Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Three days. Three days trapped in an impossible cavern with an even more impossible creature, and Alina still hadn’t figured out what the hell she was going to do.
She sat with her back against the cavern wall, watching Rhyx move among the bioluminescent vines, collecting water from the leaves, his golden skin catching the soft light as he worked.
He was finally willing to release her hand, although only occasionally and never for very long, which meant she had more perspective from which to watch him.
The muscles in his back shifted as he worked, and she found herself staring longer than was strictly scientific.
Focus, Alina. You’re a geochemist, not a teenage girl with a crush.
But that was the problem, wasn’t it? She couldn’t think of Rhyx as a research subject. Not after three days of conversation and shared meals and sleeping curled against his chest because he was so impossibly warm and safe.
She pulled out her tablet and checked the atmospheric readings for the hundredth time. The numbers hadn’t changed. The dust storm was still raging outside, the particle density too high for safe travel, and the wind speed high enough to knock the rover off its broad treads.
She was still trapped.
The irony wasn’t lost on her. She’d spent two years dreaming of a discovery like this—something that would change their perspective of the planet entirely. And now that she’d found it, all she could think about was how to hide it.
“Alina.”
She looked up. He had finished collecting water and was watching her with those strange blue eyes, his head tilted questioningly. His English had improved dramatically over the past few days, each word unlocking dozens more, but his expressions were still slightly off. Still alien.
Because he is alien, she reminded herself. He’s an alien. An actual, real-life, honest-to-god alien. And I’ve been sleeping in his arms like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, crossing the cavern towards her with that fluid, predatory grace. “You have the worried face again.”
“I don’t have a worried face.”
“You have many faces.” He settled beside her, close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from his body. “Happy face. Thinking face. Frustrated face. Tired face.” He reached out and traced a finger along the furrow between her brows. “Worried face.”
His touch sent electricity sparking through her nerve endings. She pulled back, and saw the flicker of hurt in his eyes. She hated that she’d put it there.
“I’m trying to figure out what to do,” she said. “When the storm ends.”
“We go outside?”
“It’s not that simple.”
He cocked his head again. “Why?”
Because you’re a scientific miracle. Because you’re proof that Mars once harbored intelligent life. Because there are people who would cut you open to study you, who would lock you in a lab and treat you like a specimen instead of a person.
Because I can’t stand the thought of anything happening to you.
She didn’t say any of that. Instead, she pulled up a holographic map of the colony on her tablet, the blue lines glowing softly.
“This is where I live. It’s called Border Town.
It’s a small settlement, but there are still hundreds of humans there.
Scientists, engineers, support staff. More humans have settled throughout the valley. If they find out about you—”
“They will hurt me?”
The bluntness of the question made her chest ache.
“I don’t know. Maybe. Some of them would want to study you.
Examine you. Ask you questions, take samples…
” She trailed off, unable to continue. The thought of him strapped to a table, surrounded by researchers in sterile suits, made her physically ill.
“I am strong.” He flexed one massive arm, and despite everything, a small smile tugged at her lips. “I protect myself.”
“It’s not about strength. They have weapons.
Things that can hurt you no matter how strong you are.
” She set the tablet aside and drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them.
“And even if you could fight them off, what then? Where would you go? You can’t live in here forever, hidden in a cave. ”
Can you?
The question haunted her. She’d been examining the cavern’s ecosystem since she arrived, cataloging the various plant species and the remarkable way they’d adapted to survive underground.
The bioluminescent vines provided light.
The purple leaves collected and stored water.
The berries Rhyx had shown her were nutritious enough to sustain life.
In theory, someone could survive down here indefinitely.
But that wouldn’t be living. And she couldn’t condemn Rhyx to an eternity of darkness and isolation, no matter how much it might keep him safe.
“Alina.”
She looked up. He’d moved closer while she was lost in thought, his face inches from hers. The soft light played across his features, illuminating the sharp planes of his cheekbones, the ridge of scales along his jaw, and the impossible beauty of eyes that had seen an entirely different Mars.
“You worry too much,” he said.
“Someone has to.”
“Why?”
“Because—” She stopped, frustration bubbling up in her chest. “Because the world doesn’t work the way you think it does. Because humans aren’t always kind. Because I found you, and that makes you my responsibility, and I can’t just—”
“I protect you.”
“That’s not—”
“I protect you,” he repeated, more firmly this time. His hand came up to cup her cheek, his palm warm and slightly rough against her skin. “You found me. You woke me. You are mine. I protect you.”
The possessiveness in his voice should have triggered every feminist alarm in her brain. Instead, it made something warm unfurl in her belly, something she’d been trying very hard to ignore for three days.
“Rhyx, you don’t understand—”
“Then help me understand.”
“I’m trying! But you keep—” She pulled away from his touch, turning so she didn’t have to look at those blue eyes that saw too much.
“You keep acting like everything is simple. Like all you have to do is protect me and everything will be fine. But it won’t be fine.
The storm is going to end. People are going to come looking for me. And when they find you—”
“They will not find me.”
“How are you going to hide? You’re seven feet tall with golden scales and eyes that glow in the dark. You’re not exactly subtle.”
“Then I kill them.”
She spun back around, her heart seizing in her chest. “No! No, absolutely not. You can’t just—”
“If they threaten you, I kill them.”
“Rhyx, you cannot kill people!”
He blinked at her, genuine confusion clouding his features. “Why not?”
“Because it’s wrong! Because—” She pressed her hands against her face, trying to collect her thoughts.
This was the problem with communicating across such a vast cultural divide.
He didn’t have the same moral framework she did.
He was operating on some ancient imperative she couldn’t fully comprehend, and while part of her found it terrifyingly attractive, the rest of her was screaming that this was a disaster waiting to happen.
“Killing is bad,” she said finally, lowering her hands. “Humans have rules. Laws. We don’t kill each other unless… unless there’s no other choice. And even then, it’s considered a terrible thing. A last resort.”
“My people had rules too.” Something dark passed through his eyes, the same grief she’d glimpsed when he talked about his memories of ancient Mars. “Rules did not save them.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry about what happened to your people. But I can’t let you hurt anyone. There has to be another way.”
“What way?”
She opened her mouth to respond, then closed it again.
I don’t know. The admission was like swallowing glass. She was supposed to be the smart one, the scientist who could analyze any situation and find a solution. But this was beyond her.
“I don’t know,” she finally whispered. “I need to think. I need time to figure this out.”
“The storm gives you time.”
“The storm won’t last forever.”
“No.” He rose to his feet, towering over her. The cavern suddenly felt smaller, the walls closer. “Nothing lasts forever. I know this better than you.”
There was no accusation in his voice, just a weary acceptance that made her chest ache. He had watched his world die. He had somehow survived its destruction, carrying memories of a civilization that no longer existed. What were her problems compared to that?
Everything, something whispered in the back of her mind. Your problems are everything to you, just like his are everything to him. That’s how it works.
She stood as well, bringing them face to face. Or as close to face to face as they could get when he was nearly a foot taller than her. “I know I sound like I’m overreacting. But you have to trust me on this. If anyone finds out about you, if they discover what you are—”
“What am I?”
The question stopped her cold. She’d been so focused on the practicalities, on the logistics of keeping him hidden, that she’d never really answered it. Not for him, not even for herself.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Something ancient. Something that shouldn’t exist. Something…” She hesitated, then reached up and placed her hand against his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart beneath her palm. “Something miraculous.”
His hand came up to cover hers, pressing it more firmly against his scales. His warmth bled through her skin, into her blood, and down to her bones. “You fear for me.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
“Because you care for me.”
“Yes.”
“Then why do you pull away?”
She didn’t have an answer for that. Or rather, she had too many answers—because this is insane, because I barely know you, because you’re an alien and I’m a human and there’s no future for us, because if I let myself admit what I’m feeling it will destroy me when I have to leave—and none of them seemed sufficient.