I thought I was consoling him. It turns out that I’ve said exactly the wrong thing. The man’s face contorts. “You don’t understand,” he snarls. “I’ve already clawed my way out of the gutter once. I want my damn reward. I want my life back.”
He takes a step back. In a flash, he pulls something out of a pocket. A syringe.
What the fuck—why wasn’t he searched before they put him in stasis? Dread soaks me. I have a very bad feeling about this.
He places the needle on a vein in his forearm.
“Danek,” Sixth’s voice cracks like a whip. “Stop him.”
I barely hear my brother. I’m already diving forward.
30
Naomi
Time slows to a crawl.
Danek dives toward Lashi’vi’s son, trying to stop whatever is going to happen.
He’s not fast enough. He can’t make it in time, and he knows it. The needle pierces the other man’s skin.
Danek knocks him to the ground.
The two of them roll around. Tussle. The Cindifin scion fights dirty. He stabs Danek with his fingers, aiming for the cut on his forehead. Danek takes the blow without flinching, his fingers locked on the other man’s wrist.
Then it happens. The needle stabs Danek’s palm, and the contents of the syringe drain into my Draekon.
For a second, the world is hushed.
Then he starts to scream. He screams and screams and screams, as if he’s being burned from the inside out. He claws at his eyes and pulls his hair, and I’m frozen in shock, horrified, terrified.
A black mold seems to grow across his face. His skin starts to smoke. And I know, with absolute certainty, that he’s dying.
An ocean of panic opens inside of me, and I start to go under.
“Naomi.” A voice tugs at me. It’s Sixth’s hologram. He’s kneeling next to Danek, his eyes inches from Danek’s face. “I need your help.”
“Yes. Anything.”
“Danek’s body is shutting down. Whatever was in that syringe…” His voice trails off. “You need to get him into stasis.”
“Okay. Of course.” My Draekon’s probably got a hundred pounds on me, minimum, but I don’t care; I’ll make it work. I have to make it work.
I start to tug Danek toward the stasis pods, but he’s a deadweight. “The antigrav cuffs,” Ruhan exclaims. “I almost forgot. Use them.”
“Anti-what?”
“In his pack.”
I empty the contents of the pack on the floor. Ruhan points to four dull platinum cuffs. “Get them on him.”
My fingers are shaking. I snap them around Danek’s wrists, then his ankles. Ruhan shows me how to turn them on, and then, as if by magic, Danek starts to levitate. My heart in my mouth, I tug him into one of the vacant stasis pods.
It’s never looked more like a coffin to me.
He’s cold. So cold. His skin is bumpy and ridged, riddled with the mold. His eyes are closed, and his breathing is faint, so faint I don’t know if I’m imagining it.
I could drown in my ocean of panic, but Danek needs me. He’s never needed me more. He was there for me. He saved me. Now it’s my turn to do what I can.
I push him inside the stasis unit, crawling inside with him to get his body to slide all the way in. “You need the cuffs,” Sixth says. “For the kid.”
Oh, right. Lashi’vi’s son. I glance back and see that he’s still on the ground, convulsing in agony, clawing at his face the way Danek was. My stomach churns. Oh God, what the fuck was in that syringe? What’s going to happen to Danek?
I move over Danek’s body as gingerly as I can and remove the cuffs from his ankles. I’ve got my hands around his wrists when his eyes flutter open. “Naomi,” he says, his voice so soft I have to strain to listen. “I love you.”
Tears pour down my cheeks. “I love you too,” I choke out. “I love you so much.”
But his eyes have already shut, and I’m not sure he heard me.
It’s too late.
31
Naomi
My memories after that are a little blurry.
Ruhan hacks into the stasis pods to check Danek’s vitals. Whatever he sees freaks all of them out, and Sixth tells me to comm Kenia, the Cindifin scientist, and get her here in a hurry.
It takes her two hours to get to our dome. Two long, terrifying hours. To her credit, the second she sees Danek’s vitals, she doesn’t waste any time asking stupid questions like ‘Why is there a secret dome here?’ and ‘What is this shuttle filled with Draekons doing on Noturn?’ and ‘What happened to your bondmate?” Instead, she snaps into action, following Sixth’s directives without question.
At the four-hour mark, Mirak and Diana touch down in a small, sleek spaceship. They sprint out, dressed in spacesuits.
I’ve only met Diana once. She squeezes my hand. “It’s going to be okay, Naomi,” she says reassuringly. “Draekons are tough. Especially these guys.”
But Mirak doesn’t say anything, and the stress on his face delivers a different message.
I don’t remember the journey back to the Rebellion. I don’t remember the take-off, or the wormhole jumps, or docking alongside the colony ship. Those things must have all happened, but my mind doesn’t hold thoughts, and I have space only for one person. Danek.
Who is dying, as this virus that he’s been infected with eats him from the inside out.
My vigil begins.
32
Naomi
Danek is in a healing tank. His organs are shutting down, one by one. The virus, whatever it is, seems to be rewriting his genes.
“Hey.” I have an overwhelming urge to touch him. This tank is not as tall as the one on Noturn. It looks like a shallow swimming pool. I stand over him, tears filling my eyes. “I miss you.” I brush my fingers across his cheek. “Pumpkin, Plague, and Pestilence miss you too. They keep escaping from my room. I think they’re looking for you.”
He’s unconscious, and I doubt he can hear me, but it
