Page 6 of Thexan

I looked down at my hand, then back at him.

“That helps too.”

His eyes narrowed. “What helps?”

“Contact.” I shifted my palm slightly, not pressing harder, only adjusting to feel the rhythm beneath it. “Your pulse was too strong before. Too forceful. Not fast exactly, but wrong. When you grabbed my wrist, it started to settle. When I touched your chest, your breathing improved.”

“That does not mean you should continue.”

“No, but it does mean I need to understand why.”

“You do not.”

That was almost enough to make me smile, though I was too tired and too concerned to let it reach my face. “You don’t know me well enough to tell me what I need to understand.”

“I know enough.”

“You know I’m human. That’s not the same thing.”

His gaze moved over me then, more assessing than before, and I had the unsettling sense that he was cataloging me with the same precision I had been trying to apply to him. I should have been uncomfortable under that scrutiny. Maybe I was, but not in a way that made me want to retreat. The awareness of him was too strong, filling the small infirmary until the familiar room no longer felt quite like mine.

I removed my hand from his chest.

The reaction was immediate.

His body tightened, and though he controlled the response quickly, I saw enough. More importantly, I felt the change in the air between us, as if a thread had pulled taut the instant contact broke.

I set my fingers against his wrist instead, because I wanted to know whether the effect depended on location or simply on touch.

His breath left him slowly.

“All right,” I murmured. “Not just the chest.”

“Brynn.”

My name in his voice should not have affected me the way it did. It was too rough, too strained, shaped by an alien mouth and a body still fighting shock, but the sound settled under my skin all the same.

I forced my attention back to his pulse.

“You’re improving when I touch you,” I said. “You deteriorate when I don’t. I don’t have to know why yet to recognize the pattern.”

“You should not rely on a pattern you do not understand.”

“I agree. That’s why I’m still collecting information.”

His fingers flexed once beneath mine, but he did not pull away. “You are not afraid enough.”

“I’m exhausted,” I said honestly. “Sometimes that looks the same.”

For the first time, something almost like confusion crossed his face.

I let out a breath and reached for the diagnostic tablet on the tray beside the cot. Most of its functions were unreliable when used on anyone outside the human baseline, but it could still record temperature, pulse pressure, respiratory shifts, and electrical irregularities if I adjusted the settings manually. I had repaired it twice with scavenged parts and sheer refusal to let another useful thing die. It flickered when I activated it, then steadied.

“Try not to move.”

“I am injured, not undisciplined.”

“That remains to be seen.”