Page 40 of Her Alien Warrior
My eyes adjusted and focused on the trill stationed here. She turned and lifted a quizzical brow ridge at my frenzied state.
"General," she addressed calmly. "The medics have already been alerted to a possible rut on the ship. Everyone you've passed on your way here has been alerting them to your location."
"Renee," I demanded.
Her large reptilian eyes crinkled, and her second lid fluttered in some kind of recognition.
"She's here," I gritted out as best I could. My restraint waning as I sniffed the room for that familiar scent. It was here, in this room recently.
"It's too late to remove her. You'll have to wait until Trillume. We have limited resources, and removing someone from stasis early isn't an option. Even if we made an exception, you'd be risking her health to shock her fragile body."
My eyes caught movement of her hands digging into her robes.
"Elder spray?" I huffed at the entrance, my epul in my hands flexed uncomfortably. Blood trickled down my chest from my shoulder epul, as well as down my knuckles from my claws.
I would bleed out if my rut continued without a medical team, or my mate's blood. It was a theory, but one drop of her blood removed the pain when I bathed in her ello juices, and I healed much quicker than I ever had before. She was mysalvation.
The trill revealed the canister in her hands and smiled, rows of sharp teeth like needles shined back at me. She may not have been a warrior, but if my rut forced me to fight her, she would win with one calculated bite to my neck. Any warrior would survive the bite, but the trill were known to be poisonous. And I wasn't any warrior, I was flawed. The only time I trained to fight was with Commander Rokva, or Cenkal. They both were easy on me, merely playing up the show of training with me so more warriors respected my position as general, even if it was for research and not for leadership.
I collapsed to my knees, straining the epul along my thighs that had protruded. This was what defeat, true failure, felt like. There was enough of my mind left to not rage needlessly against the only being in here that I could fight. It was her duty to use the elder spray and secure me until the medics could arrive.
Did I well and truly lose my mate, the moment she stepped into that stasis pod? My sister would no longer be commander of this ship when she awoke, and she'd have no authority to end Renee's contract with the Blue District. Newly appointed Commander Tensel has shown he doesn't believe in true mates and will not help me reach her.
There was only one last chance...
Chapter sixteen
General Sou-el
When I woke from being sedated, Cenkal told me that I shouldn't go to the stasis chambers. My glands were unpredictable, and being around Renee had somehow given them a life that was never thought possible. With an unprecedented rut building within my system, I was on a regular dosage of suppressant to keep my glands under control, but soon I wouldn't be able to hide the nose bleeds, or the blood in my lungs. Active adrenaline didn't mean my glands were functioning properly to help heal my wounds from my epul shifting under my second skin.
Soon, I would haveno choice but to stop taking the suppressants as they were stopping what little healing my body was capable of. Then the rut would take over.
"You're going to visit mom again?" Becky asked as I tried to turn towards the door to hide the blood dripping towards my lip. I wasn't done teaching her what I could for the rotation. It was my honor to train the spawnling of my mate, but I would need to be under sedation again if my body could not make it until Renee's return from stasis.
"Who told you?" I wondered if perhaps she was spending a bit too much time with Cenkal with his constant monitoring. He's aware that my healing was compromised with the suppressant, but with medbots he's been doing what he could to balance it. If he knew I was bleeding regardless of the medbots, he'd have placed me in stasis until we could reach a healing unit on Trillume.
"I followed you, but even if I didn't, Medic Cenkal knows where you are at all times and has asked me to convince you to stop going."
I growled as if she were an obstacle between me and my mate, and I knew my time was short.
"I'm not going to stop you," she added, but not before I turned and she spotted the blood, but this time it was from my forehead where small epul sprouted like a crown. She scrambled to the wall and opened the med hatch with clotting spray and emergency supplies.
Beckypatted the chair, and I sat as she tended to my open wounds from breaking through my second skin. Moving my epul at all was a risk, but my control was slipping.
"General..." I thought she was going to tell me she would make sure Medic Cenkal knew about this, but instead she asked, "What do you talk about when you go? There are rumors that stasis is similar to a coma and some people can remember the sounds they hear while they were sleeping."
I smiled at the thought of Renee listening while I confessed my need for her and told her of my plans for us. For a future I may not ever get to have.
"I speak of my home on Necias Prime, and my wish for her to visit for our mating. I've spoken with Cenkal about a filter I could use to visit Earth without damaging my glands further. As her mate, I would have temporary access to visit, and meet with your sister. You've said you are not her only spawnling, and I have desire to know more of your tribe and Renee's preferences which would bring more happiness to her life."
"That's really sweet, and honestly unexpected from you," she said with a smile that was the opposite of my own expectations when she believed my 'sweetness' was out of character from her perceptions.
"For humans this sweetness is appreciated but you did not expect this from me?"
She chuckled and continued smiling despite the scowl I knew I was giving her in return. It displeased me that the spawnling of my Pulsunne did not think me worthy of her guardian's honor.
"No, it's not that. It's just you were teaching me how it was unhealthy for any being to ignore their own happiness for the happiness of others, yet you're willing to risk your own health to visit Earth to see my mom smile?"
