AllFreeNovel
Share Us
They looked similar to his men, but he knew they weren’t. It made it easier to annihilate them, but it meant nothing the moment Sarah hit the floor.
For a split, horrible second, he thought that her life had ended right before him. The way her body slammed against the concrete and the gun flew out of her hands was stabbing him multiple times in the place in his heart that was already so sore from loss.
Everything went black then. He took out all of the mercenaries, leaving chaos in his wake. Once all of them were taken out, a wrecked quiet fell over the security post like an unwanted blanket strangling him.
He ran over to his dearest, whose skin had begun to bubble up from the blast. The nature of the weapons was a burning hot, high-powered technology that had yet to land on Earth. He lifted her up like a rag doll, scanning her body and trying to remain objective.
“You’re okay, Sarah. You are okay, I promise,” he repeated over and over like a mantra.
Her eyes had glazed over, her head lolling back and forth. He raced her toward the hospital. It was a private clinic available 24/7 for specialty cases, usually ones that pertained to the King’s army.
He rang them on his way with Sarah in the back seat, having used his cloak as a pillow to soften the bumps beneath her head.
“Get the OR team,” he screamed into the device. “Someone’s been hit, a human!”
He thrust forward through the oily midnight sky, destroying every law that had been placed on air travel since the planet’s existence. He glanced back every few seconds, a tiny wash of relief moving through him as he spotted her chest continuing to rise and fall. Her hat had flown off in the havoc, and her bun had come loose. Her radiant blonde hair spilled along her shoulders as the heat bit along the top of her chest.
“Fuck, fuck!” he yelled.
Kael nearly crashed into the medical facility head-on. But he didn’t care. He rushed Sarah out of the vehicle, carrying her in his arms the way he had carried Suki to bed thousands of times. It was the way he had carried Petal, too, once. That day had been divinely sunny, but hopefully, today would not be as devastating as that one.
Trauma does things to the body, no matter what species experienced it. Kael, the King’s Army Captain, felt flashbacks in his bones as much as he did his mind. He hadn’t been present when Petal had her accident. He was only there to find her dead, a shell vacated before he had time to say farewell.
It couldn’t happen again. The spark of hope would be extinguished eternally.
He tried not to think with his body or his brain as he handed Sarah to the operating doctors. He was rushed out to the waiting room despite his status and told to wait.
Time was just as cruel as death. He paced until the Drakonian that he had handed Sarah’s nearly lifeless body returned forty minutes later.
Kael implored him for an answer. He knew it would either destroy or summon all of the joy that he would ever feel. That single moment meant everything.
“Sarah is fine,” the doctor said, a bloody cloth thrown over his shoulder. “The wound is pretty bad, though. She isn’t Drakonian, so she won’t heal as quickly. She will need around-the-clock care.”
Kael hadn’t cried after receiving the news of Petal’s death. That was delayed and came out in hot, angry tears a few weeks later. The relief of hearing about Sarah’s recovery nearly took him off his feet.
“I have all the care she needs,” he said, blinking rapidly to keep the rush of tears from pouring out like a broken pipeline. “Thank you, Doctor.”
The Captain was welcomed into her private room a few minutes later when she was stable. At first, she was unconscious, but the color had returned to her face. She was attached to tubes that he didn’t recognize. One stuffed up her nostrils, another pinned into her sky-blue veins. The top of her chest was wrapped up in thick, gauzy layers.
The red blush on her cheeks made him want to pull her into his arms and never let go.
He sat in the chair next to her bed and took her by the hand. It was cold, so he started to warm it, rubbing her fingers beneath his own. He felt a kaleidoscope of emotions all at once: sorrow, fatigue, relief, and more. He gripped her hand and laid his forehead upon it.
“Mmm.” Sarah groaned, shifting in the bed. Kael shot up, his hand tightening harder around hers.
“Sarah? Sarah, can you hear me?”
She smiled, still somewhat porcelain-shaded, but there was life there. Her eyes were still those pretty gemstones that sparkled.
“My hand,” she muttered. “I get it. You’d win an arm-wrestling contest.”
He had no clue what she was talking about but let go, standing from the seat to take her face in his hands. She groaned and grimaced, and he kissed her forehead with a delicacy his kind had rarely attempted.
“Sarah, I have to tell you something,” he said, his lips trailing down to hers. “I have to tell you before anything happens again.”
“You mean before I disobey you again?”
Her crackling wit was alive and well. She was groggy but grinned up at him as he stroked her hair.
