Page 40 of The Arabis Triad

Paxt swayed. “But…why?”

Coltan put his arm around Paxt’s shoulder, turning him away from the wreckage. Paxt didn’t miss Coltan’s wince when his own wound pulled. “Easy, brother. You hurt too.”

Coltan nodded and dragged in a deep breath. He was covered in blood, bruises and dirt. Paxt knew he hadn’t fared better. They all needed medical attention. This could wait. “We’ll come back. Do some tests. Find out for sure. But for now would you please come? Evelyn needs treatment. We all do.”

Paxt had no strength but to let Coltan turn him from the still-burning metal hull and the strangeness of the explosion. He was right. Their priority was Evelyn.

He gritted his teeth and pushed past stiff muscles. He felt as though he’d finished ten sparring rounds in a row with his brothers. It was only through inner strength that he moved away from Coltan’s support and managed to stagger back to the cave. It was easier going through the underbrush as they retraced the path he’d made in the mad dash after the scaled one.

He was too weary to think too much about what had happened. His focus was on his brothers and mate and getting back to the safety of their craft.

He spotted Ashir cradling Evelyn to his chest sitting against the wall of the cave entrance, but she was still unconscious. At least they had the crystal. He couldn’t possibly conceive if it had been stolen, or worse had been blow up by the scaled one in that explosion.

“We have it, brothers. We have it,” Paxt said, kneeling next to Ashir and Evelyn.

His hand shook as he slid his finger along the cool, straight edge of their Homeland’s crystal. It was literally the salvation of their race. His movement continued upwards, to palm Evelyn’s cheek. Equally as precious as their crystal. Their savior. Their future.

“We have her,” Ashir said, brushing her hair from her face.

“Yes. We have her. We all have her,” Coltan said.

Paxt lifted her from Ashir’s embrace and they set out retracing the path back to their craft. It was the longest hike he’d ever undertaken, even when he’d been separated from his brothers and lived in the wilds of their Homeland for a week in the male coming of age ceremony when he’d reached maturity—andthathad been a long week.

Finally, the dull metal of their craft gleamed through the rich vegetation. They headed straight away to the med-bay.

Paxt set Evelyn’s too-still form on the bed and closed the healing panel over her. She was pale, her skin a dull gray compared to the usual healthy pink. She was a shell without a soul.

She’d already been through so much. He was sick to his stomach seeing her like this. He would give anything for her to be well and laughing, head thrown back in passion. She’d come a long way, slowing coming out of her shell. It had been beautiful to witness, but now he feared she might never be the same again.

“I should have protected her better.” Paxt’s voice was dead, filled with loathing.

Ashir put his palm on top of the panel, his eyes locked on Evelyn’s face as healing mist filtered over her body.

Coltan approached Ashir with the med-scanner. “Let me see what damage they did to you.”

“I don’t deserve it.” Ashir brushed past Coltan, but Paxt stopped him with a hand to the middle of his chest.

“It is no one’s fault, merely a series of events we didn’t calculate for.”

“We don’t blame you for being taken, brother,” Coltan said.

Ashir’s face scrunched up. “If I had been more vigilant… I should have been able to stop them.”

“I know you would have done anything within your power to stop them from taking her if you could have. That they inflicted so much damage to your thick skull tells me they used undue force to subdue you,” Paxt said.

Ashir looked down at the floor.

“We cannot blame one of us when there are three of us to take care of our mate. Maybe we shouldn’t have returned to the craft. Maybe we shouldn’t have listened to what Evelyn wanted, but then what type of mates would we be if we didn’t listen to her? Even her being here is beyond normal. The Fates went to extraordinary lengths to send her to us. What we need to do now is think with clear heads. Let the medi-bed heal her body. We need to heal ourselves so that we will be strong enough to care for her when she wakes. Because she will wake, brother,” Paxt said. He had to cling to the hope that the Fates wouldn’t be so cruel as to send them such a gift only to take her away again. “If there’s a way to wake her, we will find it.”

“What if we were too late?” Ashir said.

Coltan frowned at the scanner after reading Ashir’s body. “You’re extremely high in radioactivity.”

He crossed to the panel showing a scrolling list that monitored Evelyn’s body and tapped through sections.

“Evelyn shows more of the same thing. You need to be treated immediately.” He pointed to an empty chair. “Sit, and before you complain, it’s either that or the other medi-bed.”

“Do you remember what they did to you, Ashir?” Paxt asked as Ashir dropped down in the chair with a sigh.

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