Phoenix’s Fire (The Ruins Of Men #2)

Chapter 31

Thirty-One

Meri

T he women had been so kind since we'd arrived. Most of them spoke English, and even when someone didn't, someone else translated for them. Combined, I felt like I finally had people to talk to, so I asked questions. So many of them.

Saveah, who really did look just like a slightly older version of Ayla, told me all about babies. Human babies, Dragon babies, and more. Jeera and Brielle had assured me they knew how to care for a child, but they didn't have any of their own, so I'd doubted it. But when Saveah had passed her daughter to Brielle for a diaper change, I'd realized how wrong I was.

The men were cooking. Naomi's home was huge - and all hers. The wild men were staying with her as guests even though she had no husband, and that was perfectly acceptable. Unmarried women had babies sometimes, married women sometimes didn't, and all the rules I'd thought I knew were turned upside down here.

But eventually, people began wandering off. First, it was Ayla, which didn't really surprise me. Saveah followed her only moments later. Next, it was Naomi, who went to check on the meal. Lessa left, came back, then left again. Eventually, Jeera and Brielle excused themselves for a moment.

That was when I found myself all alone. Pushing out a breath, I relaxed a bit. Ayla was right, all of this was a lot. It was also nice, but I wasn't sure what I should be doing - or could be. Hoping someone would come tell me, I picked up the samples of fabric Lessa wanted me to pick from, and dared to run my fingers over the amazing colors and patterns.

"Meri?" The sound of a man's voice made me tense.

"Yes, sir?" I asked, doing my best to stand up respectfully .

He waved me back down and hurried over. "Sorry, sorry," he said in very accented English. Then he came over and held out his hand. "Halp?"

"What?" I asked, looking from his hand to his face.

The man groaned as if he'd made a mistake, then pressed his hand to his chest. "Me, Irrik. You, Meri. Me halp you go thar." And he pointed in the direction everyone else had gone. "Tamin..." He gestured downward as if indicating something small. "He ha' oww!" Then he pointed to his knee. "Brielle and Jeera make good. Me make you see way."

"Jeera and Brielle are helping the child because he got hurt?" I asked.

"Yes!" the man breathed, sounding relieved.

"And you want to..." I paused, hoping I guessed this right. "Show me where they are?"

"Yes!" he said again, and offered his hand.

So I accepted it, a little surprised when he helped to pull me up and onto my feet. Then Irrik turned and offered his arm like a true gentleman. Nervously, I took it, unsure if this was proper or not, but the man simply gestured where we were going with his other hand, then guided me through the expansive house.

Soon enough, we reached a pair of glass doors. Irrik opened one, then assisted me down the stairs. There, Lessa saw me and hurried over. She rambled off something to Irrik in those words they used, which were almost starting to sound like English, once I adjusted for their accent. Then she looked at me.

"Came sit?" she offered.

"Come?" I asked, making sure I was keeping up.

She nodded. "Baby havy." She patted her own belly, then pointed to mine. "Chir good."

"Chair," I said, realizing what she was trying to tell me. "Thank you."

"Valkome," she replied.

Okay, so I was figuring out this language thing. That, or they were trying hard to use mine. Not that I could quite be sure I understood them yet, but I was getting there. Thankfully, Lessa showed me to a large table with plates, drinks, and more on it. Then she gestured for me to pick a chair.

"Sit anywhere!" Jeera called from the side.

I looked and found her, Brielle, Saveah, and Naomi hovering around a child - but he wasn't like any child I'd seen before. This one was blue! Well, almost green. Halfway in the middle? He had black markings on him and a tail, proving he was a Dragon.

"Tamin," Lessa said when she saw where I was looking. Then she pointed to the animal that had made the loud noises on our way here. "Dog."

I nodded to show I understood, then picked a chair near the end closest to us. "Is this okay?"

"Yes," Lessa agreed, claiming the one beside me. "Ayla!"

"Coming," Ayla called, heading over from the middle of a group of men. When she saw me, she broke into a jog. "Sorry, Meri. Tamin tried to play pull with the dogs, and they're stronger. He skinned his knee. "

"The little Dragon?" I asked.

Ayla nodded. "That's my nephew."

I paused, thinking about that. "Saveah's child?"

"The oldest. Tamin is six. Taris is almost four months."

"But he's a Dragon," I hissed.

"So was his father," Ayla explained. "Lessa can't have babies because she has a tail. Women like Naomi can, so all Dragons have a mom like us."

"Will mine be a Dragon?" I asked, terrified being above ground might change it.

"No..." Lessa said, clearly understanding me. Then she rambled something at Ayla.

"She says Dragon babies have to have Dragon fathers," Ayla explained. "Well, mostly. She was a little more graphic."

"About what?" I asked.

Ayla's cheeks began to get pink. "How the babies are made."

"Oh."

For a moment, Ayla and I were both quiet, but I couldn't help myself. I had to look at her to make sure I truly understood. Yes, her cheeks were pink, but when she met my eyes, it didn't matter. Both of us immediately burst into giggles.

"They just talk about it in front of everyone?" I asked.

Ayla nodded. "A lot, actually. Since I've been here, they've all told me about how it doesn't hurt, and how to prevent babies, and how it has nothing to do with marriage." Then she rocked her head from side to side. "Mostly because I was worried about the men and what they'd think."

"Because you live with three!" I hissed.

"Is okay," Lessa said. "Three be good or..." She mimed holding something and chopping at it with her other hand. "Use without asking, women cut away. Gone. No more man part."

So Ayla said something to Lessa. Lessa replied, and with a grin, Ayla looked back at me. "She's trying to say that if a man has sex with a woman who doesn't want it, the other women will cut off his penis."

I gasped. "No!"

"It's not allowed," Ayla insisted. "Or hitting women. Not even as punishment."

"I'm glad you found this place," I told her. "I wish Callah was here, though."

"I want to get her out before November," Ayla admitted. "Zasen is trying to figure out how to get in, though. Did Gideon ever say anything about that?"

I shook my head. "No. He told me when he'd be gone and what he expected when he came back. I liked those days, because I wasn't forced to stay in our rooms. The other hunters' wives would eat meals with me and we'd talk. But he never told me anything about his duties, except when he got hurt."

"Hurt?" she asked.

"The arrow before we were married," I explained. "The one you fixed."

"I should've let him die," she grumbled

"But then I'd have been married to someone else!" I shot back .

"And Gideon hurt you!" she all but growled, sounding more powerful than any woman I'd ever heard before.

It was enough to make me look at her all over again. Ayla had changed a lot. The girl I'd known months ago had been as pale as me. Her hair was the same, but that was about it. Her skin was now darker, her body was thicker with both flesh and muscles. The biggest difference was the way she'd stopped hiding her disobedience and had embraced it.

"What if I'm not strong enough to survive up here?" I asked.

"You are," Ayla promised.

"But..." My hands went to my belly, feeling the thing inside me moving on its own. "What if he comes for me, Ayla? What if he wants to take his child back?"

"You told him it's not his, remember?"

"What?" Lessa asked.

So Ayla explained what we were talking about in that other language. Lessa nodded, glanced at me a few times, and nodded some more. When it was all done, she reached over to rub my shoulder, then lifted her tail.

"This stop husbend," she said.

I glanced at Ayla, who had just pressed both hands to her face. "What?" I demanded.

"She says she'll sting your husband," Ayla explained. "Meri, Dragons are venomous. They have a stinger in their tails, and they can poison a person with it."

"Nat you," Lessa corrected her.

"Not you?" I asked, pretty sure I'd understood that.

Which made Ayla sigh. "I'm now immune," she explained.

"I want to be immune!"

Which made Ayla's shoulders slump. "You can't. It'd be bad for the baby."

"But it's Gideon's baby," I shot back. "I didn't ask for it. I told him I wasn't ready and that we should wait, but he wanted to breed now. Always now. And now I can't be immune to the Dragons?"

"Wait?" Ayla begged. "Meri, being around them is fine. It's not their skin or anything. It's only their tails, and only if they intentionally sting you."

"Or oops," Lessa added.

"Or accidentally," Ayla clarified almost sheepishly, "but only little babies do that, right?"

Lessa nodded, proving she was keeping up. "Oops." Which was followed by quick words in that other language.

Ayla nodded, then her eyes returned to me. "Some women get immune when they have a Dragon baby," she told me. "Since yours won't be a Dragon, you have to wait. Otherwise, the venom you'd take might hurt the child. Maybe even kill it."

"Oh." I glanced over at Lessa's tail in a whole new way. "How do you get immune?"

"You have to drink it," Ayla said. "For me, I took one drop in a glass of water each day until it stopped burning, then kept adding more. And Meri? It's not fun. The first time, I thought they'd killed me. It hurts a lot."

"How much would hurt my baby?" I asked.

Ayla asked Lessa. There was a lot of back and forth between them, and then she finally looked at me again. "They don't know. Probably not much because you're so thin. For others, it takes more. That's why Jeera and Brielle make sure you don't eat anything that was killed with venom, because it could make you and the baby sick."

"Oh."

"And all the food today is safe," she went on. "Zasen and I hunt for Saveah too, because Taris doesn't have a tail, so she isn't immune yet. They said she'll do that when she's old enough to have her cycle."

"That old?"

Ayla nodded. "I guess a lot of people aren't immune here, because there are a lot of tailless daughters. The guys wanted me to do it because I looked like a Mole, and Dragons thought all Moles were dangerous. Not just the men."

"What am I supposed to do?" I begged her.

"Get stronger, eat more, and walk as much as you can," she told me. "It won't be long before the baby is here, and Lessa says you have options after that." They traded a few lines, then Ayla looked at me again. "She's worried because pregnancy is hard, you have been mistreated, and that's not fair to you."

I slid my hand over the bulge in my stomach again. "No, it's not fair, but there's nothing to do about it now."

"But it's going to be okay," Ayla assured me. "And Kanik is going to teach us how to speak Vestrian."

"You already speak it!" I snapped.

"A lot, yes," Ayla agreed, "but not all. I'm still learning, Meri."

"But you can talk to them, and do things. I just do this!"

"What do you mean?"

So I waved at my body. "This. Be pregnant. It's all I'm good for, and now I'm stuck."

"No," she promised. "Meri, you're not stuck. Things are better here, I promise. You'll see."

I nodded because I wanted to believe her, but I knew my choices were different from hers. She wasn't a mother. Ayla was allowed to have her own life - and here it looked like a good one. But me? I was going to be a mother, whether I liked it or not.

I'd thought Gideon was going to be my perfect husband. I'd been wrong, and now no man would want me. I was still married to him, even though Jeera assured me that could be fixed, but divorce? That was sinful! What man would want a used woman like that? We all knew the widows were less appealing than the new women.

And yet my eyes jumped up to the man who'd guided me out here in time to see him wrap his arms around Brielle and kiss her neck. The dark-blue Dragon woman giggled and pressed back into him. I tried to pull my eyes away, but I wasn't fast enough. Jeera stepped in, but rather than yelling at the man, she turned his face to hers and kissed him even while he was holding Brielle !

Then Jeera turned and kissed Brielle. Beside me, Ayla followed my gaze over to them.

"See," she said. "Very different. None of the rules are the same, Meri, so it's going to be okay."

I hoped she was right. Maybe this world was different, but was it the kind of different that would work for me? Or was it the kind of different that would destroy me?