Chapter 8
The kitchen counter was cold under her thighs. Juni sat where Goraath had placed her, hands palm-up on her knees, watching blood seep through the dirt and gravel embedded in her skin. Her whole body felt disconnected, like she was floating somewhere above it, watching from a distance.
Goraath moved through his kitchen with the ease of long practice, yanking open cabinets, and pulled out a battered metal box with an odd symbol painted on the side.
The antiseptic smell hit her nose before he even opened it…
sharp and medicinal, nothing like Earth’s sterile hospital scent. This was raw. Harsher.
“This will hurt.”
He set the box beside her hip, close enough she felt the heat radiating from his body.
The last time he’d been this close, his mouth had been on hers.
Hard. Claiming. Her lips still felt swollen from it, tingling every time she breathed.
She waited for him to acknowledge it, say something, anything, but he just pulled out gauze and antiseptic like nothing had happened.
He turned his back for a moment and her eyes widened. Crap. His shirt was shredded across the back. Blood had soaked through in three spots where hooves had struck him.
Because of her.
“I’m sorry—”
“Stop.” The word was rough. He pulled out gauze, a bottle of clear liquid, and tweezers that looked ancient. “Just... stop apologizing.”
His hands hovered over hers for a moment. She caught the tremor… only just there, and gone even before she could be sure she’d seen it. Then his fingers wrapped around her wrist, turning her palm toward the light.
Those hands. The same ones that had fisted in her hair, tilted her head back, held her like she was something precious and breakable even while kissing her like he wanted to devour her. Now they were gentle. Clinical. Like he hadn’t kissed her at all.
And they were so warm… gentle. He could crush her wrist without trying, but his grip stayed light and careful.
The first splash of antiseptic burned like fire. She winced and hissed through her teeth.
“Talk.” He didn’t look up from her palm, using the tweezers to pluck out a piece of gravel. “It helps.”
“About what?”
“Anything. About Earth. About… Christmas.” The word sounded strange in his accent, like he was tasting something foreign. “Tell me about human Christmas.”
She stared at the top of his head. His dark hair had come loose from the leather tie, falling forward to hide his face. Was he mocking her? After how he’d shut her down about it yesterday?
Another piece of gravel came free. The sting made her eyes water.
“I don’t... you said you didn’t want to hear about it.”
His jaw shifted. “Well… I’m asking now.”
She stared at him. He’d kissed her. Actually kissed her, rough and desperate and so intense she’d felt it in her bones, but then pulled away like he’d been burned. Now he wanted to know about Christmas?
He kept working on her hand, not pushing, just waiting.
“It’s...” She swallowed. Her throat felt raw. “It was originally religious. Celebrating the birth of... umm, I’m not sure to be honest. Someone important I think. What it became was about family and about light in the darkness.”
He moved to her other palm. She kept talking to distract herself.
“The whole last month of Earth’s calendar year, everything changes.
There are lights everywhere… like strings of them on houses, trees, streets.
Stores play music and there’s the smell of pine and cinnamon and baking.
” Her voice caught. “My mom used to start decorating the day after Thanksgiving. That’s another Earth holiday.
We drank hot chocolate when we could get it and she’d play the same twelve songs on repeat while we hung ornaments. ”
“Ornaments.” He tested the word.
“Yeah… like decorations. For the tree? You bring an evergreen tree inside… well, we always had a fake one, real trees are only in protected places back home now… and cover it with lights and decorations. Each one had a story. The paper angel I made in third grade. The glass snowflake from my grandmother. The ridiculous singing reindeer my dad bought as a joke that we all hated but hung anyway because—”
Her voice cracked. His hands stilled on hers.
“Because tradition matters,” she finished brightly, pushing the sadness away. “Because doing the same things every year, it connects you. To the people who came before, the people who’ll come after. Even when they’re gone, you still have the tradition.”
He was looking at her now, his strange amber eyes with their horizontal pupils steady on hers.
“Your mother. She’s dead.”
It was a statement rather than a question. She nodded once, not trusting her voice.
He went back to her hands, cleaning the last of the dirt away with movements that felt even more careful than before. “How?”
“She was sick. Three years ago. Could have been treated if we’d had money, but...” She shrugged with one shoulder. “Earth prioritizes resources. We weren’t a priority and I didn’t have the money for private treatment.”
The gauze he wrapped around her palms was soft, the pressure just right. Not too tight, not too loose. It was obvious he’d done this before. A lot.
“There.” He moved to her knees, kneeling on his kitchen floor. The position put his face level with her stomach. “These are worse.”
They were. Fabric had torn, and the skin had shredded on the gravel. He cut away the ruined material of her thermal leggings with scissors from the kit, careful not to pull at the wounds.
“Keep talking.”
So she did. Told him about cookies shaped like stars and trees.
About staying up late on Christmas Eve, listening for sounds on the roof even though she’d long stopped believing.
About the year her father lost his job, and they’d made presents from things they already owned…
her mother had given her a necklace that had been her grandmother’s, and even at fourteen, Juni had understood the importance of that gift.
His hands never paused. He cleaned away dirt and blood gently, before the antiseptic sting, and he put soft gauze over the wounds. By the time he finished with her knees, she’d talked herself hoarse and her legs were neatly bandaged.
“Done.” He stood, started to step back.
“No.” She grabbed his arm. “Your turn.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding through your shirt.”
“It’s nothing—”
“Goraath.” She slid off the counter, legs shaky but holding. “You got hurt protecting me. The least I can do is return the favor. Shirt off. Now.”
His eyes locked on hers and heat flared between them, sudden and fierce. For a moment she thought he’d refuse, just walk away like he had after the kiss. Then his hands moved to the hem of his shirt, pulling it over his head in one motion.
Oh.
Oh. Holy shit.
She’d seen him shirtless yesterday morning, but that was across a room, in shadow.
And last night, in the darkness of night and under the light of the moon.
But this was different. Morning light painted every ridge of muscle, every scar.
And there were so many scars. That massive one from shoulder to ribs she’d noticed before.
The burn marks across his lower back. But also dozens of smaller ones—thin white lines, puckered circles, a jagged tear along his bicep that must have almost taken his arm off.
And now there were three new wounds. The worst was on his shoulder blade, a hoof-shaped bruise already purple-black with split skin at the center. There was another across his ribs, swelling visible. The third was lower on his back, just above his hip.
“Sit.” She pointed at the chair.
He sat and the wooden chair creaked under his weight.
She’d watched him, so she knew where everything was. Clean cloths, antiseptic, gauze. Her hands shook as she wet the cloth. Not from fear or shock but from being so close to him. From being trusted to touch him, to care for him when he obviously wasn’t used to it.
She started with the wound on his shoulder blade, working inward. He didn’t make a sound, but she felt his muscles lock under her fingers.
“My turn to ask questions.” Her voice was steadier than her hands. “How long have you lived here?”
“All my life.”
She moved to the wound on his ribs. This one was messier, the bruising spread across a hand’s width of skin. She had to lean close to see properly, her breath ghosting across his back. He shivered.
“Sorry. Cold?”
“No.”
She kept working, and tried to ignore the way his skin felt under her fingers. Warm. Surprisingly soft over all that muscle. He smelled like earth and sweat and something else, something that made her stomach flip in a way that had nothing to do with the morning’s terror.
“Why did you ask? About Christmas?”
There was another pause. Longer.
“You were right. Yesterday. In town.” His voice was low, careful. “You’re trying to adapt. I should... try to understand.”
Her hands stilled on his ribs.
“Thank you.”
He grunted. The sound almost covered the sharp inhale when she pressed too hard on the bruise.
“Oh shit. Sorry, sorry—”
“It’s fine.”
But she was gentler after that, her touch light as she cleaned and bandaged. The last wound was low on his back. She had to kneel to reach it, her face level with his hip. This close, she could see the way his muscles tensed under his skin and the way his hands gripped his thighs, knuckles white.
“Almost done,” she whispered.
The blood had dried here, so she went slower as she cleaned it up. Her fingers brushed the waistband of his work pants and he made a sound, low in his throat.
“Sorry—”
“Stop apologizing.”
“I can’t help it. You got hurt because of me. Because I was stupid enough to—”
“You weren’t stupid.” He turned in the chair, caught her wrist. Not hard, just enough to stop her. “You were trying to help. The krulaati shouldn’t have spooked like that.”
“But they did. And you—”