“Ceredes.” Master Harlan is working on a burned crewmember from the fleet ship. “Help me here.”
I take the bandage he passes to me and wrap it around the male’s torso. “Healing isn’t my strong suit.”
“Mine either.” Master Harlan pulls it a little too tight, and the patient groans.
“A lighter touch.” Master Varat floats past, his many eyes pointing in all directions. “Soak the bandages with ointment.”
“Fine.” Master Harlan grunts and eases up on the wrapping as we pass it back and forth until the male’s burns are covered. “Tell me what happened up there. Master Daviti never returned.” He meets my gaze for only a moment, and then his face falls. “I see.”
I lay the male down onto his front so we can soak the bandages along his burned back. “Don’t move,” I order.
Our patient squeaks.
No, healing is definitely not my strong suit. I recount what happened as we slather ointment into the bandages.
“Daviti has been at the Academy longer than anyone.” Harlan’s already regained his stoic composure, but I saw his sadness. “I considered him a friend. At least someone to share a drink with now and again.”
“I’m sorry.” I can’t offer anything more, and even that feels weirdly offkey. Harlan, too, because he shrugs. “Death comes for us all.” The words of a soldier, and ones I can get behind.
“May he be at ease in the star-filled night.”
“I’ll drink to that next time I—” Another pained groan from the cot next to us has him turning and saying gruffly, “Pillars! What’s ailing you? I’m here to help.”
I ease away and return to my circle, the pain radiating outward from the three of them like the light of a dying supernova. They need me.
But I need answers. Lana’s fate—and I fear the fate of many more—depends on it.
25
Lana
Holding Kyte close is all I can offer. So that’s what I do. For hours in the infirmary, then more hours in our room. All of us huddled together in our bed as we try to accept everything that just happened.
“What will the fleet do now?” I whisper. “They have to tell everyone, to alert people to the danger, right?”
“That’s the smart move.” Ceredes drums his fingers at my waist. “The way to save lives. If they can evacuate the farthest settlements, bring them closer to the center of the fleet’s power, maybe we can protect them. If nothing else, the fleet should mobilize all its forces, spread them in areas where the Sentient threat is greatest to hold it at bay while the true war plan comes together.”
Kyte’s awake, but he hasn’t spoken since his mother passed. I can’t bear for him to be in so much pain, but I can’t take it away. My power has regenerated, and I feel strong again, but there is nothing for his grief.
“Only time.” Jeren presses his lips between my shoulder blades. “That’s the only thing that ever helped me heal. But it wasn’t really healing. I don’t think losing someone is a wound that ever truly closes. But you get a distance from it, a way to set it aside instead of it consuming you.”
He’s been fighting with memories of his own mother’s death, now made fresh from Kyte’s despair. And Ceredes? He’s locked up tight, his mind engaged in strategy and planning, and he goes over every second of the battle again and again in his mind, like a coach watching tape and looking for weaknesses in the other team.
We’re together but divided. Locked in our own heads.
“Kyte?” I stroke down his back.
I can’t get into his mind, can only feel waves of hurt that are as never-ending as the sea. So many questions are on my tongue, but I know he can’t answer them. Only his mother knew what she meant about my parents. I should focus on my mom and care if she’s in some sort of trouble, but I don’t. I can only think about the Alpha who is in more pain than he can bear.
Maybe I can’t reach him with words. Maybe …
I take a deep breath and let it out, then press a kiss to the center of his back. Then another, and another, all the way up to the back of his neck where I leave more kisses, each one a mark of love from me to him. I can tell myself this isn’t the time, that he needs to be alone with his thoughts. But I can’t leave him there. Not without me. Not without us. I have to get to him, and this could be the only way.
Sitting up, I strip off my top, then shimmy out of my panties.
Ceredes takes in a breath through his teeth, and Jeren’s eyes follow the curves of my body, his mind a whirling dervish of dirty thoughts that make my nipples hard.
Lying back down, I press myself to Kyte’s back.
