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Tegan shrieked as the figure jerked up and coughed. She ran to Zaandr and threw her arms around him. “You’re alive!”
“And wet.” Zaandr spit out a mouthful of water as he pushed himself up to sitting “Why am I wet?”
Tegan laughed. “Pog transformed into some kind of creature with a trunk, and he’s dousing the fire with water.”
“We really should get a few more Pogs.”
“I thought you were still inside the building.” Tegan’s voice broke as she ran her hands over his damp skin, as if to make sure he was real. “We didn’t see if Pog made it out, or who was on his back.”
“I was on his back.” Zaandr’s eyes closed for a beat. “Rixx insisted I go first. He said you had something you needed to tell me when I got down.”
Tegan’s vision blurred. “He was right. I should have told you before I left with Pog, but I was scared and stupid.”
He brushed a strand of hair from her forehead. “You are far from stupid, but I understand why you were scared.”
She pressed a hand to his chest. “I’m not scared anymore. I know you’d never willingly leave me. I don’t want to lose you because I’m afraid. I can’t lose you.”
He pinned her with an intense gaze. “Then don’t.”
She exhaled a shaky breath. “I won’t.
“You’re right that I would never leave you.” He put his hand on top of hers and squeezed. “I promise.”
Tegan nodded, a tear snaking down one cheek. “I believe you.” She put a hand to his cheek, almost unable to believe the strength of her emotions. It should be impossible to fall for someone so quickly, but her feelings for him were real and powerful. She’d never felt as sure about anything in her life as she did about him, and she’d spent most of her life being sure that she would never love anyone. She had never been so glad to be so wrong as she was in that moment. “I love you.”
I know. He captured her mouth in a soft kiss that deepened as he tangled a hand in her hair.
When he pulled back, she smiled. “I have to confess something.”
Zaandr cocked his head to one side.
She flicked her gaze to the Lycithian shape-shifter who was putting out the smoldering fire. “I also love Pog.”
The Dothvek gave her a crooked grin. “Don’t we all?”
Chapter
Twenty
Once Tegan was convinced he was okay and had left him to talk to Rose, Zaandr made his way to where Vrax was searching the smoldering rubble. Pog’s dousing of the flames with water had extinguished the fire, but it had left everything waterlogged. Part of the back walls stood, creating a blackened shell, and the roof had partially caved in, but still hung over part of the debris.
Vrax nudged a charred body with one foot. “This looks like a Zevrian.”
Zaandr bent over and eyed the body, recognizing the clothing and leather armor that one of the aliens had worn. He grunted. “I think I killed him.”
His stomach twisted as he looked at the burned corpse. Was Rixx’s scorched body under the rubble? He couldn’t sense him, but that could mean that he was unconscious. Zaandr refused to believe that his best friend was dead until they found evidence, and so far, there was none.
“He might have escaped.” Zaandr spotted the twin warriors digging in the wreckage along with K’alvek, and he sensed their frustration along with the bits of hope they clung to like rafts on a turbulent sea.
Vrax nodded absently. “Why can’t we feel him?”
Zaandr frowned. He had no answer for that. He should be able to sense his friend. Of all the Dothveks, he’d always been most tightly bonded to Rixx. If he couldn’t sense his emotions or thoughts, that meant he was unconscious. He gulped. Or dead.
He shook his head, refusing to believe it. Rixx was a survivor.
Vrax cut a glance to him. “You going to tell me the whole story, and how all this happened?”
Zaandr considered everything that had taken place in the pleasure house run by the underground resistance, his mind revisiting his night with Tegan.
