“You have many faces.” He settled beside her, close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from his body. “Happy face. Thinking face. Frustrated face. Tired face.” He reached out and traced a finger along the furrow between her brows. “Worried face.”
His touch sent electricity sparking through her nerve endings. She pulled back, and saw the flicker of hurt in his eyes. She hated that she’d put it there.
“I’m trying to figure out what to do,” she said. “When the storm ends.”
“We go outside?”
“It’s not that simple.”
He cocked his head again. “Why?”
Because you’re a scientific miracle. Because you’re proof that Mars once harbored intelligent life. Because there are people who would cut you open to study you, who would lock you in a lab and treat you like a specimen instead of a person.
Because I can’t stand the thought of anything happening to you.
She didn’t say any of that. Instead, she pulled up a holographic map of the colony on her tablet, the blue lines glowing softly. “This is where I live. It’s called Border Town. It’s a small settlement, but there are still hundreds of humans there. Scientists, engineers, support staff. More humans have settled throughout the valley. If they find out about you?—”
“They will hurt me?”
The bluntness of the question made her chest ache. “I don’t know. Maybe. Some of them would want to study you. Examine you. Ask you questions, take samples…” She trailed off, unable to continue. The thought of him strapped to a table, surrounded by researchers in sterile suits, made her physically ill.
“I am strong.” He flexed one massive arm, and despite everything, a small smile tugged at her lips. “I protect myself.”
“It’s not about strength. They have weapons. Things that can hurt you no matter how strong you are.” She set the tablet aside and drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. “And even if you could fight them off, what then? Where would you go? You can’t live in here forever, hidden in a cave.”
Can you?
The question haunted her. She’d been examining the cavern’s ecosystem since she arrived, cataloging the various plant species and the remarkable way they’d adapted to survive underground. The bioluminescent vines provided light. The purple leaves collected and stored water. The berries Rhyx had shown her were nutritious enough to sustain life. In theory, someone could survive down here indefinitely.
But that wouldn’t be living. And she couldn’t condemn Rhyx to an eternity of darkness and isolation, no matter how much it might keep him safe.
“Alina.”
She looked up. He’d moved closer while she was lost in thought, his face inches from hers. The soft light played across his features, illuminating the sharp planes of his cheekbones, the ridge of scales along his jaw, and the impossible beauty of eyes that had seen an entirely different Mars.
“You worry too much,” he said.
“Someone has to.”
“Why?”
“Because—” She stopped, frustration bubbling up in her chest. “Because the world doesn’t work the way you think it does.Because humans aren’t always kind. Because I found you, and that makes you my responsibility, and I can’t just?—”
“I protect you.”
“That’s not?—”
“I protect you,” he repeated, more firmly this time. His hand came up to cup her cheek, his palm warm and slightly rough against her skin. “You found me. You woke me. You are mine. I protect you.”
The possessiveness in his voice should have triggered every feminist alarm in her brain. Instead, it made something warm unfurl in her belly, something she’d been trying very hard to ignore for three days.
“Rhyx, you don’t understand?—”
“Then help me understand.”
“I’m trying! But you keep—” She pulled away from his touch, turning so she didn’t have to look at those blue eyes that saw too much. “You keep acting like everything is simple. Like all you have to do is protect me and everything will be fine. But it won’t be fine. The storm is going to end. People are going to come looking for me. And when they find you?—”
“They will not find me.”
