The Mad Lieutenant (The Lost Planet 3)

I find Draven waiting, perched on his nest of blankets, one hand propped on his updrawn knee. A small light buzzes from the ceiling, but it, too, is filmed over with dark, red smears. Whatever had happened to him must have affected his senses. Vision, hearing, touch. The way he held himself separate from the other morts had stood out to me before, but the realization comes back to me now as I watch him watching me.

The others had been so open, friendly. A big family, considering each other is all they have left on this lost planet. But not Draven.

Draven is always apart, other.

An outsider.

And now he’s mine.

I cross the room to sit next to him, and he drops his knee, tensing, his hands in loose fists by his sides. The scars on his arms stand out in sharp relief under the dim light.

“What happened to you?” I ask. I consider touching his scars, wondering what caused them, if they still hurt. He always has this look in his eye, like he’s in constant pain, tortured.

I don’t want to relate to him, to feel the beginnings of affection warming my heart, filling my chest with the soft glow of sympathy, but I do. I, too, know what it feels like to be in pain. To ache with fear.

“The Rades,” he grunts, those squinted, black eyes on me.

Tucking my legs up under my body, I angle toward him. Story time before bed always made me sleepy, but I’m too wired to sleep. “Is that like a disease or something?”

He nods. “It took the lives of many morts.”

“And that’s why there’s only ten of you left,” I clarify.

“That is correct.”

That must have been awful. Probably still is. I guess neither of our lives have exactly been a pile of roses. “How did you survive?”

“If it hadn’t been for my commander, I wouldn’t have. The disease, it devastated our race. Better morts than me had succumbed to the delirium, the madness. The fever, it’s unendurable. Breccan had to lock me in a reform cell to keep me from harming myself or others.”

I reach out to take his hand, but he dodges my touch.

At my hurt expression Draven explains, “It’s from The Rades. It leaves my skin incredibly sensitive.” He fingers the material of my sleep shirt, causing my skin to tingle. “Even the material from my minnasuit irritates my flesh.”

I’m only half listening. His fingers are still rubbing the material of my shirt, but his eyes are on my bare skin. Nostrils flaring, his eyes even more shuttered closed than normal, Draven looks crazed, but the heat in his gaze is a look I recognize.

“Well!” I say with false cheerfulness. “I’m beat. I think it’s time to hit the hay. Do you have somewhere I can crash for the night?”

“Crash?” he asks, perplexed. “Are you hurt?”

He looks so perfectly, adorably confused—which should be hard considering how severe he looks most of the time—that I laugh. “No, I mean I’m tired. Do you have a chair or a couch or something I can sleep on?”

“You will share my bed,” he answers. “You are my mate. I will protect you.”

“I think you can protect me just fine from across the room, big guy.”

“I will keep my space. I do not sleep well at night.”

Well, that stifles my protests. “Fine,” I huff out. “But you stay on your side, and I’ll stay on mine.”

“As you wish.”

He offers me a blanket and tucks me in. It’s the first time in recent memory that someone else has taken care of me.

Despite everything that’s happened, despite all my fears and worries, I fall into a deep and dreamless sleep with Draven next to me keeping watch.

***

The sound of the baby squalling echoes throughout the facility. My feet carry me from end to end, but I can’t escape the sound. Draven is out hunting and glowering at people or else I’d find him to distract me. The other morts are with the commander and his wife. For a bunch of alpha males, they all sure were overjoyed at the opportunity to visit the new bundle of joy.

I begged off with the excuse that I didn’t want to intrude, that I needed time to acclimate to my new environment. Sayer and Jareth didn’t seem convinced when I told them, but they left me to my own devices to join the others. I’d been fine in Draven’s rooms, for a while. Then the baby had started crying, and I could hear it, even behind the closed doors.

Most of the doors I encounter are locked. I assume they’re the living quarters of the other aliens and wouldn’t offer me any reprieve regardless. I trek all the way across the facility to the sub-faction and back to Draven’s before I find a stairwell leading down into darkness. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t step blithely into the gloom it offers, but I’m willing to do anything to escape the sounds, the torment.