Crystal

Ifeel a tingle in my toe. The star cat lifts up his head from his position next to my bed. He purrs slightly. I will myself to wiggle it, and to my delight, it moves.

Whatever the sister was trying to do to me, it didn't work. But I was lucky when the star cat shoved the door open with his big furry head and growled at her. I'm not sure anything frightens whatever creature she is, but she didn't like it.

The star cat padded past her, put his huge front paws up on the bed. and licked the very tip of my nose before he turned his head slowly to glare at her.

She flicked up her hood and stalked out of the room.

"Thank you," I hear myself croak at the star cat.

He shoves his massive head against me to the point I think he's going to push me off the bed. I slide my hand into his thick fur, and he pushes back with a huff, dropping down to pretend to be a mat next to my bed.

I stare up at the ceiling of the weird room, attempting to understand what is going on, why Drelix would bring me here to be tortured by these creatures. Why he would even defer to them. Everything is jumbling up in my mind, what happened on the Habosu ship, what happened when we were on Trefa…

"Heartsfire?"

I open my eyes to see Drelix's handsome face so close to mine.

"Drelix," I breathe.

"Heartsfire!" I'm gathered in his strong arms, still hardly able to move at all, but enough I can clutch at his forearm and feel his soft scales beneath my fingers.

"I'm sorry." My voice is hoarse.

"You are never to apologize." He shoves his head in the crook of my neck, inhaling deeply. "And your enemies paid the price for what they did to you, as is my right as your mate."

"The Habosu?"

"They are gone."

I'm not sure whether to be relieved or angry or a bit of both.

"Drelix, did you declare war on the House of Makkan?" I struggle with the long sentence. It leaves me breathless.

"I am at war with any species who believes they can take what belongs to me," Drelix growls. "You are mine, Crystal. The stars are bright because of you, my head is clear because of you. I know what I want because of you."

He slides underneath me gently until I'm lying on top of him. My limbs are coming back to life even as my head feels heavy with the need to sleep.

"Don't leave me," I whisper. "Please don't leave me with them."

"With who?"

"The living corpses."

"The sisters?"

I trace a finger, following one of his little neons as it flows towards me.

"Yes," I say as unconsciousness claims me and I wonder if it was all a terrible nightmare.

When I openmy eyes again, there's a heavy weight on my legs and something extremely hot underneath me. I feel like the filling in a sandwich.

But at least I'm feeling something!

Although, even when I open my eyes, I can't see much. The light is dim as if…I have my nose pressed hard against a muscular chest which is rising and falling evenly. Drelix sleeps, if not like the dead, then something adjacent. His long eyelashes sweep his cheeks, and his face is relaxed. My heart does the flipping thing in my chest. The thing that says "how can he be mine?"

A deep rumble means I check behind me to find somehow the enormous star cat has gotten on the bed too and has a big paw resting on my legs, which explains why they, out of all of me, still don't seem to have much feeling in them.

"My little morsel," Drelix rasps in his forty-a-day voice, even huskier from sleep. He looks at me out of half lidded eyes which are so sinful I could melt.

And underneath me, something gets harder and lumpier.

"Pleased to see me?" I say, my voice still very hoarse and quiet.

"Pleased to hear you and feel you." He wraps an arm over my bottom. "Pleased to wake up with your scent surrounding me."

He releases a long, guttural half growl, half purr, and the star cat vacates the bed with a huff.

"Thought the creature would never take the hint," he says with a low chuckle. "But you seem to have made a friend. Star cats don't take to most other lifeforms."

"He came with you?"

"He came with you. There was nothing I could do to dissuade the creature," Drelix says with a puff of smoke from his nostrils. "Not even a Sarkarnii in rut."

He squirms under me with a dirty smile a mile wide. I feel every single sinuous muscle, and more.

"I was told my bite, my venom, cannot assist in clearing the zigurex poison from your veins, but I was hoping mating might assist," he says hopefully.

I must be a complete fright. I've no idea what I'm wearing as it seems to be some sort of bag with holes in it, my hair has to be sticking up everywhere, and I've been poisoned nearly to the point of death, and yet Drelix looks at me like he wants to eat me.

"Did you think that?" I say as I'm gently hauled up his body by a pair of strong arms so he can plant a kiss on my lips. "A lot?"

"I've mostly been thinking about how to kill all those who hurt you, but now you come to mention it, mating has been on my mind most recently," Drelix says.

"Most recently?"

"In the last few nova-hours, with you, here," he admits, his little neons flashing almost in sequence under his scales.

They gather under my fingertips as I move my stiff muscles to trace down his chest.

Drelix suppresses a groan in a way which is intensely cute and deliciously beastly. He is entirely at my mercy, no matter how weak I am.

"And what have you been thinking about doing?"

"I have been thinking about eating you out and filling you up," he growls.