Chapter 10
The fire was dying. Tarek rose from his position near the entrance to the sleeping chamber and crossed to the hearth, carefully adding two more logs.
The wood caught quickly, flames licking upward to cast flickering shadows across the stone walls.
He stood for a moment, watching the fire build, then returned to his post.
The storm still raged outside. He could hear it—the howl of wind through the peaks and the relentless drum of rain against stone.
It was the kind of storm that killed travelers, that turned mountain paths into rivers and buried the unwary beneath mudslides.
The kind of storm that could easily have claimed two human females fleeing through the night with nothing but thin cloaks and desperation.
But they were here. Alive. Sleeping safely in his bed while he stood watch over them. His beast purred approvingly. Yes. This is what we are. This is what we were made for.
He pushed the thought aside with more force than necessary.
He wasn’t a protector anymore. He’d given up that right five years ago when he walked away from everything he’d known.
The Vultor who had believed in honor and protection and sacred bonds…
that male was dead. Burned away by betrayal and disillusionment and the bitter knowledge that some things couldn’t be saved.
All that remained was a solitary creature in an exile’s den, one who had made the foolish mistake of offering shelter to strangers. Except they didn’t feel like strangers. They felt like… his.
Not a mistake.
He moved to the archway and looked into the sleeping chamber. The fire’s glow reached far enough to illuminate the bed—the pile of furs and the two figures nestled within them. Dani was curled on her side, her small form barely a bump beneath the furs. And Jessa…
Jessa lay on her back, one arm flung out, her face turned towards her sister. Even in sleep, she positioned herself as a barrier between Dani and the rest of the world. Protecting. Shielding. Always putting herself between her sister and harm.
Something twisted in his chest. She’s strong, his beast murmured. Fierce. A worthy m—
He cut the thought off before it could complete itself. No. He would not go there. Couldn’t let himself go there.
But standing in the archway, watching the firelight play across Jessa’s sleeping face, he couldn’t deny what he was feeling.
The bond between them, a bond he’d never asked for, had been growing since the moment he’d first caught her scent by the stream.
Each encounter had strengthened it. Each conversation, each shared moment, each time she’d looked at him without fear…
His beast wanted her. He wanted to claim her and keep her safe. The desire was a constant pressure at the base of his skull, an itch beneath his skin that no amount of reason could scratch.
And it wasn’t just desire, though that was certainly part of it.
The memory of her body pressed against his throughout the night on the mountain—her warmth, her softness, the way she’d fitted so perfectly into his arms—still haunted him.
But what his beast craved went deeper than physical need.
It wanted connection. Belonging. All the things he had sworn he would never seek again.
This is temporary, he told himself firmly. The storm will pass, and they will leave, and everything will return to how it was.
The thought should have brought relief. Instead, it left a hollow ache in his chest.
He retreated to the main room before he could do something foolish, like curl himself around both of them and pretend, just for one night, that he had the right. Instead he settled into his previous position, his back against the cool stone, and prepared for a long vigil.
The hours crawled past. He listened to the storm, to the hiss and pop of the fire, to the soft sounds of breathing from the other room.
He rose periodically to tend the flames, gently adding wood so as not to wake his guests.
Each time he checked on them, he lingered a moment longer than necessary—watching for signs of distress, counting the rise and fall of their chests, reassuring himself that they were still there. Still safe.
Still mine to protect.
The third time he entered the sleeping chamber, Dani had kicked off her blanket in her sleep. Exposed to the cooler air, her thin body had curled in on itself. A shiver ran through her as he approached—almost imperceptible but enough to send his beast into immediate alert.
He crossed to the bed silently. The blanket had fallen to one side, tangled around her legs, and he reached down to free it with gentle claws.
She stirred at his touch.
“Shh,” he murmured, the sound barely more than a breath. “Sleep.”
But her eyes were already opening—wide blue eyes glazed with exhaustion and the remnants of fever. She blinked up at him, confusion slowly giving way to recognition.
“Tarek?”
His name in her small voice made his heart clench with a protective instinct so fierce it frightened him.
“Go back to sleep,” he said softly. “I was just adjusting your blanket.”
“Oh.” She didn’t seem alarmed to find him looming over her in the darkness.
She didn’t seem alarmed by anything about him, actually—not his size, or his claws, or the eyes he knew were glowing faintly in the dim light.
She simply accepted his presence as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Children, he thought. They trust so easily.
He should have found it unsettling. Instead, it made that ache in his chest worse.
Dani’s gaze drifted around the room, taking in the stone walls, the flickering shadows, the unfamiliar surroundings. When her eyes returned to his face, there was a question in them.
“Are you staying with us?”
The words were barely a whisper, slurred with sleep. But beneath them, he heard what she was really asking. Are you going to be here when I wake up? Are you going to protect us? Can I trust you?
His beast rose up, fierce and certain. Yes, little one. I will stay. I will protect you both. I will—
“Yes,” he heard himself say. The word came out rough, stripped of the careful control he usually maintained. “I’m staying.”
Her small face relaxed. The tension he hadn’t even noticed, a subtle wariness in that fragile body, melted away, and she snuggled deeper into the furs with a soft sigh.
“Good,” she murmured. “Jessa worries too much. But you’re here now.”
And then, between one breath and the next, she was asleep again.
He stood frozen for a long moment, staring down at her. At the trust written so clearly in every line of her small form. At the peaceful expression on her face.
You’re here now.
As if his presence alone was enough to ease her fears. As if the simple fact of him—exiled, dangerous, barely civilized—could offer any kind of safety to a sick child.
He pulled the blanket up carefully, tucking it around her shoulders with hands that weren’t quite steady. Then he stepped back, turned, and fled.
The main room felt too small suddenly. Too close. He paced its length once, twice, trying to work off the strange energy coiling through him. His beast was restless, agitated by the encounter, wanting things he had no right to want.
He needed a distraction. Something to occupy his hands and his mind until the sun rose and he could think clearly again.
His gaze fell on the shelf of books near the fireplace.
Medical texts, most of them. Books salvaged from the wreckage of his former life and carried across the stars even though he’d had no practical reason to keep them.
He’d told himself at the time that knowledge was always valuable, even if he had no intention of using his skills again.
He hadn’t opened them in years.
Before he could talk himself out of it, he crossed to the shelf and pulled down one of the older volumes. Its spine was cracked, its pages yellowed with age, but the information inside remained sound.
He settled into the chair near the fire, the one he’d carved himself during his first winter here, when the loneliness had threatened to drive him mad, and opened the book.
The familiar language washed over him like a half-forgotten dream. Symptoms and causes. Progressions and prognoses. The precise, clinical vocabulary of healing that had once been as natural to him as breathing.
He found the section on chronic respiratory conditions and began to read.
Persistent cough with or without productive sputum. Low-grade fever. Gradual weight loss. Difficulty breathing during physical exertion or in cold conditions…
Dani’s symptoms, laid out in neat columns of text. He cross-referenced treatments and outcomes as he read, evaluating options he had no business evaluating.
She brought medicine with her, he reminded himself. The treatment her sister obtained. This is not your concern.
But his eyes kept moving across the pages.
Kept cataloguing possibilities, weighing interventions, and considering the specific conditions of this planet and how they might affect a child’s recovery.
The healer’s instinct that he’d tried so hard to bury was stirring again, awakened by a blue-eyed girl who’d asked if he was staying.
Stop, he told himself. This is not who you are anymore.
But he had already dredged up memories he’d spent five years trying to forget. Memories of the home world he’d left behind, and the people he’d failed. He closed his eyes and let himself remember.
The transport ship had been cramped and dirty, filled with the dregs of a dozen worlds—criminals and refugees and the desperate poor, all seeking a new life on some backwater planet.
He’d stood out amongst them like a hunting cat in a herd of prey animals.
Too large and too dangerous. The other passengers had given him a wide berth, crossing to the far side of the corridor when they saw him coming and falling silent when he entered a common area.
He hadn’t minded. He’d even welcomed it.