A millipede scuttled up his pant leg. She brushed it away. The wound in her side pulled beneath her hand. She needed a hospital. Dust rained down. “Got to get you out of here. Place isn’t safe. This isn’t how you bite it.”

His chest spasmed. “Bad—” Coughing. He raised his hand but could not quite reach his mouth to cover it. “Bad choice of words.”

“Scared me for a second there.”

Another shiver in his chest. They didn’t need to breathe—he didn’t need to breathe—but the voice box still worked the same. “Me, too.”

“We should—” The ruined tower spun a sundial’s revolution over her. “We should get out of here. Building’s breaking down. Can you walk?”

“Don’t think so.” His lips moved so slowly they must have weighed as much as continents, and fangs tipped between them. “Glad you found me.”

“Here, I can—” She reached for the chain around her neck, for Justice.

He grabbed her hand before it could close. “Not her,” he said. “We need to talk.”

“This isn’t the time.”

“It’s never the time.”

“I can’t carry you out alone.” His neck was cool as a marble column. “You took a claw meant for me.”

“It didn’t hurt.”

“Let me say thank you, dammit.” She felt his chest swell and contract against her side. “You’re breathing.”

“Old habits,” he said. “Hindbrain knows you’re hurt, tells you you need air. Instinct. Doesn’t help.”

“Story of my life,” Cat said. “Old instincts that don’t help.” She slid her arm around his shoulders and tried to pull him up. They made it halfway together, then slipped and hit the rock hard. Raz laughed.

“I’ll put on the damn Suit,” she said. If she pressed her back against this big rock, bunched her legs under her, and pushed up with them as she leaned—

Before she could try, Raz caught her arm. She cursed. “Fuck did you do that for?”

Red unblinking eyes fixed hers. His way of moving reminded her of cellar insects, so still when seen, but look away for half a moment and they’re gone.

He was hungry and hurt and so was she.

Points showed between his lips.

She nodded, then said, “Do it,” to make her meaning clear.

He drew close to her. Her veins sang for the sharp pain and the spreading joy. She wanted to become a candle, a bonfire in the dark.

His tongue flicked her cheek, rough and dry, more like a cat’s than a man’s. It lapped blood from the cut on her forehead, the slenderest of tastes. He swallowed, and that swallow rippled through his body. She felt her self drawn into him—no desperate, fiery whirlpool but a tide receding to leave a slant of sparkling saturated sand.