14
Dana
Oh, bless his big sweet snaky heart. When his face fell, I ached with sympathy. The poor man thought I had been raped by my captors. While he would not have been wrong if he had waited a few more days, he had saved me from that fate. “I wasn’t raped.”
He narrowed his slitted eyes, confusion clear. “But the blood…”
It was like a strange version of the birds and the bees talk, featuring a seven-foot-tall alien who thought blood was bad no matter what the context. “Human females have periods,” I explained. I went over menstruation, what it meant, that the blood wasn’t from being hurt but from a normal bodily function.
His frown deepened. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe me, but it didn’t seem like the N’Akron had anything similar. “Our females molt once a sun cycle,” he said finally, as if that was the closest he could get to a comparison. Sadness and bitterness flashed across his face. “Not that there are many of those anymore.”
I reached out and wrapped my hand around his scaly wrist, wanting to comfort him but not sure how. His eyes glowed affectionately at me, but he quickly moved out of my grip and moved forwards.
“The water is here.” His words were stiff now, like he was struggling to come to terms with what had happened. I studied him for a long, quiet moment, wishing I could have done something to help him. Did he regret putting himself in danger for me? Was that what this was? Or was it something else? “I’m going to start a fire for you so you don’t get quite as cold.”
“You don’t have to—”
His smile was bright on his reptilian face. “I want to.”
My heart skipped a beat. Walking forward, I stopped close enough to the small stream that I could put my toes in it if I wanted to, but something kept me from taking that final step. It felt like the world was collapsing on me, like the magnitude of everything that had happened over the past few weeks was threatening to overwhelm me. I was one of those girls who got emotions at the drop of a hat on their period, and this had been some of the worst, because I usually didn’t have to factor in being kidnapped.
“Dana?” N’Ashtar sounded concerned as he stepped forward, not close enough yet to touch but making it clear that was where he wanted to go. “Are you okay?”
That was it, the last straw, the one that broke the camel’s back. I burst into tears, nearly tripping over my own feet as I tried to curl into a small ball. I was strong, I could stand a lot, but the world really had been kicking me in the nuts the last few weeks. First with the crash on Thoheria in the first place, then there was whatever had been going on with the crew that we hadn’t yet figured out. Now I was stuck on a strange, backward planet, in the freezing cold, without alcohol, and the longer we stayed, the less likely it was we would ever get off.
Oh, and I’d been kidnapped and threatened with sexual assault, because that was just the pinnacle of everything. The only reason I’d avoided it? My cooter was bleeding. Too bad it came with hormone fluctuations that screwed everything up, not just my body.
“I miss margaritas, I miss underwear, I miss washers and dryers, and—”
Strong, warm arms wrapped around me, interrupting my tirade. “My sweet Dana,” N’Ashtar murmured in my ear, pulling my smaller form against his taller and broader body. “What can I do to help?”
I scrubbed a hand across my eyes, sniffling and feeling pathetic for it. “Nothing, really.” That was the truth, too. All I could do was deal with it.
“You must hate it here.” I could hear the sadness in his voice, and I didn’t protest when he pulled me closer and into his lap as he settled on the side of the stream.
That just made me cry harder, because really, I didn’t. Yeah, I hated the cold, and I hated that we weren’t organized yet, but I was surprisingly fond of N’Ashtar, and I wanted to help the N’Akron fight back against the Caterri and win their independence. N’Ashtar had gone out of his way to rescue me, and the only men who would have tried that on Earth? They were in romance novels.
I had spent so many years proving I didn’t need anyone, and this was how life repaid me—by throwing someone I was growing to need in front of me at the worst possible time. Even if it had been likely that we would have been able to escape Thoheria and return to the life we had had before, I wasn’t sure that was something I would be able to go through with. It was stupid, right, wanting to give up a huge chunk of your life for a guy you met maybe two weeks ago?
“Why did you rescue me?” I leaned my head back, peering up at him. “I could’ve escaped on my own.” Probably. Maybe.
His strong, forked tongue tasted the air, and there was an unmistakable fondness in his eyes when he looked at me. “I will always come for you,” he told me. “Whenever you need me.”
“But what if I don’t need you?” I arched an eyebrow at him, trying to look cockier than I felt.
His eyes shone gold, his clawed fingertips gentle as they stroked my face. “You do, my Dana. Even if you won’t admit it.”
I scowled at him, although I would have been the first one to admit there was no heat there. Not the bad kind, anyway. Turning away, I let the air my lungs were holding out in a rush. I was independent, I was strong. I didn’t like the