Page 54 of The Alien Warlord's Fated Mate

She whirled around and found him leaning both blood-coated hands against the conveyance’s trunk. The brown undertones had leached from his skin, leaving it a sickly granite-like gray. Three gashes in his arm leaked merlot-colored blood.

“In the car,” she said. “You’ll have to find the medicine. I can’t read Xeruvian.”

He snorted weakly, staggered, and nearly fell. When she reached forward to brace him, he waved her off, felt his way around the vehicle, and dropped into the passenger seat.

His eyelids fluttered over dull, leaf-green eyes and his head lolled against the seat.

Mia bit back a curse as she fumbled the kit open and held it in front of him. “Which one is the antivenom?”

He slid one unsteady hand into the box, brushed aside bandages, and retrieved a white cylinder with a silvery cap. “Open. Press against…neck. Mark.”

Quickly, she flipped the cap open, pressed the cylinder’s end against his throat above his mating mark, and flung a hasty prayer to his gods and hers.

“Please let this work,” she whispered, then depressed the button on the cylinder’s opposite end. It punched against him, ricocheted lightly against her palm, and Zoran grunted.

“Anything else?” she said.

He slumped against the seat, unconscious.

Panic flooded her. They were in the middle of nowhere. Literally. She had no clue where except that one way led to the fort and the other back to the farm. Zoran had been badly hurt, she had no idea how to drive the vehicle or signal for help.

She and her fellow abductees had barely figured out how to message each other through their tablets, let alone communicate with anyone else.

Her mind settled, and she chastised herself for the momentary lapse as she yanked bandages out of the first aid kit and wrapped them tightly around the cuts scoring Zoran’s arm, then quickly searched for and tended any other wounds. Scrapes on one shoulder, more claw marks down his thigh. His clothes had been shredded in places and his skin was clammy under her hands.

Nothing she could do more than that, since shecouldn’t read Xeruvian, for heaven’s sake, something she intended to remedy as soon as possible. At the very least, these kits needed secondary labels in English.

Furious now, she sealed the kit, tossed it into the back, and pulled out her tablet. Quickly, she sent a message to Jyrak and another to Alara on the scant hope that their technology worked this far from civilization. She didn’t know how it worked, because she was human and Zoran had thrown her headfirst into his culture, and she didn’t know anything, not the language or the customs, not how to procure clothing or pay her own way, not how to defend herself or patch up Zoran or read.

Fuck’s sake, when was the last time she’d been in a country where absolutely no one else spoke English?

Her head swam under the weight of it all. She dropped to her knees, squinching her eyes closed against the tears welling up in them, and tried to breathe around the overwhelm.

Zoran groaned, and that saved them both, jarring her out of the panic attack threatening to engulf her.

She forced herself upright, cursed her wobbly legs, and carefully maneuvered Zoran into the passenger seat, not an easy task. He was heavy and a deadweight, and no, she was not going to worry that he was completely out of it until she could do something about it. If the worry gained a toehold, she’d panic,again, and that might cause another delay, one Zoran couldn’t afford.

Once she’d shut him inside the vehicle, she rounded the back and stopped dead in her tracks. Thevyirkolenwas still dead, thank God, though no less intimidating. It really was massive, easily larger than a Bengal tiger, and leanly muscled, like a Greyhound. No tail, she noticed faintly, and the stench. She gagged again and touched a hand to her nose. Zoran had nearly sliced off its head and there was a gaping, cauterized hole in its chest cavity surrounded by drying black blood.

It had done so much damage to him before he killed it.

Mia shook off the reflexive fear and scurried around the car and into the driver’s seat.

And stared blankly at the controls as the seat automatically adjusted beneath her.

She sucked a deep breath into her lungs, reaching for calm. Ok, she could do this. She’d watched Zoran drive, and while she hadn’t paid close attention, she knew roughly how to maneuver them around. Stop and go were relatively easy; she couldn’t read Xeruvian, but she knew which buttons braked and which accelerated. The engine was still running, something that had completely slipped by her in her panic.

Tentatively, Mia touched the acceleration paddle. The vehicle jerked forward, lurched to a halt mere inches from the edge of the road. Once more, she decided, mustering her courage, and tried again. Eventually, she managed to maneuver the vehicle around, wincing every time it jerked or rattled or ground, and pointed them back the way they’d come, one eye on Zoran, the other on the long, lonely road stretching ahead of her.

Something tightened on Zoran’s hand, waking him. He slitted his eyes just enough to take in his surroundings, surprised by how blurry his vision had become. Not so blurry he couldn’t recognize a healer’s room when he saw one, or understand that he was flat on his back and someone had to have carried him there. His body ached and he shuddered under a light fever, and slowly, memory returned.

Mia laughing under the sunlight. The jungle curving overhead. Avyirkolenstanding in the roadway as if awaiting their arrival.

As if it had known exactly where they would be.

Low voices drifted to him, and he placed them one by one. His mother. Jyrak. Malev Dravos, the clan’s healer. His mate remained oddly silent, her fingers alternately gripping and stroking his hand.

Then Mia rose above him, and his vision cleared. Dark circles marred the skin beneath her eyes and her hair had become disheveled. A speck ofvyirkolenblood dotted her cheek. He tried to lift his free hand and wipe it off, and discovered to his shame that he was too weak to care for her.

---