Coral

Istare up at Drasus. The blow to his head must be worse than it looks, and it looks pretty bad. His hips gyrate in a circle again and he inhales deeply, the cut running with more blood the more he moves.

"Have we mated?" he murmurs, his eyes taking on a feral sheen.

"What? No!" I fire out. "Sit. I need to check you over." I pull at his hand, but he doesn't move, looking around himself instead.

Finally, he gives in to my touch, and drops to the ground, making his head level with my middle. A pair of dusty arms wrap themselves around my buttocks and Drasus pulls me straight into him, his nose digging into my crotch where he inhales deeply.

"Can I mate with you?" he asks, and a bright eye with long eyelashes is hopeful.

A hand drops away from me in order to palm the bulge in his crotch.

"No," I say firmly.

The eye becomes…fearful?

"Don't…" His brow furrows."…bite? Please. I'll do anything to please you, female."

I'm completely thrown. Drasus doesn't know me, and he thinks I'm going to bite him?

"I won't bite."

A half feral, half hopeful smile appears on his face. "You won't." His grip increases on my bum and the hand at his crotch slides into his pants.

"Not yet," I add sternly, knowing I have to try to gain some control of this situation.

He blinks his functioning eye at me. The spark of fear is back, but now I know it's easily overridden. He heaves out a sigh to end all sighs. I take the opportunity to gently inspect his wound and use the bottom of my shirt to clean off some of the blood.

Drasus makes a happy sound, quite unlike anything I've heard from him before. I need to find out how bad this temporary memory loss is. He was already injured when we came down here. Further injury…well, it could be…

My heart stutters in my chest at the thought of what it could be.

"What is this place?" Drasus asks, looking around with some curiosity.

"We're in the caverns under the Kirakos," I tell him, tearing off a piece of my top as more blood flows from his wound and I need to keep up pressure on it.

"The Kirakos?" He says the words like he's never heard them before.

"The prison maze? The one Draco brought you all to, in order to find the star map?"

"Who is Draco?" Drasus gazes up at me again.

"You don't remember your leader?" I ask as gently as I can.

He shakes his head and winces.

"Do you remember who you are?"

The confusion which rushes over his handsome features is impressive. With his hair flowing around his shoulders, he looks younger somehow.

"No, I don't think so," he finally says. I see the fear fill his eyes again before it's replaced by a look of determination. "But I have a female, so I must be a good warrior," he adds with a note of triumph.

"Your name is Drasus," I tell him. He looks at me blankly.

"Dray-sus?" he queries. "What sort of a name is that?"

"You are a Sarkarnii? A member of Draco's crew?"

Drasus pulls me into him again, his attention easily distracted, it seems. I am subjected to another inhale, although he is pretending not to be at my crotch. Badly pretending.

"I rut for you," he says, voice muffled. "Can we mate now?"

This can't be permanent. Drasus needs treatment and time. He'll remember who I am, what we're doing. He has to.

I growl out my frustration. He grins up at me.

"I need to get you cleaned up." I attempt to pull away from him, but he doesn't let me go.

"Who are you?" he asks, his clear eye dancing with mischief. "Who is this beautiful female who makes me want to rut her into the ground and who has a face which could make the ancestors weep?"

Who the hell is this? It's not a grumpy Sarkarnii, that's for sure.

"I'm Coral. I'm a healer and I want to fix you up."

"I don't need a healer." His eyes darken. "I am Sarkarnii."

"Fine, then you need someone to clean you up, or is that not needed either because you are Sarkarnii?" I attempt to imitate his deep voice on the last word and Drasus snorts a laugh filled with smoke.

I've not heard him laugh before. I think I like it.

"Then you do what you need to do," he rumbles.

"You'll need to let me go get some water," I reply, and he slowly relaxes his grip on my body.

There's a battered canteen on the ground near the camp, and I scoop up some water from the pool. Only one place near the edge is still clear. The rest is filling with a strange red color. I rip off some more of my top in order to be able to clean Drasus up.

"You smell good," he says in a delicious, sinful voice as I use the water to carefully clean around the wound, which has finally stopped running with blood, and not only is it clotting, but incredibly, I can see signs it's knitting together.

None of which takes away from the large lump on the back of his head, the one which has obviously caused his temporary memory loss. Drasus hums slightly as I work my fingers through his hair, checking for further injury, but remains stoically silent as I explore the lump.

"Is my head still on, female?" he asks with a cheeky half smile.

His eye is looking better too, the swelling going down.

"It's still on, but whether you have grown a brain since you got in a fight, I cannot tell," I reply as I use more water to clean off the blood from his face.

Drasus chuckles out a laugh. So, it appears he needs a blow to the head to knock some sense into him. My heart squeezes in my chest. I'm trying to see the bright side, but I do not like the fact he has lost virtually all of his memory.

"What are you?" he asks, his voice low and hoarse. "You are not like me, not at all, and yet I rut for you."

"I'm a human." I finish wiping the blood from his face, sliding the cloth under his chin. He makes a soft purr-like noise in his chest. "We're compatible with Sarkarnii, but I am from a very long way away."

"And we are in prison?" He studies my face. "What did we do?"

"I didn't do anything," I reply. "I was brought here against my will, but you…"

It occurs to me I don't know what the Sarkarnii did to end up in the Kirakos.

"We stole…" Drasus says, the initial words obviously clear to him, then his face goes blank, and he shakes his head. "I don't remember." He growls in frustration. His bad eye is bright enough now I have them both glaring at me. "I don't understand."

"It's okay, Drasus. Your memory will come back, with some rest."

"Rest?" He hitches up an eyebrow over his good eye. I nearly laugh.

"Rest," I say, firmly.

And behind us, the walls come tumbling in.