Page 62 of Invasive Species
I fall to my knees on the hard stone, triaging her injuries. Her hands are far too cold for humans, and she shivers uncontrollably. My scales illuminate a dark scrape along the fine skin of her forehead, blood trickling down her temple. Finally, I turn my attention to her left leg, feeling along the bones and muscles from her thigh over her knee and calf. They’re intact, but as I get closer to her ankle, a spike of pain builds in my chest.
“Blunt force trauma and abrasion. Shock. Risk of hypothermia. And a potential twisted ligament.” I feel her pulse, dreadfully slow… except she has only one heart.
So fragile, so delicate.
Her pulse quickens as I move in over her, blocking the deluge with my body. Rain hammers on my back, but I won’t let it through to her anymore.
I grab a sterile mat from my pants and gently mop away the blood on her face. The contusion is shallow and looks worse than it is because of the rain mixing with her lifeblood. But also, I don't want to see her in pain, misery etched into her face. Any injury is too much.
She looks up at me through her lashes, heavy with raindrops. I brush her face gently to dry her as much as I can, then heat my chest.
She immediately tucks closer to me, pressing her unbruised cheek above my hearts, and I wrap my arms around her with a relieved sigh.
This will help reverse her dropping temperature, but her ankle will be hard to treat out here. I don’t have my usual splints and bandages, I’m unprepared.
My heartbeats slow, vision drawing into my patient, but anew awareness intrudes. This is potentially my mate I’m tending to, someone my body has connected to. Regardless of whether the bond is real, my feelings were.
And now I can feel hers.
“I’m sorry,” she says, nearly rocking me back in shock.
“Sorry? What for?”
“Everything,” she says quietly.
I tip her chin up to face me, searching her green eyes. Even in the dim light I can see her despair, dark like a predator hiding in the deepest depths of the Olorian seas.
She sniffles, gaze dropping from mine. “I… I'm sorry I fucked everything up between us. I'm sorry I put your picture up. I shouldn't have done it. I wasn't thinking. I… I never think before I act, but that's not an excuse.” Her head drops into her hands, heaving shoulders shaking her entire body.
She's… sobbing.
I stand in silence watching her break in front of me. Arra-bellah shouldn't ever be sad. It doesn't work. It’s as if the moon and system star have swapped places.
“I ruined everything,” she whispers in between her tears. “I lost Mae, I fucked up Ellen’s planning permission with my stupid art. But I'm mostly sorry about you. I… I'll fix it, I deleted the post but the internet is forever, so I'll work out something else.”
The raw emotion in her face rips my hearts as surely as a contusion, but even worse is feeling them. Despair sinks needles into me, doubt clouds my senses, and sorrow drowns all hope.
“Arra-bellah, you have not, quote, ‘fucked up’ anything. There are challenges, yes. The vicious chicken will not allow herself to be defeated. She will be fine. The permissions are in hand with your companion, Law-rah, yes?”
Her breath hitches. “And… what about you? What are you doing here?”
“I came to find you when you didn’t return and when I felt your discomfort,” I report. “I'll take you back to the farmhouse now.”
Her eyes dim. “Right. Okay.”
But when I go to pick her up, she sets her back against the stone. “I'll walk, you don't need to touch me. I'll respect your boundaries.”
And I know she means it.
This tiny human has thoroughly invaded me. Broken through all my defenses. And even now prioritizes apologies over her own health.
“You're hurt. I will carry you back over the uneven fields.”
“I'll live,” she says, a stubborn set to her jaw.
This maddening, wild human! “Yes you will, now I'm here. Submit to treatment.”
She shakes her head. “It'll hurt.”
