Page 120 of Alien Burn

She nodded. She was frightened by how badly she wanted to keep sitting here. By how much she would miss his hand when she had to let go.

His comm vibrated against the table.

He glanced at the display. Whatever he read wiped the softness from his face.

“I need to take this.”

“Of course.”

He released her slowly and rose, moving a few steps away.

“Tell me.”

Sereya watched the back of his neck. He said very little. Asked who was hurt. Asked whether the medics were there. When he turned, she had already stood.

“Another attack?”

“Janae and Khalzin. In the rooftop garden.”

The room seemed to tilt.

“Alive,” he said before she could ask. “Both of them. They're being checked.”

Sereya gripped the back of her chair. She remembered Janae on the ship, before Kantenan. The hesitant beginnings of a friendship Sereya had let Roemary spoil.

“I have to go,” Dhomhes said.

She nodded, but when he passed her, she caught his sleeve.

He stopped.

“Be careful.”

“I will.”

“I know you're good at this. I still want you to be careful.”

His expression changed. For a moment he looked as though she had given him something he hadn't known to ask for.

He covered her hand with his.

“I heard you.”

Then he was moving, the guard coming forward to take Sereya back to her room, voices rising in the office behind them.

She kept her comm in her hand all the way upstairs.

This time she wanted him to know she would answer.

17

DHOMHES

There was a piece of the garden table in the first image they sent him.

It lay among the leaves beyond the place where Janae had landed. Dhomhes enlarged the image, saw the broken edge, and stopped looking at it before he began imagining distances he could do nothing to change.

The attack was over. Khalzin had fought the males back from Janae with his expandable club; Aster had stunned attackers and kept prisoners alive. Their own guards were securing the roof.