Page 31 of Silver Slayer

"Vennox." Gentle hands clasped my face, and a familiar voice cut through the chaos. "Vennox. Look at me."

Uri faltered before dissolving into the shadows like smoke scattered by the wind. The frantic voices faded. The warped walls steadied.

Quin's face filled my vision, her eyes fixed on mine, her voice the only sound I could hear. Nothing else mattered. Not the spores. Not the fear. Not the ghosts of my captivity.

Onlyher.

Only Quin.

Chapter Ten

QUIN

"Everyone okay?" Vala asked, but nobody was given the chance to answer.

Vennox was in front of me before I could blink, one arm thrown back to pin me behind him, his sword already cutting wide, vicious arcs through empty air.

"Stay away from her!" The words tore out of him like something feral.

"Jupiter's balls!" Tyrk's voice cracked across the chaos. "He must have breathed in the spores."

Vennox pivoted, tracking something only he could see, his breath coming in ragged bursts, every muscle in his body coiled like he was ready to tear the world apart.

"Vennox—" Vala had both hands out, moving slowly and deliberately, the way you move around a wild animal. "Stop! There's nothing there."

"Put the sword down!" Tyrk circled wide from the other side. Vennox gave no sign he heard either of them.

"I will die before I let you harm my spirit mate!" he roared, and then Tyrk caught his sword arm from behind. Vala hit him low, driving a shoulder into his ribs. The three of them crashed to the ground in a tangle of limbs and curses, and it still took every bit of leverage they both had just to keep him pinned.

Spirit mate.He'd said that before, but I still didn't know what it meant.

Vennox bucked against them, chest heaving, eyes wild and fixed on something he wanted to protect me from. I dropped to my knees beside him and took his face in my hands.

"Vennox." I shoved my face in front of his. "Vennox. Look at me."

The wildness receded, slowly at first, then all at once, the fight draining out of him like a tide pulling back from shore. His scales shifted from that vivid, agitated blue back to their usual placid silver, and his breathing slowed. His eyes found mine and held, and for a moment, there was nothing in the world but the two of us.

"Quin." He said my name like a prayer.

"Get away from him." Vala's voice cut in from above me, sharp and urgent. He hadn't let go of Vennox's arm. "He's dangerous right now. The spores have him seeing things that aren't there, and he's strong enough to kill you before he realizes what he's done."

I didn't move. My hands were still cupping Vennox's jaw, and I could feel the tension draining from him beneath my palms, his breathing slowing to match mine.

"She's the only one he isn't a danger to." Tyrk's voice came from the other side, steady and certain. He shifted his weight off Vennox's legs and moved up beside him, keeping a firm grip on his arm. "Look at him. The second she touched him, he stopped fighting. That's not the spores talking. That's something else."

Vala shared a startled look between Vennox and me.

"We need to get him on clean oxygen and sedate him," Tyrk said, already shifting into action, "until the effects of the spores are out of his system." He pushed himself off the floor in one fluid motion, and I noticed he took Vennox's sword with him, tucking it carefully against the wall out of reach.

He crossed to the pack he'd dropped near the hatch when he'd first crashed through it and folded back the top flap to pull out a medikit, a flat black case the size of a paperback, weathered and scarred from use. He popped it open one-handed and knelt back down beside us.

Claw-tipped fingers sorted through it and pulled out a small, curved device he called a rebreather, made of some pale metal, no bigger than a paperclip. Tyrk leaned over Vennox and pressed the device gently against his nose. There was a soft click as the curved arms locked around his septum, and a faint hiss as the device began to work. Then he pressed a white cylindrical device, like a stubby cigarette, to Vennox’s shoulder.

"It's a mild sedative," he said, without looking at me. "It won't hurt him, only knock him out for a while."

Vennox's eyes searched mine before his lids grew heavy and closed. The last of the tension left his body all at once, his breathing evening out, slow and steady.

I stayed where I was, watching the rise and fall of his chest. The rebreather hissed softly like a tiny mechanical lullaby. His face in sleep looked younger, stripped of the weight he carried when he was awake. The scars around his neck and at his wrists caught the glow of the portable light Vala had set on the floor, pale and raised against the silver of his skin. A knot in my chest twisted.