Chapter 10
Danitalin
I woke the way I always did: my eyes slid open, and awareness was sudden and immediate.
There was never a twilight moment for me, stuck between awake and asleep.
Also, just like always, I remembered the dreams. There had been many, and most were as familiar as an old friend by now.
Some of my dreams had been permeated with the horrors of the past few days.
Most were tributes to the horrors that had set me on this path in the first place.
There were differences this morning, and my mind was sluggish to catalog them.
My body was cocooned in warmth, for instance, but the surface I was lying on was firm, and it moved slowly up and down.
This wasn’t a bed; it wasn’t even remotely similar to sleeping at my desk at the lab or the uncomfortable bunk waiting for me if I did give sleep an honest shot.
Not that I would—or had—all this time I’d been on Radin.
It wouldn’t be, anyway, because we weren’t at the lab.
We… Maybe I wasn’t as awake as I thought I’d been, because he hadn’t crossed my mind until now.
Jaxin. I had to be lying against him, my head pillowed on his chest. I’d never lain like that with a living person before, maybe that’s why I hadn’t realized that’s what this was.
My empathic gift was so powerful that so much skin-to-skin contact would overwhelm me.
I’d be filled with the feelings of the other, and it would eclipse me so completely, I’d feel like I’d ceased to exist.
This was such a novel sensation that I sighed with content as I took it in.
Jaxin was closed to me, cool, silent, yet his body was warm.
Now that I knew it was him, I could make out the arm beneath my head, the other over my waist and curled against my back.
We were on our sides, facing each other, and I felt sheltered by the massive size of him.
Even the knowledge that his head was right above mine did not dampen the content mood.
If he opened that mouth with its sharp rows of teeth, he could probably bite my head clean off…
It didn’t matter because I knew with unshakable faith that he never would.
Jaxin was a protector to his very core, but he was still a mercenary and a Rummicaron.
We were too different, and he lived a life too dangerous for me ever to be part of it.
That halted my thoughts in their tracks.
Part of it? I was already thinking of futures that couldn’t be, as if I desired to make them real anyway.
It was crazy. Just because my gift-burned mind now had a taste of what physical intimacy could be like?
A Rummicaron might be safe to be around for my gift—calm, quiet—but he couldn’t feel, which meant he could never care about me.
I was pretty sure I’d eventually come to need knowing I was loved.
It was the first time in days that I’d had a decent amount of sleep.
In fact, I felt more rested than I had in a long while, despite the familiar dreams. Was that because Jaxin had held me through the night?
Kept me warm? Sheltered me? I had not considered how big an impact such an act could have on the Aderian mind, but it was clear that it did.
It was very tempting to curl my head more tightly against his chest and allow sleep to take me again.
A twinge of pain shot through my chest when I pressed closer—it jolted me.
It wasn’t my pain but his, it had to be.
He’d been so closed off so far that I was certain there was nothing at all…
What if it wasn’t his lack of feeling, but my lack of gift that made this blissful moment possible? And why did his chest hurt?
I shifted back in his arms and lifted my hand from somewhere along his ribs to press it against the black carapace of armor that covered his sternum.
My fingers were more silver than black in comparison, and they seemed very small against the wide planes of muscle and bone.
The blanket that covered me fell back a little, and, suddenly, I was very aware of how naked I was beneath it.
Naked? When had that happened? I definitely did not recall undressing, but I did recall being soaked to the bone after that harrowing swim.
“Morning, Dani,” Jaxin chose that moment to rumble, and I felt his words vibrate beneath my fingers.
My chin shot up, but I still could not see his face, just the sharp edge of his chin, the line of his jaw, and the intriguing lines of his gills along his neck.
He did not make things easier by dipping his head down so I could see his face, either.
No, he did this weird thing where he leaned a little closer and the edge of his jaw actually touched my forehead and hair.
Warmth seemed to slip around me, not from his arms, not from the blankets; it was something coming from him.
I wondered… was it a feeling he was seeping gently, softly, after all? No, that was impossible.
“Morning, Jaxin. What now? Is it safe for your friends to pick us up?” He was sent here, supposedly, by the Aderian authorities to rescue me.
I was starting to believe that even if that was a lie, Jaxin would not do anything to harm me.
Maybe he was even the right male to trust with knowledge of my research.
I recalled the Kertinal mercenary pretending to cut my throat, the cold, cruel look in D’aron’s eyes.
I shivered, remembering that someone so mean, so evil, was after a cure meant to help people—only so he could exploit it in some horrible way.
“We’ll have to walk to the extraction point.
Have you rested sufficiently?” he asked.
The sharp, lancing pain in his chest had let up, vanishing as if I had imagined it.
He began shifting away, moving his arms from around me as he sat up.
The blanket fell back, exposing my bare breasts, and I wasn’t fast enough to yank it back to cover me.
His head lowered quickly this time, black eyes locking onto my briefly exposed body.
He’d definitely gotten a full view, and he was not immune to the sight.
A growl rumbled through the cave—so low, so deep—that it was more of a vibration I felt than heard.
My senses tingled, stretched; they were definitely not as burned out as they’d been yesterday.
Eight hours of solid sleep had done wonders to restore much of my equilibrium, and my gift.
I felt caught in his gaze, trapped like prey by a predator, and at the same time, heat spiraled through my body—so wild and powerful that I shook from it.
That was his feeling, but rather than sweep me away until I could not feel myself, it was as if an answering tide was rising within me.
All me, it coursed through me, pure, wild, and powerful.
I’d never felt anything like it, and a shocked moan rose from my throat.
As if a dam had broken, he lunged, and then his mouth was on me, not with teeth, but with soft heat and silky touches.
A kiss unlike anything I’d ever experienced.
Not that I had much experience to begin with, even kissing had been too overwhelming for my gift in the past.
We tangled together, my naked body against the hardness of his armor.
His hands felt rough against my skin as he gathered me close and pinned me to the ground.
They felt good, too, like they reminded me that I was alive, that I was made of flesh and blood.
For the first time in forever—maybe for the first time, period—I was not in my head.
I was a being of feeling and passion, combusting in his arms as he kissed me.
Me, Danitalin: the untouched, the fragile, the gifted.
I’d been on that island, that pedestal, for so long, it felt like I was crashing to the ground like an avalanche now.
“Dani,” he growled, when he drew back with a shuddering gasp.
Dani, not Danitalin, with emphasis on the family parts of my name.
To him, I was Dani, me, and no one else.
“This is dangerous,” he said, but he kissed me again, and the passion between us only burned brighter.
He did feel. He felt so much. But it still seemed distinct—two matching waves crashing together with the force of nature.
“I don’t care,” I told him breathlessly.
My hands were around his neck, clinging to him, holding him close.
“I want you,” I told him, and I slid my legs apart, raising one to throw over his hip.
There were more firm edges of armor and muscle; Jaxin could not possibly feel much of me through it, but he groaned as if he did.
His hand on my back tightened, slid lower, and cupped my ass.
It shot a lance of bright pleasure through my veins, pulsing between my thighs.
The sensation was so new to me that I blinked as stars burst bright and hot across my vision.
“You don’t know what you’re dealing with, Dani,” Jaxin warned again.
He was pulling away, and the bright feelings crashing and colliding between us began to fade.
I didn’t know how he did that, but he began to cool.
Now, it was just me feeling all that bright passion, and that felt lonely and a little terrifying.
I discovered that when feeling something as powerful as passion, it was scary to be alone in it.
“What happened?” I asked, my voice weak and trembling on the question, as if I were on the verge of tears.
Yanking back from him, I began pulling the blanket around me, as if that could somehow pull the tatters of my dignity back into place too.
Jaxin watched me do it, rolling away and rising to his feet, a beast of a male towering over me, cast in shadows that clung to his black armor.
“Something that can’t happen again,” he said, but he hesitated.
“Unless…” He swallowed the rest of that sentence as if it were so powerful he could not utter it out loud.
The air tingled between us, and I rose to my feet, shrouded in the blanket as if to answer the unspoken.
My mind was spinning, and though my body was slowly cooling from the heat he’d ignited, I was not ready to forget.
Rummicaron suppressed their feelings; they had to be doing that for a good reason…
What was that reason? Now my curiosity was sparked, but it was a selfish curiosity, because I wanted more of what had just happened, much more.
Hadn’t I thought more than once already that sleeping with Jaxin could be my one chance at experiencing that kind of physical intimacy?
Now I knew for sure, and I couldn’t stand the thought of letting the opportunity pass me by.
“Unless what, Jaxin?” I said, proud of how firm I sounded when I was just a tiny Aderian in a sheet, facing off with a beastly Rummicaron.
He growled, as if my question infuriated him, and spun away.
The air felt thick with feelings, but most of it was the coolness of a wall.
Now that my gift was coming back, recovering from yesterday’s burnout, I felt more details.
He wasn’t cold and empty behind that wall, but like an animal rattling his cage.
Somehow… he could block me from feeling it, perhaps even block himself from feeling it, but it was there all the same.
When he stopped pacing, he was facing away from me, his hands on his hips.
I admired the sharp rise of his fin between his shoulder blades and the wide stretch of his shoulders beneath his armor.
His voice was grim when he spoke, and he still did not turn—but then, I didn’t think his expression would tell me anything anyway.
“Unless you want to tangle with the true Rummicaron beast inside of me.”
I did not know what that meant, but Jaxin was clearly done talking. He kept his back to me and focused on practical tasks, like sorting our meager supplies and heating a food ration for us to share. I gave up when he refused to answer the third question in a row. Fine, I’d find out some other way.