Page 15 of Zinnia and the Zombie
He remained awake, his senses alert to any potential threats lurking in the darkness. His gaze traveled again to the intricate stonework of the ruins surrounding them, that strange sense of familiarity teasing at the edges of his consciousness. The answers were somewhere in his mind, locked away by trauma or time or both.
But for now, the most important thing was to protect the female sleeping so trustingly in his arms. She had given him a new chance at life, and he would die before he allowed anything to happen to her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Empty streets stretched before Jaxx, paved with golden stone that once reflected the light of three suns. Vacant towers rose into a cloudless sky, their elegant spires unblemished by time yet devoid of life. He walked through the heart of Zathixia, the silence pressing down on him like a physical weight.
Where were the voices? The laughter of children playing in the fountains of the Central Plaza? The calls of merchants in the Grand Market? The melodic conversations that would drift from the open windows of dwellings?
He moved past the Temple of Ancestral Memory, its massive doors standing open as they always had, inviting all to enter and commune with those who had passed beyond. But no priests stood in attendance, no worshippers knelt in reverence.
The emptiness felt wrong. Obscene. This was a city built for hundreds of thousands, yet he walked alone. Where was everyone?
Gone. The realization threatened to bring him to his knees. A civilization that had spanned multiple systems, reduced toa single survivor walking through the ghost of its greatest achievement.
He woke with his heart pounding, the taste of loss sharp in his mouth.
Darkness surrounded him, and for a disorienting moment, he thought he’d slipped back into stasis. Then his vision adjusted, the darkness resolving into varying shades of shadow and form. He was sitting upright against a stone wall, in the small shelter amongst the ruins.
And Zinnia was in his arms.
She had shifted in her sleep, half draped across his lap. Her head rested against his chest, one hand splayed over his heart, and her breath came in soft, regular puffs against his skin.
The lingering sorrow from his dream was rapidly eclipsed by awareness—acute, overwhelming awareness—of her body against his. The heat of her. The scent of her skin, like the rare blossoms that had once grown in the royal gardens of his homeworld. The rhythm of her breathing, which somehow matched the beating of his own heart.
It was… intoxicating. Intoxicating and arousing.
His cock, still hidden behind its protective covering, began to harden. He’d never experienced anything like this sudden, powerful response to another being. A hot surge of arousal streaked through his body, startling in its intensity. His skin warmed, the golden hue brightening perceptibly in the darkness.
His need to protect her battled with his growing need to claim her.
Claim her? No. It was not his place to claim her, not when he didn’t have a way to care for her or offer her the future she deserved. He should move away. Put distance between them. This reaction was inappropriate, possibly dangerous. He should?—
A small whimper escaped her lips, her body tensing against his. Her fingers clutched at his chest, nails scraping lightly against his skin as she made another distressed sound. He automatically drew her closer, one hand moving to cradle the back of her head.
“You’re safe,” he murmured. “I’m here.”
Her breathing changed, and he realized she was awake. Yet she didn’t pull away, remaining nestled against him as if it were the most natural thing in the universe.
“Bad dream?” he asked softly.
She nodded against his chest. “You too?”
“Yes.” He didn’t elaborate, still haunted by the crushing weight of silence, the knowledge of being the last of his kind. Was that true, or just part of the dream?
Outside their shelter, the night was alive with sounds—the distant calls of nocturnal creatures, the rustling of vegetation in a gentle breeze, the quiet creaks and groans of a city slowly crumbling back into the ground. Yet somehow it felt peaceful instead of threatening.
“I just realized,” she said finally, her voice soft in the darkness, “you know so much about me, from all my rambling while you were… frozen. But I don’t know anything about you other than your name.”
He considered this. It was true—she had shared so much of her life with him, unaware that he could hear every word. He knew of her childhood in a small town, her mother’s early death, the kindness of the couple who had taken her in, her work with flowers. He knew her fears and hopes, her small triumphs and quiet sorrows.
And she knew nothing of him beyond what she had witnessed since his awakening.
“What would you like to know?” he asked.
She shifted slightly, sitting up straighter though she remained within the circle of his arm. “Everything. You said you were Zathix?”
“Yes,” he said, the word carrying a weight of history and pride. “We are—were—a warrior race.
