Chapter 14 #3
“You realize you’re saying that out loud still.” Zan sighs.
“I think this heat is addling my brain,” I say. “I’ve been monologuing about your balls.”
“Yes, you have, and it’s very distracting.”
I clamp my mouth shut.
“But it is nice to have motivation to get out of here,” he adds. “Because I have a feeling that me and my balls are going to be very happy with whatever else you have planned for them.” He manages to say it with a straight face as I sand piles up around him.
My lower back shifts, trying to push it off to the side without getting buried in it, and I cough as some sand gets into my face.
“I’m going as fast as I can,” Zan says.
It’s hard to make out his progress, then the mouth of a sandworm juts out.
“Watch out for that!”
Zan flicks it away with his other wing, and I realize that he’s protecting himself with his tail too, under the sand—something I hadn’t noticed before.
“All those appendages are pretty handy,” I tell him. “Kinda jealous I only have arms and legs.”
“Don’t forget about your breasts,” Zan says. “I very much like those parts too.”
“Hey,” I snap. “You’re supposed to be concentrating.”
“It’s very hard when a woman who smells as heavenly as you do, begging you to let her come just the night before has her tits pressed up against the glass,” he comments casually.
He continues fitting the strange, clear puzzle pieces together like he hasn’t just told me the one of the sexiest things I’ve ever heard.
Just another Tuesday for Zan.
Not that I have any idea what day of the week it is, or if this floating hell hole of a space station masquerading as a planet keeps track of weeks.
It makes my brain hurt, so I stop thinking about it.
I watch him, fascinated, grateful to have something to focus on besides the crushing pressure of the sand on my back.
I cough again, and the shift of my body against the glass means that a bout of sand spills out onto Zan’s back. He blocks the puzzle from the sand’s onslaught with his wing, a worm choosing that moment to launch out from the sand around his thighs and latch onto his wing.
Zan grunts at the impact but stays focused on the task.
“Holy shit—Zan—oh my god—okay, I’m going to have to come back down there—”
“Don’t you dare. Whatever you do, stay away from these worms. I’ve had worse in my life. You forget I was a soldier, female.”
“That’s hot.”
“My translator is saying that this could be both a sexy or temperature-related observation.”
He wedges in a corner piece, and it clicks, and I cheer, although it’s getting harder and harder to see him as the sand fills up around me.
“You’re doing great,” I tell him. “I’m going to have to, like, put my head somewhere else so I won’t be able to see what you’re doing.”
He doesn’t answer. He’s fully concentrated, his tail flicking away sandworms where it can, the one latched onto his wing still gnawing at the tender membrane.
And still he works.
The last thing I see is him fitting another few pieces into place as I come up for air, trying my best to keep my body wedged in the hole, my hands blocking it as best I can, my face tilted upward so I can still breathe.
But neither one of us has much longer.
“Five minutes remaining,” Ken announces, and he must be tracking time without the stupid hourglass, or more likely, just making shit up.
Can AI tell time? Who knows. Not me!
“Ah, time flies when you’re not having fun,” I tell him glibly. “How’s he doing down there?”
Ken doesn’t answer, just continues narrating, looking more and more excited as the sand continues to fall.
There’s no way I’m going to be able to sit like this much longer.
I shift slightly, knowing I’m making it harder for Zan, and immediately stop.
How long can I hold my breath?
Well, we’re about to find out.
Taking in a deep breath, I fill my lungs, then exhale, trying to hyperventilate and fill my body with as much oxygen as possible. I don’t even know how I remember that, but weird facts have a habit of popping up when your adrenaline is running high.
That much I’ve learned in the last week or so.
It feels impossible to feel as strongly for Zan as I do right now, but all I can think about is that I don’t want to make this harder on him.
I want him to solve this puzzle. I want him to kill the worm chewing through his wing.
I want us to get out of here so I can hug him and tell him how grateful I am that he put me first.
One more deep breath.
Now sand is covering my face.
I manage to reach up through the sand and plug my nose, holding my breath as long as I can. It feels like I’m fighting for air, and even though I want to move, want to come up for it, I don’t want to risk Zan getting more hurt down there.
So I hold my breath.
And I hold my breath.
And just when I think I can’t anymore—
BOOM!
A shockwave hits the glass, and the next thing I know, I’ve tumbled out on a wave of sand onto the ground in the clearing.
Zan rips the sandworm off his wing, swearing words the translator doesn’t quite pick up, but I can tell he’s enraged. He must be in a lot of pain.
He scoops me up into his arms and stares deeply into my eyes.
“You should not have done that,” he says, the words icy with anger.
I blink up at him, my eyes gritty from the sand, lungs burning, and wrap my arms around his neck, pulling him in for a long kiss.
“I would do it again,” I finally say.
The chicken clucks happily, flapping her wings as she devours the sandworms. There are only three or four left now that I can see, and they’re huge—easily the size of my leg and the width of my torso.
Absolutely foul.
“They would have killed you,” Zan tells me, following my gaze.
“That was disgusting,” I say, completely exhausted. “Are you hurt? Show me your wing.” Worry spikes through me, and I grab the hard boney scaled part of his wing.
Zan’s face goes blank, and I hiss out in surprise at the ragged, oozing hole the nasty ass worm left in the delicate lavender membrane.
“This is really bad,” I murmur, casting my gaze back to his face.
“I’ve had worse,” he says stoically.
“You’ve had worse?” I gape at him. “You’ve had worse than a giant fucking hole in your wing?”
“I was a soldier,” he says simply. “It will heal in a year or so.”
“A YEAR OR SO?” I explode, kicking slightly, trying to get free of his grip. “Ken, what the fuck? A year or so? Your worms hurt him so bad that Zan won’t be able to fly for a whole year? Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
“I am not fucking kidding you right now,” Zan says.
I don’t bother telling him I was asking Ken and that it was mostly a rhetorical question, since rhetorical questions in general don’t seem to be part of the natural Draegon dialogue. Or maybe they just don’t translate well.
I’ll have to learn his language if I want him to really understand how hilarious I am. Alas.
I turn to where Ken is, not even bothering to tell Zan to put me down, just savoring being in his arms.
“You’re going to get him a healer or whatever it is you have on this hellhole to help him out. We did your stupid little task. Now where’s our fucking food, you piece of water-hogging shit?” I scream at him.
Zan lets out a laugh, the sound cutting off as the ground beneath his feet shakes. It’s not the normal shaking of Ken summoning something to the surface.
I clutch onto Zan, my heart hammering as adrenaline zips through my body again—
And all I know next is darkness.