Page 65 of Claimed By the Wraiths

I was on the floor. The corridor was dark and I was in it and the edges of me were gone.

JESSA

Ifound him at the end of the corridor, past bodies I didn’t stop to count.

He was on the floor. Vain’s body behind him, crumpled under the command panel. Six guards down between them.

A plasma burn crossed Serak’s ribs, the fabric of his shirt blackened and stuck to the wound.

But the wound wasn’t what was wrong.

The shadow-meld was eating him from the inside.

Not one long stretch in the dark. Nearly two weeks of going in and out of it: controlled crossings, deeper compressions when the station left him no other route, too little sleep, too little recovery, then the final sustained push through Vain’s guard before the research could be isolated.

He had spent everything in increments.

Now the increments had added up.

His eyes were open. He wasn’t seeing the corridor.

I dropped beside him and put my hands on his face.

His skin was cold. Not cool. Cold.

My hands started shaking so hard my fingertips skipped against his jaw.

I locked my palms around him and tried to breathe.

Air went in and stopped somewhere under my ribs. My pulse hammered in my throat. Every part of me wanted to move faster, do more, find a control panel for this and force it open.

There wasn’t one.

There was only him, slipping somewhere I couldn’t follow.

And me.

“Serak.” I said his name. The most important word I had. “Your name is Serak. I’m Jessa. You’re on Nexus Station. The upload is done.”

Nothing.

“The Raptor is here. The crew is here. Zevik almost crashed into the external array and Deyric said their encryption was an insult to his profession.”

A faint line of light stirred under my left palm.

There.

I kept talking.

“There’s a mess hall on the Raptor. You sit at the head of the table. I sit to your left. Late watch. Everyone else asleep. Lights down. Ship humming.”

The light stopped fading.

“I put sweetness in your mug because you’d never add it yourself. You know I do it. I know you know. Neither of us ever says a word about it.”

Warmer under my hands.

“You left one at my place before the Meridian briefing. It was cold by the time I found it. I drank it anyway. You knew I would.”