Her shaking started to ease. Not gone—she was still trembling in his arms—but the violent shudders that had wracked her small body were subsiding. Her breathing slowed. Her pupils contracted back toward something approaching normal.
She was coming back.
He watched it happen, watched the way she used his heartbeat as a metronome to pace her own breathing, watched her anchor herself to the solid reality of his body under her palm. He'd seen this technique work before, but never like this. Never with someone looking at him like he was the only thing standing between her and drowning.
"There you are," he said quietly.
Her hazel eyes found his again and this time, there was recognition in them. Awareness. She was seeing him now, not ghosts.
"I've got you," He told her, and shifted his grip to free his jacket from where he'd stripped it off during the extraction. He wrapped it around her shoulders, tucking it close to trap what little warmth her shocky body was generating.
The jacket dwarfed her. Swallowed her small frame entirely. His scent would be all over it, marking her to anyone with the sense to notice.
Good.
Behind them, Kellat was calling for emergency medical transport and coordinating with the human emergency services. The other female—Delilah—had injuries severe enough that Kellat's grim expression told the whole story. Critical. Life-threatening. Time sensitive.
She turned her head, tried to see past his shoulder to where Kellat worked. "Delilah..."
"My healer has her," Kirr said. "She's getting the best care possible."
"She's dying." The words came out flat, certain, laced with guilt so thick he could smell it under the fear-sweat and blood. "She's dying and it's my fault."
"No."
She looked up at him, hazel eyes swimming with tears she was too exhausted to shed. "You don't understand. I should have stopped her. Should have?—"
"No," he repeated, his voice absolute. He started walking, carrying her toward where their shuttle waited beyond the emergency perimeter. She weighed nothing in his arms. A hundred and forty pounds at most, all soft curves and breakable bones against his two hundred and eighty pounds of muscle and armor. "You didn't cause this. You survived it. There's a difference."
She opened her mouth like she wanted to argue but nothing came out. Just a small, broken sound that made every protective instinct in him roar.
Emergency personnel parted for him as he walked. Some moved aside automatically when they saw his size and armor. Others caught sight of his face and whatever expression he was wearing made them step back fast.
Good. They should know she was under his protection now. Should understand that anyone who tried to take her from him would have to go through him first.
She sagged against his shoulder, her body going limp with exhaustion. Her hand was still pressed against his chest where skin met armor, still holding onto that point of contact like it was the only thing keeping her tethered.
Her breathing had evened out. The shaking had subsided to fine tremors. She was safe in his arms and his jacket and his scent, wrapped in protection she didn't even know she'd claimed.
He carried her through the smoke and the strobing lights and the organized rush of emergency response, his arms steady, his stride certain and his entire world narrowed down to the female who fit against his chest like she'd been made to be there.
Mine, something primal whispered in the back of his mind. Mine to protect. Mine to keep. Mine.
3
The world tilted and swayed as the big alien carried her toward the shuttle, her head tucked against his bare chest. Harper tried to focus on anything other than the solid warmth of him, the way his muscles shifted beneath her cheek with each step, but it was impossible. Everything else felt distant and hazy, like she was watching herself from somewhere far away.
The shuttle loomed ahead, sleek and foreign, its hull reflecting the emergency lights in strange patterns. Nothing like the boxy flyer car that had?—
No. Don't think about the crash. Don't think about the metal crumpling, the screaming, the way Delilah's head had?—
"Easy," he murmured, his voice rumbling through his chest into her ear. "You're safe."
She wasn't safe. Delilah wasn't safe. Nothing was safe anymore. But his arms tightened around her and somehow her racing pulse slowed, just a fraction. Kirr… he’d said his name was Kirr.
It was… nice. Not what she’d expected for an alien name, but nice.
The shuttle door opened with a hiss that made her flinch. Kirr paused at the entrance, adjusting his grip, and then they were inside. The interior was all smooth surfaces and foreign design, nothing like the cramped human transport shuttles she'd seen in vids. This was military. Purpose-built and efficient.
