Page 16 of Sixth
“It’s syncing to you,” she whispered. “Or to us.”
“Affirmative,” he said. “We will use it.”
“For what?”
“For time.”
They built a pocket of safety in the half-lit midship like soldiers on a battlefield who’d learned to make shelter out of ruin. Emmy dragged a thermal blanket from the locker, threw it over the least-damaged stretch of floor, and secured it with emergency crates. She found the portable lantern, smacked it against her thigh to make it stop flickering, and set it low, so it didn’t fight the planet’s glow. She propped Apex against a brace post and knelt between his knees, binder tools and medsprays within reach.
“Vitals,” she said, and fitted the clip to his ear. Numbers crawled across the small screen. “Better. Not great.”
“We will call it good enough,” hesaid.
She cut the rest of his jacket and shirt away and eased the torn sleeve past the splinted shoulder. Her fingers shook a little. The lines of his body were a study in contradictions, hard strength under battered skin, the extraordinary restraint he carried even now when pain had to be burning him from the inside out. The mark at his wrist beat slow and steady. It tugged at her own like atide.
She cleaned the worst of the blood from his temple, then checked the wound beneath. Shallow. Head wounds always looked worse. She sealed it anyway and smoothed the edges with her thumb. He watched her face the entire time, not in that assessing way he had when he was calculating, but as if watching her had become its own vital function he wasn’t willing to surrender.
“What?” she asked, not looking up from the splint straps she re-tightened.
“You are shaking,” hesaid.
“I’m fine.”
“You are lying.”
“Probably,” she admitted, and finally met his gaze. “But I’m still doing what needs to be done.”
The approval in his eyes warmed and sharpened at once. “Affirmative.” A beat. “Emmeline.”
“What?”
“If I lose consciousness, you will not move me alone. You will secure my shoulder against the brace. You will wait for me to wake.”
She stared at him. “You think I plan to sit on my hands while you bleed?”
“I think you will choose not to break yourself trying to carry me through a failing hull,” he said, calm as a blade laid flat. “I will wake. Ialways wake.”
That stubborn, impossible confidence ran through her like a current. She tried to look unimpressed and failed. “You’re infuriating.”
“Affirmative,” he said, as if she’d praisedhim.
She huffed a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh and reached for the next tool. “I assume this is going to hurt.”
“I am aware.”
“Then talk me through how to do this as gently as possible. I’m not a trained medic.”
Following his instructions, she injected a local at the worst fracture site and waited long enough to be kind but not long enough to be cruel. He didn’t flinch. He watched her mouthagain, and heat arced through the space between them. She could pretend the bond did that, made every small proximity similar to gravity. But she’d wanted him from the moment she’d seen him standing under the auction hall lights, acreature made of war and command and a single-minded, terrible clarity that had somehow made hersafe.
Overwhelmed with relief to have reached the last steip, she fastened the final strap, her fingers brushing his skin a moment longer than necessary.The motion was supposed to be practical, one last check to secure the binding, but the way his breath caught told her he experienced that whisper of her touch as keenly as she did. The air between them thickened, the scent of metal and smoke giving way to something warmer, edged withwant.
She looked up at him through her lashes, pulse racing, her voice a husky tease meant to disguise how badly she wanted him to keep looking. “Stop looking at me like that,” she insisted softly.
“Like what?” he asked, bland in that not-bland way that always made something in her lift itshead.
“Like you’re thinking about kissing me,” she said, the words low and trembling between a dare and a confession.
Her gaze dropped to his mouth, tracing the line of it. The air between them pulsed—hot, charged, dangerous. Every heartbeat sounded too loud, every breath too shallow. She leaned closer until their knees brushed, until his breath mingled with hers, the space between them thick with the promise of something they both wanted and both were barely holdingback.
“I am thinking about kissing you,” he said, so simply her breath tripped. “I am also thinking about how quickly you will undress if I tell you to.”
