Page 32 of Fathom

"Leija," he whispered like a prayer, his lips against my neck.

He needed me, too. I had to help him find the way back to himself. I shifted my hips, finding the hard length of him contained by his trousers, pressing it against it as I rocked my hips.

I ran my hands down his body, adrenaline allowing me to ignore my injuries as I went to reach between his legs. I managed to free him from the confines before he snatched my hands, pulling my arms up over my head, preventing me from holding on to him or digging my fingernails in like I did last time. He pinned them down against the floor, his grip gentle but firm. He lifted his face up from my neck to look down at me with eyes that seemed to see me. Confusion, heat, and need all passed between our gaze.

"Leija?" he asked, my name a question whispered, an anchor to hold onto.

I rocked my hips again, feeling the heat of him in the connection between us.

He let out a groan, but he didn't look away from my gaze, didn't let go of my wrists. He shifted against me, repositioning himself so that the length was settled perfectly between my legs, pressing against the cloth that still protected me there. He began to thrust, his breath coming out in short pants as the shallow pleasure was an imitation of what could be, the delicious friction a slowly building torment. The tip of him caught against my opening, and he strained for a moment against the fabric, pushing it into my opening just a little before he shifted back,finding the room to slide against the soaked fabric. There was more slippery wetness there than I could account for with my own biology. He was lost in it, gazing into my eyes as I found myself rising to a peak through the rhythmic shifting of my hips rubbing against him. I tilted my head back, exposing my throat to him as my wrists strained against his hold, and I shattered, the pleasure drowning out the pain in a staccato of need more, give me more. Pleasure crashed over me in waves as his thrusts grew more wild and his eyes fluttered closed as he let out a low snarl, and wet heat splattered against my abdomen and chest. The smell of cookie dough wafted in the air, a strange counterpoint to the sharp smell of the blood.

He opened his eyes again and looked down at me in wonder that sparkled in the green depths.

Then his eyes flicked up to my wrists, down to my naked chest covered in his vanilla-smelling spunk, and that wonder turned to shame.

"Eun," I said, wanting to tell him that it was okay, that being dry humped and ejaculated on in a pool of my enemy's blood was simultaneously hot and fucked up, and that this had awakened a part of me I didn't know existed, a part of me that was full of a rage for life. This moment had changed me, taking me out of my fear and elevating me into someone new, someone who had always existed inside of me that only needed a vicious predator to protect me to come to life.

He came for me, and his violence brought me to life.

I was alive because of him.

But he was letting out a little croon and inspecting the bloody strips of fabric around my forearms, and my head was spinning from the blood loss. Then he was picking me up, one of his cuts bleeding against my shoulder as he carried me out of the room, away from those bodies. I pressed my face against hischest, closing my eyes as I breathed in the scent of him, the smell of us together.

He was saying something, and I thought he was talking to me until I heard a voice reply from the small device he was holding in one of his hands.

He stopped by the door and waited.

He said something quietly in a reassuring tone.

We waited there, and after a little while, his communicator chirped again, and he replied to it. He rushed out of the door and carried me into the open door of a waiting vehicle. I registered that his uncle was in the vehicle, and then we were driving away.

I kept my face pressed against Eun, and he put his chin on the top of my head.

I knew that I was safe.

TWELVE

EUN

"I don't want you coming into work for at least a few days," my uncle said as he pulled the needle through the last stitch.

We were in my apartment, and Leija was sleeping in her room. I insisted he tend to Leija first. Luckily, the portable medical scanner showed that hyena's claws had missed everything she needed for her hands to function, and despite the deep punctures, she would heal well. My uncle had a full medical kit and was a trained medic because of the work he had to do for my family before he retired to open the restaurant, which was lucky because I couldn't take her to a hospital.

Even if she spoke the language, they would have had to report a predator bringing in a wounded prey species. If I didn't take her in and had her go in by herself, she didn't speak the language, and after they treated her, they would have called the authorities. Our society was complicated; most people here wanted everyone to be safe, but the ones in power saw nothingwrong with the dynamics of violence, so the laws often protected the abusers instead.

"No one cares about a torn-up predator," I said, the truth of the matter. "No one will report me because of my wounds."

"This isn't about your wounds," my uncle said as he tied off the knot, securing the stitching on my arm. He sat back and looked at me, the one where he expected me to know what he was saying without actually saying it. The tension hung in the air, as tight as the stitching that held together my deepest wounds.

I was silent for a moment. He didn't come in the building; he wouldn't have seen, and I thought I'd wiped my mouth, hiding the evidence.

He wasn't going to judge me for fighting or even killing; that would be highly hypocritical of him. The one thing he would judge me on was my breaking a promise to myself.

"I like having Leija around the restaurant," he said, his entire body tensing.

I snarled at him, the sound ripping free from me without a thought as rage surged within me like a tidal wave. There was no room for logical thought in my mind as the possessiveness tore me my thoughts from the morning and washed them out to sea. He wanted to separate me from my prey. He wanted to hunt her. My own claws bit into my palms, sending sharp slices of pain through the storm that raged in my mind, an anchor to hold me back, to keep me from attacking the one person who supported the most important choice I ever made.

The choice I hadn't stuck to when she was in danger.