She’d hid that fact from her dorm mate but she assumed the girl had known about her innocence anyway. They just hadn’t talked about it and Song had been thankful for that.
But, even with her inexperience with men, she was sure she wasn’t being totally naive when it came to Kyris.
She’d seen it in his eyes when he’d spoken to her and whenever he thought she wasn’t looking.
There was something there.
Something that made her feel embarrassed and self-conscious—as if he was stripping her naked and devouring her every time he looked at her for any stretch of time.
He was being respectful, though, so maybe she was wrong. She wasn’t exactly sure. After all, they weren’t in a situation that bred love and romance. It might just be her inexperience and overactive imagination.
And…he was an alien. Why would he be interested in her?
Maybe her head wound was more serious than she thought and she was hallucinating.
Now, looking across at him, her eyes roved over his torso.
From the front, he looked like any normal male. But his wings...for Pete’s sake, he had wings.
They were made of gorgeous large feathers that overlapped in rows and rows and, right now, they shimmered purple as the light hit them.
As she watched him, it took her a minute for her to realize that he was frowning in his sleep and his entire body was flushed a bluish tint.
Rubbing her eyes to get rid of the remaining sleep, she squinted in his direction.
Moving closer, she realized that she wasn’t seeing things. There was indeed a bluish tint under his skin, all over his entire body to be exact—almost as if he was slowly freezing to death.
He hadn’t looked like that earlier.
No. He definitely hadn’t.
She could see even now that his skin was getting bluer as the seconds ticked by.
Was he sick?
The thought made her anxious.
She had no idea how to take care of him if he fell ill.
Before she realized what she was doing, her hand reached out and brushed over his skin lightly.
His skin was smooth but his chest was hard and, as she touched him less tentatively, heat radiated underneath her fingers.
Alarmed, she placed her hand flat against his chest, only to remove it almost immediately.
He was burning up.
It was as if there was a fire raging underneath his skin.
It was like touching a furnace!
Panic flooding through her veins, Song glanced around the cave.
It was still dark outside and there was no water or anything damp she could use to cool him down.
Her gaze landed on the fire sticks.
Gripping them, she cracked them one at a time over her knee, dousing the lights one by one. Leaving the last one activated, she moved it to the other side of the cave before scrambling back over to the hunky alien.
He was still frowning and in the dim light, she could see that his skin was still blue.
From what she knew, blue skin usually meant hypothermia...but he was burning up.
Was he dying?!
It took a few minutes before the temperature in the cave slowly began to fall and in that time, all she could do was stare at him while worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, hoping to see some kind of change.
“Kyris?” She touched his chest again, noting that his skin didn’t feel as hot as before.
It was working. He was cooling down.
“Kyris?”
He wasn’t responding and that was making the panic rise within her even more.
“Kyris?!” She shook him now, eyes wide and panic getting the best of her. Moving her head close to his face, she tried to sense if he was breathing.
Not realizing it, her face was so close to his that when he spoke, she could feel the faintest brush of his lips against her skin.
“Song?”
Jerking back, cheeks flushed, she sat back on her haunches.
That slight brush of his lips had sent a shiver underneath her skin and it wasn’t because the cave was getting cold.
Swallowing hard, it took her a moment before she could speak. “Are you okay?”
“What do you mean?” He was easing up on his elbows now and she could see that he was looking around the cave, no doubt noticing that it wasn’t as well-lit as before and was getting colder by the minute.
“The fire sticks. What happened to them? Are you not cold?”
Shaking her head, her shoulders relaxed as she watched him squint. His violet gaze was hooded under his long blond lashes, almost as if he was still half-asleep.
“You’re hot.” The minute the words left her mouth she felt her cheeks burst into flames. She didn’t mean for it to come out like that.
“I mean, you were hot.”
That wasn’t helping.
“You were burning up,” she sputtered. “Your skin was turning blue.”
Now, as her eyes raked over him, she realized his skin was turning back to its usual fair complexion.
“Ah.” He rolled his shoulders, pausing mid-movement as a slight grimace passed over his face as if the movement was painful.
“I thought...” she trailed off. She’d thought he was dying. But seeing him now looking normal again, saying that felt a bit silly.
Maybe nothing had been the matter with him? He was an alien after all. For all she knew, getting hot and turning blue when he was sleeping was normal for him.
“It was the warmth.” He seemed a bit embarrassed by the admission as he shifted his position to sit upright.
“You were burning up.”
His lashes fluttered upward as his violet gaze hit her squarely.
For a second, she couldn’t breathe.
Again, there was something heavy about his gaze and in that moment, it was clear.
He was male. Undeniably so.
It was as if she could
