Page 58 of Silver Slayer

Mara stepped through first, her dark curls pulled back from a worried face. Following behind her was Nullar, one of Huren’s medics, the biocontaminant scanner already whirring in his grip.

Mara marched straight past Truxxet and me without a word, stopping only when she was planted directly in front of a scowling Brunnex, arms folded. “I knew you’d be trouble the second they didn’t carry you off that ship,” she said, and gave him a look that made it clear she had already decided how this argument was going to end.

Nullar moved through the room with the unhurried efficiency of a male who had done this a thousand times. He scanned Truxxet first, the device passing from shoulder to hip in a single smooth motion, then me.

Before the medic could lower the scanner, Truxxet cleared his throat. "Were any members of Clan Trisess aboard the Lizordian vessel that recovered the captives from the Natookie?"

Nullar's expression sobered. He lowered the scanner and regarded Truxxet for a long moment before answering. "We do not know. The Lizordian encountered unexpected difficulties after the rescue.” He shook his head slightly. "The vessel was expected to arrive on Valose many suns-rises ago, but it has yet to reach us. No communication has been received since its departure."

The hope that had flickered across Truxxet's face quietly faded. He lowered his eyes, his jaw tightening, then gave a single, silent nod.

Nullar's eyes settled on my shawra. The mark glowed softly on my sternum. The medic’s gaze lingered for a fraction longerthan necessary, and then he dipped his chin in a gesture of acknowledgment. Not congratulations. He was too perceptive for that. Any male with a nose would pick up the scent that lingered on Quin’s flesh where I had marked her during our first and only true mating.

Any worthy male would have walked beside his spirit mate, guarding her first steps through a world that was foreign to her. Instead, I had brought Quin to Valose only to let her walk into the city alone.

“All clear,” Nullar said quietly and moved on.

Nullar turned to Brunnex last. He set aside the biocontaminant scanner and drew a neuro-scanner from his bag, passing it in a careful arc from the base of Brunnex’s skull to his temple. The device emitted a thin, climbing tone. Nullar’s eyes moved across the readout, and his face went still and professional in the way that never meant good news.

"You have sustained a fracture along the occipital ridge with significant cranial pressure building beneath it." Nullar raised his comm device to his mouth. "Maxxon. I have a Jurigon male with occipital ridge trauma and intracranial swelling. I need a hover gurney?—”

“No!” Brunnex barked over Nullar. “I’m walking.”

“—brought to the Yulineon craft for transport,” Nullar didn’t miss a beat.

"He will require a cerebral release.” Maxxon's measured voice came through. “I will have the osteogenic fusion array ready to address the fracture."

“How can a head that hard possibly have been fractured?” Truxxet scoffed.

"Say that again," Brunnex snarled, already lunging toward him, "and I will show you exactly how hard it is when I put it through your chest."

Truxxet stepped out of his path with the unhurried ease of a male who had been dodging things his entire life and found this attempt more amusing than most. Brunnex's momentum carried him forward, and his legs decided without warning that they were done cooperating.

Mara was already moving. She caught Brunnex under one arm before he went down, and I stepped in from the other side, and between us, we kept him upright while he swore impressively.

"Stop antagonizing him," Nullar remarked dryly, not looking up from his scanner, "before he injures himself further."

Brunnex swayed on his feet. “And I’m walking out of here.”

"Then I'll walk with you." Mara stepped in close, lifted his arm and settled it across her shoulders, then slipped her arm around his waist with the practiced ease of someone who had talked stubborn patients into compliance a hundred times before. "Come on, big guy. I need an escort, and you can show me where the medical bay is."

Brunnex looked down at her tucked against his side. The rigid set of his shoulders eased by degrees as he surrendered to the curly-maned female. He gave a single slow dip of his chin.

"Fine," he said. “It is my honor to escort you.”

A quiet regret moved through me as I watched them go. It did not matter that it had been Mara's idea. Brunnex was at her side,and that was what counted. That was what I should have done. I should have stood beside Quin when she stepped off this ship and into a world that was mine and not hers.

The faint thread of her unease still moved through the bond. Muted now, distant. The unmistakable feeling of someone navigating unfamiliar ground alone.

I pushed the feeling down. The corridor opened onto the command deck, and beneath the floor plating where I had stowed it before we left the anomaly planet behind, my sword waited. The belt buckled at my waist with the familiar weight and felt marginally more like myself.

Outside, the twin suns were hanging low, casting long shadows across the landing field. The dome rose up ahead, massive and translucent, and inside it, Quin was walking pathways I knew by heart, surrounded by faces she had never seen. I could feel the faintest thread of her through the bond. She was there, and I was here, and the space between us felt like a distance neither of us yet knew how to cross.

The warrior stationed at the dome’s gate straightened when he saw me coming. Wexxor. Clan Huren, one of the exiles who had fought alongside Jakkar to reclaim the city. He had been little more than a fledgling warrior the last time I had stood beside him. He looked like a different male now, broader and steadier, carrying the calm of someone who had found their footing.

"Vennox." He offered his forearm to be clasped in the warrior's greeting, his silver eyes bright. “Welcome home again, brother. We did not expect your return so soon.”

"Nor I," I said.