Chapter 2 #2
The voices broke through but she couldn't process them. Couldn't focus on anything except Delilah's too-still face and the blood and the smell of burning metal dragging her back to that intersection twenty years ago where she'd learned what it meant to be the one who lived.
The door beside her screeched. Metal on metal, the sound drilling into her skull. She flinched back, arms coming up to protect her head, and the movement sent fresh pain lancing through her ribs.
Too many voices. Too much sound. She pressed her hands over her ears, but it didn't help, nothing helped. The world was spinning, metal was crunching and people were dying. She was twelve and thirty-two and alone and—
"Delilah." Her cousin's name came out broken. "Please. Please don't die. I can't—not again. Not you too."
But Delilah didn't answer. Didn't move. Just kept bleeding while she sat trapped three feet away, hands shaking, covered in blood and glass and twenty years of survivor's guilt, watching her cousin die and knowing it was her fault.
All of it.
Every bit.
Emergency lights strobed red and blue through the smoke haze as the two Latharians ran into the tunnel, turning it into something from a nightmare.
Human emergency services had established a perimeter—vehicles, personnel, the organized rush of people trying to save lives against a clock that didn't give a damn about their efforts.
He cataloged exits, threats, casualties. Three vehicles in the primary wreckage. Fire suppression active, but smoke still thick enough to sting his eyes. Fourteen human emergency personnel working the scene. Multiple casualties visible.
And her.
Kirr's gaze locked onto the fragile female trapped in the passenger seat of the worst wreckage and everything else—the smoke, the sirens, the mission briefing that had brought him here—ceased to matter.
She was his.
The knowledge hit him with the force of certainty he'd only ever felt in combat when a decision meant life or death and there was no time for doubt. He didn't understand it, couldn't explain it, but his body knew her before his brain could catch up.
She was tiny. Even from twenty feet away he could see how delicate she was, how her dark hair fell around a face too pale, how she shook with tremors that had nothing to do with cold. Blood and glass covered her torn clothing. Her hands clawed at the seatbelt with desperate, useless movements.
Kirr moved before thinking, crossing the distance between them with speed that made the human personnel scatter.
"—female, conscious, signs of shock—"
"—need to stabilize before extraction—"
He ignored them and roared for Kellat. The healer appeared at his shoulder, medical scanner already active, and Kirr forced himself to freeze from the wreckage while Kellat did his job.
"Minor injuries," Kellat said after a scan that took five seconds too long. "Cuts, bruising, possible cracked rib. She's in shock but stable enough to move."
Kirr didn't wait for more. He reached into the wreckage, his hands finding purchase on twisted metal that groaned under his grip. The door was jammed, the frame bent at an angle that would take human emergency services ten minutes and hydraulic equipment to handle.
He ripped it free in one motion.
Her head snapped toward him. Her eyes—hazel, he registered, shifting between green and brown in the strobing light—went wide with terror that cut straight through him.
Then she looked at him. Really looked. Her gaze locked onto his face and something shifted in those hazel depths.
He moved into the wreckage carefully, despite every instinct screaming at him to just grab her and get her somewhere safe. The seatbelt release clicked under his fingers. She was shaking so hard he felt it through the air between them.
"I've got you," he said, his voice coming out rougher than intended.
He lifted her free of the wreckage and the moment his hands closed around her slight frame, the protective instinct that had been roaring through him since first sight intensified into something that stole his breath.
She fit in his arms like she'd been made for them.
The size difference was staggering. His hands spanned her waist completely, his fingers nearly meeting when he cradled her against his chest. She was all soft curves and fragile bones, delicate in a way that made something fierce and possessive rise up in him.
Her head barely reached his shoulder. If he wrapped both arms around her, he could hide her from the world entirely.
The scent of her fear-sweat and blood mixed with something underneath—something that called to parts of him he didn't have names for. He could hear her heartbeat, rapid and erratic, could feel the exact moment each gasping breath filled her lungs.
When had his senses gotten this sharp?
She looked up at him and her hazel eyes locked onto his face like he was the only solid thing in a world that had gone liquid and wrong. Her hand came up, pressed against his chest armor like she needed to confirm he was real.
"—other female, driver's seat, critical injuries—"
Kellat's voice cut through the moment. Kirr turned his head enough to see his healer moving to the driver's side of the wreckage, saw the grim set of Kellat's jaw when the medical scanner lit up.
Draanth. Those injuries were bad.
The female in Kirr's arms started struggling, her small body twisting with desperate strength. "Delilah!" Her voice came out raw, broken. "Delilah, please—"
She was trying to reach the driver. Trying to get to the other female—Delilah—whose blood soaked the front seat and whose too-pale face told Kirr everything he needed to know about her chances.
She started hyperventilating, her breath coming in sharp gasps that didn't fill her lungs properly. Her pupils were blown wide, her gaze unfocused. She wasn't seeing him anymore. Wasn't seeing the tunnel or the emergency personnel or anything except whatever horror was playing out behind her eyes.
"Standard sedation protocol," one of the human medics said, moving toward them with an injector. "PTSD episode, we need to—"
"No." Kirr's command stopped the medic mid-step.
The human blinked at him, confused. "Sir, protocol for panic attacks—"
"I said no."
Sedation would take away what little control she had left. Would shove her under and leave her drowning in nightmares with no way to fight back to the surface. He knew panic, knew trauma, knew the difference between someone who needed chemical suppression and someone who needed an anchor.
She needed an anchor.
Kirr shifted his grip, cradling her against his chest with one arm while his free hand came up to cup her face. Her skin was cold, tacky with drying blood and smoke residue. She was still gasping, still shaking, still trapped somewhere he couldn't reach.
"Look at me, kelarris," he said.
No response. Her hazel eyes stared through him at ghosts he couldn't see.
"Hey.. .hey, look at me." He made it a command this time, his voice dropping into the tone that made warriors twice his size obey without question.
Her gaze snapped to his. Found his eyes and held.
"I’m Kirr… Now I need you to tell me three things you can see."
She just stared at him, gasping, her chest heaving with breaths that didn't satisfy.
He kept his voice calm, certain. "Three things. Tell me."
"I—I can't—"
"You can. Three things you can see right now. Tell me."
Her mouth opened, closed. He watched her fight for focus, watched the way her hazel eyes locked onto his and held like she was drowning and he was the only thing keeping her head above water.
"Your... your eyes." The words came out broken. "Orange hair. Your... big hands."
"Good." His lips quirked at the comment about his hair, his thumb stroking her cheek gently. "Two things you can hear."
Her breathing was still too fast, but some of the glassy terror had receded from her eyes. She was here now. Present. Fighting her way back.
"My breathing," she gasped. "Your voice."
"One thing you can touch."
Her hand was already on his chest, but she looked down at it like she'd forgotten it was there. Then her fingers moved, pressing against his bare chest above his heart.
Skin to skin.
The touch blazed through him like wildfire. Her palm was small and cold and shaking against the muscle of his chest, her fingers spreading like she needed to feel as much of him as possible. He could feel his own heartbeat against her touch, steady and strong where hers was rapid and weak.
She took a breath. A real one this time, deep enough to fill her lungs properly.
Then another.
Her shaking started to ease. Not gone—she was still trembling in his arms—but the violent shudders that had wracked her small body were subsiding. Her breathing slowed. Her pupils contracted back toward something approaching normal.
She was coming back.
He watched it happen, watched the way she used his heartbeat as a metronome to pace her own breathing, watched her anchor herself to the solid reality of his body under her palm.
He'd seen this technique work before, but never like this.
Never with someone looking at him like he was the only thing standing between her and drowning.
"There you are," he said quietly.
Her hazel eyes found his again and this time, there was recognition in them. Awareness. She was seeing him now, not ghosts.
"I've got you," He told her, and shifted his grip to free his jacket from where he'd stripped it off during the extraction. He wrapped it around her shoulders, tucking it close to trap what little warmth her shocky body was generating.
The jacket dwarfed her. Swallowed her small frame entirely. His scent would be all over it, marking her to anyone with the sense to notice.
Good.
Behind them, Kellat was calling for emergency medical transport and coordinating with the human emergency services. The other female—Delilah—had injuries severe enough that Kellat's grim expression told the whole story. Critical. Life-threatening. Time sensitive.
She turned her head, tried to see past his shoulder to where Kellat worked. "Delilah..."
"My healer has her," Kirr said. "She's getting the best care possible."
"She's dying." The words came out flat, certain, laced with guilt so thick he could smell it under the fear-sweat and blood. "She's dying and it's my fault."
"No."
She looked up at him, hazel eyes swimming with tears she was too exhausted to shed. "You don't understand. I should have stopped her. Should have—"
"No," he repeated, his voice absolute. He started walking, carrying her toward where their shuttle waited beyond the emergency perimeter.
She weighed nothing in his arms. A hundred and forty pounds at most, all soft curves and breakable bones against his two hundred and eighty pounds of muscle and armor.
"You didn't cause this. You survived it. There's a difference."
She opened her mouth like she wanted to argue but nothing came out. Just a small, broken sound that made every protective instinct in him roar.
Emergency personnel parted for him as he walked. Some moved aside automatically when they saw his size and armor. Others caught sight of his face and whatever expression he was wearing made them step back fast.
Good. They should know she was under his protection now. Should understand that anyone who tried to take her from him would have to go through him first.
She sagged against his shoulder, her body going limp with exhaustion. Her hand was still pressed against his chest where skin met armor, still holding onto that point of contact like it was the only thing keeping her tethered.
Her breathing had evened out. The shaking had subsided to fine tremors. She was safe in his arms and his jacket and his scent, wrapped in protection she didn't even know she'd claimed.
He carried her through the smoke and the strobing lights and the organized rush of emergency response, his arms steady, his stride certain and his entire world narrowed down to the female who fit against his chest like she'd been made to be there.
Mine, something primal whispered in the back of his mind. Mine to protect. Mine to keep. Mine.