But Delilah didn't answer. Didn't move. Just kept bleeding while she sat trapped three feet away, hands shaking, covered in blood and glass and twenty years of survivor's guilt, watching her cousin die and knowing it was her fault.
All of it.
Every bit.
Emergency lights strobed red and blue through the smoke haze as the two Latharians ran into the tunnel, turning it into something from a nightmare. Human emergency services had established a perimeter—vehicles, personnel, the organized rush of people trying to save lives against a clock that didn't give a damn about their efforts.
He cataloged exits, threats, casualties. Three vehicles in the primary wreckage. Fire suppression active, but smoke still thick enough to sting his eyes. Fourteen human emergency personnel working the scene. Multiple casualties visible.
And her.
Kirr's gaze locked onto the fragile female trapped in the passenger seat of the worst wreckage and everything else—the smoke, the sirens, the mission briefing that had brought him here—ceased to matter.
She was his.
The knowledge hit him with the force of certainty he'd only ever felt in combat when a decision meant life or death and there was no time for doubt. He didn't understand it, couldn't explain it, but his body knew her before his brain could catch up.
She was tiny. Even from twenty feet away he could see how delicate she was, how her dark hair fell around a face too pale, how she shook with tremors that had nothing to do with cold. Blood and glass covered her torn clothing. Her hands clawed at the seatbelt with desperate, useless movements.
Kirr moved before thinking, crossing the distance between them with speed that made the human personnel scatter.
"—female, conscious, signs of shock?—"
"—need to stabilize before extraction?—"
He ignored them and roared for Kellat. The healer appeared at his shoulder, medical scanner already active, and Kirr forced himself to freeze from the wreckage while Kellat did his job.
"Minor injuries," Kellat said after a scan that took five seconds too long. "Cuts, bruising, possible cracked rib. She's in shock but stable enough to move."
Kirr didn't wait for more. He reached into the wreckage, his hands finding purchase on twisted metal that groaned under his grip. The door was jammed, the frame bent at an angle that would take human emergency services ten minutes and hydraulic equipment to handle.
He ripped it free in one motion.
Her head snapped toward him. Her eyes—hazel, he registered, shifting between green and brown in the strobing light—went wide with terror that cut straight through him.
Then she looked at him. Really looked. Her gaze locked onto his face and something shifted in those hazel depths.
He moved into the wreckage carefully, despite every instinct screaming at him to just grab her and get her somewhere safe. The seatbelt release clicked under his fingers. She was shaking so hard he felt it through the air between them.
"I've got you," he said, his voice coming out rougher than intended.
He lifted her free of the wreckage and the moment his hands closed around her slight frame, the protective instinct that had been roaring through him since first sight intensified into something that stole his breath.
She fit in his arms like she'd been made for them.
The size difference was staggering. His hands spanned her waist completely, his fingers nearly meeting when he cradled her against his chest. She was all soft curves and fragile bones, delicate in a way that made something fierce and possessive rise up in him. Her head barely reached his shoulder. If he wrapped both arms around her, he could hide her from the world entirely.
The scent of her fear-sweat and blood mixed with something underneath—something that called to parts of him he didn't have names for. He could hear her heartbeat, rapid and erratic, could feel the exact moment each gasping breath filled her lungs.
When had his senses gotten this sharp?
She looked up at him and her hazel eyes locked onto his face like he was the only solid thing in a world that had gone liquid and wrong. Her hand came up, pressed against his chest armor like she needed to confirm he was real.
"—other female, driver's seat, critical injuries?—"
Kellat's voice cut through the moment. Kirr turned his head enough to see his healer moving to the driver's side of the wreckage, saw the grim set of Kellat's jaw when the medical scanner lit up.
Draanth. Those injuries were bad.
