Page 1 of Primal Call

Chapter one

Jasper was going to kill Ray.

Well — okay, he wouldn't. He was a medic, for goodness' sake. He was bound by the Hippocratic Oath, and a whole stack of military regulations on top of that.

But right now, as he stared down at the soldier in front of him, he was sorely tempted.

Ray was holding his arm and wincing, a big, beefy guy with a face that was currently scrunched up in pain. His biceps were as big as Jasper's head, and he was wincing at a tiny little laser burn that was no bigger than a penny.

It was the tiniest of tiny injuries. It was barely anything.

"You're going to be fine," Jasper said, as patiently as he could. He slapped a new bandage on the burn, and the little light on his medkit beeped to confirm that Ray's injury was completely — well, mostly — sealed. "There's a reason they call these things 'flesh wounds'. It's just a surface burn. You're not even going to have a scar."

Ray let out a groan. "You sure, Doc? I want a scar."

Jasper resisted the urge to slap him.

Behind him, the rest of his squad were watching, all of them gathered in the small, cramped room. It was the latest in a long line of small, dusty rooms that Jasper had been stationed in, as they manned this godforsaken little outpost on this godforsaken little exoplanet.

The planet was nothing but rocks, dust, and a whole lot of nothing else. The same could be said for the system it was in.

It was quiet. Too quiet.

Hence, bored soldiers trying to entertain themselves by doing, quote, 'cool laser tricks'. Jasper sighed.

Jasper finished tending to Ray and stood up, brushing off his knees. As he did, he caught the eye of one of his squadmates, Sam. She nodded at him, her expression as flat as her voice. "You ready for the next big attack, Doc?"

Jasper tried to smile. It came out as more of a grimace. "Out here in the middle of nowhere? You know it. I'm just quaking in my boots."

"Yeah," she sighed, her voice tinged with frustration. "We’re like, what, ten light years from anything even remotely considered 'frontline'? The only action we’re seeing is Ray shooting himself."

Ray sat up in a huff. "Just you wait. When we finally get up close and personal with those big horned bastards, you’ll see what I'm made of."

"We all saw what you're made of when you shot yourself with your own laser."

As they argued back and forth, Jasper let out a quiet sigh. At least they were all still finding ways to laugh. That was the most important thing.

As long as they could laugh, they were still alive.

Jasper made sure to smile and chuckle at the right moments of the conversation, but his heart wasn't quite in it.

The war was grinding him down.

Jasper forced himself to keep smiling and laughing along with the rest of the squad, even as his gaze kept flickering over to Sergeant Morrison.

The sergeant was sitting across from him, a half-smile playing across his rugged features as he watched his crew give each other shit. His green eyes were bright with amusement, crinkling slightly at the corners whenever someone said something particularly funny — or particularly stupid.

Jasper felt his heartbeat pick up, just slightly. His gaze traced the line of Morrison's strong jawline. The sergeant, ignoring dress code, had a few days' worth of stubble shadowing his chin, a masculine look that Jasper had always found incredibly attractive.

Not that he would ever let that show, of course. He was an expert at keeping those kinds of feelings buried deep down inside.

Years of training and discipline had turned hiding his true emotions into second nature. No matter how much his eyes might linger whenever Morrison was around, his expression never betrayed him. He was the perfect picture of calm professionalism, at all times.

Still, he couldn't quite stop himself from sneaking little glances at the sergeant whenever he thought no one was looking. Morrison's muscular frame was shown off nicely by the tight black undershirt he was wearing, the fabric stretching appealingly across his broad chest and shoulders.

Jasper swallowed hard and quickly looked away, feeling his face grow warm. Get it together, he scolded himself silently. You're a combat medic, not some lovestruck teenager.

No one could ever know what was going through his mind. Those kinds of feelings had to stay buried, no matter what.

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