Chapter 12
Twelve
Cairn
The car stopped. The rain did not. It hammered against the metal roof while Georgie’s heart beat frantically beneath my arm.
She was alive.
Relief weakened me for less than a breath. Then my training took over.
“Georgie.”
She did not answer.
My wing was still wrapped around her head and shoulders. Pain burned through the struts where they had struck the side of the vehicle, but nothing felt broken. I slowly drew it back, terrified of what I might find beneath it.
Her eyes were closed. A thin line of blood ran from her temple into her hair.
“Georgie.” I touched her cheek as gently as I could. “Open your eyes.”
She groaned.
The sound was more beautiful than any music I had ever heard.
Her eyelids fluttered. She blinked at me, her gaze unfocused.
“Cairn?”
“I am here.”
“What happened?”
“Your vehicle attempted to kill us.”
The corner of her mouth twitched. If she could still find me irritating, she could not be badly injured.
I hoped.
“Do not move,” I ordered.
“I’m fine.”
“Humans are fragile. I need to make sure you weren't hurt. Can you move your hands?”
She lifted both hands. Her fingers trembled, but they moved.
“Your feet?”
“I can move everything.”
“Is there pain in your neck? Your back? Your head?”
“My head, a little.” She winced as she touched the blood at her temple. “It’s only a cut.”
Only a cut. Humans were soft creatures with skin that easily split, yet they talked about leaking as though it were a minor inconvenience.
Georgie stared at me. “You look terrible.”
I laughed. “You are the one injured, not me. Let's get you out of this vehicle.”
I reached for the fastening of her safety restraint.
“I can do that,” she said in a tone that allowed no argument.
Her fingers slipped twice before finding the release. The belt snapped away from her chest. She took a deep breath, then hissed and pressed a hand to her ribs.
Fear surged through me again. “You are hurt.”
“I’ll be bruised. That’s what seat belts do. It’s better than flying through the windscreen.”
I looked towards the front of the car. The glass was cracked but intact.
“That fragile barrier would not have stopped you.”
“No. That’s why I was wearing the belt.”
These flimsy vehicles were unsafe. I would contact Pam and ask her to find one made with materials approved by the IA. I would not risk my mate getting hurt.
I tested my door. It opened a fraction before sinking into the mud. I pushed harder until the metal groaned and forced it wide enough to climb out.
Cold rain struck my face. I barely felt it.
The C-suit was split from my hip to my shoulder.
My right wing hung free, while the left remained crushed against my back.
I seized the torn fabric and pulled. It resisted for a moment, then ripped across my chest. The false human skin disappeared, leaving me in my battle wrap with strips of black fabric clinging to my legs.
Pam would likely be displeased. I didn't care. She wasn't my boss. And I had been on this planet for much longer than she had, or any other alien.
I climbed from the ditch and hurried around the car. The front had struck the wall hard enough to scatter stones across the road. One side of the vehicle was crumpled, and the door beside Georgie had been forced inwards.
I gripped the handle and pulled.
Nothing happened.
“Cover your eyes,” I told her.
“Why?”
“Do it.”
She raised her arms over her face. I wedged my fingers into the narrow gap between the door and the frame, braced one foot against the side of the car, extended my wings for balance, and pulled.
Metal screeched. The door tore free in my hands.
Georgie slowly lowered her arms. Rain blew into the car as she stared at the door, then at me.
“I had no idea you were that strong. And you destroyed my car.”
She made a sound that might have been a laugh or a sob. I wanted to reach for her, but I stopped myself.
The first time I had held Georgie, I had ignored her fear and flown away with her. My instincts had told me that she was mine and that keeping her close was all that mattered. They had been wrong. Protecting her did not mean I could make her choices.
“May I lift you?”
Her expression changed. She looked at my outstretched hands for a moment before meeting my gaze.
“Yes.”
I slid one arm behind her back and the other beneath her knees. She curled against me as I lifted her from the wreckage.
The shivering began as soon as we reached the road.
I carried her away from the car and set her carefully on her feet. Her knees buckled. I caught her before she could fall and pulled her against my chest, wrapping my uninjured wing around her to shield her from the rain.
“You said you could move your legs.”
“I can. They’ve apparently decided they don’t want to hold me up.”
“Then I will.”
Her hands pressed against my chest. She was so small beneath my wing. So warm, so fragile. The cut on her temple had already stopped bleeding, but I could still smell the faint metallic trace of it beneath the rain.
I bent my head and breathed her in.
She was alive. She was in my arms.
I had survived battles without fear. I had watched enemies charge towards me with plasma weapons and felt nothing but anticipation. Even when our ship had crashed on this planet, I had been too busy escaping the wreckage to be afraid.
Seeing Georgie’s vehicle spin towards that wall had terrified me.
“You saved me,” she whispered.
I tightened my hold. “Of course.”
Her fingers curled against my skin. “You didn’t even hesitate.”
“Why would I?”
“You could have been hurt.”
“I would rather break every bone in my wings than allow harm to come to you.”
Her eyes shone. I could not tell whether the moisture came from the rain or from tears.
“Don’t say things like that.”
“It is the truth.”
“That’s why you shouldn’t say it.”
Humans were very strange. They demanded honesty, then became upset when they received it.
I loosened my embrace enough to look down at her. “You saved me first.”
“That wasn’t the same.”
“You gave me your blood. You brought me back to life.”
“I didn’t know that would happen. I just hoped. Prayed, almost. And I'm not even religious.”
Her hands slid higher over my chest, one settling at the side of my neck. My body reacted at once. My tail uncoiled from my waist, finally freed from the remnants of the C-suit, and curled around her ankle.
“Cairn?”
“Yes?”
She rose onto her toes and kissed me.
For an instant, I could not move. I had kissed her before, but this was different.
I bent over her, sheltering her with my body as well as my wing, and returned the kiss. Her lips were cold from the rain, but her mouth was warm. I held her gently to protect her ribs even though every instinct urged me to crush her against me.
She made a soft sound and opened for me.
I slid my tongue against hers. Her breath caught, but she did not pull away. Her fingers tightened around one of my horns instead.
I'd never felt anything like it.
Heat surged through my body. I deepened the kiss, closed my eyes, lost myself in her. Rain was falling on us in sheets, but I did not care. I was on fire and every time her lips crushed against mine, the flames leapt higher.
I pulled her even closer against my body. She groaned softly and I let her go immediately.
Cloch. I should have taken better care of her. She was injured and here I was kissing her rather than giving her the care she needed.
“Why are you stopping?” she moaned, her eyes dark and unfocused.
“You have just survived a collision,” I reminded her. “And now we're standing in the rain. You are getting wet and cold. I need to get you to a safer place.”
“You're not flying me anywhere. Not again.”
We'd have to deal with her anxiety at some point, but not now. I wanted to share the joy of flying with her, that feeling of infinite freedom. I wanted to take her to places she could never reach on the ground. And I wanted to fuck her in the air.
Cloch. I was hard beneath my wet battle wrap. Her stroking my horns had made me crave her even more.
“Kiss me again,” she demanded. Her fingers wandered dangerously close to my horns again. If she touched them, I was done for. I'd do whatever she wanted.
“You're hurt.”
“That doesn't mean I don't know what I want.”
My tail tightened around her ankle. “What do you want?”
She looked up at me. There was fear in her scent, but it was fading beneath the warm sweetness of her desire.
“Life is too short,” she said. “Today could have ended very differently. I don’t want to keep waiting because taking this slowly seems sensible.”
“When we get home,” she continued, “I want you in my bed.”
I froze as her words echoed in my mind. I needed to be certain I had understood. Human expressions continued to confuse me, and this was too important to risk a mistake.
“All of me?”
Her gaze travelled across my horns and fangs, down my chest to the battle wrap. Then she looked at my wings and the tail curled possessively around her leg.
Her cheeks flushed.
“All of you.”