Downfall: Enemies to Lovers Sci-Fi Romance (Hearts With Teeth) by Alexandra Norton

Author:Alexandra Norton [Norton, Alexandra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-06-21T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

TEZ

She’d never felt anything like that before—the entire world shaking around her, the ground splitting beneath her feet. And there was nothing to do, nowhere to run. All she could do was follow Stag, regardless of where he was leading her. He covered her with his body until the tremors passed. Even once the ground stopped rumbling, he waited with her for as long as their limited oxygen supplies would allow. Tez feared what they’d find when they returned to the ship. They traversed over the cracks at the top of the crater and picked their way to the bottom, Stag helping take her weight with the injured knee.

They both knew what this meant as they trudged back, her limping against him. No way was anyone going to risk landing on Arvex now. It was clearly unstable—too dangerous for a rescue mission. No one would be coming for them.

What they found on the way back, though, distracted her from ruminating on their doom. She was the one who spotted the gash of gray just a few feet away from the wreckage of the ship. She hobbled to the spot as fast as her knee would allow, certain at first that she was seeing things. But there it was: pure blue-gray water seeping up from the open veins in the ground.

“They didn’t detect water under the surface during exploratory drilling,” she said in disbelief.

“Must not’ve drilled the crater.” The excitement in Stag’s voice mirrored her own.

They were impatient as they got back to the Raptor to run critical life support checks. They needed to do that first, making sure what little oxygen supply the ship had left hadn’t been compromised in the quake. As soon as that was done, they wandered back out with plastic containers, filling them up to the brim. They gulped the water down as soon as they were back inside, then went out again. By their third trip they were full, hydrated, and giddy, having also sucked down a couple more nutripacks.

At least they were going out with a bang, she supposed.

Hours later, they lay side by side on their blankets, bellies bloated and mouths blissfully moist. When their arms touched, neither moved away. It was getting warmer with approaching nightfall, the night winds of Arvex starting to pick up. Layers of clothing had come off as the temperature in the Raptor rose.

Tez let her gaze roam over Stag’s bare torso. He really was something: body chiseled with musculature that was hard and efficient, dry in that way you want in a pilot.

When her eyes swept back up, she realized she’d been caught in her admiration. Their eyes locked.

“Twenty hours left,” she whispered. She had checked the life support estimate while he was in the bathroom—they’d needed to go a lot after all that water.

They watched each other for a few seconds, and when he reached out to tuck loose hair behind her ear, she found herself leaning into his palm.

“Tell me about Olympus?” she sighed, voice small and a little shaky.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.