Page 30 of Ashes & Aether

“Maggie!”

The scream rips from my throat, raw and feral.

The Ghorvek lunges, its massive jaw snapping wide, its claws reaching for her. Maggie swings her weapon, firing three rounds directly into its chest plate. The bullets spark and deflect off the thick armor. It doesn’t slow down.

I move faster than conscious thought. The world blurs, the adrenaline washing my vision in red.

The Ghorvek swings its arm.

The razor-sharp claws hook the fabric of Maggie’s left sleeve.

She violently twists her body, throwing herself backward against the railing, but the claws catch the cotton, ripping the sleeve open from elbow to wrist.

I hit the creature with the force of an asteroid.

I don’t use the sword. I drop the weapon, wrapping both hands around the Ghorvek’s thick neck. The momentum carries us past the stairs, smashing into the opposite wall, and the concrete cracks under the impact.

A red, blinding fury consumes me. It touched her. It touched my match.

I wrench my arms in opposite directions, and the Ghorvek’s spine snaps. The massive creature goes limp, dropping heavily to the floor.

I don’t look at the corpse. I spin around, the armor retracting back into my ports instantly, leaving me in my combat weaves.

Maggie leans against the metal railing of the stairs, her chest rising and falling, the pistol still gripped tight in her right hand. Her left arm hangs at her side, the sleeve of her white blouse shredded into bloody ribbons.

Panic floods my veins.

The Ghorvek virus. The pathogen that turns creatures into mindless husks within minutes. It transfers through bites and scratches.

“Maggie.” I cross the space in two strides, falling to my knees in front of her. I drop my hands onto her shoulders, my fingers gripping her tight enough to bruise. “Did it break the skin?”

She stares at me, her blue eyes slightly unfocused. The adrenaline is burning off. “The door is sealed.”

“Fuck the door!” I slide my hands down her arms, grabbing her left wrist. I pull the shredded fabric away.

Blood smears the pale skin of her forearm. Fresh, bright-red blood.

My hearts stop beating. The air leaves the room. I stare at the blood, my mind calculating the minutes, calculating how quickly my nanites can purge a human bloodstream before the neurological damage becomes irreversible. Kairen saved Tara from brain trauma, but the Ghorvek pathogen is a different, vicious beast.

“Orien, stop.”

Maggie yanks her arm back with surprising force.

“I need to scan you.” I reach for my command cube, my fingers shaking. The spymaster is gone. I am nothing but raw, exposed terror. “If the pathogen entered your bloodstream, I have moments to flood your system with purgers⁠—”

“I am fine.” She steps up a stair, putting higher ground between us.

She pulls the shredded remnants of her sleeve together, wrapping her right hand over the torn fabric, shielding her forearm from my view.

I stare up at her. “You’re bleeding.”

“It’s a scratch from the concrete when I hit the wall.” Her voice is deadpan. It doesn’t shake. It doesn’t waver. She looks down at the dead Ghorvek, then back at me. “The claws caught the fabric. They did not pierce the skin. I’m unharmed.”

I pause. The panic begins to recede as I look at her face. Her pupils are returning to normal. Her breathing is steady. Her heart rate, which I can hear perfectly in the quiet aftermath of the battle, is calm.

She just survived a near-fatal ambush by an apex predator. She was inches away from being infected with a virus that turns creatures into monsters.

She should be in shock. She should be trembling. She should be demanding I run the scan just to be absolutely certain she isn’t about to lose her mind.