Page 9 of Thexan

“You should alert your leaders,” he said. “They should evacuate this structure and move your people away from me.”

“That would expose you.”

“Yes.”

“And if your enemies find you before you can stand?”

His expression did not change, but the stillness in him shifted into something colder.

“Then the threat remains concentrated on me.”

I stared at him. “You mean you die before they reach anyone else.”

“If I cannot move, that is the most efficient outcome.”

“No.”

His eyes hardened. “You do not understand.”

“I understand enough to know that men who say things like that are usually trying to make dying sound practical.”

“It is practical,” he said, rougher now. “It is not preferred.”

That stopped me.

For the first time, I heard something beneath the calculation. Not fear exactly. Not for himself. Something tighter than that.

“You don’t want to die,” I said.

“No.”

The answer was immediate this time.

“And yet you’re telling me to let it happen.”

“I am telling you to protect your people.”

“It’s also inconvenient,” I said, because if I let the moment get any heavier, I might feel it too much. “Since I just spent a great deal of effort keeping you alive.”

That should not have mattered to him.

I saw that it did.

Not much. Not in any way he would willingly show. But something in his face shifted, a minute change around the eyes, a softening so brief I might have imagined it if I had not been watching him with the focus of a woman trying to keep him from bleeding out on her cot.

I drew another breath and made the decision before I could talk myself out of it.

“You’re staying here tonight.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Brynn—”

“You cannot stand without tearing that wound open. Your neural regulation is unstable. Your body responds positively to proximity, which means sending you away would be medically stupid even if it were morally convenient. I’m not doing it.”

“You place yourself at risk.”