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“One more down,” Navi reported.
“Let’s go,” Lis said, smacking Nox on the shoulder and pointing at a troll with bright purple spikes of hair covering his head and trailing down his back. Dressed in only a tattered gray kilt, he glared around, banging a fist on his chest and swinging a spiked club.
Nox needed to give Lis a chance to dart the troll. Switching to his blaster, Nox charged towards the massive creature, drawing his attention. The troll shouted, his battle cry like the clash of two boulders, and lumbered towards Nox. They weren’t fast, but once they built up a head of steam, they could plow through solid rock. He wouldn’t let any get close to his mate.
“Incoming.” Nox twisted and shot the troll chasing him.
It bounced off his shoulder, pissing him off. The troll roared, brandishing his club.
“Oh, shit,” Lis said from her cover behind a rock stack. She took aim. “Careful, Nox. He’s on your heels.”
He zig-zagged, ducking under a wild swing, the wind from the club passing overhead, ruffling his hair. “Doing my best.”
An unconscious troll crashed to the ground in front of him. Navi hooted in delight. “Three left. Let’s go.”
Nox grinned, his adrenaline spiking. “Be ready, mate. This one’s for you.” He shifted trajectory towards Lis, the pissed-off troll thundering in his wake. They needed to get close, but not too close. Blasting at him over his shoulder, he worked to keep the troll’s attention focused on him.
“Slow him down if you can, Nox,” Lis said. “I’m a decent shot, but he’s really moving.”
Darting to the right, he took aim at the troll’s knees and fired.
There was a sharp whistle, and Lis crowed with delight. “We got him.”
The troll stumbled, his club swinging wide, right towards where Lis crouched. Nox leapt into its path with a roar.
“Look out,” Lis shouted, her eyes wide.
Pain exploded in his head, sending him crashing to the ground. He heard his mate cry out his name, then everything went dark.
16
LIS
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw that club hit his head, and him drop to the ground, blood pooling beneath him. Lis perched on a chair next to his medi-bed, watching the steady blinking of its blue and green lights, wishing there was something more she could do other than stare at them.
Sona assured her those lights were the colors they were supposed to be and that, yes, spending over a day in the tube was normal, especially with a head wound like Nox received. Supposedly, he would be almost back to one hundred percent once the medi-bed finished its job. She’d believe it when she could touch him and talk to him.
At least he was alive. Sona showed her which area on the panel was his heartbeat, and she’d zealously monitored it since they put him in the tube thirty-six hours ago. She appreciated all this alien technology, especially their advancements in medicine, though. On Earth, getting his head bashed in like that would have spelled the end of him.
One of those flashing lights represented a button that would make a panel transparent to observe a patient within. Unfortunately, she didn’t know which one, and she wasn’t about to go pressing random buttons, in case she shut off the oxygen or something. She appreciated this fancy tech that could fix a person in a matter of hours, but she also needed to hold her mate’s hand and see his face, not merely stare at the surface of this stupid tube.
She jolted as if zapped by electricity. Did she really just call him her mate? When had she started thinking of him like that?
Scrubbing her fingers through her hair, she scraped her short nails over her scalp to focus and bring more oxygen to her brain so she could fully process this shift in her thinking. So much had changed in such a short time. It might be that she was grabbing onto the first person to show her kindness and tenderness in this strange new galaxy. But she didn’t think so.
Generally, she wasn’t one to let her emotions dictate her actions. Then again, this was her first time on an alien planet, and she was so far from everything familiar. It was pretty fucking overwhelming, even for a professional adrenaline junkie like herself.
This connection, it felt real. She’d been in love before. But this bond with Nox was deeper and somehow tangible, like she could reach out and touch the shimmering gold silk that joined them. Not only heart-deep. Soul-deep.
She loved him.
Her breath caught, her heart stuttering at the realization.
Her therapist would say her attachment to him was a trauma response, but she could definitively say it wasn’t that. She knew with every fiber of her being that Nox was her soul mate. Suddenly, she didn’t want to wait to accept his offer to join him on his ship, to explore the galaxy with him, and to spend every night in his arms.
Splaying a hand over the cool surface of the medi-bed’s tube, she said, “Time to wake up, Nox. I’m out here having my mind blown and life altered, and I have things to say to you.”
All the lights flashed at once, and the machine chimed. Lis jumped back, eyes wide.
