Page 237 of Monsters in Love

I swing the sword across his neck while my legs kick him in the face. His tail flicks at the same time, and as my sword cuts his head off, his tail stabs me.

The venom courses through my body, but I know I will not die. It will only render me unconscious for a time. “ECHO!” I scream as my body goes rigid, and I fall from the sky to the ground below.

Ihear my name, and from my hiding place under a fallen cot, I know without a doubt, it’s Xakiras’s voice. My heart leaps in my throat, and I pull myself out from underneath it, slipping on the floor as I scramble. Before hiding, I found one of the blasters underneath the cot. In my hands, it feels cool, sleek, and I worry I won’t know how to use it. I was never trained, but I know all I need to do is point and fire.

When I’m outside, I don’t see him right away and call out, “Xakiras? Where are you?”

There’s no answer.

My pulse races in my neck, and my underarms begin to sweat. I point the gun outward from my chest as I walk through the rows of tents. “Xakiras?” I continue to call for him, and the longer there is no reply, the more tears well in my eyes.

I start running through the tents until I find the large Krel’s head feet away from his body and the bright green color of Xakiras’s wings.

He’s on his face on the ground with his wings spread behind him, and his body is rigid as stone. I can see the sword still gripped tightly in his hand.

“Xakiras!” I run to his side, sliding onto the grass until I’m beside him. My hands wander over his body, searching for a wound. I see nothing at all on his back, though, and there’s no blood anywhere.

“Honey, please talk to me. What’s wrong?” fear echoes in my voice, and my eyes blur with unshed tears.

He doesn’t answer or move.

Immediately my fingers fly to the side of his neck to check for a pulse. His skin is still warm, and there, underneath the pad of my index finger, I can feel a faint, subtle little thump.

He’s alive!

“I’m going to roll you over, okay, baby? I need to check you for wounds and treat them,” I say, though I’m talking to myself at this point. It calms me to keep speaking because the forest is so quiet that I’m afraid to hear my own thoughts.

My hands go under his waist, but I don’t know how to roll him without hurting his wings. If I break them, would he despise me?

Still, I have to know if he’s okay, and if that means he might need time to heal, then that’s fine.

I grunt as I try to turn him, but as his body is so stiff, it’s like moving a boulder. Eventually I get him on his side, not wanting to break his wings or fold them entirely. There on his stomach is a large, throbbing wound with bright red veins reaching out through his skin.

Xakiras’s eyes are wide open, as is his mouth, and he’s breathing. I can tell by the shallow way his chest rises and falls. “Oh my gosh.”

My mind flips pages of a book inside my mind that remembers details of scorpions from distant Earth. We no longer have any of their DNA to recreate them, but I know I’ve seen them when I studied in university.

The venom, if left untreated, would usually kill them. My tears finally begin to trail down my face. He’s going to die here on the ground alone.

Pulling him to me, I hold him in my lap, stroking his neck ruff and hair. “I’ll stay with you,” I say, though the words are followed by sobbing.

Ihold him like that in my lap for over an hour as I sob and promise he won’t die alone. The longer we sit, the more I realize the venom isn’t as fast-acting as I expected. He doesn’t have any change to him, and he doesn’t die. His breathing stays the same even though he can’t move.

My legs are asleep, and my eyes ache from all the crying, but I continue to talk to Xakiras until I hear the subtle sounds of wings in the air.

I look upward into the glowing pink of the moon, and there I see several Nocris with various-colored wings flying in a formation over us.

“Help!” I scream, waving an arm upward into the air. “Please!”

They wouldn’t hurt him. Maybe they are the hunting party from before, coming to investigate the place the Krel murdered my crew.

“Ho!” one of them calls, and he pauses in the formation with a hand upward to halt everyone else.

“Please help!” I call again, squeezing Xakiras’s shoulder. Leaning down, I whisper to him, “They’ll help you, sweetheart. It’ll be better soon.”

Within minutes, the entire five Nocris men have settled onto the ground near the dead carcass. One of them has bright pink wings, and another dark brown with eyes that look bright orange.

“Xakiras?” the pink one says, stepping forward, hesitating as I look at them with sad, begging eyes.

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