were as deadly as my tentacles.

She also had an uncanny sixth sense for both danger and fate.

“Poe…” she murmured. Her eyestalks drooped. She moved aside with a quiet keening.

My stomach clenched. I recognized that sound. She did not think Calla would live.

I left Poe to close the gate and ran to the house. My residence was a three-room capsule home, sturdy and designed to withstand Iosa’s weather. I had purchased it sight unseen from its previous owner and renovated it myself with materials purchased from nearby villages. No one but Poe or me had crossed this threshold since I had made it my home nearly five years ago.

Utterly unconcerned by the amount and smell of the muck I was tracking into my otherwise tidy house, I unlatched the door and hurried inside. Poe followed me in, still keening as she gripped the short rope in her clawed hand to pull the door closed and latch it against the rain and wind.

Rather than take Calla to my bed, I placed her on my kitchen table to tend to her injuries. Her comfort came second to efficiency at the moment. I did, however, take the time to place folded towels under her feet to help ensure blood flow to her head and turned on all the lanterns in the kitchen and living area.

Mindful of Calla’s need for heat, I lit a fire in the fireplace to banish the chill from the room in addition to the radiant comfort from the thermal spring under the house.

As I finished my preparations, Poe brought both my medical kits from the bedroom, carrying them in her claws by their handles.

“Thank you,” I told her, taking the heavy cases from her.

“Poe,” she said sadly.

“She will live,” I stated, as if by saying it aloud repeatedly I could make it true. As if Calla’s blood had not already puddled on the table and her skin was not so pale it appeared almost gray.

With a knife, I cut away her uniform, hissing as I saw the extent of her external injuries firsthand. She had many deep lacerations and bruises from her head to her shins, some of which I thought might have occurred as a result of the way the raiders had extracted her from the fighter’s cockpit and their carelessness aboard their boat. Her left arm was broken, as were her right hand and both lower legs. Someone on the raider boat had left the distinct impression of a boot print on her right hand. Judging by how badly it was crushed and scraped, they had stomped on her hand and ground it into the metal deck.

I recalled the pain-filled wail I had heard just before I leapt into the boat. This injury might have been the cause of that cry, which had filled me with such rage that I barely recalled killing the first two raiders.

Now, seeing how badly they had hurt her, I wished I could go back and kill them again—this time, much more slowly. My tentacles lashed the air, and I let out a long hiss .

Poe clacked her claws nervously. She knew I was no threat to her, but her instincts ran deep. I reined in my rage for her sake.

As bad as Calla’s lacerations and broken bones were, her internal injuries might be worse. My hands and tentacles, normally very deft and skilled, turned unexpectedly and quite uncharacteristically clumsy in my rush to take my medical scanner from the kit, calibrate it for a human, and pass it over Calla’s body.

The grim results left me nearly unable to breathe.

The list of broken bones, damaged organs, and sources of internal bleeding filled the scanner’s screen, along with triage instructions on which to treat first.

I leaned against the table, my human hands gripping the wood so tightly that it creaked, while my tentacles ran over Calla’s body. Their suckers plucked at her skin in worry, leaving small red marks as they moved.

“Poe,” Poe murmured. She could not read the scanner’s screen, but she did not have to. Perhaps she had already discerned the extent of Calla’s injuries, or maybe my body language and the way I stilled told her all she needed to know.

Then my Anomuran companion did something completely unexpected: she clamped her claw onto my human hand and pinched my fingers hard. The pain jolted me out of my despair.

“Poe,” she snapped, her antennae waving rapidly. She tapped one of the medical kits and then shoved the case at me across the table. “ Poe .”

Her directive was clear: You have a mission. Get to work.

And so I did.