Freaking out at the bedside of a suffering patient had always been one of my biggest fears. Thus far in my life, I’d successfully avoided it by hyper-focusing on the task at hand. The closest I’d come was in college when we’d practiced on acting students. It just so happened I was given the actor who’d been assigned meningitis, and he went into a series of faux-spasms that almost sent me into a full-out panic attack. Luckily, I’d managed to get ahold of myself, take deep breaths, and refocus. I’d passed the course with a low A, and I assumed I’d gotten my flashbacks under control.

Until the Novai.

Maybe I was just too tired, or maybe the tension in the room was too thick. Maybe I’d been on Albaterra too long and had allowed my past on Earth to slip into the latent part of my brain, and then the worst of it came barreling out at the wrong moment. Hell, maybe I subconsciously figured seeing a Novai have a seizure was too unlike seeing Finnie have a seizure.

I was humiliated. I stayed in my room with Zuran long after the patient apparently calmed, and it wasn’t until nightfall that I felt brave enough to venture out again. To have an emotional breakdown at any time was something I didn’t want others to see, but to have one when I was supposed to be helping, or even saving a life, was something I didn’t think I’d ever live down. Surprisingly, nobody but me seemed bothered. Antoinette gently asked me if I was all right and if I needed to talk, and Dr. Griep told me yoga was a great natural stress reliever, but, other than that, not a word was said about my disappearance. The A’li-uud healers acted like they hadn’t even noticed I was gone—which, they probably hadn’t.

Even though I wasn’t criticized or degraded for what had happened, I still threw myself head-and-shoulders into working alongside the doctors, nurses, and healers to figure out this disease. I wanted to prove to them I wasn’t weak, that I was capable and knowledgeable and useful, but I also wanted to prove it to myself. When another Novai had a seizure several days later, I was right there by his side to keep his airway open and follow Dr. Griep’s orders. I didn’t even let myself think Finnie’s name. Since her passing, I’d dedicated myself to helping others, and I needed to know I was still able to do that.

When Zuran removed me from the hall that day, he’d unwittingly opened the door to an unexpected friendship. Two weeks after he’d held me in my room while I sobbed onto his bare, rock-hard chest, we’d become close. I was still attracted to him, seeing as he was basically a god in alien form, and his mischievous grins still made my insides squirm, but he wasn’t just eye candy anymore. He was a friend, a companion, someone I could trust and rely on and talk to and laugh with. He’d become three-dimensional to me, and, though he often tried to hide it, I saw another side to him I would’ve never imagined existed.

“Sometimes I wonder if they’re just going to leave us here,” I admitted one evening. We were sprawled out on the sand several yards from the hospital. He was on his back with his arms crooked behind his head in that careless way he liked, and I was lying with my head on his stomach, looking up at him. It shouldn’t have been comfortable, given how solid his abdomen was and how rough the sand felt against my skin, but it was. He made me comfortable.

“Who?” he asked idly. He’d been staring at the sky, which was beginning to turn the same color of rich, deep blue as him, but he tilted his face down slightly to peer at me through his slit lids.

“The Elders. Dhal’at. Everyone.” I shrugged. “Sometimes I feel like the universe has forgotten about us. That, when this is all over and we kick the crap out of this disease, the Novai will go on their merry way and we’ll still be here.”

He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I think I would quite like it if they did,” he mused.

I scoffed and jeered, “Well, of course you would. You don’t do anything all day while the rest of us are running our butts off.”

A glint crossed Zuran’s gaze, and I instantly knew I was in trouble. He rolled out from under me in a flash, and, without warning, he was hovering above me. My heart jumped into my throat with terrified excitement as he leaned so close the tips of our noses touched, and he murmured menacingly, “You think so, do you?”

One of his hands snatched my wrists together and slammed them to the ground over my head while the other darted to my side. His fingers danced viciously up my rib cage and circled back down to my navel, where he skittered his nails in haphazard strokes until he found the sensitive place above my hip. I shrieked with giggles, writhing against his grasp, but he refused to stop. The heat radiating from his body intensified in his enthusiasm and warmed me to a light sweat.

He had discovered I was ticklish by accident when he’d been lifting me to show me what he thought was an oasis in the distance. Since then, he’d found every excuse he could to attack. Apparently, tickling was not a standard A’li-uud practice, usually only performed on babies, but Zuran was a prankster by nature and seemed to get great enjoyment out of making me laugh hysterically.

“Okay!” I panted through my squeals. “Okay, okay! I’m sorry!”

His hand slowed, but he didn’t stop it completely. His nails still traced light patterns over my belly, which made me twitch even though it felt soothing. “I thought as much,” he said with satisfaction.

We were so close, our mouths only an inch or two apart. I was bathed in his scent from head to toe, and I never wanted it to fade. All he had to do was lean down a little more, fill the void between us, and his lips would be on mine.

Something thumped to the ground behind my head, and I heard, “I hope we are not interrupting.”