Chapter 11
Myndrous, the horrific blend of my Mindoran kind and the enemy, have been bred to kill us, to destroy anyone who resists the Nebulous Empire.
Now they’re here, on Earth, and invading Mindor and Alpha Prime.
So far, according to General Viriden, Amphirans and Drathious are safe, Drathis too, mostly because they have powers strong enough to defend their worlds. We don’t.
“You have to protect Tessi, no questions asked.” Viriden is dead serious as we speak. There is a strange tension that isn’t normally in his voice. He’s used to commanding soldiers, but this is desperation, personal concern.
“I came here to find a mate. I found her. I’m scent-bonded,” I defend. “I will protect her with my life.”
“This is bigger than you, Aegeris. Bigger than your world. This could cause the tides of the war with the empire to shift. You can put the federation above your mating desires, can’t you? If you can’t, I will find someone who can.”
My chest aches as my Shifter howls inside me in agony. Of course, the moment I find my mate, I can’t have her.
“She cannot be allowed to get pregnant. That’s all I’m going to say. Can you keep her safe and control your other side?”
It’s the only way I will get to stay close to her. And as much as a big part of me, mostly my Shifter, just wants to sulk away into a hole, curl up, and die, I fight him. “I can.”
Even as I say it, tangy Myndrous blood still swirling between my teeth, I’m not sure if I can keep her safe or keep my hands off of her. But I’m damn well going to try because I don’t want to be taken from her the way Rhysan was taken from us.
Viriden gives me a few other instructions, then hangs up.
I don’t want to guard Tessi when I’m shredded and covered in blood, but she won’t stay with Carnas temporarily while I get myself put back together.
Mindorans mostly work with and serve whoever from the Federation is in our planetary system at any given time because our traditional packs refuse to believe the universe is at war.
The Lunas think the falling stars are our fault.
Until we have a force strong enough to defend ourselves and others, we have little say in matters of war.
We can only be cogs in the machine and obey whoever is in our system at the time.
The only available doctor in the males’ wing is a human. Great.
“You can go,” I tell Tessi.
“Is that what you want?” she asks.
I chew my cheek as I sit on the bed the doctor motions to.
“Then I’m staying and helping.”
The doctor pulls up a cart with an array of medical supplies and motions to me. “We need everything off. You can do it, or I can cut it off.”
I unclip my chest armor, what’s left of it, and set it on the bed beside me. When I try to remove my dark long sleeved shirt, a flash of agonizing pain makes me shake my head.
The doctor grabs a set of scissors and cuts free my shirt. He peels it off in soaked pieces.
Tessi sits across from me, scanning the others in the room. An orange Ginarigon male has deep teeth marks in his side, likely from another one of his kind. No female sits with him. Beyond him, a Leosantian grimaces as an alien medic splints his left wing.
Things got rough out in the field.
“Saw you help save that other woman, the one the Helsvian caught.” Tessi turns around, sees the gashes in my body, and pales. Tears form in her eyes, then she squeezes them shut, and wipes them dry with her sleeve.
“Instinct.” I watch her closely. “Are you alright?”
“Compared to you.” She hugs herself and shakes her head. “Thank you for saving her, me, and for kicking that Thorian off of me. I’m not into their kind of alphas.”
My Shifter stirs in my chest. “But you like alphas?”
“Protective ones, like you. I’m going to guess you’re MTF.”
“Yes. How’d you know?”
“You covered me when the cannon went off. You fight like you’ve done it before. You’re not freaked out by the sight of your own blood or others’. And your armor is functional, not for cosplay.”
Tessi is observant and smart. “What’s cosplay?”
She explains it vaguely as the doctor begins flushing out my claw marks and bite punctures with saline solution.
I fight the urge to grimace, wanting Tessi to believe I am strong enough to endure this mess and still keep her safe.
Viridin may demand my protection of her. But I want her to want me at her side.
“Ah. Well, yes, I’m MTF. So is Carnas. But the federation ultimately calls the shots. It’s the same with Azrim, my brother.”
The doctor motions to my pants. “You’re bleeding all over. Those too.”
I sigh, glance nervously at Tessi, then unbuckle my pants and lean over to pull them off. The room tips.
Tessi’s suddenly under my arm, pressed against my bleeding body, and holding me upright. I brace myself on the bed as the doctor guides me onto my back. “You’ve lost a lot of blood. I’m going to get an IV for you. Just take it easy. I’ll be right back.”
Tessi unties my boots, slips them off of my feet, then walks up to me. “I have cared for a soldier before. I will help you remove your pants if you permit it.”
Just the idea of her taking my pants off makes me think about things I shouldn’t, can’t now, thanks to Viriden’s orders. “I uh… Just ignore it.”
“It?” She shimmies my pants over my hips with my help, and leaves me lying before her in just my underwear. But Tessi isn’t looking at me, not there. She grabs the saline and begins flushing the claw marks in my legs like she’s done it before.
Heat flushes across my face. “I’m sorry that this is how you’re spending your night.”
“I was never here to party. Not my thing anyway.” Tessi grabs a set of tweezers and frees something from my shin, then continues flushing the gouges. “Besides, you’re like this because you protected me. This is where I should be.”
Staring up at the ceiling, I make myself count the tiles to avoid thinking about Tessi’s soft touch, the way her hands move up my thighs, the quiet sounds of her breathing, and the lightly musky scent of her.
My cock flexes.
I promptly grab the sheets and draw them over my crotch.
Tessi giggles softly. “Fuck, me. A wolf shifter with a body like this? I mean, what kind of a dumb ass would I be if I didn’t at least try to steal a chance to touch you? I was thinking I was going to get stuck in a harem with a Ginarigon and a bunch of catty women and hate the rest of my life.”
“Hey,” the Ginarigon whines, bracing a fresh bandage over his side. “We are good to our females.”
Tessi wrinkles her nose and smiles over at him. “I’m sorry. But I don’t like to share.”
His mouth hangs open like he’s never heard such a concept before.
“Or I’d get picked by Vinym,” Tessi continues with a shrug, “and need inoculations before mating.”
The Shifter in me squirms, wanting free the moment she says the m-word. I wrestle him back into submission. But I can’t stop my growing erection. It betrays the best of my control.
“Thorians sound like assholes,” she adds.
“They are.” I try to adjust my position on the bed so I can bunch up the sheets a little better and conceal from her how easily she’s getting to me.
Tessi stops cleaning the wound she’s working on and helps me prop myself up.
“But they are good fighters, the Thorians,” I offer. “We don’t get along very often, but we did when the empire threatened our worlds a few months back.”
She smiles down at me with her starlit eyes before bashfully looking away. “I suppose there are good and bad traits in all of us, depending on who’s judging who.”
Tessi has, at some point, put on gloves, grabbed gauze, and now tries to stop the bleeding from my deepest wounds in my right thigh.
I tilt my swimming head back and try to comprehend how my brother could remain so distant while Tessi, basically a stranger, has jumped in to help patch me up. When I reach out to touch her and make sure she is real, I feel a tug on my arm.
Someone has put a needle in it that leads to a bag of pale blue liquid.
“That’s your IV. The doctor put it in a few minutes ago.” Tessi eases me back and braces my arm. “You look confused.”
“I don’t remember.”
“That’s okay. I do. And I’m staying until you’re good to leave.” Tessi grabs a piece of damp gauze and begins cleaning my arm.
“The blood doesn’t bother you?” Human females tend to avoid it. A few can handle it, nurses mostly. But everything I studied up on said that I should protect her from everything. “They told us when we signed up to keep you from seeing this side of war whenever possible.”
“Been on my own for years, since I was barely a teen. You think I haven’t cut myself open?” Tessi snorts. “I carry a trauma kit in my gear pack. Stitched myself up a few times. But I also had a contact in the medical field, so I learned a few things from her.
“I prefer having numbing agents on hand, but they’re expensive. Radar has needed care a few times, too. And he doesn’t have thumbs, so I had to do it.”
The doctor returns with a blue case. “Took me a while to find the Mindoran dermal repair kit. You’re going to need a Madmyn shot.”
“Already up to date,” I tell him. “Military requirement for everyone on Spec Ops teams.”
Tessi removes her gloves and stays out of the doctor’s way as he draws my wounds closed and presses down a layer of blue dermal tape to seal them.
“What about Tessi?” I ask him. “If she got any Myndrous blood on her…”
“I’m vaccinated.”
We both look at her.
She gazes toward the end of the medical bay and the Leosantian still sitting on his bed, his broken wing, hanging limply from his shoulder. “Myndrous hunted me on Earth. My medical contact gave me the shot.”
Tessi really has been through a lot. I’m not sure my life will be much better for her, but at least it won’t be anything she can’t handle.
After the doctor has rolled me onto my stomach and patched up my back, he collects his things and grabs his cart. “Just rest here until that IV is done. Then you can go.”
“You can’t be serious,” Tessi remarks.
The doctor nods. “He’s Mindoran. He’ll heal all of those cuts to scars in three days.”
She gapes at him as he leaves, like there must be something else we can do. “What about pain meds?”
“Don’t need any.” Don’t want any.
It’s bad enough that I have nearly passed out in front of her. The last thing I want to be is drowsy.
Tessi covers me with a sheet from another bed, then scoots a chair up beside me and sits.
“You don’t have to stay,” I tell her. “Go mingle, enjoy the party. Carnas will keep you safe. Anyone in Spec Ops can be trusted. He’ll take care of you.”
She slides her hand around mine. “Abr tells us that you will protect us, keep us safe, fed, and happy. That we will have better lives with you.”
My stomach turns, fearing she doesn’t believe I will after what’s transpired.
Tessi’s thumb glides over the back of my hand. “They did not tell us what we could contribute to your lives besides our reproductive capability. I just needed to know that I could be more than that. Otherwise, you could pick any woman, and it wouldn’t matter who they were.
“I need to know that I am needed. So being here with you, being able to help, this is what I wanted. Now, you just rest. I had a nap before the race. I will guard.”
Tessi doesn’t know how much it means to me that she stays. No matter what Viriden says, if he pulls me from her protection detail, I will fight my way back. Tessi is a rare find, one I intend to keep.