Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Adjar was sleeping. Jaz knew she should probably be grateful.
It gave her time to try and figure out what the hell she was going to do with an injured winged male in her habitat.
But she’d rather he was awake and talking—or at least attempting to communicate.
Watching him in his unconscious state made her worry too much.
She’d checked his vitals six times in the past hour, the medical scanner humming quietly in her hand.
His temperature had stabilized but remained elevated.
The infection in his wounds seemed to be responding to the antibiotics, but she’d been feeding him enough of them to take down a small elephant.
His wing was still a mystery—she had no idea if her splinting was helping or if there were specialized treatments he needed that she couldn’t provide.
Now she watched the slow rise and fall of his massive chest, counting the seconds between each breath.
The rattling wheeze from earlier had faded, replaced by something closer to normal respiration, though she suspected “normal” was a relative term when applied to a seven-foot-tall winged alien who’d literally erupted from beneath the Martian ice.
He’s not an alien. The thought circled back around, as it had been doing for hours. He’s Martian. Or at least part of him is. Native to this planet in a way I’ll never be.
While his origins were still a mystery, she was increasingly certain that the unidentified DNA was actually Martian DNA.
The irony wasn’t lost on her. She’d spent ten years on Mars, fighting tooth and nail to carve out a place for herself in its unforgiving landscape, and she was still an interloper.
A visitor overstaying her welcome in a house whose original owners had long since vanished.
Except they hadn’t vanished entirely. One of them was lying on her bunk, taking up approximately ninety percent of the available space and radiating heat like a dying star.
Speaking of which…
She pushed herself up from the storage crate where she’d been sitting, her muscles protesting every movement. When had she last slept properly? Two days? Three? The storm had blurred everything together into one long, exhausting marathon of crisis management.
She moved towards the bunk, her steps quiet and careful. The memory of his hand closing around her wrist was still fresh—not painful, exactly, but potent. A reminder that despite his injuries and his confusion, he was far from helpless.
But he made me split our food.
She smiled again at the memory of him insisting she eat first. The absurdity of it still hadn’t worn off. Even though he was the injured one, he’d refused to eat unless she ate too. Like they were negotiating a business deal instead of managing a survival situation.
Stubborn male. The words came with a flicker of amusement. Of all the ancient Martians I could have dug up, I got the stubborn one.
She reached the side of the bunk and stood there for a moment, studying him in the soft glow of the emergency lighting.
Asleep, the harsh edges of his features seemed softer.
Not gentle—nothing about him would ever be gentle—but less actively threatening.
The silver-white scales along his temples caught the light, glinting like frost patterns on a window, and his white hair fell across his face in disarray.
Beautiful, she thought again, but she shoved it away with the ruthless efficiency of long practice. Now was not the time for aesthetic appreciation. Now was the time for medical assessment.
She reached for the medical scanner on the nearby surface, careful not to make any sudden movements, and activated it with a quiet click.
The device hummed to life as she ran it over his body.
His temperature was still significantly elevated, high enough that she would have been seriously worried if he were human.
But the scanner’s admittedly confused readings suggested his baseline temperature was naturally higher than a human’s, which meant the current reading might be closer to normal than she’d initially feared.
Or it might mean he’s about to spontaneously combust. Hard to tell without a species-specific reference guide.
She bit back a slightly hysterical laugh and moved on to the wound assessment.
The gash in his side was her primary concern.
The metal fragment from her destroyed rig—don’t think about that right now—had embedded itself in the muscle tissue, and she’d spent a considerable amount of time extracting it with steady hands and a racing heart.
The infection she’d feared had developed anyway, the flesh hot and angry around the wound edges.
But now…
She frowned at the scanner readout, then looked at the wound itself, then back at the readout.
The numbers didn’t make sense. According to the device, the temperature of the flesh around the wound was even higher than his core temperature, but the tissue inflammation had decreased by nearly forty percent since her last scan.
The edges of the wound were already beginning to knit together, new cells forming at a rate that should have been impossible.
She reached out, her fingers hovering just above the bandage, and felt the heat radiating from beneath. Not the dangerous heat of infection, but something else, something… purposeful.
He’s healing himself. Or the nanites in his bloodstream are healing him, she realized. The cyborg rangers possessed a similar ability.
The realization sent a chill down her spine that had nothing to do with the habitat’s temperature.
The nanites in his body were actively repairing the damage, burning through resources at an incredible rate to close wounds that should have taken weeks to heal.
It explained his hunger, his exhaustion, the furnace-like warmth of his skin.
It also meant he was going to recover much faster than she’d anticipated. Which was good—probably—but also raised some uncomfortable questions about what happened next.
One crisis at a time.
She switched the scanner to the chest readout, checking the progress of the fluid in his lungs.
Good. She’d removed the drainage tube thirty minutes ago, but there had been no further fluid accumulation, and his oxygen levels had remained consistent.
They were lower than the human norm, but he’d been able to breathe outside without the breathing masks that full humans required.
All of which meant his vitals were probably close to…
well, to whatever counted as normal for his species.
She still didn’t have enough data to establish a proper baseline, but the trend was encouraging.
He’s going to live.
She gave a relieved sigh as the certainty of it settled over her. She hadn’t realized how afraid she’d been until the fear began to ease. This strange, impossible being was going to survive, and—
He made a distressed sound, low and guttural.
Her attention snapped back to his face just as his expression contorted, his peaceful sleep giving way to something darker.
His lips pulled back from sharp white teeth—fangs, her brain supplied helpfully, those are definitely fangs—and a rumble built in his chest that made the air vibrate.
Nightmare.
She recognized the signs even before he started moving. The restless shift of limbs, the unconscious reaching for something that wasn’t there, the soft, broken sounds that might have been words in a language dead for millennia.
His wing jerked, nearly knocking the scanner from her hand, and she stumbled back just in time to avoid being hit by his tail as it whipped across the bunk. The flexible appendage was surprisingly expressive even in sleep, coiling and lashing like a separate creature with its own distress.
Dammit.
She needed to wake him up. Or calm him down.
Or get the hell out of range before he accidentally crushed something important—like her.
But even as the practical, self-preserving part of her brain screamed for retreat, she found herself moving closer instead.
He was in pain. Not physical pain but something deeper.
Something that twisted his features and pulled sounds from his throat that made her chest ache in sympathy.
I’m an idiot.
Probably. Definitely. But she’d never been able to ignore suffering when it was right in front of her, even when the sufferer could probably kill her without trying.
She reached out, her hand shaking slightly, and laid it against his forearm. The scales there were smooth and warm rather than fevered, and she felt the powerful muscles beneath them coil at her touch.
“Hey,” she said softly, barely above a whisper. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re safe.”
Is he? Am I?
She ignored her internal skeptic and focused on the pattern of her breathing, keeping it slow and steady, trying to project a calm she didn’t quite feel. Her thumb feathered slowly across his scales in a soothing motion.
“You’re safe. Whatever you’re dreaming about, it’s not real. Not anymore. You’re here, and you’re alive, and you’re going to be okay.”
Did he understand the words? She didn’t know. But his breathing was starting to even out, the rumble in his chest fading to a low vibration that was more purr than growl. His tail stopped its restless lashing, curling around his own leg instead, and the tension in his muscles slowly began to ease.
Good. That’s good.
She kept up the motion, kept murmuring quiet nonsense, and watched as the nightmare released its grip on him. His expression smoothed, the harsh lines of pain and fear giving way to something that might almost have been peace.
What were you dreaming about, she wondered. The question was accompanied by a wave of something that felt uncomfortably like tenderness. What did you lose that still haunts you?
She knew better than most how the past could sink its claws into your dreams. How you could escape something in your waking hours only to find it waiting for you the moment your eyes closed.
The memories she’d spent years outrunning had a way of catching up when she was too tired to keep them at bay.
We’re not so different, are we?
The thought was dangerously sympathetic, and she immediately tried to push it away.
She couldn’t afford to get attached. She certainly couldn’t afford to see him as anything other than a complication to be managed.
When the storm ended, she would have to figure out what to do with him and that would be much harder if she let herself care.
Too late.
She ignored that thought too and focused on the practical. His breathing was steady now, his body relaxed, the nightmare apparently passed. She should step away and put some distance between them and get back to the important work of not dying.
Instead, she found herself studying his face again, her gaze lingering on the details she’d been too stressed to notice before.
The elegant arch of his eyebrows, white as his hair.
The sharp line of his jaw, softened by the smooth scales that traced its edge.
The slight part of his lips, revealing just a hint of those impressive fangs.
Beautiful, her traitorous brain whispered again. Dangerous and impossible and beautiful.
His eyes opened.
She froze, her hand still pressed against his forearm, her body leaning far too close for safety. His eyes were unfocused, still caught somewhere between sleep and waking, but they found her anyway, locking onto her face with an intensity that made her breath catch.
Brilliant ice-blue, even in the dimness. She’d noticed the color before, but not like this. Not when they were looking directly at her, pinning her in place like a butterfly mounted on a board.
Move. I need to move.
But her body wasn’t listening. Her heart was hammering against her ribs, loud enough that he could probably hear it, and every nerve ending she possessed was suddenly, acutely aware of the minimal distance between them.
He blinked. Slowly. Like a cat trying to decide if the mouse was worth the effort of catching.
Then his hand came up too fast for her to react and closed around her wrist.
“Wait—” The word came out strangled, her pulse skyrocketing as his grip tightened just enough to anchor her in place. His other arm was moving, sliding around her waist, and before she could process what was happening, he was pulling her down.
Oh no. Oh shit. Oh—
She landed on the bunk beside him with a startled yelp, her body pressed against the impossible warmth of his side. His wing shifted, curling around them both like a silver-white curtain, and his arm settled across her waist with a weight that was somehow both terrifying and grounding.
He’s going to kill me. He’s confused and he thinks I’m a threat and he’s going to—
“Sleep.”
The word was rough, barely recognizable, but unmistakably deliberate. A command, not a threat, and her racing thoughts stuttered to a halt. “What?”
His eyes had already closed again, his breathing evening out into the slow rhythm of sleep. His grip on her waist remained firm, but not painful—anchoring rather than restraining.
“Sleep,” he said again, quieter this time. More of a sigh than a word.
And then he was out, his body relaxing around hers with the boneless ease of the truly unconscious.
He wants me to… sleep?
The absurdity of the situation crashed over her in a wave. She was lying on her own bunk, pressed against the side of an ancient Martian dragon, his wing forming a canopy over them and his arm holding her in place like she was some kind of living security blanket.
She should leave. She should carefully extract herself from his grip and get back to the important business of monitoring the storm and checking her equipment rather than cuddling with strange aliens.
She told herself that several times before she actually tried an experimental shift to test his hold.
As soon as she did, his arm tightened fractionally.
A soft rumble vibrated through his chest, not quite a growl, more like a sound of protest. His tail twitched, curling closer to where their bodies pressed together.
He’s not going to let me go.
The realization should have triggered panic. Instead, something in her chest unknotted slightly, the tension she’d been carrying for days easing by increments.
He was warm. So warm. And the bunk was amazingly comfortable after all those hours in the chair. And she was so, so tired.
Just for a minute, she thought, her resolve crumbling in the face of exhaustion. I’ll just rest my eyes for a minute and then figure out how to get free.
The storm continued to howl outside, a constant white-noise backdrop that had become almost soothing in its familiarity. The lights hummed their soft rhythm. And his heartbeat thudded against her shoulder blade, slow and steady and impossibly alive.
Her eyes drifted closed.
Just for a minute…
The darkness rose up to meet her, gentle and welcoming, and she let it take her.