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Nell didn’t feel guilty, not for a second. Doctor Kingsbury, or whoever the hell she was, had lied to her the second they’d met. She’d convinced Nell there was something seriously wrong with her. Hell, she’d come here because she had sleeping problems. It had nothing to do with being abducted by aliens.

That bitch had implanted five years of fake memories into her head to make her think she needed help.

Nell lifted Rane’s head off the ground and placed it in her lap as she waited for medical assistance to arrive.

She wiped goo off his face and arms. “Stay with me. Everything will be fine.”

A succession of messages pinged on her wrist comm. She wiped goo off it and accessed them.

The first three were from Vegas and her friends. Where are you? What are you doing? What do you know about the bombs?

“Oh, balls,” Nell muttered. How would she get everybody to believe what had happened?

She couldn’t care about that. All she could focus on was Rane and making sure he’d be okay. If he didn’t get through this, she wouldn’t be able to forgive herself.

He’d helped her when she’d most needed it. He’d ignored the fact she’d been rude and bitter and had tried to put him off at every opportunity. He’d stayed with her, and now he was dying.

Nell’s heart lurched. Rane couldn’t die. He couldn’t leave her. She’d just found him. She’d found the one alien who didn’t freak her out. The one alien she loved.

She shook her head and stroked her fingers through his sticky hair. She liked all aliens. Well, not the one she’d just torn apart. That Passista deserved it. But Nell had never had a phobia connected to aliens.

She held her hand over Rane’s neck frill. She knew what it meant to him and how protective he was of it. He’d said only loved ones should touch it.

Nell brushed her fingers along the edge. The color shifted from green to red.

She did it again as she lowered her mouth to his ear. “I love you.”

The door to the office slid open. A dark-haired medic hurried through. He slowed as he took in the scene in front of him, the blobs of Passista dotted around the room, Nell on the floor covered in slime, and Rane passed out.

“What happened here?”

“There’s no time to explain. You need to help my... mate. He had a fight with a Passista. She really messed with him.”

“No kidding.” The medic hopped over a pile of goo and knelt next to Rane.

Nell moved out of the way and stood over him, her hands clasped in front of her.

The medic did a couple of tests, muttering under his breath as he did so, and ran a hand-held scanner over Rane.

“How’s he doing?” Nell asked.

“Physically, he’s not in bad shape.”

“Which is good news.”

“Sure, but if he engaged in a mental battle with a Passista, it’s hard to assess how bad the damage is. Passista’s can destroy a human mind, possibly anyone’s mind if they work hard enough.”

Nell swallowed the lump in her throat. “You’re saying Rane could be brain damaged?”

“It’s too early to say.” The medic packed up his kit. He pulled out two metal poles and pressed a button on one of them. They shot out to extend into a floating stretcher. “I’ll get him to the medical bay. We can run a series of tests and see how bad it is.”

“I can’t lose him.” Nell heard the tremble in her words.

“We’ve not lost him yet.” He expertly rolled Rane onto the stretcher. It lifted into the air, taking Rane’s weight as the medic caught hold of the end of one pole.

“I’m coming with you,” Nell said.

“That’s fine. Mates can stay with each other. You’ll need to give us time to run the tests, though. Get some rest while we do that.” The medic looked at Nell’s goo splattered clothes. “Perhaps grab a shower and a change of clothes, as well.”