Page 34 of Fated to the Dragon Alien

Stavian stood beside the monitor for a long stretch of silence. The screen behind him blinked a steady green now. That had to mean whatever he’d sent into her body was doing its job. Her vitals were holding.

“She heard you,” he finally said. “Even if she didn’t speak, she heard you.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I could see it in her face,” he said. “What you did mattered.”

“It didn’t feel that way.” Her chest ached in a place the pain mitigation medicine couldn’t reach. Cerani blinked hard and rolled her hands into fists against the blanket. “She was kind. One of the only people who still smiled. Still laughed.”

Stavian moved back to the bed. He didn’t touch her, but he was close. “I’m sorry.”

Cerani met his gaze, and let her grief show. She didn’t have the energy to keep her guard up, anyway. “I should’ve stayed with her. I don’t even know if she’s still—”

“She’s alive,” he said. “I checked her scan through the interface just a moment ago. One lung collapsed, but they intubated her fast. She’s not gone.”

Cerani pulled the blanket snugly over her. Her mind stayed on Sema—on what would happen next. She dug her nails into her palms.

“I wasn’t sure they’d even try to save her,” Cerani said. “I thought maybe they’d just…let her die. Easier that way.”

Stavian’s face hardened. He stood straighter, his hands curling briefly into fists. “They’ll help her,” he said. His voice was low, rough. “Not because they care. Because I ordered them to.”

Cerani frowned. “Will that get you in trouble?”

He shrugged. “Officially, the Axis can’t afford to lose too many miners at once,” he said. “If output drops below target, it draws attention. And Axis Central hate attention more than they hate getting their hands dirty.”

For a second, the truth of it made her sick. She wasn’t sure why it still surprised her. The air in her chest stuttered. It didn’t quite settle, but knowing Sema hadn’t died—not yet—let Cerani exhale for real. She stared down at her hands again. They were shaking.

“Unofficially,” he said, running his fingers through his hair, “I cannot stomach any more of this carnage and suffering. I just can’t.”

Cerani looked up. His expression was open in a way she hadn’t seen before—no shields, no careful pause. Just honesty. “You’ve been down here long enough to stop feeling anything. How is it you’re not numb like the others?”

“I thought I was,” he said quietly. “But then I met you.”

Cerani

Cerani had never been an eloquent or whimsical person. She was practical. She did what had to be done with as little fuss and wasted energy as possible. Her friends had different personalities. Fivra was optimistic—painfully so at times. Sevas had a temper, and used it when she, or someone she cared about, was threatened. Lilas had pluck and wit and the most cutting tongue of anyone she’d ever met. Turi was determined and inquisitive, which was a combination that often found her in trouble in Settlement 112-1, and Nena…well, Nena was like an ancient sage. She didn’t say a lot, but when she did, it was usually wise and thoughtful and deep. Cerani loved each ofthem, and she knew thatany one of themwould be better suited for this situation than she was.

She’d worked so hard to smother her emotions during her miserable life with her bondmate. Feeling nothing was better than sitting with the boiling rage at his treatment of her, and she’d had to bury the unseemly relief she’d experienced when he’d died. And now here she was, faced with a male who was full of emotions. Cerani felt more comfortable back in that collapsed mine than facing and expressing the things rolling through her at that moment. “You’re supposed to protect the mine, not—” She stopped, her throat knotting. “Not worry about one miner.”

“You’re not just one miner.” His voice was low, pulling things out of her she fought hard to keep buried. “You’refekkingeverything.”

Cerani fought back the burn in her eyes. No tears. Not now. “Don’t say that.”

“Too late.” His hand hovered above her blanket-covered leg before he thought better of it. “I won’t take it back.”

Cerani swallowed. “What do you want with me, Stavian?”

He stayed quiet for a long moment. The low hum of the med systems filled the room around them. The too-clean, sterile smell of it made the ache in her chest feel worse.

“I don’t know anymore,” he said, running a hand over his face.

Cerani shifted against the gel bed to get a better view of him. “Axis controllers always know what they’re doing,” she said, trying to sound distant. Detached. But her voice cracked on the edges.

He leaned his hip on the side of her bed. The lines of his body were a mix of tension and weariness, as if he was holding too much in. “Then maybe I’m done being an Axis controller.”

Between the burn of her muscles and the grief still raw inside her chest, all she could do was stare at him—at the way he looked at her like she was made of something rare. It was too much.

“You should leave,” she said.

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