Chapter 12
I did not want Brynna to see me like this. I am supposed to be strong enough to protect her. But the poison does not care what I want.
Sleep is filled with fever dreams that torch my mattress and leave me lying on just the metal frame. It’s nothing new. By morning, I feel almost like myself again. Except, there’s a new sensation. It is gentle and cool and moves in small circles on my side.
Blinking, I turn my head and try to sort the strange feeling. My eyes are blurry and take a moment to focus.
“Morning, sleepy head.” Brynna smiles down at me, then keeps working. Her forehead bears a light crease from exhaustion as she massages a paste into my skin that pushes away the remaining sting of creosotine.
“You’re supposed to be out there having fun. Why are you in here?” I ask.
She dips her fingers into a jar and moves to a different area of my back, massaging in more of the wondrous medicine.
“I was an idiot to think I could go out into space and meet all those species, make enemies, and find customers dependent on me, and then just walk away. Some of us just have a purpose. I accept that now.”
I sit up and take her by the wrist. “Brynna. That’s not how this is supposed to go.”
“It’s exactly how it is.” She looks me over with apathy. “DIA told me everything.”
Disappointment fills me. “I’m sorry. I should’ve tried to tell you.”
Brynna’s eyebrows lift. “How? You clearly couldn’t even tell me your name. After seeing the pain you were in last night from the Rage Roar, the spark arrestor, and the poisoned claw marks, I am just glad you woke up. So let’s start over, today. Yeah?”
It feels wrong to just pretend her ruined night is no big deal. But Brynna smiles, washes her hands at a nearby sink, and offers me a donut. “Osiris picked up breakfast for us. That was about an hour ago. The ropes course is first today. Do you feel up to it?”
After I’ve eaten, I reply, “Honestly? I feel amazing with whatever that stuff is you’ve been putting on me.”
“I stayed up studying creosotine in my mini lab. I have a backup in Gypsy Star. I have everything in there, just in case I ever get separated from Black Sun.”
“What’d you find?” I ask, hope giving me the energy to pick up my wings and swing my feet off the bed to the floor.
She motions to a tray with several items. “It was quite a trick to create a non-combustible encapsulation degradation method that didn’t produce a toxin or carcinogen post-treatment. But I got it done in salve and spray form. I’m still working on an oral and inhalation treatment.”
“Didn’t know your mate was a walking pharmacy,” Rykarn states from where he casually leans in the doorway.
I cringe, hoping Rykarn’s assumption doesn’t upset her. “She’s not my mate. She’s Brynna.”
“Well, if you don’t want her, I’ll take her.” Rykarn grins, not in the way that he’s serious, only that he’s pestering me.
“Touch her in a way she doesn’t like, and I’ll rip your wing talons out …”
Sidius cuts me off. “Rykarn! Jorusk!”
I stop and look over at Sidius and Vryskas, who pack away medical supplies at the bed next to mine.
Vryskas throws a roll of heat-resistant bandage tape at Rykarn’s head. “Shut up, you festering blister. You go for anything on two legs.”
Sidius hides his exasperated expression behind a hand.
Rykarn takes the hit and chuckles. “Teasing Jorusk, you lump of coal.”
Brynna steps out of the room to avoid the brewing bandage battle between Rykarn and Vryskas.
Rykarn throws the bandage back at Vryskas, who picks up another. Then Rykarn stops me. “Seriously, though, I’ve been watching the feed with Osiris. There are a lot of males asking about Brynna and what you want with her. Keep her close.”
I nod. “Watch out for cloaks.”
“And nosy cameradrones,” Brynna adds. “I have half a mind to punch the next one that asks me a stupid question.”
Rykarn clicks his tongue and whispers, “Feisty. She’s a good choice, brother.”
Osiris appears in the hallway, holding an Abr race suit and the spark arrestor. “I hate to do this, Jorusk. But Abr is requiring these items.”
I take them from him and walk into the crew quarters to change, when Brynna slides in my way. She draws me into her arms and holds me for a moment. I savor the feeling of her against the skin of my chest, the sensations the arrestor plate will hide.
When she steps back, she looks up at me and runs her hands down my chest. “I’m glad you’re okay. I wish you didn’t have to put more stuff on. I like seeing you…natural.”
A primal need soars to life in me, lighting up my chest with fissures of flickering orange light. It makes her smile when she sees it.
“We could forgo the race and just…leave.” I’m really thinking about it, getting her onto my ship, and seeing where things go between us.
“DIA wants you on the intergalactic stage. She says it will help show others who your kind really are.” The hesitant way Brynna says it tells me she doesn’t want to go back to the races either, but she understands that she’s involved in something much bigger…the future of my people.
But I still want her. I need just a taste to hold me over, to get me through today, and the life-draining feeling of the spark arrestor.
So I lean in and inhale a deep breath of her scent.
I try desperately to hold back, to just take one kiss, to not lose myself in her supple skin, her plush mouth, or the softness of her hair, but we are not known for our impulse control.
And that first unhindered sense of her…free of my arrestor, has me wild with need.
I drop the uniform and the plate to slide a hand behind her neck and the other around her waist. I don’t care that the others are watching. Clutching her tightly, I steal a kiss, full of my hunger and desperation.
Her supple mouth is hot like her breath. It isn’t just me this time. I can taste her desire, feel it in the way she falls into me. When a flame licks up from my chest, I realize I’m getting out of control.
Brynna gasps for air when I ease back to ensure I have not hurt her. “Is…that how you feel?”
“When I am not wearing my stupid arrestor.”
She makes a frustrated noise that sounds a bit like a growl, and it turns me on. I grab her, kiss her again, deeper this time, to let her know what it feels like to be close to me when my Inferno is hot.
Brynna hums a soft note when I break the kiss this time. Her eyes open lazily, exposing dilated irises, a sure sign she wants what she sees.
Osiris clears his throat and hands me the items I’ve dropped. He tilts his head toward the room. “I’m not sure we can handle much more of watching you two make out. If you’re going to fuck, please don’t do it on this ship, or you’ll unleash four more Infernos that have been lonely a long time.”
Brynna bares her teeth and sheepishly grins. “Sorry, Osiris.”
“That’s alright.” He takes a deep breath and squirms away from a rising vein of light from his own Inferno. “Just hard to watch you two.”
“Because it was fuckin’ hot!” Rykarn shouts in celebration. His neck and eyes gleam with his Inferno’s light. “I might have to sign up for this froufrou party just to get a taste of that!”
Osiris rolls his eyes.
“Guard her, please?” I throw Rykarn a warning glance.
“I will.” Osiris places himself between Rykarn and Brynna, who’s still flushed in the cheeks and looks like she doesn’t know what to make of Rykarn’s outburst.
“He’s always been a hot head,” I tell her as I step into the room. “But he won’t hurt you.” I hope.
I change quickly, zipping the back of my navy blue Abr suit around my wings.
Before I zip up the front, I take the panel and hold it over my chest, wishing I didn’t have to wear it here.
But my elite power status among the species means either I wear Eluni’s Arrestor or the Abr ones, which Aura said are junk.
As much as I don’t want my Inferno hindered while courting Brynna, I don’t want to torch her or this place either.
I press it into my chest, and the tines bite in again. Stifling a grunt from the pain, I zip up the front of my suit and step out of the room.
“You look good in that.” Brynna eyes my body up and down in the tight suit.
Rykarn points at my ass. “Really?”
“I couldn’t tuck it.”
Brynna’s expression is such a mixture of befuddlement and disgust that I curl my tail up and tap her in the forehead. It only makes her expression deepen. She crosses her eyes and leans back. “You have a tail?”
“Suit’s too tight,” I reply. “At least they built in the option. I’m tired of hiding in my armor. Besides, it looked weird down the back of my leg.”
Brynna snorts and starts laughing. “How did I not notice before?”
“Others tend to pull on them.” Sidius is serious. All the time. “We keep them hidden so they don’t get cut off.”
“I’ll keep an eye on it.” Brynna winks and encourages me down the ramp. “Come on. The rope challenge is going to start soon.”
Osiris tugs at my wings, and I feel the Abr bands slide over them again, keeping them tied up against my back.
I sigh and lumber down the ramp, feeling like a drugged and bound servant instead of a participant in a game.
Brynna loops an arm around mine and leans against me as we leave the hangars for the main race corridor. We pass the male dorms and several other species that chat as they head for the ropes course.
We push through the glass doors along the hallway and outside to where the females are lined up by the towers interconnected with swinging bridges, rope nets, and ladders. It’s a more complex system than I remember Aura running with Jovie.
“Sky!” Brynna finds my hand, takes it, and jerks me excitedly through the crowd to another woman, who she hugs. “How are you?”
“Great.” The blue-banded female glances at me. “You?”
“Us too.” Brynna looks around. “Where’s your guy?”
“Right here.” A Mindor pushes through the crowd to stand by the female Brynna calls Sky. He looks at me, and I slide back a step, pulling Brynna behind me.