I tried to think about the mission. About routes and contingencies and what we'd do if we actually found the humans. Tried to think about supplies, estimate how many people we could rescue, what was the plan for resistance.
My mind kept drifting.
Back to last night. To the cave and the firebird blood and the way he'd looked at me when I'd told him to touch me like he meant it.
To the feel of him inside me, stretching me, filling me, that alien appendage finding places that made me see stars.
Heat flooded through me that had nothing to do with Volcaryth's climate.
This was bad.
I opened my eyes, stared at the rock ceiling above me. Counted the cracks and fissures, cataloged the geological features, did anything to distract myself from the fact that I wanted him again.
Already. After just one night.
I had to push it away, to ignore it. For my own good. For the good of the humans stranded out there somewhere.
I just wish I knew how.
11
NYX
The canyon wallspressed close on either side, carved by eons of wind into shapes that looked almost intentional. I landed hard, my wings protesting the final descent after hours of sustained flight. Our rest had been brief, and we’d taken off again as soon as the worst of the day’s heat had abated. The stone beneath my feet was still radiating heat from the setting suns, turning the narrow space into an oven.
Lexa slid from my arms before I'd fully settled my balance. She moved away immediately, scanning the canyon with the competence I'd come to expect. All business.
My tail reached for her without permission. I yanked it back, coiled it tight against my leg.
She didn't notice. Already shrugging off her pack, she claimed a section of smooth stone near the far wall. At least twenty feet from where I stood.
The distance felt like miles.
I forced myself to move. Set down my own pack, began the routine of making camp.
Lexa pulled out her bedroll, spread it across the stone with easy movements. The fabric was thin, designed for minimalweight rather than comfort. She'd sleep on rock tonight, wake up stiff and sore.
Or she could share mine, let me keep her warm through the night the way mates were supposed to.
The words died before reaching my mouth.
She was making her boundaries clear. Separate spaces. Distance. Last night had been an aberration, a moment of weakness or need that she clearly regretted.
My chest ached with something I couldn't name.
I set up my own bedroll on the opposite side of the canyon. The space between us felt wrong. Unnatural. Every instinct I possessed screamed at me to close that gap, to nest with my mate, to wrap myself around her and keep her safe through the vulnerable hours of sleep.
Drakarn females didn't do this. After mating, they slept together. Shared warmth and scent and space. The bonding period was sacred, a time to cement the connection through proximity and touch.
But Lexa was human.
Maybe her customs were different. Maybe this distance was expected, some ritual I didn't understand.
Or maybe it meant nothing to her.
I pulled out rations, offered her half without speaking. She took them with a nod, settled cross-legged on her bedroll. We ate in silence broken only by the scrape of dried meat against teeth, the sound of swallowing.
Her scent drifted across the space. Sweat and leather and underneath it all, that sweetness that made my fangs ache. I breathed through my mouth, trying to minimize the impact.
