“You’re probably talking to the one person least equipped to deal with that,” Jaxin huffed, still smiling. I was certain of it. How could he smile? And why did I like his smile so damn much that it made my belly feel all twisty inside? I couldn’t recall ever feeling that way before.
I opened my mouth to tell him he was wrong. His quiet, emotionless Rummicaron mind was like a balm to my frazzled senses. For the first time in days, I wasn’t on overload, and things could begin to heal; that was the theory, at least. My eyes were locked on the corner of his mouth, waiting for it to tilt into that minute smirk again. I did not expect him to snarl, to be confronted with a massive maw of jagged teeth in the blink of an eye. I might have screamed, because it was terrifying, suddenly staring down the gullet of a beast.
The teeth had so much of my terrified attention that I didn’t register the sound of his roar until later, when my ears were ringing. He broke into a run, abruptly throwing me back over his shoulder, and my aching shoulder flared with renewed pain. Everything was happening so fast that my brain struggled to keep up, but I saw it—Jaxin charging at top speed through the underbrush.A Radin giant.
It was huge, as tall as the trees, with thick legs and a leafy sort of skirt tied around his massive waist. He also had a black, segmented tail with a very scary-looking barb at the tip. The massive chest was streaked with red dirt, and that same dirt had been rubbed into his hair. He was a wild creature, nowhere near civilized, and hard to subdue by the Kertinal. His language was crude as he shouted at us, long, thick legs eating up the distance as he gave chase.
“They smell blood,” Jaxin said. “Are you still bleeding from somewhere?” I began to shake my head immediately, but froze, because he could not see that. No, my lip; he’d taken care of that with the pad from his healing kit. Then my blood chilled in my veins. The nick on my chin, I’d forgotten I had it. My fingers went to the slight cut and felt the tiny dried crust. It was so little; was that really it?
“I’m sorry,” I said in a small voice, my eyes locked on the giant pursuing us with shocking agility through the trees. “I forgot.”
Chapter 7
Jaxin
Damn it, this was my fault. I should have been more diligent when checking Dani for injuries earlier. This was my job, to protect her and get her to the extraction point. I’d failed to take the most basic precaution: check her for any blood, because these massive Radin bastards could smell that from miles away.
My Aderian rescue was putting on a brave face, but I could feel her body trembling against me. I’d taken such pleasure in seeing her frown unravel earlier, in feeling the slow unwinding of tension in her muscles. Breathing deeply, I focused on the here and now, on keeping my emotions safely in check. No point in self-blame; it was done, and now I was going to solve the problem. These big bastards probably respected one thing more than anything: power.
When I ran with my precious burden between two massive trees and discovered a large boulder only a little further away, I saw my chance. With a burst of speed, I reached the massive granite rock, slid Dani to her feet, and pressed her with her back against the stone. I swung not-Bex forward on its strap and aimed, firing just as the giant came at us from between the thick trunks of the two trees.
I did not want to kill him. It was not his fault, and we were the invaders here. My shot blew the tree next to him apart, sending splinters flying in every direction. Some of those huge chunks of wood still struck his thick hide, drawing blood, but none of that would be fatal. The giant screamed, his deep voice booming over us so loudly that I dropped the cannon and let it swing from its strap. Reaching for Dani’s small head, I covered her dainty, pointed ears with my hands to protect them from the noise.
The giant huffed, eyed the splintered remains of the tree, swept through them with his black, segmented tail, and then took a step back. That’s right, I might be smaller, but I was definitely a very bad opponent to fight with. He backed up another step, and another, and finally, he turned and retreated until he was out of sight. I did not think that meant we’d lost him, just that, for now, he’d conceded he would not win this round.
“You okay?” I asked my tiny scientist when the dust began to settle and silence once again reigned. I was slow to withdraw my hands from her ears, they felt so soft and dainty. Her hair was even more of a marvel; I’d touched Aderian silk before, and it was just like that: smooth, soft, and it smelled good too.
She nodded in my grip, her breathing shaky, her completely black eyes huge and like dark mirrors. I did not like how menacing I looked in her eyes, but she was not scared of me. That I knew, because she’d reached up to clasp her small hand over mine, almost as if she wanted to stay in my grasp. “The cut is here,” she whispered, and she tilted her chin to expose the sleek, anthracite curve of her elegant neck.
It was a struggle to drop my eyes from her gaze, but when I lowered them, I took in all of her features: the delicate nose, the ever-so-tempting, soft curve of her mouth, and the stubborn angle of her chin. The cut sat below the bone, on the delicate arch of her throat, razor-straight, precise. There was no doubt it had been done with a knife, a very sharp one. The cut had bled, but it had been long enough ago that it had dried into a tiny crust.
“I thought Rummicaron smelled blood too,” she said, watching me as I reached for the pouch with healing supplies on my hip again. I didn’t just withdraw a pad to clean and seal the small wound, but took out the small tissue regenerator too. We did, and I’d definitely smelled the still-somewhat-wet blood on her soft lip. I rubbed the small pad against the wound to get rid of the blood, then let the regenerator do the rest of the work.
“So we do,” I agreed, as I recited another emotion-dampening exercise in my head. It was a struggle to hold on to the cool, emotionless cold when everything about her was tempting me to claim her. That was precisely why the Rummicaron had put a stop to pesky feelings, we were too wildly territorial of our females if we didn’t. Barbaric. Dangerous. I could notlet that happen.
“But we are even more sensitive to the scent of saltwater,” I added, reaching up to touch her temple, where her tears had collected earlier. That scent still filled my nose, thick, tempting, soothing. “Besides, we’re mostly attuned to the scent of blood in water, not air.”
“Oh, I see,” she said, reaching up to rub her temple and hairline with her sleeve. Perhaps she was trying to rid herself of the scent of her tears, but all she managed to do was spread it in the air between us. I should have stepped away, focused the regenerator on her shoulder, and stuck strictly to business; instead, I stepped closer.
Our bodies brushed together, and she was forced to tilt her chin even further back, her hair brushing against the harsh granite behind her. I felt a curl of heat and satisfaction shiver through me when I noticed how much I had her pinned, how in control I was right now. Everything about her was soft, dainty, tiny, and her anthracite skin, shimmering black eyes, and silky black hair were so pretty.
“We’re going to be cut off from leaving the planet a little longer. Wouldn’t be right to lure that big guy to his death at the hands of my brothers. We need to shake him first, then double back to the shuttles.” I stepped back roughly, disgusted with myself for entertaining thoughts of having her in my arms as night fell, of having her all to myself.
“Is it true Rummicaron have no feelings?” she asked, and she asked it with such an astute look in her all-black eyes that I wondered if she sensed things in me that I shouldn’t be feeling.
“I thought you had empathic burnout? What are you sensing?” I asked, genuinely curious. She closed her eyes, and the reflection of me inside them vanished. It had to be myimagination, but it felt like she was stroking silky fingers along my skin as she searched for answers with a sense that seemed too fantastical to exist.
She hummed in the back of her throat, and the sound lanced through my flesh, straight to my cock. I breathed deeply but did not run through exercises; I was too curious to know if she sensed anything. It was playing with fire, this, because I could feel the urge to mate, that powerful Rummicaron instinct my people abhorred. To want her, that was dangerous, and I wanted it anyway.
“No, nothing now,” she said, much to my disappointment, and she opened her eyes to gaze into mine. “It’s very pleasant to be honest,” she admitted in a very soft voice, as if she were supposed to feel guilty for feeling the way she felt. “I am a powerful empath, and it’s very exhausting to be subjected to other people’s feelings all the time. Especially…” she trailed off, her voice growing quiet and her eyes introspective.
She did not need to finish that sentence because I knew exactly what she meant, what she was remembering. She’d been a hostage for days, living in terror alongside four others, fearing for their lives. Not to mention that most empaths struggled the most with the negative feelings: anger, rage, evil, killing intent. She’d been subjected to all of that, and I did not doubt that whoever had cut her throat had been the worst. I wondered if the bastard had made it out of that confrontation with my brothers. If he had, I’d make sure he’d come to regret it.
“We should get moving,” I told her, unsure how to deal with this. It was simpler to let myself sink into the mental exercises that stabilized my mood and myfeelings. They would brush away that awful, possessive instinct that was pulsing through my veins. And, as I had just discovered, it would help her, too.
She nodded, her hand brushing over the shoulder that had been dislocated. I’d given it my best shot with the tissue regenerator, but it would continue to be sore for a while. At least the bruise on her jaw and the cuts she’d incurred were gone, and there was no longer any scent of blood to worry about. Now we just needed to shake our giant and circle back toward the shuttle landing site.
Danitalin fell into step beside me when I urged her deeper into the jungle with me. Perhaps some dense underbrush would do the trick. I also needed to contact the Sineater to check in with the others and let him know our position and situation. Keeping watch on her from the corner of my eye, and my other senses attuned to the rest of the jungle, I raised my comm to my mouth.
