Jenna

JENNA

A zul is breathing heavily, his eyes an unnatural dark color, and venom is running down his chin. He palms his blaster, one arm across his abdomen.

He’s covered in the dust from the room I found him in, most of which smells terrible.

“Azul,” I call out as he turns away. “No.”

He stops in his tracks.

“No?”

“No. If we go, we go together.” I see the injury to his stomach, and it’s all I can do not to fall apart on the spot. “I’m not going anywhere without you, Azul.”

He drops his head, chin touching his chest as if studying his injury.

“Then we go together. Always, my little sunray,” he rasps.

“Spaceport,” I order the ground transport and then dive underneath the console as it moves away from Rossz’s villa.

“What are you doing?” Azul asks, his words slightly slurred.

“I need this thing to go faster,” I reply, rifling through all the various functionalities in the hidden service compartment.

With a lurch, the transport gains speed, and the mark groans again as he’s slammed against the seating.

“Is he pretending?” I query Azul as I search for a medi-kit, opening and slamming shut various cubby holes which contain alcohol and other items which I’m pretty sure are sex toys. “To be unconscious?”

Azul squints at his blaster, poking at the settings before he levels a beam at Rossz. The narcotics dealer goes limp.

“Have you killed him?” I ask, eyes wide.

“Stunned,” Azul says, leaning back. “S’dead or alive anyway,” he adds, eyes closing.

The final compartment yields up a medi-kit. I sigh with relief.

“Let me look,” I say to Azul as we speed through Luxus and out to the spaceport.

“No,” he says.

“I need to see it to be able to treat you.”

“Beautiful, brains, bravery—is there anything you can’t do?” Azul stares at me, eyes slightly glazed, his body wavering from side to side.

“Apparently I can’t stop you from exploding everything,” I say, unwrapping a wound-closer spray.

Azul half grins, half grimaces and lifts his arm. “It’s not as bad as it looks. I heal quickly when I’m not…”

“Not half cut? Having ingested who knows what in terms of his”—I give Rossz a quick kick—“wares.”

“Oh, it was mostly paraxio, kaeten, coane, and a few others,” Azul says, reeling off most of the galaxy’s favorite and most deadly recreational drugs of choice. “Can’t use my venom to meta…metabo…” He closes his eyes as I spray on the wound closer on the chewed up part of his abdomen. “…get rid of it.”

“Guess you’re going to be having a party for the next nova-day,” I say, adding a second coat and relief flooding through me as it does its job. “Something you’ve done before?”

Azul snorts drunkenly. “Fakking narcotics. Hate them. Hate fakers like Rossz who sell them. But when you have to get away…” He yawns and smacks his lips, staring around him with half closed eyes, until they alight on me. “But then I have my mate now, and she is my everything.” He curls up his coils, the tip of his tail wrapping around my ankle.

Azul’s scales are warm and soft against my skin. He’s practically useless in this state, but he is mine.

“You are mine, my mate.” He snuggles his head against me as the transport enters the space port, and I wonder if I’ve said something out loud.

Azul snores gently, and it’s a terrible time to take a nap.

“Port forty-two!” I call out to the transport, and it jinks through the empty spacecraft until we get to Azul’s. It gleams softly in the light of Luxus’s evening dusk.

It’s a far cry from the ship I saw when he took me from Starlight Brides. The transport comes to a halt. Neither Azul nor Rossz move. Without thinking, I grab hold of Rossz’s leg and drag him out, up into the ship. It comes to life as I enter.

“I need to secure this mark,” I announce to the onboard computer.

Next to me, a trapdoor opens in the floor. I peer down to see there is a chute leading to something which appears to be a cell. I toe Rossz in through the hole, and his body slumps easily into the opening, sliding down until I hear a dull thump.

The trapdoor closes.

“Contact Tisel. We need to get out of here!” I call out, racing back to the airlock and outside.

The transport is surrounded by Rossz’s guards. But there’s no sign of Azul. I back away out of sight into the airlock.

What the hell am I going to do now?