His Mate to Keep by Ivy Sparks

13

Merrit

I blinkedagainst the blinding pain in my head. I groaned and swallowed hard. My body hurt all over, but at least I wasn’t dead. I pulled my eyes open again and forced myself to focus on the blue sky and lush greenery overhead. I was on the ground somewhere.

When I tried to sit up, a sick feeling in my stomach almost made me pass out. Splitting pain shot up my left arm, and every move made it hurt even worse. I hugged my arm to my chest while I pulled myself upright.

I gasped against the pain as I willed myself to think. The runner lay in pieces not far away, and worst of all, I didn’t see Xavier anywhere.

I staggered to my feet and stumbled toward a massive rip in the hull. I leaned against the smoking fuselage and stuck my head inside. “Xavier! Xavier, where are you?”

Something chirped in the canopy, followed by a clicking noise. I listened hard. “Xavier!”

I turned in a complete circle, scanning the wreck site. He had to be somewhere. He couldn’t be dead. I wouldn’t allow it. “Xavier!”

Thick mist filled the woods. It hung between broad tree trunks, but it didn’t rise above the highest branches. The canopy trapped it near the ground and stopped me from seeing very far.

I stumbled around the wreck and peered in from the other side. “Xavier, where are you?”

My voice cracked from the strain. I had to find him. Was he hurt? I tried to run, but I only made it a few paces before I stopped. What if I was running away from him?

A nightmare image flashed through my mind of him lying broken and dead somewhere. What would I do then?

I pushed the thought out of my head. No! He couldn’t be. He had to be here somewhere. He had to be. I needed him too much. I ran back the way I came, screaming, “Xavier! Xavier, answer me!”

Every step made my arm howl with pain and my vision swam, but I couldn’t stop searching for him. “Xavier!”

I ran back to where I first came to. Xavier wasn’t here. What could have happened to him? Did he get ejected over that mountain towering above me? Did he splatter onto the rocks?

“Merrit…” A hushed voice drifted out of the fog.

“Xavier, where are you?” I almost broke down right there. Me—break down? Yet here I was. “Xavier, answer me!”

I ran back to the wreck, but his voice wasn’t coming from there. “Merrit… I’m here… Where are you?”

“I’m here! Where are you?”

“Merrit…”

“Xavier! Don’t stop talking! I’m looking for you.”

I stood still and held my breath. Every word from him offered a glimmer of hope. He was still alive. If I could only find him, I could help him.

“I can’t get up, Merrit,” he rasped. “I think…”

I stumbled toward where I thought his voice was coming from. “Are you hurt?”

“I… I think so… Yes, I am. I can’t… I can’t…”

His voice became so faint that I couldn’t hear him now, but I knew now that I was going in the right direction. I broke into a run again. “Hang on, Xavier! I’m coming!”

I dodged fallen trees. The runner crashed on the side of this rugged mountain. I had to run along the steep incline to get closer to him. My arm throbbed, but I kept pushing. I had to find him if it was the last thing I ever did. I couldn’t lose him.

I paused to listen again. “Xavier! I’m here. Where are you?”

“Merrit…” He sounded like he was behind me, but when I looked around, I couldn’t see him.

He coughed from my left. The sound came from a clump of bushes about five feet from where I stood. I vaulted down the slope and whipped around the bush.

When I saw him, I collapsed onto my knees next to his body smeared with blood. Blood stained his face and welled between his fingers pressed to his side. What was left of his prison clothes was saturated in blood.

“Merrit… You came…”

Tears welled up in my eyes. I put out my hand, but I didn’t dare touch him. “Xavier. How bad is it?” I looked down at the wound on his side and had to turn away.

The pain in my heart hurt a thousand times worse than my arm or my head. If I lost him…

“Help me…” he rasped. “Have to… stop the bleeding.”

I straightened up. This was no time to get mushy. Xavier needed me.

I glanced around and thought fast. The bushes surrounding him looked fibrous and strong. Without thinking, I ripped off a handful of leaves and crumpled them between my palm and my leg. “Here. Press this onto the wound. It will help the blood to clot.”

He tried to smile and winced when I crammed the wad under his fingers. I poked it into the wound harder than I should have, but I was right. The fibers stemmed the flow of blood and it started to slow.

“What are you now—a nurse?” He tried to laugh and coughed again.

I scanned the cuts on his face. “This gash over your eye looks pretty bad, but the others aren’t bleeding anymore.” I made another crude patch and dabbed it over his eye. “Stay here. I’m going back to the runner to see if there are any supplies still intact.” I checked the surroundings. “You’re hidden here. You should be all right.”

I didn’t wait for him to answer. Now that I had a job to do, I could concentrate again. Xavier was alive, and I would keep him that way no matter what.

I raced back to the runner and dove through the hull breach. The pilot’s station had been destroyed, but I found a medical kit and a stash of rations in a compartment in the back.

I gathered as much as I could carry in one arm. I couldn’t support my broken arm now, so I was practically in tears again by the time I ran back to Xavier.

I dumped everything on the ground next to him and did my best to get to work. When I examined the wound on his side, I discovered that the leaves had dissolved into a gummy mass that completely sealed it. It wasn’t bleeding at all now.

The leaves had done the same thing with the cut over his eye. It was amazing, but I didn’t rest. I crumpled more leaves and used them to close all his other cuts too.

“Can you move your legs?” I asked. “Can you sit up?”

“I can move both legs, but when I try to sit up, I get dizzy.”

“You’ve lost a lot of blood. It might take a while before you feel strong enough to move.” I scanned the trees. “I should build a shelter. We don’t know what kind of weather this planet has.”

“Don’t worry about me.” Out of nowhere, his hand drifted toward my face. I froze as his fingertips trailed down my cheek. “You’re hurt, Merrit. You should take care of yourself too.”

I looked up at him. His eyes glistened with meaning, then suddenly, the full overpowering pain of my own injuries almost crushed me. I sat down on the ground next to him and opened the medical kit with one trembling hand.

“The Bigviats have bone fusers. If I can only find…”

“Merrit…”

I glanced up again. His expression made me look away just as fast. “We’re gonna be okay. I know it. Here it is.”

I took out the bone fuser and switched it on. A light came on when I held it against my wrist. I moved it a few inches up my forearm and two lights blinked on. I edged the device ever closer to where I knew the fracture was.

I gave a sickening shudder when I pressed the fuser into the fracture. I had to gulp down the urge to whimper and then, with all my strength, I rammed down the ignition switch. A blast of pain knocked me over backward and I screamed.

“Merrit!” Xavier yelled.

“I’m… I’m okay.” I struggled to sit up. “I’m… It’s over.” I sniffed down the last of my pain. I could finally move my arm. “Now that that’s settled… Let’s see what we’re working with food-wise.”

Xavier grimaced at the rations pack. “Bigviats aren’t known for their great culinary offerings.”

“Since when were you so picky?” I asked. “You ate all kinds of stuff in the lab.”

“I’d rather eat something that won’t make me puke, considering my state.”

I tried to find something palatable. “There’s a carton of Usin partridge eggs. Those are mine though.”

“Hey!” he protested.

I laughed. “You’re in luck. Here’s a block of Izikar plums. Nobody ever says no to those.”

I held it out to him. He stretched out his arm. “Thank you.” His arm collapsed, and he flopped back. “You’ll have to… Would you please…?” His eyes rolled back in their sockets and sweat broke out all over his forehead.

I scooted over next to him. “Let me help you. You’re gonna be weak for a while.”

I ripped open the wrapping around the block and pried one plum away from the mass. Izikar plums were really pickled dumplings made from fat and dried meat of the Izikar mountain rax. The so-called plums were prized as a delicacy by many meat-loving species. Kavians must not be much different from them.

I stuck the plum in his mouth and he groaned in satisfaction as he chewed it. “I never thought I’d live to taste one of those again.” He pulled his eyes into focus. “You should have some. I don’t want to hog them all. You’ve been so good to me.”

I blushed and laughed. “No, no. These are all yours.”

I examined him while he ate. If he was enjoying the plums, he must not be too badly injured. That gash in his side must not have penetrated to the gut, or he wouldn’t be thinking of eating.

After a while, I handed him a water pouch from the rations pack. “Do you really think it was the experimenters who shot at us? That they’ve followed us all the way here?”

“If that response to our distress call was a trap, the inhabitants might have alerted them to our presence. You said they didn’t follow us, but if they have that masking technology, the Bigviat sensors may not have picked them up.”

I frowned. “She sure sounded human. She even used Earth colloquialisms.”

He raised his eyebrows. “How would you know that if you’ve been a pirate all your life? Don’t tell me you’ve been back to the Earth homeworld.”

“I haven’t, but Captain Wynter was born and raised there. Most of the Starglider crew had lived there, and they all used Earth slang. I’d bet anything that woman came from Earth.”

“So what’s she doing out here?” he asked. “I think she must be right about there not being any other humans in this sector.”

“I’m sure of it. From the looks of that chart, we aren’t anywhere humans have ever explored before.”

“That raises the same question. What is she doing out here by herself?”

“We don’t know if she’s by herself. If she’s in league with the experimenters, she might be one of their prisoners.”

“Or one of them.”

I shrugged. And ultimately, it didn’t matter if she was a legitimate human or not. We were shot at, and this place was hostile. We had to leave. “The question isn’t why she’s here, because we’re never going to lay eyes on her. We’re getting out of here.”

“How badly was the runner damaged?”

I winced. “I don’t think the runner is going anywhere ever again.”

“Then how do you propose we get out of here?”

I brushed off my hands and stuck the block of Izikar plums next to him. “I don’t know. I’m going back to the wreck to salvage any more supplies I can find. Try to get some rest.”

I took an emergency blanket from the medical kit and tucked it around Xavier. He already had his eyes closed.

I walked back to the runner more slowly now. Upon reaching it, I stepped into the compartment and gave it a better assessment. The pilot’s console was beyond repair, not to mention the damage to the engine. The runner would never fly again, but at least Xavier was going to live.

The terror and panic I had felt when I thought he was dead stabbed me in the heart again, and I sank into the pilot’s seat. Tears filled my eyes. Before I could stop myself, they overflowed and poured down my cheeks. How did Xavier come to mean so much to me so fast?

Pull yourself together,I thought. Crying was shameful. Everyone on the Starglider said so, even Captain Wynter. The first time I cried after he took me on board at the age of seven, he threatened to throw me off the ship if I ever did it again.

At the time, I thought he was being cruel, but I had since realized that it was important to show no weakness. At least not among pirates.

Though with Xavier, I felt like I could finally let my guard down and still be safe. I never wanted to lose the comfort I found with him again.

I hunched my shoulders, hugged my arms across my stomach, and shook with sobs. Xavier was alive. He was going to be okay. He wasn’t dead. I wasn’t alone.

For the first time in my life, I actually cared about someone enough to get upset over the thought of losing them. I didn’t even feel this way about Captain Wynter. We went into dangerous battles and got separated, but I never panicked over the thought of losing him.

Wracking sobs tore me apart. Every time I thought they would stop, I pictured Xavier lying dead on those rocks up there, and I started sobbing again. I couldn’t think of anything worse than that.