Her sunburn had faded to a light tan, the prickling in her skin now gone. The worst of her wounds—the ones on her stomach and her thigh—had healed only enough to keep them from bleeding unless she exerted herself… as she did whenever she and Jak’ri made love. Unfortunately, that seemed to be the extent of it. Every cut she’d incurred during their last battle with the Gathendiens remained. None had faded to faint pink scars or disappeared the way her previous wounds had. And all still hurt unless Jak’ri sprayed them with the imaashu.
When he’d seen the blood on her bandages after they’d made love their first night here, he had suggested they abstain to give her time to heal. But she’d nixed that idea quickly, using her hands and mouth to convince him otherwise.
And, too, she suspected he felt the same desperate need she did to cram as much living and loving as they could into their time together because they didn’t know when it might end.
Or how it might end.
“How long have they been here?” she asked him.
“A few hours.”
Her eyebrows flew up. “Really?” And she hadn’t heard them until now?
He nodded. “You were sleeping deeply.” Though the statement was simple and straightforward, she heard the concern that lay behind it.
Had he noticed she was weakening?
Ava sent him a smile and a wink. “You must have worn me out.”
His expression warmed as he returned her smile with one full of affection.
As he swung away to keep an eye on the cavern’s entrance, she grabbed one of the large hollowed-out fruit rinds they’d been using as bowls. This one contained a bottle of wosuur for cleaning their teeth, a canteen, and a few other supplies.
Nooks and crannies abounded at the back of the cavern. Jak’ri had chosen the largest and turned it into a latrine of sorts for them, digging a deep hole in the sand with an alien tool she couldn’t remember the name of that had been among the supplies he’d packed. Though she would definitely prefer the sleek lavs on the ship and weird toilets in the pods, she had to admit this was better than peeing in the bushes and hoping none of the vegetation would give her a rash like poison ivy would. And the dark sand she scooped into the hole each time she used it worked as well as kitty litter.
Once she completed her morning ablutions, she joined him by the lake.
Wrapping an arm around her, Jak’ri pulled her up against his side and dropped a kiss on her forehead. He frowned, then kissed her forehead again.
“What?” she asked, curling an arm around his waist.
He pressed his cheek to her forehead. “You feel warm.”
Yep. She was a little feverish today. Instead of mentioning that, however, she sent him a wry smile. “Probably because I still blush every time I use our makeshift lav while you’re here. If you feel my cheeks, I’m sure they’re warm, too.”
He chuckled. “They do look a little pink.”
They stood quietly, holding each other and listening to the mental mutterings of the bastards above them.
Ava nibbled her lower lip.
She thought the fever worrisome. It was something new that hadn’t plagued her when she’d been injured before. But what could she do about it? She was still unwilling to risk infusing herself with Jak’ri’s blood unless it became absolutely necessary… as it likely would if the Gathendiens found this cave and she needed a sudden influx of strength to fight them off.
Otherwise…
She wouldn’t die if she didn’t infuse herself. She would simply continue to weaken until she slipped into that odd stasis Immortal Guardians did sometimes. While vampires would die if they suffered immense blood loss, immortals—with their enhanced DNA—instead drifted into a peculiar state of hibernation like that of a tardigrade, their heart rate and breathing reduced to such an extent that emergency room doctors would declare them dead. Then they slept until a new blood source came along.
It was a scary prospect, one that nevertheless appealed to Ava more than possibly dying if Jak’ri’s blood wasn’t compatible with the virus.
Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to either option.
If it did though, she’d have to warn Jak’ri so he wouldn’t mistake her stillness and lack of response for death.
“They’re leaving,” he murmured suddenly.
She blinked, having been so lost in her thoughts that she hadn’t noticed. “All of them?”
He nodded. “The sun is setting. They need to get back to the continent before the others activate a perimeter shield to hold off the owners of those large paw prints we found outside the escape pod.” His lips quirked up. “Apparently the big cats, as you call them, feasted upon the Gathendiens we slew on our way here.”
She faked a shudder. “As bad as those guys smell, I would think they’d taste even worse.”
He laughed.
“Did you find anything in their minds about the Gathendien warship?”
“They’ve lost contact with it.”
Surprise coursed through her, as did hope. “They have?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“They don’t know. But they expect it to follow them here.”
And there went the hope. She frowned. “Could us shooting the computers in the labs have caused them to lose contact?”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t think those would be deeply linked with their communications array.”
“Hmm. That’s a puzzle then.”
“Exactly.”
She smiled up at him. “It’s a nice thought though, isn’t it? Us taking out their communications array while we escaped?”
Smiling, he dropped a kiss on her lips. “Very nice.”
They listened as the Gathendiens piled into whatever craft had brought them to the island. Ava took pleasure in every disgruntled thought that passed through their pea brains. They were getting frustrated. And nervous. Some feared the repercussions they would face if they returned to the warship empty-handed.
“Is it mean of me to hope they’ll get their asses kicked by their higher-ups?” she asked.
He snorted. “Srul no. I hope they’ll all be executed.”
Some of them were already grumbling, wondering how much longer they would have to keep searching. They had considered themselves fortunate when they’d been sent to comb the island but expected to have to take their turns in the cold water on the morrow, hoping to find whatever remained of her and Jak’ri’s corpses.
Or maybe just her corpse. Most of them believed she’d died on the rocks and that Jak’ri had survived the dive and was probably halfway across the planet by now.
“Seriously?” she demanded with a bit of pique. “I kicked a lot of ass on board that damn ship, then again in the forest, and they automatically think I died and you lived? That’s some misogynistic bullshit.”
He grinned. “Maybe they’re just hoping you died so the rest of them won’t get their asses kicked.”
She laughed. “I like that explanation much better.”
The Gathendiens must have felt confident they’d performed a thorough enough search because they didn’t return to the island the next day. Or the one after that. Nevertheless, Ava felt uneasy about Jak’ri venturing out of the cavern again.