‘Everything scares you.’ Tagen’s voice, weary and without rancor, as he’d said them just before he’d tried to shut the door on her. The rest of his remembered words followed before she could even feel too bad about the truth in the first ones. ‘Go, Daria. I am not dressed.’

And no, she supposed he hadn’t been, but she’d been only abstractedly aware of it. She’d had eyes only for his face, for the agony etched down to the bones of him, the sweat glazing his skin, the confusion swimming through the searing hunger in his eyes. The rest of him didn’t matter. It was the body of a sick man, nothing more.

What would happen if he did die? It was a ghastly thought, one that actually made Daria feel cold in spite of this rotten, muggy weather. She couldn’t even think about what it would mean to her (finding him slack and stiff, having to touch the dead flesh of him, having to drag him out and bury him), what would it mean back on his world? This prisoner person he was here to track down would get away, that for starters. Big deal, there’d always be criminals. But Tagen had a home somewhere. He’d spoken of his father, someone who would be waiting for the rest of his life for a son that would never come home. And surely there had to be a girl in the picture somewhere. Tagen had that firmly faithful look to him, so there was probably a wife and kids. Daria could easily imagine him kissing someone goodbye on his way out the door to his ship the day this mission of his had been handed to him, and now they’d never see him again. Because of the weather. The weather!

One last anguished cry fractured the air and then silence.

She should go check on him now, while he was…done. Make him drink. Maybe get him to the shower long enough to change his sheets. He’d been swimming in that bed; sweat had pooled, literally pooled, in the folds draping him. It was probably an old wives’ tale that you could get pneumonia from being wet all the time, but it couldn’t be healthy, either.

Daria didn’t move. He’d told her to leave him alone. He was already thoroughly miserable, he didn’t need the humiliation of having her constantly checking up on him. She knew all about the value of pride when a person didn’t have anything else to hold on to.

But she found herself thinking back to her memories, splintered and surreal as they were, of their first meeting. She, drugged and babbling, throwing up in the sink while he held her hair. How he’d put her in the shower and cleaned her up over her wailing protestations. He’d taken care of her, because she needed help and never mind her pride. He’d never brought it up again, and she’d sobered up and hadn’t died of shame. Because pride was fine, but in the end, no one really wanted to be left alone when they were lying on the bathroom floor with pissed pants.

Daria got up.

The hall back to Tagen’s room was eighteen feet long. She’d measured it before, she knew. When she’d nerved herself to come up here before, her heart slamming in her ears, terrified that she would be interrupting him, the hall had stretched out the length of a football field. She’d thought she had a thousand chances to turn back. She’d thought it had taken a whole hour just to get there. Now, it seemed she took only two steps and she was there. She tapped timidly to no reply, and then pushed the door open.

He lay crossways on his stomach on the bed, the sheet around his hips, one arm dangling over the side and his hair in limp strands across his face. He didn’t move when she said his name. She could hear him breathing, but the sound was shallow and uneven.

He said he couldn’t die from this. He said.

Daria went to him. She picked up the empty glass that lay close to his hanging hand and put it on the tray. The arm itself had a horrid feel, hot and slick and heavy. His skin, thick and perfectly hairless, didn’t even feel like skin. It probably never did, really. She’d never touched him before.

She rolled him onto his back with effort, giving the sheet a tug to preserve his modesty. He groaned, kicking slowly and curling his claws into the mattress, and finally opened his eyes. They were glassy, unfocused. He spoke, a hoarse and incomprehensible string of alien words that ended in a question.

“Can you stand up?” she asked.

He looked down at himself and then up at her. “No,” he said. He sounded confused.

“Hold on to me,” she said, offering her arms.

He drew back at once, his nostrils flaring.

“Come on,” she said softly. “Ten steps down the hall to a cold shower. I’ll change your bed for you.”

He dropped his eyes to the sheets wrapping his waist and dragged the back of his hand across his brow. His shoulders straightened, but he still would not meet her gaze. “No,” he said, sounding as though he’d scraped the dignity for that one word from the dried-out bottom of his soul.

She let her arms fall to her sides and just stared at him, feeling helpless. “I can bring dry sheets in,” she said. “And you can change them.”

His jaw ticced. Long minutes crawled by.

He sighed. “Very well. Then leave me.”

Daria retreated to the linen closet and returned to find him sitting up and drinking straight from the pitcher. Most of the ice had melted.

“Leave them,” he gasped, letting the pitcher rest against his stomach. “And go.”

“Are you sure you don’t need help?”

He laughed. It was a singularly harsh and humorless sound. “Help?” Out came another stream of his own language and when it ended, he was sagging forward and out of breath.

Daria set the sheets at the foot of his bed.

“Go,” Tagen said quietly. “I do not require your help.”

“I’m really worried about you.”

“Yes,” he said, and only that. It was the most passive answer she could have imagined, and the most ominous, but there was no way to counter it.

“Okay then,” she said lamely. She backed toward the door. “I’ll…bring up more water in a few hours. And if you need anything…”

He shut his eyes.

Daria let her voice trail away, her eyes burning. All this because of the weather. All this because he’d had the dumb luck to hook up with someone who didn’t have an air conditioner or a swimming pool or the goddamn nerve to just sleep with him already.

So do it. Strip down. She probably wouldn’t have to do more than unbutton her fly before he got the idea. The thought of having sex with an alien was probably abhorrent to a straight-laced military man like Tagen, but she didn’t think he had it in him to object for long. And then…and then it would be done. It wouldn’t be that bad. She was no vestal virgin, for Christ’s sake. She knew where all the parts went. She’d thought about it. Why couldn’t she do it?

The silence seemed to register with him at last. He looked up at her wearily and tried to smile. The effect was heart-rending and he must have known it because he stopped after only a few seconds.

“I have endured Heat before,” he said with a sigh. “I think this is no worse. It only seems so because I am on Earth.” He scowled briefly and then composed himself again. “I know you are concerned for me and I do appreciate it, but I do not wish you to see me like this.” He paused, searching her face, and then added, “And you must never touch me, Daria. Never.”

“It’s all right,” she said. “I know you’d never hurt me.”

“Yes,” he said softly. His eyes never wavered. “I would.”

Eyes welling, Daria stepped into the hall and shut the door. She said nothing more.

There was nothing left to say.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Turn us in, ichuta’a.”

“What, here?”

Raven dragged herself out of the bored doze that kept her occupied for the long car ride. She rubbed at her eyes, pushing herself out of the fetal curl that fit her into the backseat and looked around, blinking until the sunlight no longer blurred her vision. Not that there was a lot to see. There were trees on every side of them, and only a few other vehicles in sight, most of them long-haul trucks. Back in the boonies. And Kane wanted to pull over.