“Yes.”
“We can’t stay out here like this,” I continue. “If it circles back?—”
“It will,” he says with that same flat tone and absolute certainty.
“You’re very reassuring,” I mutter, glancing over and shaking my head.
No response. Of course not. Why respond to the obvious?
“The city is this way,” I say, angling my chin toward a distant line of darker terrain barely visible through the heat distortion. “We were moving supplies toward it before—” I stop myself from saying the word kidnap, even though that’s what happened. I shift my words to be less provocative. “There’s structure, cover, underground sections. If we can reach it?—”
“Cover,” he says, cutting me off with his agreement.
Relief flickers, small and quick, but gone just as fast.
“Yes. Real cover. Not sand.”
He shifts direction, adjusting to what I said. That makes me pause. I thought it would be harder to get his agreement to return to my people. That’s probably the most important thing I can think of right now, besides surviving this experience. They need to know about the new threat.
“You’re listening now?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says after a beat.
“Good,” I say, exhaling sharply.
We continue in silence for a stretch, but it’s not the brittle silence from before. No longer a tense standoff. Something closer to functional. Extreme threats will do that, if nothing else.
The dunes roll beneath us, the terrain shifting constantly, forcing small adjustments with every step. My footing slips once, then again, but I recover fast, learning the way the sand falls. It’s like he said—not speed or moving fast. Staying alive is the most important thing.
The wind picks up, dragging sand across the surface in thin, whispering lines. My eyes track the movement automatically, scanning for anything that doesn’t fit. Anything that moves wrong. Anything that?—
A flicker cuts across the sky. Faint. Fast.
“There—”
I don’t finish before he moves faster than before. His hand closes around my arm, pulling me off my line and down the side of the dune before I react, forcing me into motion I didn’t choose.
“Hey—”
“Down.”
The word is sharp. I drop on instinct.
We hit the lower slope hard, sand sliding under us as he drives us into the shallow trough between dunes. My balance goes for a second, then recovers as I dig my boots in and follow his lead instead of fighting him.
The hum doesn’t come, but I don’t know if that means anything. He doesn’t stop moving until we reach a dip deep enough tobreak line of sight from above. Then he pulls me in. Close. Too close. It takes my breath. My heart races.
My back hits his chest as he shifts, angling his body over mine—shielding, blocking, cutting off every angle of exposure with his own. My skin warms at the contact of his cool scales.
“Too much,” I start, pushing lightly against his arm. “You don’t need to?—”
He tightens his grip, and my pulse spikes.
“This is getting old,” I say, sharper now. “You keep grabbing me like?—”
“Stay.”
The word is not just command. He’s straining, and I feel it, and I stop because of that. His hold doesn’t ease. Doesn’t shift back to that controlled, measured contact from before. It stays locked too tight.
