Jax did not know what was happening.  She assumed she was dying because everything hurt and she kept going in and out of consciousness.  Each time she did, something else was changed.

There was blood first; each time she opened her eyes there seemed to be more of it splattered across the walls, the desk that sheltered her, everywhere.  It looked particularly garish dripping from the tasteless gold chair.  It reminded her she was on Warrung's ship.  Tolan had been right after all; she should have stayed on Port Sea.  But they had sent the information the doctor needed, so maybe it would all be worth it.  She heard blaster fire, and screams, and above it all a snarling that made her think of vicious beasts.  She faded out on the worry that she did not know where Tolan was.

Pain shot through her everywhere, bringing her out of the comfortable blackness with a sharp jerk.  Someone was lifting her.  She finally blinked enough of the pain away to recognize Tyber. 

"She needs a healer!"  His voice sounded angry and he was moving with purpose. 

She could hear pained whimpering and it took her a while to realize it was her making the pathetic sound.  She would have said something, but her chest felt as if a carbine engine had dropped onto it and was crushing her.

She passed out before she could catch enough of a breath to ask where Tolan was.

The next time there were lights glaring down at her, and a stranger had his hands pressed to her chest. She could feel the warm energy of a healer and wondered where they had found one; as far as she knew they were nearly as rare as truthsayers.

There was something she needed to remember, she thought as the soothing energy took away the pain and allowed her to breathe again.

A woman with Shakien lavender eyes looked down at her from a face she did not know.  She was pretty, small and dark, but the look in those fierce eyes made her scary enough to catch even Jax's traveling attention.  Her words were hard and cold and seemed out of place in that slender feminine face.  "If she dies, don't wake him up.  He will kill us all."

The Lady Danika's relieved smile was a welcome sight when Jax was aware once more.  This time she was not only pain free, but no longer floating on that healing cloud that had trapped her as surely as the pain had.  It took her a moment to remember how to talk.  This time she remembered enough to know one question was more important than all the others.  "Tolan?"

"He is in the stasis pod," she said, looking uncomfortable for some reason.  "He is healing on his own almost as fast as you did with the healer’s help, but they do not dare wake him up, not until you are well enough to be there."

Jax had to clear her throat before she could speak again.  "Why?"

"He went feral when you were hurt."

"Conall had to stun him," another voice said quietly, the Lady Lara walking close to the bed so that she was in her line of sight.  "Repeatedly, or he would have attacked him and the Alliance marines that came on board after Cor Warrung."  She looked as unhappy as Jax had ever seen her.  It took Jax a moment to realize that Conall was Captain Barnos, but that was the least of her worries now.

"I remember blood," Jax said, closing her eyes at the memory.

"I do not think anyone can say how many of Warrung’s people he killed.” Lara shivered at her own words.  "Because they were in too many small pieces; even the cybernetic parts were shredded.  If Conall had not gone in with the marines, the Alliance soldiers would have killed him outright."

"But he's all right?"

The two women shared a look that did not make Jax happy.  "What are you not telling me?"

"He was taken down feral and placed in stasis because he was fighting the stun even as they tried to transport him.  Even in the stasis pod he has not lost his warrior form and does not rest quietly.  He fights the stasis.  We did not even know you could do that."  Danika looked at Lara as she spoke.  She did not want to say more.  But it was not Lara who spoke, but the strange woman with the Shakien eyes.

"What they don't want to say is that he went into stasis a feral, rage-filled beast; chances are better than average that he will come out worse off than when he went in."  The matter-of-fact voice was one Jax recognized from when she was healing.

Jax blinked at her words, but did not fully grasp the situation until the woman spoke again.

"The marines want to jettison the pod and blow it up from space," she added starkly.  "My mate, Lucan, and Barnos are trying to talk them out of it.  The ladies here figured it would devolve into a battle and came to get you."

Jax threw back the covers and was almost surprised to see she was covered in a sort of thin shift that reached her knees.  It had been so long since she was dressed, it almost felt foreign.  She almost asked how long they had been missing, but none of it was as important as getting to her mate. 

"Anyone have my stun stick?" she asked instead.  The Shakien female she still did not know smiled for the first time.  It was frightening, and she could not even say why.

***

"Those were marine coded cyborgs.  You saw what he did to them.  Even the titanium shielding was shredded like paper."  The space marine who was talking sounded calmly furious.  There was not an ounce of give in his voice.  "This is my security detail and I am not going to allow you let a feral Shakien loose on this ship."

"We're not asking you for shite,” Barnos bellowed back in fiery fury.  "We're taking him to his own ship, and you have no say in what we do there."

"I'd no sooner let you take him than I'd trust you with a ticking bomb. There is no coming back from what I saw."  The marine shifted to stand more between the stasis pod he was guarding and the furious pirate.  "You might be willing to risk the Lady Lara and the others, but I am not."

"And if it was Nori?" a stranger with storm gray eyes and broad shoulders asked the question, his voice gruff and seriously displeased.

"It's Nori and the others I'm thinking of," the marine answered, meeting those stormy eyes with a surety in his that Jax did not like, under the circumstances.  "But if Nori had gone feral like that she would be the first one to tell me to keep everyone safe."

"That man risked himself and his mate to save a child." Jax and the other women had to walk further into the room to see Lucan.  He spoke quietly; compared to Barnos everyone did, but the promise of violence was just as obvious behind those cool words.  "I am taking him back to Port Sea."

The marine pulled his blaster and clasped it pointedly across his chest, and the other mean-looking Alliance troops around him moved in to back his play.  The Shakien female had been right, there was going to be a battle.  She took in the situation and finally stepped forward so that all eyes fell on her.  She met the eyes of the marine in charge, who flinched at the look in her eyes, but he did not move from his post.

"May I at least look upon my mate’s face and say my goodbyes before you blow him up?"

"Bollocks, you say," Barnos started on a roar that was abruptly cut off, followed by a pained curse.  Jax did not look over to see what had happened, but guessed it had been Lara since there was no further blustering.

The marine looked her over, but still did not move until the Shakien female spoke with obvious disgust.  "Fire take it Malik, move so she can say her goodbyes!"

Malik looked around Jax with hard eyes and said one name in warning.  "Nori," he growled. 

So that was Lara's scary sister?  Jax thought, and then, I can see that.

"You said yourself you put a lock on the stasis. Only you have the code, just let her see him," Nori said in clear exasperation.

Jax sincerely hoped the marine did not know enough about her to know she could bypass any lock, or this was not going to work.  Apparently, he didn't because with one final once-over where he could plainly see she wore no weapons, he stepped aside.  His eyes swept the room in warning, but he did not stop her from going forward.  No one tried to follow her.  She reached the stasis pod and looked down at her mate.  A mate who was so covered in blood through the view area that he looked painted in it.  No wonder the marines were anxious.  She remembered the blood dripping off gold leaf and really did not blame the marine for his caution.  That did not mean she was going to let him kill Tolan however.

She heard the marines around her shift just a bit and threw herself over her mate’s stasis pod, then before they could do more than think about dragging her off, she did her best to cry loud, wracking sobs of sorrow.  There were a few curses from the marines, but Lucan Warrung, Barnos and the rest were silent.  She did not need to fall on the lock itself to whisper it open through the control board her hand was resting on.  She had the stasis reversed and saw her mate’s rage-filled Shakien eyes open beneath the glass, and heard the lock disengage.  She stood up and turned dry eyes to the marines at her back. 

"You should be running," she said mildly enough and then stepped to the side, showing them the pod, just as the top of it crashed open and an enraged Shakien came barreling out with a bloodcurdling roar of rage.

The marines raised their weapons but she took the step that put her between her mate and their guns, and Malik cursed her roundly and in more than one language. 

"Get everyone out and lock the door behind you," she finished, as blood-coated hands wrapped around her waist and she was pulled forcefully back.

Malik cursed again, but wasted no more time giving the orders. He did take one final look at Jax, and his look said plainly he thought she was dead.

Feeling the painful grip of the hands at her waist and the press of sharp teeth at her neck, she was not so sure he was wrong about that.  But she knew what it was like to be alone.  She did not want to go back to a world without Tolan Lark in it.  And deep down inside she really did not believe he would harm her.

The painful grip on her waist did not ease when he gripped her and flipped her around to face him.  Jax gasped at the speed and power in those hands.  He bent over her, so much taller in his warrior form.  The blood had dried, matting his fur, and it scratched at her when always before it had been a soft pelt along her skin.  He lowered his head, baring his teeth and forcing her head back as he closed on her vulnerable neck.  Jax closed her eyes and tried to be as passive in his arms as possible.  The exposed teeth touched the soft flesh of her neck first and he growled again, this time against her racing pulse.  His mouth opened until he could bite down and Jax fought the need to fight back.  He started to bite down harder and she shuddered, it was not a good shudder.  She could smell blood and other things on his breath.

He bit down more and she was to the point of pain that she would have tried to push him away when his teeth released.  He licked the mark he had made, and then he kissed it, and she realized he was exactly on top of her mating mark.  Then he collapsed, taking her to the ground with him since his arms did not loosen.  His warrior form flowed from his body as he lay over her lap, his head on her chest and his arms clutching her tightly to him.  He was so much bigger than her that he nearly crushed her legs that had folded awkwardly beneath them, even after he was once again just Tolan Lark.  Jax didn't care.  She held him, bloody and wrecked, in her lap, and this time her tears were real, and overwhelming relief.

***

The ambassador offered them the use of his healer for Tolan before they all headed back to The Jezebel or The Fire, but no one thought that was a good idea but the ambassador, so they politely declined.  Well, Barnos said something loud and rude in answer but no one really paid any attention to that.

Barnos carried Tolan Lark onto The Fire and Jax stayed with him.  The big, brash pirate laid him gently, still crusted with drying blood, down on his bunk and Jax had a moment of indecision.  She was so tired she could barely think straight but they both reeked.  In the end, she knew without a shadow of a doubt she did not have the energy to even get them into a sonic shower, let alone hold him standing while she washed them both.  She dropped into the bed dirty and smelling of blood, her mate even worse at her back.  His arm wrapped around her and yanked her back into his hard chest.  She had a second to feel the heat of him, and then she was asleep.

They woke up nearly sixteen hours later and it was Tolan Lark who carried her to the bath and washed them both of the blood and grime from their adventures, first with the cleaning solution that most people on space voyages had to be content with, then with the more decadent water shower that she had not known about until he flipped the switch and hot water poured over their squeaky-clean bodies.

He ran his hands over her unblemished back as if he could remember where every blast mark had been.  He laid a kiss on her mating mark and shuddered. 

"I thought you were dead," he finally said, the first words he had spoken since he woke.  "I thought I had lost you."

She clutched her hands tightly around him, holding him as close as she could get him.  She did not answer in words just reassured with touch that she was fine, at the same time reassuring herself of the same thing.  Her mate was alive and safe.

"The next time I tell you it's too dangerous, you stay where I put you."

Jax opened her mouth against his chest and bit him, hard.

Unfortunately for her, the Shakien saw that as foreplay.  The water in the shower ended long before they were finished in the shower.