7. Magnolia
7
MAGNOLIA
Y esterday, I’d been so freaking happy to be on the road and heading towards my future husband that the time spent travelling had flown right by. Everything was pretty and shiny and happy and new and I was going to meet Oaken.
Today…
Today, I was struggling to get back to that happy place. Not because I wasn’t still excited to go meet Oaken – I was.
No. It was because of Garrek.
He sat behind me on Shanti like a big block of blue ice. He called the occasional command to Shanti or the bracku or Killian, but otherwise he didn’t say a word.
I hadn’t really noticed it yesterday. The discomfort of this silence, as taut and tangible as leather stretched between us.
I noticed it today.
And the reality began to set in. The reality that I could have days, or maybe even weeks on shulduback with this man and be stuck in depressingly awkward silence with him the entire time.
No, thank you. I’d rather not.
“So, Garrek,” I said brightly, ignoring the way I felt him tense suspiciously behind me. “Tell me about yourself.”
“No.”
Good one, Magnolia. Absolutely top-notch conversation so far.
“Alright. Fine, then. Tell me about Killian.”
I heard Garrek’s sigh over the clomping of hooves.
“He’s a young Zabrian boy, a convicted murderer in the eyes of the Empire, and a colossal pain in my tail.”
I snorted and shook my head.
“I think he’s lovely.”
“That’s because he’s been on his best behaviour around you so far,” Garrek grumbled. “And he’s calmed down significantly compared to when he first got here. You should have seen him when he arrived before winter. It took days just to convince him to sleep inside the house instead of the barn. I’ve still got the teeth marks in my hide.”
My eyebrows climbed in surprise. I twisted in the saddle, trying to see Killian. I glimpsed him at the back of the herd, looking so competent and calm atop his shuldu, nothing like the child Garrek was describing.
“Stop that,” Garrek grunted. He nudged me with the inner elbow of the arm holding the reins. “You’re going to fall off.”
“No I’m not! You worry too much. ”
Garrek snorted, then muttered something that sounded like, “You have no idea.”
“Did Killian already know how to ride a shuldu when he arrived?” I asked.
“No.”
“No?” I craned my neck to look at Garrek, only to find his eyes already fastened on me. He shifted them away, but I let my own gaze remain on his face for a beat. His eyes were so often bright white that I hadn’t had a moment to really appreciate their true colour before now.
Zabrians didn’t have round pupils or irises like humans. They had dark eyes with veins of brighter colour that branched out from the centre. Garrek’s eyes were a rich and regal shade of deep violet. The brighter, lightning-like streaks were the most beautiful shade of lavender tinged with smoke.
“No,” Garrek reiterated, his eyes still aimed somewhere over my head. “I just said that. Is your hearing really that bad?”
“It’s not that bad. I heard you the first time. I was just clarifying.” I turned around in the saddle again. “He seems to ride really well. Who taught him?”
“I did.”
“You did?”
He sighed. “Are we really doing this again?”
“Sorry,” I chuckled. “I just… You don’t exactly seem like the patient, encouraging teacher type.”
Frankly, I could not even begin to imagine the shitshow uptight Garrek trying to teach a wiggly Killian must have been. It was a wonder he had any of that gorgeous, thick black hair left instead of ripping it all out.
“I’m not,” Garrek agreed. “Luckily, it was a skill Killian actually wanted to learn. There’s no way I would have been able to force him to do it if he hadn’t.”
“Makes sense. What kid doesn’t want to ride around on some big, majestic mount? Even I used to fantasize about riding the horses on the Terratribe II farms when I was younger.” I let out a wistful little sigh. “It’s too bad you don’t like teaching. Otherwise, I’d ask you to teach me.”
“You want to learn to ride?” He sounded surprised, confused, and maybe just a little bit… pleased?
Garrek? Pleased? About something I’d said?
Better mark that shit down on the calendar.
“I’d love to,” I said enthusiastically. “And other stuff, too. I have my own skills, don’t get me wrong. But I’d love to learn more about life here. I think it’d be really great if I could meet Oaken already knowing some of this stuff. Impress him a little, you know?”
“Oaken has not even seen a female since childhood,” Garrek said, his tone flat. “You’ll impress him simply by breathing.”
“You presumably haven’t seen a female since childhood, either,” I replied tartly, “and I certainly don’t impress you just by breathing.”
“How would you know?”
“Because I- wait. What?”
I twisted to look at him once more. And once more, he stubbornly avoided my gaze .
“What did you just say?” I prodded when he didn’t add anything else. I sounded oddly breathless.
My heart climbed up to my throat when his eyes finally met mine. I saw them flash white a split second before everything went suddenly dark. I gasped, hands flailing upwards to fight off this sudden fit of blindness Garrek had caused by bopping the brim of my hat down to my nose.
“Eyes forward.”
“But-”
“You said you wanted to learn to ride,” he asked sternly, “didn’t you?”
“Well, yes,” I sputtered, shoving my hat back up so that I could see again.
“Then consider this your first lesson.” His hand plopped down on top of my hat and he aimed my head forward. His hand remained a split second longer than was necessary. A lingering caress of pressure that I felt all the way down to my toes.
“Always keep your eyes on the road ahead.” His voice was gruffer now. “Don’t you ever look back.”
It took longer tonight to find a place that Garrek was happy with, so by the time we stopped to make camp the sun had fully set. The three moons and the stars sent pearly light drifting down onto the wild, untamed landscape of Zabria Prinar One. The forest we travelled alongside was a hushed tangle of silver and shadow. The plains on the other side were empty besides the hardy tufts of grass that fed the shuldu and bracku and the occasional shrub, succulent, or lonesome tree. There were no buildings out here. We’d long since moved beyond the sparsely inhabited area of Warden Tenn’s territory where Fallon, Silar, and Garrek’s ranches lay.
“Does anyone else live around here?” I asked Garrek as he pulled the reins and brought Shanti to a stop. Behind us, Killian was bringing up the rear, keeping the bracku in their formation.
“No,” Garrek said. “Earlier today we passed within a few spans of Zohro’s property, but otherwise, the only one who lives this close to the mountains is Oaken.”
“Zohro… I remember him from the day I arrived.”
He’d been the tall, lean male with fuchsia hide and dark hair scowling in the shadow of the warden’s building when Darcy and I had first met Fallon, Silar, and Warden Tenn. No human had come to meet him. I wasn’t even entirely sure why he’d been there, to be honest, because he’d looked mad as hell the entire time and left before Darcy and Fallon’s wedding.
“Why didn’t Zohro request a wife?” I asked.
“Zohro’s an idiot,” Garrek replied, as if that answered my question.
I laughed.
“Need I remind you,” I said with a shake of my head, “that you also didn’t request a wife?”
“I did not request a wife precisely because I am not an idiot,” he shot back.
“Oh really? ”
“Of course,” he grunted. “What in the great dusty blazes would I do with a wife?”
“What everybody does, I suppose,” I said dreamily, thinking of the way Silar and Fallon so obviously worshipped their human wives. “Love her.”
I heard the breath rush out of Garrek, like he’d been punched.
Maybe he was just exhaling in exasperation at what he probably saw as a sort of star-struck naivete in me. Apparently finished with listening to my sappy human sentiments on the subject of marriage, he quickly dismounted. Luckily, the man seemed to have learned enough from yesterday’s fiasco not to stomp away from me again before I’d gotten down. I wrenched my leg up and over the saddle so that I was sitting sideways, ready to slide off with a little help from him.
When I saw Garrek waiting for me, my breath snagged like fabric caught on a hook.
He was standing there, still and silent, his thick thighs spread, his boots in a wide stance. His bare, brawny arms were outstretched towards me. Posed as if ready to catch me.
I knew with a stunning, visceral certainty that even if I leaped right now, flailingly and without warning, even if I absolutely hurled myself off the back of this ginormous alien creature head-first, I wouldn’t get hurt.
I wouldn’t even hit the ground.
I wouldn’t even come close.
“Thanks,” I said quietly. I scooted a little closer to the edge of the saddle. But maybe that made Garrek nervous. His mouth tensed and he took a quick step. His hands snapped in and closed around my waist, his long fingers nearly spanning the entire circumference of it.
The restrained power in that grip was nothing short of astonishing. The careful control of those long blue fingers curling against my body, strong enough to crush me if he’d wanted, made an odd, heated sort of anticipation coil low in my belly. He’d grasped me beneath my jacket, only the thin Terratribe II cotton of my shirt separating his skin from mine, and warmth throbbed from him as he lifted me.
“Thanks,” I said again as he set me down. His eyes gleamed, bright as moonlight glancing off white metal. For a moment, that hot white gaze seemed to search mine.
Or maybe it didn’t, and my imagination was running away with me. Because he abruptly released my waist and unceremoniously blurted that he was going to go find water before he turned away and then left me standing there in the dust.