Chapter 16 #2
Her mate. Her husband now, she guessed.
She still couldn’t believe it.
She was safe. She wasn't going to be deported and she wasn't going to lose him.
They reached the door to Delilah's room. Her cousin was the same as she had been yesterday… still pale and surrounded by the soft hum of machinery. But she looked a little more peaceful, maybe?
Harper sank into the chair beside the bed and took Delilah's hand. It was cool and limp in her grip.
Kirr moved to stand behind her chair, settling his hands on her shoulders. He didn't speak, just let his presence calm her.
"Kirr?"
"I am here."
"About the bonding ceremony," she started, her thumb tracing over Delilah's knuckles.
The LMP officials had been very enthusiastic about scheduling it now that the 'unfortunate misunderstanding' was resolved. They wanted a date. They wanted a spectacle, and to prove there were ‘no hard feelings’. She wanted to tell them to stuff their ceremony where the sun didn’t shine.
But… she wanted to be married to Kirr. Or mated. Legally.
His fingers tightened slightly on her shoulders. "And?"
She didn't look up, her gaze fixed on her cousin's face. "I want to wait."
Everything in the room went still.
"It's not that I don't want to. I do. I really do. But I'm not picking flowers and cake flavors while she's—" She gestured at the bed, at the monitors, at all of it. "She's supposed to be there."
She braced herself. Prepared for the argument. For him to tell her that politics mattered, or that tradition dictated speed, or that his clan expected it.
"Then we wait. The Duke will push. But we wait."
She twisted in the chair, searching his face. His expression was open, his golden gaze soft. There was no hesitation. No irritation.
"Really?" she asked. "Just like that? You're a War-Commander. Doesn't it look bad if we wait? People might think the bond isn't real."
He lifted a hand from her shoulder and held up his wrist. The dark markings of the mate bond were stark against his skin, peeking out from under the leather cuff. "This is the bond." His voice was low, certain. "The rest can wait."
Lowering his hand, he brushed his knuckles against her cheek.
"The ceremony is a party, Harper. It is food and speeches, and tedious political maneuvering. It is not the bond. The bond is already here." He pressed his hand over his heart. "We can wait ten years if that is what you require. I am going nowhere."
The knot in her stomach unraveled.
Leaning her cheek into his palm, she closed her eyes for a second. "Thank you. I just... she'd kill me if I got married to an alien prince—"
"War-Commander," he corrected, his lips quirking at the corners. “Don’t insult me, I work for a living."
"—to a high-ranking alien warlord without her there to critique the dress," Harper finished, a small smile curving her mouth. "She loves a good party. It wouldn't be right without her."
"It would not."
The door slid open with a soft hiss.
Kellat walked in, scanning a dataflex in his hand. The Lead Healer looked tired, with faint purple smudges under his eyes, but there was a sharpness to his movements that hadn't been there yesterday. He stopped when he saw them, offering a polite nod to Kirr before his gaze settled on Harper.
"I was hoping to catch you." He tucked the dataflex against his side. "I have news."
She sat up straighter, her grip on Delilah's hand tightening. "Is something wrong? Her vitals looked okay on the monitor."
"Not wrong. Different." Kellat walked to the foot of the bed, tapping a command into the console there.
A holographic display shimmered into existence above Delilah, showing her brain activity.
It was a mess of colors, shifting and pulsing.
"I spent the last six hours reviewing the scans with Miisan. "
Harper's gaze flicked to the ceiling speakers on instinct. She’d heard that the station had one but had never spoken to her. "The station AI?"
The healer inclined his head. “She’s a little more complicated than that, but anyway… Miisan caught what we didn't." He gestured to a cluster of bright activity on the scan. "We identified a pattern in the neural feedback loop that we missed before. The pattern isn't degrading. It's reorganizing."
Harper stared at the lights. "What does that mean?"
"It means her brain isn't failing. It is rewriting itself to accommodate... something, but at this stage I’m not sure what.” Kellat’s gaze swept over the unconscious woman on the bed.
“With Miisan's help, I have developed a new stimulation protocol.
It should help her bridge the gap between where her mind is and where her body needs it to be. "
He looked at Harper, and for the first time, she saw a crack in his professional healer's mask. There was hope there. Fierce and personal.
"I believe I can wake her," Kellat said. "Soon."
The air left her lungs in a rush.
"Soon?" she squeaked. "Like... this week soon?"
"Perhaps within days," Kellat confirmed. "If she responds to the initial treatment."
Hope unfurled in the center of her chest. Delilah wasn't just stable. She wasn't just surviving. She was coming back.
Her gaze swung from Kellat to Kirr, vision blurring. "Did you hear that?"
"I heard." Kirr's hand squeezed her shoulder. "She is strong. Like her cousin."
She let out a choked laugh, wiping at her eyes with her free hand. She didn't have to choose. For years, survival had been zero-sum. Food or clothes. Safety or freedom.
But now?
She had the mate who'd tear a station apart for her, and she had a cousin who was more like a sister. She got to keep both.
"Do I need to authorize the treatment or something?" she asked, standing up on shaky legs. "Where do I sign? What do we need to do?"
"No permissions needed. I do have the protocols ready in my office, but Kirr can review those if you like?" Kellat said, glancing at Kirr. “They are in Latharian, I’m afraid. I don’t write in Terran.”
She nodded, smiling up at Kirr. “Please, if you could?”
“Of course, kelarris.”
"If you would join me, War-Commander?”
Kirr nodded and bent down, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "Take a moment. We will be right outside."
The two men left the room, the door sliding shut behind them, leaving Harper alone in the quiet hum of the bay.
She sat back down, leaning forward until her elbows rested on the mattress. She studied Delilah's face—the sweep of her lashes, her mouth curved in a stubborn line even in sleep. She looked peaceful.
She brushed a strand of honey-blonde hair off Delilah's forehead and thought about everything that had happened since the crash.
"You need to wake up soon, Dee," she murmured, leaning close to her cousin's ear. "Trust me on this one. These alien men are gorgeous, and you are seriously missing out."