She looked horribly disappointed, her eyes going down and her tail falling to the floor. “Bartholomew, Prince Serlotminden is not healing and he is bleeding heavily. His body cannot keep up. I am hoping the inducer will be enough, rather than a transfusion.”
The doctor injected him in the side of the neck, but I waved her off when she was going to massage the site. I did it instead. Mindy was mine. It was my job to take care of him, not hers. Once I was done, I held him close and hoped his beautiful green eyes would open and meet my gaze.
They didn’t.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Muznim. I am female and I use the she and her pronouns. Prince Consort Seth informed me humans like to know exactpronouns, and I quite love the idea of telling people on introduction.”
“What exactly is wrong with Mindy?” I asked.
Muznim pursed her lips, and her tail flicked. “The punctures are not closing. The toxin, perhaps a venom, on the alien’s talons is spreading through his system, not allowing the blood to clot. We are searching for ways to combat this toxin, but so far, we have not made much progress.”
“Do the Maykians have any idea?”
“No,” she replied. “Planet 62, as they have designated the planet you two crashed on, is non-spacefaring. They have left it alone, not studying the species, except for passive scans.”
“So what’s next?”
“We keep testing.” Muznim said, “I will do all I can to save Prince.”
I nodded.
A few minutes later, the door opened and Zoltilvoxfyn, or Fyn as Seth and Caleb called him, came in. “Any change?”
“No,” I replied shortly, tightening my hold on Mindy.
The smallest quirk tugged at his lips before it disappeared. “I will not take him from you. Speedy would want to remain right beside you, where he belongs.”
Fyn might have tried, but he wouldn’t have succeeded. I wasn’t an aggressive person, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to budge from Mindy’s side.
“I am glad you’re alive,” Fyn said, resting an ankle on his opposite knee. “Serlotminden was bereft, and thankfully, only for a few days. That type of pain is indescribable.”
“You’ve experienced that? I thought drakcol only mated once.”
“We do. Caleb was a spirit first. He vanished from my side for over eight weeks. I thought he was gone,” he replied, voice tight.
“I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for. You survived.”
My fingers worked over Mindy’s scalp. “It’s his turn.”
“Indeed.”
“He can’t become another person that I failed to save, another ghost haunting me,” I muttered.
Fyn tilted his head and looked around. “There are no spirits.”
“What?”
“You have no spirits around you, Bartholomew.”
I did. I could see them even now—burned and broken, blaming me, demanding to know why I was alive when they were dead, begging me to save them.
Fyn stood. “Did Serlotminden explain inner fires?”
“Yeah, he makes fire with his mind.”
