Page 47 of Sheltered in the Storm

“This again?” She smiled up at me. “You need to get your vision examined. You keep asking me what I’m doing when the answer is obvious.”

Yesterday, she had tried to stand but the pain was overwhelming. I did not understand how this was possible, but I could not deny the evidence of my own eyes.

“Standing does not hurt you?” I demanded.

“Well, it hurts alittle,” she admitted. “But not too badly. Just aches, really. No sharp pains at all.”

Not only was she standing, her cuts and bruises that only yesterday had been easy to see were either gone or almost healed. Alarmed and confused in equal measures, I took my medical scanner from the windowsill and passed it over her. The results made no sense, so I scanned again. Same readout.

“Vos.” Calla’s sharp voice and frown drew my attention. “Basic medical care etiquette: don’t scan me and then stare at the screen without speaking. It implies something very bad is going on and you don’t know how to tell me.”

“There is nothing bad,” I said, almost in a daze. I showed her the scanner. “You are nearly healed.”

“I suddenly healed while I was sleeping?” Her scowl deepened. “That makes no sense.”

Startled, I took a step back. My tentacles quivered in agitation.

“What?” she demanded. “What does that mean to you?”

I struggled to put my suspicion into words. “Because of my genetic engineering, when I am badly injured, I sleep for a day or more as all my energy goes to recovery. And when I wake, I am usually fully healed.”

“I don’t understand.” She sat on the side of the bed, still staring at me. “You didn’t give me any blood since that first night, right? You wouldn’t have done that without my permission.”

“Of course not.” I was glad she believed I would not do anything without her consent. “I did not even consider doing so.”

“Then how did I heal suddenly? Is it something about being on Iosa? Was it something in the bathwater? Something—” Her eyes widened. “Oh gods, Vos.”

The smell of her sudden fear sent me to my knees in front ofher. My tentacles wrapped around her legs as I took her hands in mine. “Tell me what troubles you.”

She swallowed. “You say your healing ability is in your blood. Is it possible it’s also in other bodily fluids?”

“I have never—” I cut myself off before I finished the thought.

I had never healed anyone with my blood, but I had never tried.

I had never made that comforting cooing sound until Calla. I had never given orgasms with my tentacles and kiss until Calla. And I had certainly never healed any partner with my cum. Unlike my blood, there were instances in my past when that could have happened if it were possible.

The only answer that made sense was that I could heal my mate in more ways than with my blood. My Calla and I stared at each other in shared shock and disbelief.

A sudden terror gripped me: if she had reacted so strongly to the news that I had used my blood to heal her without asking permission, what would she think of me now?

“I did not know.” If I were not already on my knees, I would have fallen to them in my earnestness. “I swear, I did not know.”

She still smelled of fear, but now that scent was tinged with something else. Anger? Betrayal? No, hurt. Her expression looked bruised.

The thought she was in any kind of pain, emotional or physical, filled me with fear and rage. I did the only thing I knew to do: I cradled her and cooed. She buried her face against my chest, her shoulders hunched despite my attempt to comfort her.

I cupped the back of her head and kissed her hair. “Calla, please tell me what is wrong.”

“I don’t know why it hurts,” she said, her voice rough. “It shouldn’t, but it does.” She said nothing more for a long time.

Rather than coo again, since it had done little to ease herdistress, I hummed a song from my homeworld, as I had done while bathing her the first night she had spent in my home. This lullaby was one of the few shreds of my childhood that had stayed in my memory despite every effort the Guard had made to eradicate such useless things.

Perhaps it was not so useless, though, because little by little Calla’s shoulders relaxed and the smell of her fear and hurt began to wane.

When she spoke, her voice was so soft even with my enhanced hearing I had to strain to make out her words.

“I’d just barely survived a firefight with three raider vessels,” she said. “I was on my way back to Outpost 60 in a half-working ship when I decided to stop at Jakora. I planned to bribe a mechanic to tell my commander my ship wasn’t able to make the trip back without repairs that would take at least three or four days. I wanted to spend those days drinking, swimming in the ocean, and fucking someone I’d never see again once I left.”

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