“Tellefan was right. You animals are bond?—”
Rentir’s tail tightened, cutting off the strangled words. He brought the tip of the blaster between the auretian’s white brows, and Cordelia looked away as the blast echoed through the trees.
Finally, there was silence.
Tears dripped from her eyes, watering with pain as her adrenaline began to wind down. She was afraid to look at the blade in her side, afraid to know how lethal the blow was.
She’d been in combat situations before, but not like this. Though she’d been trained in hand-to-hand combat like everyone in the Alliance Airforce, she’d had little cause to use it. Her missions weren’t the sort that involved running around on the frontlines with her weapon in hand. She’d piloted transports, delivered reinforcements and essential goods, and helped restore hard-to-reach communications. All the times she’d been shot at had been behind the bulletproof glass of the cockpit.
Her mind blanked on her basic first aid training. Don’t pull it out, that much she recalled. What came after that?
“Cordelia!”
She cracked her eyelids open, looking up at Rentir’s hazy outline. “Rentir.” She held her hand up, showing him the sticky blood between her fingers.
“No,” he breathed, kneeling beside her.
Gently, he shifted her until she was lying on her uninjured side. Her cheek pressed against a patch of blue moss, so similar in smell and texture to its counterpart on Earth. She shivered as he used his glowing blade to cut away a section of her shirt, revealing the injury she still couldn’t stand to look at.
“Don’t move.” He left her side to crouch over the dead alien, shaking him down for something.
“They have Thea.” She focused on a ghostly-looking flower-shaped fungus in front of her as he rustled around.
Such a strange planet. So much to see.
In that moment, she desperately longed to live long enough to see it all.
“I know.” He returned to her side with a foil tube. “Brace yourself.”
He ripped the tube open with his sharp teeth. Before she could flinch, he yanked the blade out of her side and shoved the tube in its place. She bit down on her knuckles and screamed as something ice-cold filled the wound. Just as abruptly as the pain began, it was gone, and the injury went entirely numb. She gulped down a breath, shuddering as the tension left her limbs.
“What was that?” she rasped.
“Medipoxy. An emergency wound sealant,” he muttered. “I believe you will be okay. Look.”
Reluctantly, she looked up at the object he was holding between his fingers. It was a short, squat blade with an oddly shaped handle, about the size and shape of a large shark tooth.
“The blow was shallow. The blade is coated in sedative. He wanted you alive.” A muscle jumped in his jaw.
“Sedative?” she slurred. Her eyes were getting heavier, weren’t they? “No, I can’t. I have to find the others…”
“Shhh.” He slid his arms beneath her. The world spun as he lifted her, rising to his considerable full height.
“No,” she said, but the word ended on a sigh as her eyes rolled back.
CHAPTER 13
Rentirlimped back to the hovercraft with Cordelia in his arms. He was sapped of strength after the battle, but he wouldn’t rest until he had her safely stowed away.
He purred compulsively, desperate to soothe her in some way.
The female was impulsive, stubborn, and foolish. Andbrave. He had seen the fear in her as the auretian approached and knew what it must have cost her to break through her instincts and throw herself into the fray. She had risked her life for his. His arms tightened around her.
No one had ever done that before.
She wouldn’t either if she knew what I’d done.
He pushed the thought away, disgusted with himself.
