Page 23 of Gravel and Grit

“Ah. Yes.” Zaek had never been very adept at telling falsehoods, not with any degree of believability, according to Roc, so he told her the truth minus a few key details. “My gland was swollen and it was applying pressure to my tongue which inhibited proper enunciation.”

“Interesting. Does that happen often? Was it in reaction to being shot at?

Is it painful? Can you control it? What’s its purpose?”

Her questions were rapid fire with no pause in between for him to reply.

When she stopped for a breath he just stared, not sure which one to answer first, or if he should answer them at all. He was positive she would not react well if he told her the truth about his gland, and it would be damn hard to court her if she was running away from him, so he remained silent.

When she realized he wasn’t going to answer, she turned pink again and gave him a grimacing, apologetic smile. He felt bad when he saw the disappointment in her blue eyes, but disappointment was vastly better than horror if he told her she might be his mate.

He had enough experience attempting to befriend wild animals to know better than to surprise them. That almost always ended in them fleeing or him being bitten. Not that he thought she’d bite him, but she did remind him of a curious, fluffy, woodland creature, and he didn’t want her to be scared or wary of him, not now that she’d just lost some of the guardedness in her gaze.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “You’re my first alien. Curiosity killed the… uhh, never mind. Right. Well, we should probably come up with a plan—” her words cut off with a gasp. “Where’s my device?”

“Yourdevice? I believe you meanmybeacon,” he corrected.

In response, she narrowed her eyes and raised her brows, giving him an expectant look. He narrowed his eyes right back at her, but he only managed to hold out for all of three seconds before he caved. Grumbling, he bent and

slid the beacon out from under the couch.

“There. See?Mybeacon is unharmed.”

“Thank goodness.”

There was a proprietary glint in her pretty eyes. His tongue refused to cooperate when he started to tell her she couldn’t keep it. She looked so relieved. She was even smiling at him, widely, as if he’d done her a great service by bringing it with them. Deceiving her left a bitter taste in his mouth, but he couldn't bring himself to upset her.

“Do you think the security team will try to track us down?” she asked, her smile disappearing as she gazed at him worriedly.

“Most assuredly, yes. And they will kill us if they catch us,” he stated flatly as he bent and lifted the beacon onto his lap.

He could see that his answer scared her, but, in this, he was not willing to soften the blow. He didn’t want her thinking it was safe for her to return to the military base. If they didn’t kill her outright they would interrogate her, and he didn’t trust them to do that with any degree of kindness or thought to her health and continued wellbeing. At his words her face lost all color.

“Kill us? You can’t be serious,” she whispered.

Zaek paused and considered her for a moment before responding. She’d been unconscious during the majority of their escape. Would she believe him if he told her what he’d heard? He hoped she did, not just because it was true and she needed to know, but because he wanted her to trust him.

“I heard the leader’s command over one of the soldier’s radios as we were escaping. The order was to terminate us and bring him the bodies. They believe you and I are in collusion. You have been branded a traitor. I am sorry, Mira. It was never my intention to cause harm or to put you in danger,”

he paused and dipped his head to catch her eyes, “but I will protect you.”

She nodded a little woodenly but remained silent, shock and dismay painted across her face. Zaek didn’t know how he would resolve this situation he’d inadvertently put her in, but he would keep his word and protect her.

Whatever it took.

1 6

ZAEK

Realizing she needed time to process the distressing information he’d just told her, Zaek turned his attention to the beacon. He needed to fix it so it would be able to send out a ping to his brethren’s sigils.

By this time the homeworld should’ve received the beacon’s rescue signal which meant any day now they should be sending a return message telling them when and where to expect pick up, if they hadn’t already.

He started by removing the outer casing to get to the mishmash of human tech mixed with Khargal someone—Mira he assumed—had used to replace the fried circuitry, but once he had it open, he just stared at it in consternation.

Zaek was a soldier, a smart one, granted, and technically inclined but still a soldier. His expertise was in battle—tactics, strategy, and problem solving

—whether that be by shedding the enemy’s blood or by diplomacy and negotiation. Most everything he’d learned about electronics, Khargal or human, had been after the crash and by necessity, using technology half-destroyed by impact or water damage or stolen from stores. He’d received the basics on how to operate the beacon in case of emergency, as had the rest of the crew, but he didn’t know how to fix it, particularly now that it was hybridized with human tech. He didn’t have time to take it apart, study the way it worked, fix it, and put it back together. Hell, it had taken him a damn week to make a simple frequency tracker to find it in the first place.

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