Page 38 of Xara and the Xenobeast

She was beside him instantly, her hands gentle but firm as she began cleansing the area around the wound. “I need to see how bad it is.”

He should stop her, push her away, but the pain was becoming harder to ignore, and his thoughts were growing fuzzy around the edges. The predator’s claws must have carried some toxin—not enough to kill him, but enough to weaken.

She inhaled sharply as she cleared away enough of the predator’s blood to reveal the extent of his injury.

“This needs treating right away.”

He tried to rise, to indicate he would handle it himself, but his muscles refused to cooperate. The cave tilted strangely around him.

“Don’t you dare try to get up,” she warned, her voice tight with worry. “Stay put.”

She moved quickly around the cave, gathering supplies: the moss that grew near the thermal springs, which he’d used on her own wounds when she first arrived; fragments of tech salvaged from the ruins; water from their store.

The pups followed her, chirping anxiously. One returned with a piece of clean fabric clutched in its mouth—a scrap she’d found and kept for bandages.

“Good job, little one,” she murmured, taking it.

He watched through increasingly unfocused eyes as she knelt beside him again, quickly cleaning away the rest of the blood. Even through his pain-hazed vision, he could see her concern deepen. The gashes were deep, the edges already swelling with an unnatural purple tinge.

“Venom,” she said quietly. “We need to draw it out.”

She pressed a water-soaked cloth against the wound again, cleaning away the rest of the blood to better assess the damage. Each touch sent fresh waves of pain through him, but he remained silent, his jaw clenched tight.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, noticing his tension. “I’m trying to be gentle.”

No one had ever apologized for causing him pain before. The concept was so foreign that for a moment, he forgot the agony in his side.

She worked methodically, applying poultices of crushed moss to the gashes. Dot climbed onto his lap, curling against his stomach and emitting a soft, soothing hum. The other two positioned themselves against his legs, their glow patterns synchronizing into a gentle, pulsing rhythm.

“They’re trying to help,” she said with a small smile. “They can sense your pain.”

The thought was strange—that these tiny creatures would care about his suffering. Stranger still was the female beside him, her brow furrowed in concentration as she bound his wounds with strips of fabric and thin, flexible pieces of salvaged tech to stabilize his ribs.

The cave grew warmer, or perhaps it was him. Sweat beaded on his skin as fever took hold. The venom was spreading, despite her efforts.

“Stay with me,” she urged, her voice seeming to come from far away. “Focus on my voice.”

He tried, but darkness pulled at the edges of his consciousness. His head fell back against the stone wall as the fever tightened its grip.

“No, no, no,” she murmured, her cool hand pressing against his forehead. “You’re burning up.”

The cave dissolved around him, replaced by sterile white walls and harsh lighting. He was back in the Zarkari medical bay, strapped to an examination table. Faces loomed over him—cold, calculating, assessing his worth as a weapon.

Commander Vask stood at the foot of the table, his slate-gray face impassive as he reviewed the data on a floating screen.

“The subject continues to demonstrate resistance to conditioning,” a technician reported. “Emotional responses persist despite neural recalibration.”

Vask’s expression hardened. “Increase the suppression protocols. If it cannot be controlled, it cannot be deployed.”

Pain lanced through his skull as the machines hummed to life, probing, altering, attempting to strip away anything that wasn’t useful to their purpose.

“You will obey,” Vask said, leaning closer. “Or you will be terminated.”

The scene shifted, melting into the tribunal chamber. He stood before the High Command, still bleeding from the battle where he’d refused to slaughter civilians. His hands were bound with energy restraints that burned into his flesh.

“Subject K-7 has demonstrated critical defects,” Vask announced to the assembled officials. “It disobeyed direct orders and turned against its handlers.”

“It was programmed for combat efficiency,” another commander argued. “Not mindless slaughter.”

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