We sit in the dark silence. The strange stars above the desert are bright as they always are. There is no cloud cover to hide them.
As I watch them, my whole purpose for coming out here shifts. Sitting next to him in the freezing air, staring at the stars...my immediate problems just seem so...small.
He hasn’t moved a single muscle. He’s just staring out at the empty dust. He alone is guarding the entire cavern while twenty helpless humans comfortably sleep. Looking at the rigid tension in his broad shoulders, he looks totally exhausted.
Just like I am.
Something aching swells behind my ribs. The urge to know what it actually feels like inside his head overrides my fear.
I want to ask him how he handles the crushing pressure of it all. The impending attack. Making sure everyone is fed. The reliance of us displaced humans. But to ask him a complex question, I cannot rely on his broken English. Without mating, physical contact is required for the mindspace. I would have to press my forehead to his. Close enough to breathe his breath.
I stare at the cold stone separating us.
I slide across the floor until my shoulder is inches from his arm. Kol goes perfectly, unnaturally still. The furnace heat of his skin instantly swallows the freezing draft.
I lean slightly toward him.
A deep rumble starts vibrating in his chest. He shifts, slowly lowering his head until his face is level with mine. The heat rolling off his body is suffocating. When he parts his lips, showing a flash of sharp teeth, my heart hammers wildly against my ribs.
I tilt my chin up, squeeze my eyes shut, and press my forehead flush against his.
The contact is like an electric shock.
The mindspace bridge erupts. The shock of his presence hits the front of my skull so hard it makes me gasp.
Without the delay of my earpiece translator, his mind is justthere. Instantaneous. Fluid.
His thoughts aren’t even words. They are sensory, instinctual feelings. The smell of hot stone. The instinct to protect. The urge to...mate.
I swallow hard on that last one, forcing myself to keep my forehead pressed against his.
“How do you do it?” I whisper aloud. A raw image of a crushing weight pushes across the mental link from me to him. “How do you carry them all?”
Nothing happens. For several long heartbeats, I don’t hear a thing.
My face flushes. Of course it didn’t work. I don’t know how to project actual thoughts. We aren’t mated, and I don’t really know how any of this works.
I start to pull back, utterly humiliated.
But a blisteringly hot hand instantly clamps over the back of my neck. Kol’s long claws thread forcefully into my hair, holding my forehead firmly against his.
A low, steady pressure pushes straight against my mind.
“Not carry,” Kol projects. His mental tone is a physical weight inside my head. “Lead.”
I gasp out loud. It is a deep, clear voice vibrating directly behind my eyes, echoing through the center of my own thoughts.Hisvoice.
I swallow hard, not sure what to say next. This is so unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before.
“I-it’s the same thing,” I finally manage to breathe, closing my eyes against the overwhelming proximity of his face.
The silence sits thick between us.
“...yes.”
I let the mental connection pull the panic directly out of my chest. The bitter taste of the contaminated water. The frantic counting of rations in the dark. The sickening dread of stepping up because someone has to, and now having to pretend I know how to keep us all alive.
The low, steady furnace heat of his skin grounds me. I expect him to pull back, heck, I’m not even sure if I’m doing this mindspace thing right, but he does not recoil from the panic.
