Chapter 36: Alexis & Drake

DRAKE

Drake ignored the I-Spy signaling in his pocket as he watched Halo’s monitor.

“His condition isn’t improving, but at least he’s not getting worse,” Miktar told Drake. “His female is much the same.”

Unlike Halo, who was intubated, the Rictorian was in a coma. Beside her bed sat a woman whom Drake had come to understand was her daughter. It was a startling thing—a mother and a daughter taken as two of the Chosen.

The odds were astronomical. Drake had seen her flitting between her mother and Lew throughout the last several hours. At least Lew was doing well.

In fact, all of them were doing well, except for Halo.

“It could be worse,” Miktar said.

“Oh, it could always be worse,” Drake replied.

Drake thrust his hand into his pocket in annoyance when his I-Spy signaled again. He raised his eyebrows at the contact details.

He pressed it to his ear. “Silo?”

“He needs help!” came a shrill, female voice.

Drake jerked his head away in surprise. “Who is this?”

“It’s Karina. It’s Silo. I—I think he’s having a seizure.”

“A seizure?” Drake pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re in his room?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll be there ASAP,” he said. He slipped the I-Spy back in his pocket. “Resus team!” he cried above the noise.

Several exhausted faces looked his way. “We need to move out. Code 6!”

Miktar was shaking his head. “What’s going on?”

“It’s Silo,” Drake answered.

Drake and his team raced down the corridor with the medical hover trolley. Too many thoughts were flashing through Drake’s exhausted mind. Was it really a seizure? Why was he sick?

How did the Rictorian know to call him? He had so much to do. He already had enough patients to care for. And Halo wasn’t recovering quickly enough.

He was starting to feel the weight of his responsibility like a pressure upon his heart. By the time he reached Silo’s room, his chest and thighs were tight.

He opened the door with his medical clearance. Immediately, he understood what might have happened, feeling their newly formed bond like a warm ripple through the air.

Drake rushed inside along with his team. Silo was on the floor, his head in the Rictorian’s lap. If he’d had a seizure, it was over.

The young woman was pale, almost as pale as Silo. He was breathing.

“What happened?” Drake asked her as she gently lowered his head to the floor and got out of the way.

The medical team dragged him into the middle of the room. They quickly got to work, attaching him to their sensors and preparing their medications.

Drake could see that his heart was pumping normally.

“I—I don’t know,” Karina said. “He—he said he didn’t feel good. Then he just slid off the chair and fell to the floor.”

“You’re bonded.”

“I suppose we must be,” she said. She looked down at her hands, as though she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

“And how do you feel?”

How it had happened, Drake could only imagine. Out of all the Rictorians, he would never have thought she’d capitulate so soon—or at all. She was clearly changed.

Already he could see she was calmer, maybe more rational. There was something in her face, in her eyes, that made her seem like someone else. And he could actually ~talk~ with her.

“I’m fine.” Again, that amazement.

They both watched Silo. He was unmoving and unconscious.

“Is he all right?” Her face screwed up with worry.

“You tell me.”

She bit her lip. “He is—and he isn’t.” She took a breath. “My heart hurts.” Then she bent over with a groan. “It hurts real bad.”

“I want to get you checked over too,” he said. He turned to his medical team. “Let’s get them to the infirmary.”

“And put them where?” one of them asked.

“We’ll make room.”

Karina walked by Silo’s stretcher down the passageway. Behind them, Drake eyed the Rictorian, pondering.

He took out his I-Spy and contacted Alexis. “I need you here,” he said. And he explained what was happening.

Entering the infirmary, they squeezed Silo into a bed in the corner of the room. He still hadn’t woken, though his eyelids were fluttering and his breath kept catching in his throat—like he was dreaming.

Drake scanned him with the cell reader.

“Find anything?” Miktar asked, watching Silo closely.

“No. But I didn’t expect to.”

“What are you thinking?”

“I need the microscopic loop locutor.”

Miktar’s eyebrows shot up. “You think…?”

Their eyes met.

As Miktar left to organize it, Drake studied the Rictorian who was hovering over Silo. Her expression was soft in a way he’d never seen before.

“Drake!”

Drake turned.

ALEXIS

Alexis hurried over, her eyes darting over Silo’s stricken figure. Then she saw Karina. Her eyes widened.

“So, it’s true,” she breathed. “They’re bonded. I didn’t believe it.”

“I need you to stay with her,” Drake said. “Keep an eye on her while we sort things out with Silo—and the rest of our patients.”

Alexis nodded. “Of course. Is she all right?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

When Drake left, Alexis approached Karina. The woman looked up at her. Alexis blinked in surprise. She certainly seemed different.

“Are you feeling all right?”

Karina nodded. “I feel…good. I feel almost…normal. I ~am~ normal,” she said. She looked down at her hands, clenching them and opening them. “It’s almost as if…it’s almost as if I’ve been asleep all this time and now I’m suddenly awake.”

“You ~look~ different.” Physically, she seemed the same, but everything else certainly wasn’t. Her whole demeanor had changed. There was light in her eyes.

Karina touched her cheek. “I ~feel~ different.” She looked down at Silo. “He said…he said he didn’t feel good.”

Alexis stared at them both. How did they do it? How did ~Karina~ do it? She thought of her behavior ever since the day of her abduction: angry, violent. Silo had always seemed so repellant to her. Surely, it would have been impossible.

Drake returned with more scanning equipment. Once he’d finished with the scan, he met Alexis’s eyes briefly, then walked away.

Karina sat down beside Silo. She reached over to touch his face. His eyes scrunched together. His hands jerked. Alexis looked at the monitor as his heart skipped a beat.

Slowly, he opened his eyes.

“Silo,” Karina whispered. She slid her hand into his.

His eyes were wide and staring up at her. They looked sunken. He, too, looked different.

Tears clung to his eyelashes. Then he pulled his hand away and rolled over. Karina pressed her lips together.

Alexis turned at an inexplicable jolt in her chest. Drake had discovered something. But was it something good or something bad?

It was hard to tell as Drake and Miktar pored over Silo’s scans across the room. Alexis’s heart beat a little faster as they came over. Drake’s eyes were bright.

“We have an answer,” he told them both. “The streaks on your brain, Karina, Silo has them now. That’s why he’s had the seizure.”

“Streaks? What streaks?” the woman asked.

Drake stared at her. “Silo didn’t tell you.”

“What ~streaks~?”

Alexis explained. After she was done, Karina was silent, looking down into her lap. There was a deep pinch between her eyes.

“~I~ did this?”

“Not you. The bond,” Drake said.

She looked over at Silo, who was still rolled away on his side. “But—but what does that mean? Do you mean…is he—is he going to be like me?”

“I don’t know. This hasn’t happened before. I can’t know what to expect.”

“It’s okay,” Alexis told her. “It’ll be okay.”

The woman snapped her head around, glaring at her. “How would you know? How would you know ~anything~?” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I don’t want him to be like that.”

Alexis and Drake looked at each other helplessly.

“I shouldn’t have done it,” she continued in a tortured voice. “I should have gone back.”

“Gone back where?” Alexis said.

Karina didn’t answer. Silo didn’t move, breathing deeply as he slept. Seeing them now, with their roles reversed, Alexis felt a rush of sadness. She turned as Drake grabbed her shoulder.

“Come with me,” he whispered in her ear.

Alexis followed him out of the infirmary and into the corridor. The door shut behind them, snapping off the noise of the crowded, busy room. It was suddenly so quiet.

“What do you…?”

He wrapped his arms around her. Alexis reciprocated his embrace with a start. Despite their bond, his action was unexpected. He kissed her cheek, her jaw, then pressed his lips to hers. His lips trembled.

“~Oh~, Drake.”

She could feel it now—~his~ feelings. Sometimes they were hard to distinguish from her own. A feeling was starting to build inside him, threatening to erupt.

She could feel it like a pressure on her chest, like a weight on her shoulders: the stress, the lack of sleep, the heartbreak.

It was challenging enough dealing with the situation involving Halo, not to mention the entire expedition back to Rictor 5 itself, the lives of thirteen men in his hands. Now, there was this issue with Karina and Silo.

“Silo will be okay,” Alexis reassured him. “They’ll ~all~ be okay.”

He pressed his face into the side of her neck with a sigh. Alexis’s eyes prickled.

“You need some sleep,” she advised him. “Let Miktar take over for a while.”

“He’s tired too.”

“Not like you.”

“Halo…”

“Miktar is perfectly capable.” She could feel his protests swelling in her chest. “~Drake~. You’re not going to be any good to anyone like this.”

He sighed. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said. He pulled back, and Alexis was startled to see how far his dark eyes had sunken in his head. He kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll let Miktar know.”

DRAKE

The situation between Silo and his Rictorian was weighing heavily on Drake’s mind. As they walked back to their room, Drake clutched Alexis’s hand tightly.

The door snapped shut behind them. Alexis tried to guide him toward the bed. She turned to face him, her eyebrows raised when he wouldn’t move. She obviously felt it—the way he was feeling. His skin was hot. His heart was pounding. He couldn’t look away from her eyes.

“Drake, you need to rest,” she said.

He stroked her knuckles with his thumb, then stepped in close, his eyes boring into hers. He took her chin and lifted her face, then pulled her mouth to his. They kissed for a long time, Drake allowing himself to revel in the softness of her lips, the warmth of her breath. She was making cute little noises at the back of her throat.

Drawing back, he grabbed at her shirt and pulled it off. Then his hands were on her breasts and he was kissing her again. She was grabbing his shirt now, and he helped her to yank it off. Then they were tugging at each other’s pants. Alexis’s dropped to the floor.

Immediately, Drake slid his hand between her legs, feeling the urge to touch the warmest part of her, the central part of her. He got his fingers right between her lips.

Alexis tugged at his pants, laughing as they caught on his erection. Her high, tinkling voice rang musically in his ears, turning his chest hot. Then he mashed his mouth against hers, both stumbling as he guided her back toward the bed. She sat down on the edge of it, Drake’s lips still planted firmly on hers. He pushed her back so she was lying down.

He didn’t give her time to crawl all the way into bed before he was pushing his way into her soft, warm wetness. Alexis cried out. Drake pressed his lips to her neck as she arched her throat. Then he was thrusting, pushing in so deep he could feel the tip of his shaft pressing up against her womb. And all he wanted was to go deeper and deeper and deeper. Their bodies weren’t close enough. Their ~bond~ wasn’t close enough.

He sucked at her chin as she sucked down deep lungfuls of air.

“Drake!” she gasped.

Her fingers were clawing into his shoulders. He kissed her again as he felt the pleasure build. He could feel her pleasure building too, and he slowed his thrusting so they could climax together. Drake mashed his lips hard against hers as though he could imbibe her gasp. He could feel her ripple of pleasure, the heat flooding her fingers and toes, as Drake ejaculated inside her, his pelvis pressed hard up against hers.

Then they were breathing together, their hands locked as he pressed her into the mattress. Drake bucked his hips a final time, then pulled back to kiss her nipples. He engulfed her whole breast.

“Drake!” she gasped again.

Grabbing his face, she pulled it up toward hers. Giving a sad smile, Alexis smoothed her thumbs over the streaks of tears on his face.

“Nothing’s going to happen to us,” Alexis said. “Only good things.”

Her sad smile turned into a frown. “Come on, you need to rest.”

Drake eased himself out of her, and Alexis sat up. Smiling up at him, she pulled his hips close and kissed him on the chest.

His eyes locked onto her smooth, round backside as she crawled into bed. Drake followed, lying under the covers beside her.

He cupped her breast as he leaned in to kiss her again. Then he pulled in close until her breasts were pressed up against his chest and they could feel each other’s heat—but it wasn’t close enough.

“Do you mind?” he asked her.

“I want you to.”

Alexis parted her thighs as Drake’s shaft sought her opening. Her eyelids fluttered, and Drake couldn’t help but kiss her again and again as he pushed deeply inside her a second time.

He sighed, wrapping his arms around her as he entered her completely. The warmth of her body eased a pressure in his chest he hadn’t known was still there.

He pressed her face into the crook of his neck. He could feel her hand upon his backside. Now, he could sleep.