The Sea is Full of Stars

Ochoan Embassy, South Zone

Nakitti’s heart was breaking as she tended to her Baron, unconscious and still occasionally screaming in his nightmares in the aftermath of being operated on by the Imperial Surgeon herself. She almost had a heart attack just seeing him with all that horrible blood. It turned out that most of it wasn’t his, but he had several serious tears in both wings, a chunk out of his left leg—which might have to be amputated—and a serious wound in his side that had punctured a lung. With the kind of technology and research available at Zone, the Imperial Surgeon had been able to do things they could not have done back in Ochoa, but he’d lost a lot of blood and suffered a lot of damage.

Still, if he survived, a male with wounds like those, the Baron would have more power than any male in Ochoan history and a hell of a lot more than his uncle the King.

Curiously, Nakitti realized it didn’t matter to her how much power he’d gain. He’d been so handsome; now there were nicks on that gorgeous head from ricochets, he might never walk again, and he also might never fly, if he even got the chance, since he could die from loss of blood or infection. If she could take on those injuries and leave him whole, she would gladly surrender her position, go back to that hole in the wall and live out her life in obscurity with some low slob.

The feeling, the honest devotion, surprised, even shocked, her, and would certainly have shocked and surprised anyone who knew her. Hell, maybe it was becoming female or something, she thought; but it was the Ochoan women who did the fighting, and they seemed far less sentimental than the men, and the Ghoman women were all back-stabbing cheats even worse than their men. No, it wasn’t that she was female or Ochoan.

Who’d have thought it, though? That she would find something she cared more about than her own life and fortune. It was utterly incredible.

What happened even back in Ochoa was of little concern to her right now. She was going to be right here for him no matter what, and, to hell with social rank and convention, she would never leave his side again.