“You’re sick.” He pulled out his healing salve, needles, and portable synthesizing system, weighing and pouring the chemicals he needed to help her. He created naproxen, penicillin, and a small dose of caffeine. He took hold of her wrist. “I need a drop of your blood, is that okay?” Stryker bore his eyes into her.
“Why?”
“To check your system.” He squeezed her wrist. “Please.”
Norah yielded her arm to him. Stryker rolled up her poncho and wiped the cloth across her skin. He marveled at her dark velvet limb, silky and slim under his violent grip.
He loosened his hold, knowing he could break her bones with an accidental squeeze.
He placed the needle against her vein and slid it into her skin, drawing out several drops of her life-force. The sharp point of the needle entering her sent a shock of arousal through his system and straight back into his loins. Stryker felt himself stiffening, jealous of the needle under her skin. He wanted to pierce her in the same way.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
His horrid thoughts continued despite his disgust.Pierce her between her legs and under my mouth. His mouth dried up with the picture that appeared in his head and his fangs sliced his lower lip.
His bestial cock curved hard and demanding, painful within his suit. Stryker shuffled the pack into his lap.I don’t want to scare her.
He put the needle against his own skin and shot her blood into his system.
“You can’t do that!” Norah took his hand and wrenched. “You can’t, Stryker,” she gasped and fought him, he let go of the needle and she threw it behind them. “Oh my god. What the fuck!” She leaned over him, feverish and terrified, tearing at his arm.
Stryker grabbed her and hauled her body into his lap. “It’s okay. Your blood won’t hurt me.”
“You can’t be serious.” She struggled for a moment before her shivers turned to trembles and her energy depleted. He smelled the scent of sweat begin to bead across her temple, between her breasts, and under her arms.
“I can do that. So can others of my kind. Take your blood into my body and allow my nanocells to extract information from it.” He petted her hair as he ran her blood through his systems. “Once I’m done, my body will clear itself of the alien presence.” Norah was teetering on the edge of malnourishment, fatigue, and she had a fever. An internal sigh of relief went through him.She isn’t sick with something alien.Stryker thought back to the creatures that had attacked the research facility.If it’s a disease...a virus...“Stay still and rest.” He reached around her and found another bottle of water. “Take this, it’ll help you.” He handed her the meds and the water.
Norah wrapped her fingers around the pallet of pills. “What is it?”
“Pain killers, and antibiotics just in case, and some caffeine to keep you going.” He pulled out another vial and nodded toward it. “This is a booster, it’ll revitalize you.”
It’ll kill off anything that shouldn’t be there.
She relaxed into his embrace and chucked the medicine in her mouth. Stryker lifted the bottle to her lips for her to drink from and watched her throat swallow greedily until the contents were gone. Norah lifted her hand and wiped her mouth.
Stryker put the excess back in his medkit.
The wind bellowed outside their craft, a howl as strong as a pack of rabid wolves.
He sat back and relaxed, for just a moment, and appreciated the woman huddled in his lap. She curled against him and he put his arm around her in a quiet embrace.
“It’s nice to be out of the rain,” she said.
“This is nice,” he agreed but not because of the rain. Norah was his self-proclaimed charge and right now she was his. He didn’t have to share her. “How are you feeling?” He rested his chin atop her wet curls. “Has it kicked in?”
A shiver and a sigh answered him, a yawn and a swallow. Sweat and shallow breaths. “I think so. I don’t feel as hot as I did before. I’m beginning to not feel anything at all.” She laughed softly. “It feels nice.”
He placed one of his hands over her temple, checking her temperature. “You’re cooling down. Tell me if the medication wears off. I don’t want you to spike again before I can get you someplace safe.”
“I feel safe now.”
Stryker stiffened and held her infinitesimally closer.Nothing about this is safe, Norah, nothing. And nothing is...
“Shouldn’t we keep going?” Norah stirred and the crinkle of her poncho filled his ears, breaking his train of thought.
We should keep going.But he had never felt more alone in the universe, more complete, surrounded by an impenetrable veil of water and a warm woman in his arms.
He didn’t want the reckless moment to end because in a fallible moment of clarity he knew that she would always be safe in his embrace.
