by Lea Linnett
“Is he dead?” Kamanek asked in a strained voice.
Cara shrugged. It was Niro who dropped to the floor to inspect him. “Still breathing,” he said.
“Good.” Cara stepped toward Taz, ignoring the levekk at her feet. “Are you all right?”
Taz winced when Cara moved to cup her cheeks, even that slight movement sending marbles cascading through her skull. “Not great. I’ll be fine, though.”
Cara’s eyebrows pinched in concern. “You’re most likely concussed, and who knows what else.” She glanced back at Niro, who was securing the cord around Siikas’ chest. “You two stay here. Niro and I will go inside and get copies of that data.”
“You’re joking,” said Taz. “Siikas was right about the security. Place is full of them.”
“Some of them are on my side,” Niro said, as he straightened. “And the rest, along with Siikas’ mercenaries, won’t want to stick around for long once we tell them their paycheck’s about to be picked up by enforcers.”
Taz opened her mouth to protest, but Kamanek’s hand on her arm stilled her. “He’s right. Siikas doesn’t exactly foster much loyalty in his men.”
“Here,” said Niro, crossing to the back wall and snagging a starter key from the wall. He pointed it at one of the transports parked to the side, and then threw it at Kamanek, who caught it one-handed. “There’s a med-kit in that transport. Patch yourselves up as best as possible, and then take it to the safehouse on the edge of the city.”
“But…”
“Taz.” Cara held her gaze, her hand on her shoulder. “We’ll be fine. We’ll meet up with Niro’s guys, deal with Shinik, and get the data. Then we’ll send a tip to the enforcers and get the fuck out of here.”
“You’ll be okay with him?” she asked, glancing at Niro.
Cara looked at the huge levekk over her shoulder. “He’s done right by us so far. And he helped you.”
“He may have evened the odds a little,” Taz admitted.
Cara smiled. “Maybe you were right about them.”
Taz let herself be pulled into a brief hug before resting her weight back on Kamanek. He wobbled slightly, but held her, and they began limping their way towards the transport.
“Niro, put Siikas in one of the cages,” she heard Cara say. “His mercs won’t be able to pull him out without the codes.”
“And what do we do with him?” Niro asked, gesturing towards the unconscious mercenary they’d left on the ground.
“Tie him up and bring him with us,” said Cara. “He should work as some kind of bargaining chip, and if not we’ll put him in with Siikas.”
Taz held on to Kamanek tightly as they struggled on, helping him stay upright as much as he was helping her. Her heart was pounding, skipping a beat whenever she felt his wounded abdomen tremble beneath her palm. How could he have done that for her? How could he have endangered himself like that?
Except, she knew exactly how. She would have done the same, if she’d seen Kamanek in her position. But that was because she… loved him. She loved him almost as much as she did Cara, despite his best attempts to convince her otherwise.
He couldn’t possibly feel the same for her. Not after… everything.
She clutched at him as they neared the transport, closing her eyes. There was no time to worry about that now. She had to focus on repairing Kamanek’s injuries.
But that didn’t stop the tiny spark of hope from igniting in her chest.
33
Kamanek’s chest ached as he settled into the transport’s backseat, but he didn’t care. Relief flooded through him as Taz crawled into the cramped space, and all he wanted was to pull her into his arms, to ensure that yes, she was really alive, despite her injuries. That he hadn’t been too late.
He got his wish when she stumbled, hissing with pain and landing heavily between his legs. He hooked the door closed behind her with his foot, and they were left in silence.
“Fuck, did I hurt you?” she said, pushing herself up from where she’d landed on his chest. She winced, clutching her temple, and he stilled her with a hand on her cheek.
“I’m fine,” he murmured, searching her face. “But what about you? I didn’t see how hard he hit you.”
Her cheeks had reddened under his touch, and she looked up at him through her eyelashes.
“It’s just a concussion,” she hedged, her face falling when Kamanek tutted.
“Just a concussion. Right.”
“I’m fine. I just have to rest,” she insisted. “And fix you up.”
He started to protest, but Taz ignored him, carefully twisting herself around and worming halfway into the front seat. “Niro said there was a med-kit here somewhere…” She spied a compartment in the passenger’s side dashboard and flipped it open, making a triumphant sound. “There she is!”
Kamanek watched her critically as she shuffled back, unable to hide the way she avoided putting any weight on her ankle. “Your leg,” he said. “How badly did he injure you?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Let me look at it,” he insisted.
“After.” She placed her hand on his collarbone, pushing him back until he rested against the window. The space was tight, but there was just enough room in the flat backseat for her to kneel between his legs, her injured one trailing down to the floor. Kamanek had to admit he liked seeing her there, his legs bracketed around her. If they weren’t both bruised and bleeding, he’d crush her against him and apologize for his idiocy with his lips and his tongue, the best way he knew how.
But Taz’s hands on his chest stopped him. She ripped open his tactical vest and the thin undershirt beneath with no difficulty. Both layers had been sliced clean through already, the laser-resistant armor doing nothing against Siikas’ claws. She held her breath as she pushed the material aside, and he thought he heard her whisper, “Please, not the stomach.”
She breathed a wet sigh of relief, and Kamanek followed her gaze. His stomach was bloody, but uninjured, as he’d expected. Siikas had left four large gashes across his chest, however, and they were still bleeding.
“I need to clean this up,” she murmured, fumbling with the med-kit. “Need to see how deep it goes. Fuck, there’s no towels…”
Kamanek watched on silently as Taz shrugged out of her jacket, yanking her thin undershirt over her head. Despite their situation, he couldn’t help but admire the toned curves of her chest beneath her compact bra. He wanted to hold her, to feel the heat radiating off her skin, but he forced himself to lie still. He managed to hold his tongue while she mopped up the worst of the blood running down his torso, and held back a wince when she dumped half a bottle of disinfectant on the wounds.
She wiped it clean using one of the small, cloth pads she found in the med-kit, searching the ragged marks for any sign of further damage.
“How’s it looking, doctor?” Kamanek asked, his playful tone marred by the sting.
She let out a shaky breath. “I don’t think he punctured your ribcage or anything. It’s just a surface wound. You’re losing a lot of blood, though.” She blinked down at him, looking a little lost for a second, and he grasped her hand in his.
“Calm down, Firecracker. Put pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding.” He placed a cloth pad down, then guided her hands over it. She pressed them to his chest, settling her weight on the wound, and finally, finally, he could wrap his arms around her. He could hear her heart pounding, but it slowed as she relaxed into him, sighing softly.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “My head’s still a little foggy.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t get there sooner,” he said.
The cab of the transport fell silent, and with the vehicle turned off and the dashboard dark, it felt like their own private world. Kamanek gazed down at her, watching the anxious lines slowly bleed from her face.
She met his eye, her brows drawing together. “Why did you take that hit for me, Kamanek?”
His heart swelled. “Why do you thin
k? You think I’d let him hurt you?”
“I…” Her lips worked, her gaze dropping to her hands pressed tight between their chests. “I fucked up. I was too cocky. You should’ve let me deal with the consequences.”
Kamanek scoffed. “And let him injure you? Kill you?”
“Why would you take the hit?” she asked again, wrenching her gaze up to face him. “Why would you endanger yourself for me?”
“Why did you step between Deeno and I?”
“Because… I didn’t want to see you hurt,” she said haltingly. “Because you’ve become important to me.”
He stared into her eyes. “Is it really so difficult to believe my reasons were the same?”
“But you said you were leaving, that we were done,” she said, looking confused. “I thought you needed the money—”
“It wasn’t the money,” he said. “It might have brought me here, to CL-32, but everything after that… none of it was for the money.”
“Then what?”
“I was trying to keep you safe.” He sat up, gently pulling her further into his lap until she was straddling him. The med-kit slid to the floor of the vehicle, spilling its contents, but Kamanek ignored it. “I was scared you’d try to protect me, that you’d try to step between Siikas and I, like you did when Deeno pointed that gun at me.” His grip on her tightened. “I couldn’t let you get hurt on my behalf. Especially by him.”
Taz shook her head. “But why would you think that? You make it sound like I have some kind of death wish—”
“No. That’s not it,” he said. “I know you. You’re fearless, brave. You jump headfirst into danger if it threatens someone you care for. And I could tell that you cared for me, which was even more terrifying…”
“Why?”
She stared at him, her dark eyes wide and imploring, and Kamanek paused. She was breathtakingly beautiful. Her palms were still pressed to his throbbing injury, and she could no doubt feel the way his heart thundered. He used the pain to galvanize him. If he didn’t tell her this now, he feared he never would, and he didn’t want any more secrets between them.
“I was afraid,” he said softly. “I found myself… falling in love with you, Taz. And I didn’t know what to make of it. I’d never felt it before, not like this.” He felt her heart speed up to match his own, radiating through her hands, and forced himself to hold her gaze. “The only love I’d ever seen got my best friend killed, and I was terrified it would do the same to you.”
Her lips parted in realization. “Tanis?”
He looked away. “Yeah. She died protecting Rinek, and if I’d been paying better attention, I might have been able to save them both…”
He fell silent, and Taz shuffled closer, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. “You don’t have to explain it,” she whispered.
“I want to.” He cleared his throat, which threatened to lock up with the emotion swelling inside him. “It’s just… difficult.”
To his surprise, Taz pulled back, lifting her hands from his chest and inspecting the wound beneath. “It’s stopped bleeding,” she said, and then glanced up at him. “How about you tell me while I bandage your wounds? It might be easier.”
Kamanek nodded, and she smiled, the rare expression lighting up her face. She cleaned his injury again, and the sharp sting of the disinfectant cleared his mind a little. He focused on her small hands, callused and decisive as they taped a clean cloth pad to his chest with surgical strips and reached for the bandages.
Somehow, having something else to occupy him did make it easier, as if the muddy water that had covered the memories for so long was now clearing. “I saw it from above,” he began. “I spec-ed into long-range marksmanship in Senior Division, so it was my job to see everything: enemies lying in wait, weaknesses in our offensive and defensive patterns, all of it. I was the attack that the enemy wasn’t supposed to see coming. I always took the first shot.”
She nodded, motioning for him to lean forward. “I did wonder why you never got tired of waiting by the window,” she said as she twined the bandages around his torso.
His lips quirked, but he continued on. “Our team was sent to a planet being contested by another power on the far side of the Constellation.”
“Another power?”
“It’s not just levekk out there looking to colonize,” he said gravely. “We were sent to patrol an area within our current territory. It was supposed to be safe, which is why they sent such a fresh team.”
Taz wrapped a final loop around his shoulder and tied the bandage off, settling him back against the glass. “But it wasn’t.”
He nodded. “It seemed quiet, at the time. I took up my position, scanned the area and turned up nothing.” He gulped, his nostrils flaring. “I was checking on the members of my team, and I could see that Tanis was distracted. She and Rinek had been involved for months by then—quietly, of course, since they would have been immediately discharged if they were caught. They were too caught up in each other, and I was too caught up in checking on them. None of us saw the enemies decloaking nearby.”
“Did they…?”
“A shot went off,” he said. “Before I could react—she was always quicker than me—Tanis had pushed Rinek down and out of the way, but that… left her wide open.”
“No…”
“The next shot killed her instantly. I managed to take out two before Rinek ran at them, and another one after he fell. Three got away before the rest of the team arrived.”
Taz had wiped her hands clean while he spoke, and she leaned forward now, resting one on his cheek. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Kamanek took her hand in his, holding it tightly against his face. “I shut people out after that. Losing Tanis hurt me deeply, and I never wanted to go through that again. And as a mercenary, I only saw people’s loved ones being used to hurt them.”
Taz smiled wryly. “And now you’re jumping in front of people just like me,” she said. “What changed?”
“You,” he whispered, and she scoffed. “No, really. I adored you from the moment you came at me with that knife.”
“Why?”
“Because you were everything I wanted to be. Connected, loved, alive. I didn’t know that I missed those things so much. And I thought that by being with you, I could share it.” He slipped his hand in her hair, tucking the wayward strands behind her ear. “Little did I know how infectious you’d be.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Infectious?”
“Uh-huh. Worse than the Mitaria Flu,” he joked. He flashed her a grin as she rolled her eyes, but soon sobered. “You don’t do anything by halves, and when I saw Siikas standing over you like that…” He caressed her face, feeling the heat of her cheeks as they reddened. “I knew I’d die before I let him hurt you. And I knew that I wanted to stay here, on CL-32. If you’ll have me.”
“Kamanek…” She blinked, her eyes shining in the dim light. “Fuck you,” she whispered, pushing gently at his chest. “No, I’m not gonna cry. You can’t make me.”
He laughed weakly, the movement irritating his injury and making him wince. But he refused to look away from her. “…Will you have me?”
She stared at him for a long moment. He saw a flicker of fear in her eyes, and he didn’t blame her. She had Cara to consider, and the Lodestars, after all. But then her face set in determination, her eyes blazing as they had on that first day, and she nodded.
“Of course I will,” she said, and then her expression shifted. “And I… I wanna say that… I love you, too. And if you’d been in my place, I would have done the same for you.”
She smiled at him, and Kamanek’s chest ached with an entirely new sensation. He pulled her close, uncaring of his injury, and captured her lips in a deep kiss.
“I always wanted you to stay,” Taz said when they broke apart. “And I still do. I know I’m not… easy to get on with. I’m an asshole, most of the time.”
“Don’t say that.” His hand cradled her neck, keeping t
hem merely inches apart. “I just spent ten minutes talking about how much I love how passionate you are.”
“Passionate? More like—”
He placed a claw on her lip, hushing her. “You’re perfect,” he said, the words breathed between them. “Whenever I’m with you, I feel like someone lit a fire in my veins. I don’t want to lose that feeling ever again.”
He kissed her again, and her warm mouth melted to his. Their battered bodies fit perfectly together in the small space of the transport, and if Kamanek had his way, they would never have to leave. He never wanted to let go of her again, never wanted to lose the warmth of her flame against his scales.
It took them a long time to pull away from each other, and it might have taken longer if they hadn’t shifted, making Taz wince with pain.
“Now, will you let me look at your ankle?” he asked.
She rolled her eyes. “It just needs an icepack.”
“Let me look after you,” he said, squeezing her hand.
“I think you already looked after me plenty, taking a handful of claws to the chest.”
“But I could do so much more,” he purred, and Taz snorted, her eyes twinkling.
“I think your flirting has gotten worse and worse since I met you,” she said.
“Still not as bad as that levekk’s at the hub, I hope.”
She made a non-committal sound, and he quieted her with another brief kiss.
As he tended to Taz’s wounds, Kamanek couldn’t help but think about how he’d almost lost her. His own attempts to stay distant, to keep things simple, had only complicated them further, and Taz had almost paid the price. He could never let that happen again.
He glanced at her as he put the transport into gear, unable to keep the small grin from his face.
“Quit staring,” she said, her cheeks reddening.
But Kamanek couldn’t. He thought he might stare at this sun—his sun—until it blinded him.
Epilogue
One week later.
