Page 17 of 20% Blood 80%
When C chimed in with an elaborate checklist to troubleshoot the cooling system, I tuned her out, preferring to trust my instincts. I lifted the center corridor floor grate and traced the thin refrigerant tubing with the thermal probe, testing for leaks. After replacing that grate, I crawledto the next. Hours later, knees aching and soaked in sweat, I located the cracked line. I made quick work of repairing the leak—crimping the tube, wrapping it with a freeze-resistant plasmasteel coupler and expanding it with a magnet blaster.
Job done, I sat on my ass, shoulders slumped against the curved wall, and rubbed out the grate marks etched into my knees. When I tapped my wristport, the screen showed eleven moons. Dawn neared, and the fear I’d buffered against with busywork seeped back into my bones, icier than the cold air trickling through the vents.
I couldn’t be alone again.
Haunted by the thought, I forced myself to stand and staggered like a drunken sailor toward D’alton’s room, desperately hoping he’d been asleep when I knocked the first time.
My knuckles rattled on the hard plasmasteel door—nothing. Unnerved, I lifted my gaze from the folded clothes still stacked outside the door where I’d left them.
Two weeks ago, when C had deemed the air free of spores and said I could finally leave level thirty-one, she’d also given me universal clearance. It was impossible to repair things in places I didn’t have access to. Not that I’d ventured far. She’d been overly optimistic. Though it was bad form to enter someone else’s room, I raised my palm to the scanner. It was either that or spiral further into panic.
At the door’sswoosh, my breathing grew shallow and my heart rate kicked up a gear. Eyes darting everywhere and finding nothing, I rushed to the washroom. “D’alton?” The desperation in my voice echoed in the empty chamber. “Fuck.”
It had only been a day and a night, I rationalized as I sat on the corner of his bed. The thought of D’alton being snatched from the sky by an enormouswinged lizard flashed through my mind. Goddamn my overactive imagination.I dropped my head into my hands and massaged my aching temples.
The crash site would have taken at least half a day to get to. I jumped up and paced the length of his room, working out the timeline. Then he would have had to look for a communicator, likely buried under three feet of frozen fucking sand. I moved to the small sink and splashed cold water on my face. He probably wouldn’t have had time to hunt for anything yet. Not that he’d be able to see a damned thing out there, anyway.
“Jesus Christ.” I needed an alien with a hero complex about as badly as I needed a hole in the head. This mission crossed the line from brave into dumbass territory. Why hadn’t I tried to stop him?
I scrubbed my tired eyes with a bright white towel hanging from the bedpost. At this point, the towel I’d been using for months resembled a rag. This one smelled delicious—a shocking contrast between musky and fresh, like watermelon and something else I couldn’t quite pin down, but that stirred a desire deep in my guts.
Exhausted, I plunked down on D’alton’s bed, unlaced my boots and slipped them off, along with my tool belt, determined to wait.
My head sank into D’alton’s pillow, and I adjusted my body from its cramped seated position to lying out, legs stretched. Shivering in the cooler air, I dragged his blanket over me and tucked it under my chin. Moments later, I drifted off, buried in his musky scent.
D’alton, plump black lips parted and purple tongue skating over them, crouched on the balls of his feet in front of me, like a predator about to attack. His long tongue snaked over one fang, and my body lit up as if I’d touched a zing ring without gloves. Stock-still, except for his flashing eyes and gliding tongue, he watched me.
“Are you afraid?”
His voice, deeper thanusual, sent sparks of heat down my spine.
“Of what?”I asked, though fear was the furthest from my mind.
“Of a male who wants your blood.”
“Is that all you want?”Memories of his tongue lapping at my skin, the touch of his lips on my neck and the pull—straight to my balls—of D’alton drawing my blood had my heart racing.
His copper-ringed eyes tracked over my naked skin and narrowed to slits, stopping at my erect cock drooling pre-cum over my abs.“I would like to taste…other things.”He tongued his fangs again with that long purple muscle, and I shuddered.
When he circled my ankle with one deep-brown finger, his touch sent a bolt of heat to my jerking cock. My head spun, dizzy with desire, and I pushed up on my elbows, wanting to get closer, to watch, to beg for more of his touch.
But he stopped me, clamping his hand around my ankle.“Lay back down. I’m in charge. I’ll give you what you need.”
The door swooshed open, and I jolted awake.
D’alton stood frozen in the arched doorway, eyes questioning. His strong, smoky scent hit me like a power surge, and I groaned as my cock twitched.
“Hi.” D’alton’s low voice and shy smile made my stomach swim.
Despite clearing my throat, my voice came out scratchy and sleep-rough. “Hi.”
“Did you miss me?” D’alton’s gaze darted away from my hands, where I was absently stroking his blanket.
He slung his bow and quiver, still full of arrows, over a hook in a hidden cabinet. It seemed to open at his touch from what had appeared to be a solid wall a second ago. Under the folds of his black uniform, now frosted in pinksand, his muscles bent and flowed like liquid. But the shy smile and the way he fiddled with his gear, avoiding my gaze, were a sharp contrast to the bossy D’alton who’d occupied my fantasies a moment ago.
I shook my head, dislodging the image of his fangs about to graze my skin. “Shit, sorry. I fell asleep waiting for you to get back.” Though I wanted to pick up the conversation still whispering in my ears with something dirty—I missed your mouth on my cock—I stopped myself. Pursuing a minor was a hard limit for me. “How old are you?”
He spun away from the cabinet so fast that he clipped his hip on the door, slamming it into the wall. No longer concealing his fangs from me, his tongue tapped one sharp point. Instead of the lust that had consumed me before, I stiffened at his obvious anger.
