Maxym
MAXYM
Cleo goes limp in my arms. Not like Klynn, this is different. She is pale in a way I dislike, her lips having a blue tinge.
She needs a medic, but the best medics I know are in the dome, which is the one place I can’t return to. Shouts and screams fill the streets around us as the invasion becomes something the inhabitants of Tatatunga respond to. These Bogarok are creatures I don’t believe I’ve encountered, but my visceral reaction to them tells me everything I need to know.
That Klynn knew of them is not a surprise. Nothing he does is ever so. If I know of the foul things, then it is one more thing lost to the reptilians who held me before selling me to my master.
But my lost memory is nothing compared to the sick mate in my arms. She needs assistance, and she needs somewhere safe.
“Gryn!” a voice hisses from a doorway.
I spot a pair of gimlet eyes shining out at me.
“Come here,” the voice demands.
“Vrex off.” I open my wings.
“I have a cure for the poison infecting your female,” the voice says. “She needs it quick before it is too late.”
The voice isn’t quick enough to avoid my arm and claws. I drag the Cirmos into the light. His tail lashes, and he digs his claws back into me, but the needle sharp things are nothing compared to what I’ve experienced in the dome. I ignore them.
“You will give her the cure, or you will die,” I snarl.
“Hey,” he growls. “No need to be like that. All I want is some protection from the Bogarok, and who better than a gladiator?”
“Yeah? What if I tell you the Bogarok want gladiators?”
He stops squirming. “They do?”
“How do you feel about my protection now?”
“You have a mate. You will protect her to your dying breath. I’ll stand behind her,” he says with a shrug.
Vrexing Cirmos.
Except most of the medics in the dome are Cirmos. If I trust anyone with my Cleo’s life, it would be a Cirmos.
“Show me the cure,” I growl, dropping him to the ground. He gives me a hurt look, but my blood is up and my desperation to make Cleo well is too great for me to care.
“This way,” he says, pushing open the door. “But you’ll need to take your tracker off.”
Vrex! I’d forgotten about the thing. “I can’t. I don’t have the key.”
“Let me.” The creature drops down to my leg, pulling at my pants to reveal the device, and in a matter of nova-seconds, it clicks and falls to the ground.
I stare at it. “How?”
“Not done yet,” the Cirmos says, pulling a small drone from his back pocket. He places the tracker inside and releases the bot. It soars into the sky. “If anything comes looking for you, they have that to chase instead,” he says, standing and dusting himself off. “I’m Pryax” he adds, heading through the door as I follow.
“,” I grunt.
“I know.” He laughs. “Everyone knows.”
I duck down to follow him into the darkness, my eyes adjusting instantly to the lack of light. The doorway leads to a passage carved from stone which slopes down. Behind us, I hear the door close.
“Now you are mine,” Pryax cackles.
“Not if I make you my snack first,” I respond with a growl which echoes down the passage.
“Bad joke,” he grumbles, with something added about Gryn having no sense of humor.
The passage soon opens out into a larger cave with three further passages leading off it. Pryax takes the far left one. In my arms, Cleo stirs and moans, but she doesn’t wake. I move quicker up behind the Cirmos, and he quickens his pace too.
The passage ends in a large room filled with equipment and furniture. The floor is covered in bright rugs, and despite the fact it’s a cave, it’s warm and welcoming.
“Put your mate on the healing chair.” Pryax points to the contraption I know well. “I will prepare the cure.” He hurries away as I do what he says.
The chair whirrs to life as I place Cleo on it. The way she lies reveals the swell of her stomach.
“This cure won’t hurt her unborn young, will it?” I call out.
Pryax’s head pops up from behind a set of drawers. “She is with young? Is it yours?”
“No,” I rasp. “I believe it is human, like her.”
Pryax mutters something to himself, and I hear him opening and closing cabinets. I brush Cleo’s hair away from her face.
“Stay with me, little scrap,” I murmur.
For a nova-second, her eyes flutter open, and I’m sure I hear her say my name, only her lips don’t move. Then she’s gone again.
“Stand back, Gryn,” Pryax says, marching up to the chair with a hypo syringe in his hand.
“Not a chance,” I respond.
He shrugs and activates the healing process on the machine which ramps up the chilling noise it makes. I should know, I’ve been in one enough times. Pryax growls under his breath, a low whining sound, and huffs out a breath while shaking his head. He checks the settings and then inserts the hypo into the machine itself.
“What are you doing?”
“My job,” he retorts. “I told you to stand back. Let me work.”
“Are you a healer in the dome?” I say, slightly embarrassed I might not have recognized him.
Although I do tend to get out of the medic-center as soon as I can.
“Not the dome,” he says as he checks over the settings. “Although I worked there before your time, Gryn.”
A blue light covers Cleo. I reach out to touch her.
“Don’t break the seal.” Pryax bats my hand away. “The cure is being infused so she can metabolize it. Bogarok venom is unpleasant at the best of times, but more so for a defenseless species like a human.”
He looks at me.
“Now let’s deal with your wounds. After all, I need you to be fit to protect me.”
“What wounds?” I look down at myself in surprise. My torso is covered in slash marks. On one arm, the injury is down to the bone.
“A Gryn protecting his mate.” Pryax huffs as I stagger slightly. “I suspect they could cut your head off and you’d still keep going.”