Miners of Djaromir Toren - Leora Gonzales Page 0,50

good juju that she’d built up within the universe in terms of karma pushed a happily ever after her way. Tucking her face into the little crook of Toren’s neck, she dropped a gentle kiss on the skin next to one of the claiming marks she’d sucked there earlier. If they were lucky, she’d have a chance to give him another round once he was all healed up.

Fingers crossed.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Distant voices came to her and slowly became more coherent.

“Is she injured?”

“I don’t see any wounds.”

“Lay her over there.”

“He’s breathing—”

“Barely.”

“There’s so much blood.”

Jessie winced at the bright light assaulting the outside of her eyelids. She fought to turn her face from the glaring spotlight.

“Jessie?!” Rue’s worried voice cut through the lingering fog. “Can you hear me, honey? Are you hurt anywhere? Can you open your eyes?”

“Although, I do not see any injuries and the Phaeton band she wears indicates no bodily distress, I would prefer to hear her speak before I assist the others with her mate.” The light that attempted to drill through her lids disappeared.

“What happened?” she asked groggily, blinking up at Rue and an unfamiliar healer leaning over her.

The last thing she remembered was cuddling close to—

“Toren!” she gasped, sitting up so abruptly she almost banged heads with her friend.

The healer pushed himself to his feet and stepped back but didn’t leave.

“Shhh,” Rue hushed, placing a steadying hand on her shoulder. With her free hand, she pointed to where Jessie’s mate was laying on the ground next to the smoking pod they’d flown. “The healers are working on him now.”

Jessie watched—or tried to watch—as they treated him. With so many of the robed Djaromir surrounding him, she couldn’t see what they were doing to her mate…or if he was even still breathing. She wanted nothing more than to go to him where he lay, but he needed their attention now more than her getting in the way.

“Dafuq happened out there?” Rue bluntly asked, piling furs on top of Jessie where she sat on the ground. She turned her attention to the healer that was standing by and gestured to Toren. “See if they can use your help. If we need you, I’ll holler.”

“Yes, Lady Veruca,” he replied with a nod, even though Rue wasn’t paying him any attention.

“I swear to God, when I saw the two of you unconscious through the window of that pod, I though ya’ll were d-e-a-d, dead.” Rue leaned forward to give her a hard, squeezing hug. “Don’t do that again. I don’t think my heart can take it.”

“I thought we were dead too,” she admitted honestly. In fact, she knew that they weren’t out of the woods yet as she looked away from Toren. If she hadn’t felt his presence through their mating bond, she’d be much more than a little worried about the fact that he hadn’t moved—not even a twitch—since the healers had begun working on him. “Part of me still can’t believe we made it back.”

“You’re not the only one,” Rue said baldly. “Matrix still doesn’t know how Shuddre’s pod managed to get the two of you here in the condition it’s in. Hell, Shuddre even looked shocked.” She waved her hand in front of her face, bringing Jessie’s attention to the scent in the air around them.

The acrid scent of something burning made her wrinkle her own nose. It was an odd mixture of ozone and burnt rubber that almost hurt to breathe in.

“Is that from—”

“The POS you somehow managed to fly all the way back to Gunninng?” she asked with a delicate cough as the pod sputtered another plume of thick black powder into the air. “It sure is. Maybe we should move a little further away—”

“How are you feeling?”

Jessie about jumped out of her skin at the sound of the deep voice suddenly booming next to her. She’d been so focused on the smell in the air and her mate getting treated nearby that she hadn’t noticed the big guy sneaking up on them.

She also wasn’t the only one who was surprised.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Shuddre!” Rue leaned over to smack at his upper arm. “Are you trying to give me a stroke? I’ve barely recovered from seeing Jessie and Toren look like they were headed for the morgue. With you popping out of nowhere like a giant fucking jack-in-the-box, I almost peed myself.”

Jessie bit her lip to stop from snorting at the blank look the large Djaromir gave her friend.

“I don’t understand why it’s my fault you