Tears choked her. Quickening her steps, she caught up to his long strides and took his hand. He gave a light squeeze before he called for Illyse to follow them. Hand in hand, they walked while she tried to learn some Andarion. Which proved to be an extremely complicated language. It dripped like a song from his lips with that deep, resonating voice of his.

But her human tongue stumbled over all the vowels and diphthongs.

When they stopped a few hours later to rest and feed Illyse, she saw the blood running down Dancer’s leg.

“How can you walk on that without complaint?”

He glanced down and brushed at the blood then shrugged. “It’s not so bad.”

Rolling her eyes, she opened the pack and took out an antiseptic cloth. “I swear Andarions must have different pain receptors than humans.” She pulled his pants leg up to see that it was starting to fester. She grimaced. “This is looking bad, sweetie.”

He moved his leg so that he could see it. Then he made an adorable face at the wound. “I’ll be fine.”

She shook her head at his nonchalance then did her best to clean and rebandage it. “What would Syn say if he were here?”

“That I’m an idiot.”

His unexpected dry retort made her laugh. “Does he call you that a lot?”

“A good bit of the time.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

“I call him worse things.”

Sumi tried to imagine having friends like that. She’d never had many, and Avin had chased off the handful of people she’d once hung out with from work. In her mind, she’d already made up personalities for the men and women she’d seen in Dancer’s module. Too bad she’d never know if they were accurate or not.

Unwilling to think about the future that awaited them, she gave him a light kiss. “All done.”

Without complaint, he stood, then pulled her into his arms with her back to his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her neck. She could feel him growing hard against her hip.

Hauk closed his eyes and savored the sensation of holding her like this. It was a very human thing to do. Andarions didn’t really touch in public.

Unless they were fighting, they were very circumspect.

And it made him wonder how Keris and Dariana had ever managed to be wingmen together. How they’d had a marriage without children.

All he wanted was to strip Sumi’s clothes off and spend the rest of the day inside her. To hell with everything else in the universe.

If they were married…

Hauk tensed as he remembered a flashback from his childhood.

“Are you okay?”