Page 3 of The Highseer's Mate

As for me?

I swallow against the nausea and surrender to the throbbing pain in my head, the clutches of exhaustion that makes all the noise fade away.

Chapter 2

Paige

My head is splitting apart. Nausea rolls my belly into knots before I even realize I’m awake.

The sensors are quiet. No more alarms echo through the ship.

I feel a soft touch on the right side of my face and I wince.

“Sorry,” Nicole says softly.

I struggle to open my eyes and see her dabbing some blood off my face. Her pouty lips are pinched into a frown as she focuses.

“You got a nasty cut above your right eye. It definitely needs stitches,” she says. “Look at me?”

It’s an effort to focus on her as she moves her finger from side to side. Her hair is longer than mine, probably down to her butt if she let the gorgeous brown waves hang free. It’s wrapped up in a bun with some loose curls framing her face.

“You may have a concussion. Anything else hurt?”

Oh, yeah. Nicole is a medic. Or at least she was back on Earth. Thank goodness for that.

Slowly, everything is coming back.

I glance around me and realize I’m on the ground, stuffed between a pod and the wall. Debris is everywhere. Wires hang from the ceiling sparking as they short circuit. Half the pods are knocked off their bases, and one of them is completely shattered on top.

We crash landed somewhere.

At least we’re not hurtling through space anymore.

“Does anything else hurt?” Nicole asks as she offers me a hand.

I roll my neck and stretch my arms. Yeah, everything hurts. I shake my head no and take her hand. She pulls me up and I hang on to the pod for support.

I spend a second bending and taking stock of my body. Luckily, our blue protective body suits are thin, but surprisingly strong. It covers our arms and legs with a zipper in the front meant to allow for quick changing. I’m barefoot–I mean I would have pulled my boots on if I’d known we were going to crash–but the rest of my body doesn’t seem too damaged on the outside.

“Good. Melina needs me.”

Nicole hurries across the small passenger chamber to Melina who is still lying on the floor limply. Her leg is folded in a direction it definitely shouldn’t be and my chest grows heavy.

“Is she?”

“Alive.”

I lock eyes with the youngest of us, Cristina, as she obsessively wipes blood off her forehead. Her green eyes are haunted and distant as she perches against the opposite wall. Her short, pixie blond hair is stained with blood by her temple. I take in her injuries and realize it was her pod that was shattered.

“We’re all alive,” Ryan bites. She kicks a hunk of metal that must have fallen during the impact. “Not sure if that’s a good thing.”

“Ryan!” a short, black-haired firecracker shouts at her. It takes a second to bring her name to the forefront of my mind. Lara.

Man. Maybe I do have a concussion.

Ryan throws up her arms, her red wavy hair tumbling around her like a burning flame. “What? I’m just being realistic. What the hell are we going to do now?”

Another wave of nausea guts me and I double over, unsure if there’s anything even left in my stomach to throw up. My muscles ache and every inch of my body feels like a bruise.

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