Despite the wounds starting to heal, Ni-Kee still burns with fever, her sleep restless.
I wring my hands, wishing there was something more I could do.
As soon as I settled Ni-Kee into the cave, making a pallet of sorts out of the thin blankets in the bags, I set to work on butchering the troblek and sorting through the supplies.
Now strips of meat smoke in a pit near the entrance, and the stew bubbles on the main fire.
There’s nothing for me to do but wait.
The surface of the freshwater pool is still as glass, the cave quiet save for the crackle of fire and the labored sound of Ni-Kee’s breathing. My feet eat up the ground as I pace, finally making my way to where she rests and crouching beside her.
“I cannot stand to see you suffer, my Ni-Kee.” I take her hand in mine, and it’s cold and damp. Her face is pinched, even in sleep, the greyish cast to her skin not yet banished. “I have faith the yaven leaves will work, but you must hold on until the broth is ready. You cannot leave me, do you understand?”
I sit next to her, wiping her brow occasionally, the yaven and troblek stew starting to fill the cave with its pungent medicinal fragrance.
“You are the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen,” I tell her fervently, memorizing the planes of her face. The high cheekbones and pink mouth. The black lashes, fluttering as her eyes move, no doubt dreaming fevered things. The spangle of spots across her nose. I never got to ask her what they are called in her language, and I count them now, taking solace in each spot as proof she still lives.
One-hundred and twenty-seven.
“You are brave, and bold, and stubborn, and you are everything I have ever desired in a mate. And I am furious with you for not telling me you were hurting, you little human fool.”
My throat closes up, and I press her hand in between mine before placing it back on her chest.
Standing, I cross over to the pot of medicinal stew. Bubbles form across the surface, and prodding the meat causes it to fall apart into tender pieces.
Good. I heave a sigh of relief. If I can get it into her, then she will recover.
She has to.
She must.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
NIKI
Hot, bitter liquid slides down my throat, and I cough on it, opening my eyes weakly.
They feel so heavy.
Where am I?
I blink, the shapes around me blurred as my brain catches up. Broth dribbles down my chin, and I try to wipe it away, but my hands won’t move.
“Easy, easy, little human. Ni-Kee, you are safe.”
“Where—” I blink again, and something wet and cold brushes against my forehead. It comes out a croak, but everything stretches and spills across my memory.
I’m on Sueva.
“Draz,” I rasp, and he’s there. His massive, taloned hand is on mine, another on a spoon filled with broth at my lips. “Feeding me again, I see.”
I’m aiming for a joke, but neither of us laugh.
“What…”
“You still need rest, my beautiful mate. The toxin in the snail… it took days for it to work itself out of your system.”
My head aches, my throat’s on fire, and I have the most insanely strong urge to pee.
“I have to use the facilities,” I tell him, too tired to be embarrassed. Fucking demon snails. His mouth scrunches up to the side in confusion. Okay. “I need to pee. Relieve myself.”
“Thank the mother Sueva,” he says.
“I haven’t gone to the…How long?” I shake my head, but it just makes me dizzy, and I give it up quickly.
“Not once. I have never been so afraid in my entire life, and I once led a charge against the Roth on a settler planet, completely outnumbered.”
My eyes are wide, my mouth parted as the big alien warlord continues, his thumb stroking gently over the top of my hand.
“Four is the number of days you have been asleep. Twenty is the number of times I have tried to wake you, spooning broth into your mouth while you sleep, hoping you got some of the medicine down. I lost count of the number of times you cried out in your sleep, and all I could do was wipe your pink face and feel helpless.”
His eyes are dark, his face bleak.
“Seven is the number of times I counted the brown spots sprinkled across your nose, of which there are 127. And I have long since lost count of the number of times I begged you to realize I cannot live without you.”
The low, fervent words send a shiver down my spine, and I want to touch his face, to tell him thank you, but I’m so weak. So I just stare, blinking up at him.
“What are they called?”
“What? What are what called?”
“The brown dots sprinkled across your flesh.”
“Oh, my freckles.” I blink. “They’re from the sun.”
“That makes sense, frec-kuhls, a gift from the sun.” He nods. “Yes, since they are now as important to me as the many stars in the sky, and every bit as beautiful.”
My throat tightens, utterly speechless.
“Come,” he says, setting the bowl and spoon aside and easily lifting me into his arms.
“I don’t want you to watch,” I tell him.
“Humans are strange, foolish creatures,” he says. “I changed your bandages for the entire Suevan week, and you are afraid of me watching you while you relieve your bladder? Bah.”
“Okay,” I say, and rest my head against his shoulder. “You’re right.”
His eyes narrow, and he dips his chin towards my face, inspecting it. “Perhaps you are not out of the woods yet, my wife.”
I nearly tell him I’m not his wife, that the sham of a mating ritual we had doesn’t count.
But the words die on my tongue.
If the situation I’ve ended up in isn’t the literal human version of ‘for better or for worse’ then I don’t know what would be.
And maybe, just maybe, I would be lucky to have someone take care of me like this for the rest of my life.
I do my business quickly, and my legs shake so badly Draz has to help hold me up.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, and he wordlessly hands me a piece of cloth to clean up with.
“I do not want your apologies. I want you to drink your broth, eat something, and go back to sleep. Do you not want to heal?” His expression is so dark that I hardly recognize my once easy-going warlord. This is not my teasing alien—this is the commander who ripped the spines from our mutual enemies in battle.
I shiver again, and his large hand steadies me, spanning the entire width of my lower back. No argument comes from me as he lifts me up, walking through the strange cave and laying me back on the sweaty blankets.
“I stink,” I tell him, and furious tears well in my eyes. Good lord. No. I am not crying again.
“Your eyes are… Never mind,” he says quickly, but I can tell he’s worried.
“It’s called crying. Humans do it when they are sad or overwhelmed or happy or angry.”
“That makes no sense.”
“You’re not wrong.” I smile up at him, and a single tear drips down my cheek. He reaches out, then pauses, his eyes wide, as if expecting me to snap at him.
Slowly, so slowly, he runs the pad of his finger down my skin, tracing the path of my tear. “What does this one mean?”
“It means I’m grateful to you. I’m pretty sure you saved my life.” The words are low, a near whisper, and I half wonder if he’s even heard them.