When she got to the break room, the look on Kromin’s face told her that any words of thanks she had expected would not be forthcoming. His eyes were dark and angry, and his mouth was set in a tight line like it always was when he was about to lose his temper.
Suddenly, Anya had had enough. She’d been working her ass off here, learning as much as she could and helping out as much as she could. She hadn’t had to stay all night last night. She could have declined the night shift altogether, or at least made Kromin cover part of it. But did she get any thanks? No, of course not. All she got was a handsome yet angry Zocronian man who apparently couldn’t go more than twelve hours without finding a reason to be pissed at her.
“What’s wrong now?” she asked, putting her hands on her hips and standing in front of the table where Kromin sat. She refused to sit down with him. She kind of liked the fact that she was towering over him right now. He needed to learn that she wasn’t afraid of his alpha tendencies.
“What’s wrong?” he asked in an incredulous voice, as though it should have been obvious. “What’s wrong?”
“You heard me. I’ve been here nearly twenty-four hours, working my ass off for your hospital. I’m not in the mood for your games, so if you want to say something, then spit it out. Otherwise I’m going to go home and get some rest.”
Kromin’s eyes widened to an unbelievable size, but somehow he managed to look even sexier with that expression. Anya studied him for a moment, wondering how it was possible for her to be so attracted to him and hate him so much at the same time. The sight of his face made her heart flip-flop and turned her whole body warm. Why did she respond to him like this when he was so obnoxious all the time?
Before she could ponder this question very long, Kromin was reaming into her.
“What’s wrong is that you gave one of the miners a double dose of his steroid shot yesterday morning.”
Anya faltered for a moment in feeling self-righteous. “Wait, what?”
“You heard me. What’s worse is that it looks like it was your very first patient of the day, so you should have been completely fresh and completely on top of your game. Not tired at all. But somehow you still managed to screw up.”
Anya felt her heart plummet. She thought back to her first patient. He had been the one teasing her about her looks. Had she gotten distracted by all of that teasing and made a huge mistake? “Is he…is he okay?”
Kromin’s scowl deepened. “Luckily for you, he’s fine. He’s one of the biggest, toughest miners, and the extra dose didn’t do any damage. But if you had given a dose that strong to the wrong person, or had given a double dose of some other sort of medicine, things could have ended very badly.”
Anya took a deep breath to steady herself. Okay, so she screwed up. That was bad, but at least no one had been seriously harmed by her screw up. This wasn’t going to help Kromin’s view of her any, which was definitely not a good thing. But surely, one little mistake wasn’t going to undo all of the good she did last night?
“Kromin, I’m really sorry. There’s no excuse for that, but thankfully there was no harm done this time. I’ll learn from it, I promise.”
“Yeah, you’ll learn from it. You’ll learn from it when I tell Daxar what happened and he agrees to let me fire you.”
Anger burned in Anya’s chest. “Are you crazy? You’re going to fire me over one mistake? Don’t you get it, Kromin? You don’t need to be firing me. You need to be hiring more people. What would you have done without me yesterday? You had two major surgeries and then a grieving family to deal with. How would you have handled all the other patients on top of that? You’re being crazy. Full out crazy. You can’t do this by yourself.”
“I wouldn’t have messed up a dose on a steroid shot, even if I was here by myself.”
“Oh, so you’ve never made a mistake?”
Kromin only glared at her, and Anya knew she’d hit a nerve. Of course she had. Everyone had made a mistake at some point or another. She didn’t know what Kromin’s mistakes were, but she knew he had made them. When he didn’t say anything, she refused to back down.
“Well?” she prompted. “Tell me honestly, to my face, that you’ve never made a mistake, and I’ll leave this hospital right now and never come back.”
Kromin stood, and pointed his finger right at her chest. Now he was towering over her, and Anya had to admit that the proximity of his finger to her breasts was causing a strange thrill to run through her. It’s like no matter how non-romantic and serious a moment between Kromin and her might be, she couldn’t help but be turned on when he was in close physical proximity to her. It was so annoying.
“Listen, human,” he said. But he never got to finish his sentence. At that moment, Daxar and Jarmuk both came bursting into the break room. Their faces were covered with sweat, and they were breathing heavily as though they’d been running a long distance at top speed to get here.
Anya whirled around to look, and fear struck her when she saw the panic on their faces. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Did something happen to Nova or Maisie? Or Ayaan?” Oh god, please no. Let Ayaan be okay. He’s just a little baby!
“Nova and Maisie are fine,” Daxar said. “But there’s a guy down at the mines who was hit in the side by a big piece of Zekkardite. The guy who called in the emergency says he thinks his skull is cracked, and there’s a lot of blood. They’re doing first aid as best they can, but they really need a proper doctor. And the guy isn’t in stable enough condition to get back to the city dome. Someone needs to go to him.”
Kromin was already running toward the door. “I’ll go right away. Can someone fly me over? A rover will take forever to get there, especially the way the storms have been.”
Jarmuk frowned. “The storms are too bad right now for anyone to fly. Our military pilots told us it would be a suicide mission to send someone up into the air right now. You’ll have to take a rover, even though it takes longer.”
Kromin cursed, but Anya stepped forward. “Did you ask Evie?”
Daxar and Jarmuk both looked doubtful.
“No,” Daxar replied. “But if even our military guys won’t fly, there’s no way Evie is gonna go up.”
“Sure she will,” Anya said. “Evie isn’t scared of flying in crazy shit like this. Ask her. I bet she’ll do it. But on one condition. I want to come too.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Kromin roared at her. “You expect me to let you go after how things went yesterday? Besides, someone has to stay here and watch the patients in the hospital.”
Anya was tempted to point out in that moment that Kromin did need more help, but she held her tongue. Now was not the time to stir up trouble. “Kromin, everyone here is in very good condition. Nova or Daxar can handle watching over them. I would volunteer Jarmuk, too, but I imagine he’s a little busy at home at the moment, since he has a newborn. But you don’t know what you’re going to be facing at the mines. You might need to do some emergency procedures or surgeries that require an assistant. Don’t put a man’s life in jeopardy because you can’t swallow your anger or pride.”
“This isn’t about anger or pride!” Kromin said. But then, suddenly, he stopped, and seemed for the first time to be truly aware of the way he was acting. Anya wasn’t sure what had changed in him all of a sudden, but he threw his hands up in the air and surrendered, just like that. “Oh, sludge it. Fine. Come with me if you want. Let’s just get going. The longer we sit around here discussing this, the worse that miner’s condition is going to get.”
“Exactly,” Anya said, starting to run toward the door as well. “I’ll call Evie right away.”
Anya was going to get this show on the road before Kromin had a chance to change his mind. Maybe this would be her chance to show Kromin that he couldn’t judge her based on one measly mistake.
Chapter Six
“Hang onto your hats, people!” Evie yelled.
Kromin had never heard that expression before. Must be an Earth thing, but
he caught the meaning well enough. Evie dipped the Starburst almost straight down, descending rapidly through the thickest part of the storm. She had been flying quite high to avoid the worst winds, but now they were close to the mines, and the only way to get there was to head down through the craziness and land outside the mines’ airlock.
The Starburst groaned under the pressure of the storm beating against it, and Kromin nervously clenched and unclenched his fists. He’d flown through some pretty bad storms in his lifetime, but he’d never been in the air during something quite this bad. No wonder the military guys hadn’t wanted to fly. This was pretty close to a suicide mission. And yet, Evie had jumped at the chance to take on this challenge, just as Anya had predicted she would. These humans were a strange breed. They might be physically smaller and weaker than the Zocronians, but they were courageous to a fault. Kromin had to give them that.
He glanced over at Anya, wondering if she was maintaining her courage in the face of this storm. She had her eyes closed, but her face remained serene even as her entire body bounced wildly against the seat she was strapped into. She wore a survival suit, as did Kromin, but neither of them had put their helmets on yet. They would do that once the spaceship touched down, and then they’d have to walk into the mines on foot. The Starburst wouldn’t fit inside the airlock. Because of that, Evie would be taking off and flying back to the city dome as soon as Kromin and Anya were inside the mines. Leaving the spaceship out in the open was just asking for it to be permanently damaged, and Evie was convinced she could get it safely back to the city of Zocrone. Kromin had been skeptical of this at first, but after watching Evie fly, he had to admit she could more than likely make it back.
As long as she could land them first, that was. The ship reeled from side to side as they descended, and Kromin wished he could close his eyes just like Anya was doing. He didn’t think that would look very manly, though, and he didn’t want to be caught doing anything unmanly by these two humans.
Kromin wasn’t sure why he even cared. He wanted to get Anya out of his hospital as soon as possible, and after that he hopefully wouldn’t have to see her very often. He felt a bit guilty for the way he had overreacted to her mistake with the steroid shot. After all, she was right: everyone makes mistakes, and no harm had been done. But if Kromin was going to try to get rid of her, a mistake like the one she’d made was the perfect excuse. He could play up the mistake and lead Daxar to believe it was much more serious than it had actually been.
And then what? Deep down, Kromin knew Anya was right. He needed help at the hospital. But the thought of giving up his solo practice to let other people in paralyzed him. He didn’t want to have to deal with managing other people or arguing with them. And he definitely didn’t want to have to deal with working with people who were so attractive that being around them was a constant distraction. Like Anya.
The Starburst banked wildly to the left, and for a moment Kromin felt his stomach drop at the sudden loss of gravity. He clenched his fists, wishing this crazy ride would be over already. A few moments later, Evie managed to straighten out the ship, and then she set it down hard on the planet’s surface. The force of the landing caused Kromin’s whole body to lurch forward in his seat, and he was sure that at any moment the ship’s emergency system was going to start warning of a pressure leak. But after taking a few deep breaths and giving his brain a few seconds to figure out which way was up and which way was down again, Kromin realized that the emergency systems still weren’t going off. Not only that, but Evie had turned around and was grinning.
“We did it,” she said triumphantly. “Ship is landed safely. Now you two get out of here and into the mines so that I can get back to the city dome before the storm gets much worse. The Starburst is a hardy old bird, but this storm is getting to be too much even for her.”
Kromin began unbuckling his seatbelt, still in shock that the ship didn’t seem to have suffered any damage during its rough landing. He knew the ship’s hull and undersides were reinforced with damage-absorbing panels, but he hadn’t thought those panels would do that much good.
Apparently they did. He breathed a sigh of relief and started donning the helmet for his survival suit. The walk into the mines wouldn’t be easy, either. The wind was gusting strong enough to blow even him away, and Anya weighed much less than he did. They’d have to be careful and stick together, arm linked in arm to give themselves more leverage against the brutal wind. This was hardly the first time Kromin had gone storm-walking. Over the years he’d had to head out in storms dozens of times to treat wounded miners. But none of the storms had ever been quite this bad, and he’d never walked through one with a woman, let alone a human woman.
She’s so tiny. She’s going to blow away. Kromin glanced over at Anya as they both entered the airlock that would cycle them out onto Zocrone’s surface. He towered over her, and he must have weighed twice as much as her. He guessed that if he picked her up right now, she would feel like she weighed about the same as a feather. He had to hold on tightly to her out there on the surface. No, he didn’t want her working at his hospital anymore, but he didn’t want the reason she left her job to be that she had blown away across the planet’s surface.
Anya looked over at him, her turquoise eyes surprisingly serene for someone who was moments away from facing down a nasty storm. Kromin was struck by how beautiful she looked in her survival suit. The suit was skin tight, and he could see every curve of her body perfectly. He’d noticed how good-looking she was before, but he’d never seen her on display quite so clearly. To his dismay, he felt his cock stirring between his legs.
Get a grip, man, he told himself. She’s gonna be able to see that you’re turned on. Now was not a good time to have to explain that sort of thing, so Kromin took a few deep breaths and tried not to focus on Anya’s perfect curves. It didn’t help that at that exact moment, she reached out to lock elbows with him. It was time for them to connect to each other in an effort to brace themselves against the storm, but when Anya’s arm touched Kromin’s, he felt like an electric current was shooting from her body to his. His dick stiffened even more, and he could only hope that the chaos of the storm was enough to distract Anya from what was going on between his legs.
And what chaos it was. As they stepped out of the airlock and onto the planet’s surface, Kromin instantly felt like he was battling to walk against a brick wall. The wind was that strong. Evie had done a good job of getting them as close as possible to the mine’s airlock entrance, but even still—the spaceship could only get so close. There was still a journey of at least twenty paces between the spaceship’s airlock and the mine’s, and each of those twenty steps was going to have to be fought for vigorously.
Kromin felt a strange, almost primal protective instinct welling up inside of him. He needed to protect Anya. She was so fragile and so vulnerable to the storm. At least, that’s how she seemed to him with the red dust of the planet’s surface swirling up around them like a thick cloud. Kromin kept their elbows linked as tightly as possible and tried to press his body more into hers, making them one against the storm. Not too much further to go.
The feelings swirling within him were crazier than the storm itself. Why was he suddenly feeling so much like Anya was his responsibility? Like he needed to keep her safe from every danger of the outside world? She was the one who had volunteered and even pushed her way onto this mission. She had known it would be dangerous, and it was no one’s fault but her own if she died out here today.
And yet, Kromin felt responsible. He felt like losing her would be devastating. If she blew away right now, he’d never have a chance to explore her body further. To see what was beneath the stretchy fabric of her survival suit.
Come on, man. Get a grip!
The airlock appeared in front of them, and Kromin breathed out a sigh of relief as he entered the access code. Just a few more moments, and they’d be in. He could hear the beeping from inside as the system began to depressurize the insi
de chamber of the airlock to match Zocrone’s outer surface. After a few beeps, the heavy door, made of thick Zekkardite, began to slide open. Almost there.
And then, the biggest gust of wind yet came hurtling at them. Kromin felt Anya starting to rise into the air beside him, and the force of the wind picking her up started to lift him off the ground as well. Desperately, he reached out and grabbed for something, anything, to hold onto. The rocky outside walls of the mine’s entrance didn’t have much in the way of handholds, but luckily the edge of the airlock’s doorframe was just within Kromin’s reach. He grabbed for it and held onto the thick doorframe for dear life. He couldn’t see or hear Anya at the moment, with his face pressed up against the mine’s wall for leverage, but he knew she must be terrified. Both of her feet were up in the air, being pulled away from him by the storm’s unforgiving force.
Kromin cursed under his breath, willing the wind to die down just a little. To his relief, a moment later it did. The huge gust passed, but Kromin knew there would be another one soon enough. They had to get into the airlock. Using what felt like his last bit of energy, Kromin yanked Anya inside with him and began entering the access code to shut the door. Even once the pressurizing and locking sequence had begun, Kromin held nervously onto Anya. They were protected from the worst of the wind in here, with solid rock walls surrounding them on three sides. But the wind could still reach them, and swirls of red dust continued to pelt them until finally the door slid shut and locked.
The Alphas of the Seven Galaxies Page 35
