40. CHAPTER 40

When I opened my eyes, the room was dim, but it wasn"t our cabin. It was the medbay. My stomach felt like a brick was sitting inside of it, and when I burped, I could still taste the bitter grasses and, heaven knows what else, from that animal.

I scoffed, angry and disgusted, and slipped out of bed. Someone else was in the room with me. It was Cormac, and to my shock, his leg was missing!

"Oh, Cormac," I sighed. He and I had our differences, but it wasn"t hard to tell that he was the type of guy who enjoyed his freedom, and this would make it so hard for him. "Seems like we all went through our own version of hell there." I moved away and jolted when I saw the child at the door. He stood there, not speaking a word, and I checked my hospital gown, hoping my junk wasn"t hanging out.

"Uh... hi?" I waved. Since when did we have a child onboard? Or did I hit my head, and this boy isn"t real? I called to him, but he ran off, and I followed down the halls. "Hey, wait!" I yelled once he turned and was out of my line of sight.

I paused when he hid behind Zai in the kitchen. The boy clung to his leg like he was his savior. And Zai patted him gently on the shoulder and grabbed another bowl from the cabinet.

"You"re awake," he said before looking at me, his gray eyes shining in the light. I stood there feeling like a stranger on this ship and in my own body. "I"m sure your mate will be pleased," he said.

"Where is he?"

"Still recovering from the toxins in his bloodstream. The Rackni usually coat their arrows in a nasty poison. You were all lucky."

"Yeah, well. I don"t know..." I sure as hell didn"t feel lucky.

"Your child is safe. The alien called a human said so."

"Really?" I asked, surprised by the good news.

Zai nodded, assuring me.

I sighed, wanting to lean against the nearest wall and let my body sink—a weight lifted from my spirits, if not my stomach.

"Want a real meal?" He held up a box of something I couldn"t read. "It"s better than it looks. Just add hot water and place in this machine, and it puffs into a meal."

"It smells good, but no," I said, unable to ignore the child staring at me wide-eyed and in awe. "Who"s the kid?"

"A Lucani child taken by the Rackni. Apparently, he saved your mate," he placed the bowl of food flakes in the hydrator. "And earned himself a home here, even if it"s temporary."

"Well, enjoy your meal. And thank you," I said, eager to see Lorvian again.

Sure enough, Lorvian was there, in our cabin, resting in the dark. I climbed into bed as slowly as I could to avoid waking him, but he opened his eyes.

"Look at you." He ran his hand along my cheek and kissed me gently. "You should be resting in the medbay."

I wiped the sweat from his brow. His skin was paler than normal. I had no idea what type of trouble he was in on that planet. By the look of Cormac"s condition, it wasn"t easy. I was thankful they made it out. "You"re the one to talk. You look like you need the medbay more than I."

"I hate labs."

"I do, too. But we need them."

"You"re the only thing I need," he sighed, forcing himself to sit up. "I would make love to you right now if you weren"t wounded."

I lifted the loose medical shirt, showing off my healed scar. "It"s not bad. Why don"t you just admit that you can"t make love to me because you"re too sick?"

"Nonsense. I can still do it."

This time, we stumbled through it like two bumbling fools.

My head was still foggy, and I couldn"t imagine how he was feeling, but I was happy to be close to him again, to feel him inside of me.

"What happened to you? Or, more accurately put, when I go back to that planet, who needs to die," he said with his arm wrapped around me.

"I was with these Valisians who called themselves Lucani. They worshipped me... actually, not me. Our child. They kept feeding me some plant stuff that came from an animal"s stomach. I think they want to be rescued but have no idea how."

"You ate the plants there? I"ll have Connor examine you further. Our visitor mentioned something about the plant life having terrible side effects."

"I feel fine. I"m just glad our baby is alive. You have no idea how scared I was."

"Me too."

Yet his thick brows furrowed. He looked concerned about something.

"What"s wrong," I asked.

"While there, I heard a name I hadn"t heard in a very long time—my brother"s name—Erevan. And yet I heard it on that planet of all places by the most unlikely of creatures, a human—Cormac."

"Cormac?"

"He says he"s his spy. Or he heavily implied it."

"Cormac? Our Cormac?" Now, I feared the reason why he was missing a leg. "His leg? Did you...?"

"No," he quickly replied. "Not that it wasn"t tempting to take the other one. If he hadn"t said my brother"s name, I would have said he was full of shit."

"This is just what we need, another one of your siblings to deal with," I scoffed. "Is he like the other two? Do you get along with him?"

"I don"t know. I"ve never met him. He was born hundreds of years before me. Who knows what he"s gotten up to in that time? Cormac claims he was going by a strange surname called Mr. Evans."

"That"s a human surname. Mr is like a title given to men."

"Hm, then we may have found Earth"s visitor."