Fate kicks Sno into action. She has to rescue a sleeping man of uncommon beauty, and he returns the favour.

Sno has been waiting for her chance to become a monitor, but it appears she is of more value as a medic. When a medical emergency renders a monitor unfit, Sno steps in and rigs herself up to plunge into his mind.

Once inside his mind, she meets the man who has caught her imagination and her heart without even speaking a word.

Kyron was not expecting the woman who crashed into his blizzard but warming her takes priority and his heart is not the only thing heating up when he takes her into his arms.

Sno reported for duty in a heavy bio-med suit. “Morning, all.”

The other medics nodded, and they all went about their duties for the day. Medic Sno Driina Ekalin went on her rounds, changing the monitors’ supplement packs and moving them to reduce the chance of tendon shrinkage.

In her monitor training, she had been told that she wouldn’t feel anything that was happening to her body, but she was pretty sure that on some level the monitors could feel it. They would just ignore it.

The Edinar were a different story. The medics working on them were specialists. They had been trained by the first Edinar to wake. The Horalthians had chosen carefully. They had picked the person most likely to be able to carry themselves through the convalescence. He had told them about the need for a mind companion during the healing process and that is what began the monitor program.

Sno took the monitor training, hoping to be chosen, but it was decided that her life was better used as a medic. So, here she was turning, filling, checking vitals and wishing that the monitor program ran out of candidates so she could get her turn.

Today, they were doing a new setup. Station seven had been emptied and they were doing the turn around. She wheeled the monitor’s bed into place behind the cryo tube that the Edinar was in, and she watched as the medics began the waking protocol that would let the plague cure enter his system. It was the beginning of a six-month process that would, hopefully, leave the Edinar with a whole body and a long life ahead of him.

When he was wired and settled, the Edinar’s medics stepped away. Sno snuck in and took a peek. “Holy fruit trees.”

The man was huge. Easily twice her size with white-blonde hair and what was no doubt ice blue eyes. She couldn’t stop staring at him through her plexi helmet.

A throat cleared behind her. “Our monitor is here.”

Sno was recalled to duty. She greeted the young man, eased him into the correct position on the gel bed and checked on him, attaching his leads and easing the IV jacks into his skin.

When he was set, she smiled at him. “Good luck, Monitor.”

He lay back and relaxed, a slight smile on his lips.

“I will take the first data watch.” Sno smiled and the other two medics continued their rounds on the wheel of Edinar and their monitors.

Sno watched the readouts carefully, noting when the monitor’s mind made contact with the Edinar’s for the files.

The first contact was delicate. If the monitor blew the introduction, things could get ugly very quickly. They kept a spare monitor on hand just in case. They were ready to go at a moment’s notice.

Once the first hour had gone by, Sno filed the readouts and continued her rounds. She managed one circuit of the monitor stations and was just returning to seven when the monitor began to convulse.

Sno hit the alarm and the other medics came running. “Call the backup.”

Teril looked at her in shock. “We sent the spare home.”

“Fine. Get him loose. I will step in.” Against protocol, she opened her helmet and unsealed her bio suit. She put the leads on her own temples the moment they were free, and she heard a crackling in the corners of her mind. She was a good fit.

“I have initial contact. Get me in that bed and hook me up. My patient is trying to wake.”

It was true; the Edinar was fighting to free himself from consciousness.

With the previous monitor taken to a nearby gurney, Sno grabbed new needles and jacked herself in. She set the drips and leaned back as the drugs took her into a deep sleep where the man near her was waiting.