And now he had saved her life.
Makrath turned.
His armor was slicked with blood that wasn't his. His claws dripped with it. His massive chest rose and fell with ragged breaths, and even from here she could feel the rage still rolling off him in waves.
Then he saw her. Saw the blood soaking through her armor, the way she was slumped against the tree, the pallor of her skin.
He crossed the distance in three strides.
And the predator who had just torn another being apart with his bare hands knelt in front of her with a gentleness that made her throat tight.
His hands came up. Huge. Clawed. Still wet with blood.
They touched her like she was made of glass.
One hand cupped her jaw, tilting her face toward his featureless helm. The other found her wounded arm, fingers impossibly careful around the torn armor and torn flesh. He made a sound: low, rumbling, nothing like the roar that had accompanied his violence moments ago. This was different. Softer.
Distress. He was distressed. For her.
"I'm okay," she heard herself say. Her voice came out cracked, barely a whisper. "I'm okay."
The rumble deepened. His hand tightened fractionally on her jaw, and she felt the tremor in his fingers. This massive, terrifying warrior was shaking. Not from exertion. From fear.
Fear. He had been afraid. For her.
The realization cracked her open. The wall she'd been holding together with willpower and denial. The distance she'd tried to maintain between what she wanted and what she'd let herself have.
Her hand came up before she could stop it.
She touched his helm.
The surface was warm beneath her palm. Smooth but alive, humming faintly with contained energy. She traced the curve of it, found the edge where it met what might have been his jaw, let her fingers rest there.
"Makrath," she said. His name. Out loud. The first time she'd spoken it to him rather than inside her own head.
He went utterly still.
Then a sound. Low and rough, vibrating through his chest and into her palm. Her name, rendered strange by the translator but unmistakable.
"Serafina."
She'd heard him say it before. In the ravine, when he'd pinned her to the tree. But this was different. This wasn't claiming or challenging or any of the games they'd been playing. This was recognition. Connection. The beginning of a bond.
His helm lowered. Pressed against her forehead. The heat of him sank through the material into her skin, her bones, her blood. She could feel his breath—fast, ragged—matching her own.
They stayed like that. Seconds stretching into minutes. The jungle silent around them, the corpse of her attacker cooling on the ground, and none of it mattered. Only this. Only him.
Then his hands moved, one sliding beneath her knees, the other behind her back, and he lifted her like she weighed nothing. Cradled against his chest, her head tucked beneath his chin, his arms wrapped around her like he was afraid she might disappear.
She could have protested. Insisted she could walk.
She closed her eyes and let him carry her.
She drifted in and out of consciousness as he moved through the jungle. The pain in her side and arm had faded to a distant throb, numbed by shock or blood loss or whatever the bio-armor was doing to keep her functional. She was aware of his heartbeat against her cheek: faster than a human's, a deep rhythmic pulse that vibrated through his chest. Aware of his scent surrounding her, that alien musk she'd been drowning in for days, stronger now, mixed with the copper tang of blood.
Aware that she felt safe. Truly safe, in a way she hadn't felt since she was a child. Maybe not even then.
When she opened her eyes again, the light had changed. Golden instead of green. She was lying on a bed of moss and leaves, and the ceiling above her was stone. A cave, larger than any she'd sheltered in, with a wide entrance that let in late afternoon sun.
