Chapter 6
Chapter
Six
TIA
I don’t know what to think.
I’ve just met my first alien stranger—a people I didn’t even know existed—and he’s clearly smitten with me. He touched his heart so many times, as if he had to double-check to see if he was resonating or not. It should have been laughable.
Maybe it would have been if I wasn’t feeling the same way.
The air between us definitely felt charged. The longer I looked at him, the more I liked his features. The hard planes of his face, the nobility in his brow, the intelligent eyes, the attractive mouth. I’m not as keen on the fierce-sounding name, but maybe it means something else to his people. Whatever it is…he’s been nicer to me than whoever kidnapped me.
Rem’eb has left me with the lamp, at least. He promised to return, but I can’t count on that. I set the lamp on the ground and put my ear to the door, hearing the movements of someone outside but no conversation. A guard, if Rem’eb is to be believed. I retreat back from the door and sit down by the light, crossing my legs, and I think.
Rem’eb must not have been the one that stole me. It was clear from the astonishment on his face as he looked at me that he’d never seen me before. It doesn’t answer the question of where R’jaal is, though, or why he’s not here with me. That part of things feels more than a little sinister. Unless they left him in the fruit cave? I wish I had answers.
I wish I could speak clearly to Rem’eb. I remember Georgie’s stories of how difficult it was to communicate with Vektal when they’d first met, and Rukh and Harlow had the same situation. I thought they were charming stories, a cute little anecdote to their relationship. Now I’m realizing just what a boon the language-translator chip is…and what a pain in the ass it is to know that Rem’eb doesn’t have one.
He’s clearly not from Icehome Beach. Clearly living here…wherever here is.
I touch between my breasts, just to make sure I’m not resonating either. It feels like something I should know automatically, but I’ve also never experienced this sort of sensation when flirting with the others back at Icehome. It’s like I’m anticipating Christmas, or an orgasm. Or both. Which makes it doubly weird since we just met each other.
If this isn’t the start of resonance, what is?
I rub my chest and pace in my small cell, wondering how I’m going to get free. Rem’eb said he’d help me. He also said there was a guard and we can’t go now. Rem’eb is clearly my best bet so far. And he likes me.
Do I seduce him to ensure that he breaks me free? Is that even necessary? I won’t know until I know what’s happened with R’jaal, but I need a plan.
A plan and a weapon.
With the light coming from the strange tube—that looks as if it’s crammed full of a strange, yellow-green moss—I check every nook and cranny of my cell for objects. It’s absolutely bare, which doesn’t surprise me, but I wanted to check anyhow. I see a few spots with promising chinks in the mortar between the bricks, so if I can get a sharp object of some kind, maybe I can tunnel my way out, prison-break-style.
Just as I’m starting to wonder if Rem’eb is going to return, the door opens again. Someone steps in carrying a huge armful of bedding, so tall that his face is concealed, and I step backward automatically to give him space. I glance at the open door, wondering if I should make a break for it, but I’m not entirely sure where I am. For now, I have to stick with the devil I know.
Rem’eb drops the woven basket of bedding down onto the floor with a heavy thud. “This is the first load. Wait here and I will return again.”
“Where do you think I’m going to go?” I call back. Wait here, indeed.
He disappears as quickly as he’d reappeared, so I pull the materials out of the basket to give them a look. Since becoming stranded on the ice planet almost five years ago, I’ve come to expect a different sort of bedding than a plush mattress and feather-down pillows and cotton sheets. The sa-khui that live here are basically hunter-gatherers, and while there’s a computer with the old ship that crashed them here, they’re content to live as they are. We work on introducing small things into our lives here on Not-Hoth. My friend Tiffany loves to do creative works and recently figured out how to spin wool from dvisti into yarn, and she taught me. I’ve gotten pretty good at knitting, but it’s a slow process for sure, especially when nice furry animals are right there and are killed for the meat they provide. It makes sense to just use hides and furs for everything, especially in the cold.
But the bedding that Rem’eb has given me is very different from the furs we use above. There’s a strange mat of some kind, rolled up and made with more of the strange, woody texture that’s a little softer and spongier than the door. I don’t know what it is, only that there seems to be a lot of it down here. It’s woven together with ropes into a thick, heavy mat that has a little give when you lie upon it. Much better than the floor. There’s also a long, slithery-feeling fabric of a vivid gold-yellow and I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to do with it. Is it for a dress of some kind? It seems too fancy to be a sheet, too thin to be a blanket. I fold it up again and set it at the foot of the mat.
Rem’eb returns a short time later, this time with a large tray in his arms. He has what looks like a plate full of colorful items that must be food and a large pitcher. He sets the tray down on the floor and then gestures one more time, indicating that I should wait. This is almost like a picnic date…or it would be if the circumstances weren’t so fucked up.
I watch, almost amused, as he returns very quickly for the third time with a large earthenware pot in his arms and puts it in the corner of the room. I frown, trying to figure out what it’s for, and then it hits me as he unfolds a screen made of the same strange yellow-gold cloth.
This is my toilet. Because I’m a captive.
My amusement sours. I’m reminded that I’ve been stolen away and taken from everything I know. I cross my arms over my chest again and eye him.
“I think that is everything for now,” he says, glancing about the tiny room. “Have I forgotten anything?”
“A way out?” I jibe. When he gives me a blank look at my sarcastic words, I gesture at the door.
His face falls.
It immediately sends panic through me, because I should be nice to him. I need him to be on my side. I need him to fall in love with me so he’ll help me escape. I can’t be bitchy and scream at the fact that I’ve been kidnapped, even if that’s how I feel inside.
“Sorry,” I whisper, and put a small smile on my face.
“Now is not the time yet, Tia,” he says, and my name sounds like a caress on his lips. He watches me closely, his eyes full of apology. “I give you my word that I will help you, but we are both being watched.”
I nod, because what else can I do? “Thank you,” I tell him, and tap my chin and extend my hand out in the ASL sign as well, just in case he knows it.
He doesn’t. He gives me a curious look and then moves to stand right in front of me, his tail swishing behind him. “Is there an injury on your chin? Let me see.”
And before I can protest, he carefully cups my face in two of his hands and tilts my head back.
My heart hammers in my breast at his nearness. I hold my breath, gazing up at him. I’m fairly tall for a human woman, but he towers over me. Strangely, though, I’m not afraid of him or his size. He tenderly cradles my face in his hands and studies my chin very intently, and then our eyes meet.
He’s going to kiss me, I realize, and a pulse of heat shoots straight through my body.
But he only skims a thumb across my chin. “I see nothing.” His voice is deceptively soft. “If you have been bruised, I cannot tell. Your hide is very different than mine. Strange and furless, but attractive all the same.”
Our eyes meet again and I suck in a breath. If he tugged me a little closer, I’d be pressed against his chest, my body against his. He’s wearing a short kilt and I’m only wearing my sleeping gear, so we’d have a lot of warm skin pressed to warm skin…
Good lord, why am I so freaking horny for this man?
I pull away, unnerved by my own response. He’s still a stranger to me, even though he’s kind. Even though I need to woo him to my side to get free, I can’t just start groping his dick. That’s not who I am, no matter if it’s my best chance for survival.
Rem’eb isn’t bothered by my retreat. He lets me go, his arms falling to his sides. His color ripples to match the walls for a brief moment, the only outward sign of his distress. “If you have pain anywhere, let me know. I can have my father’s herbalists make a poultice. And I will speak to him about your rough treatment.”
“Sounds like I need to seduce Daddy,” I mutter to myself, rubbing my bare arms and pretending the goosebumps there are from the cold. I don’t like that idea, though. There’s a strange attraction to Rem’eb, even if he’s called “The Fist” for some reason. I can’t imagine seeing another four-armed furry alien and thinking, “Man, I’d like to tap that.”
I’m worried it might be resonance after all, and that scares me. Vektal knew the moment he saw Georgie. Others say they knew before their khuis did. If that’s what this burgeoning sensation is, what does it mean for me as a captive?
Nothing good, that’s for sure.
“You must be hungry,” Rem’eb says, stepping to the side. “How thoughtless of me to forget. I have brought you food and drink, but if it is not to your liking, I will see what else I can have prepared for you.”
“Thank you,” I say again, and make the ASL sign.
He hesitantly signs it back, recognition dawning on his face. “Ah. Acknowledgment?”
“Sure, close enough.” I nod and then sit down in front of the tray set on the floor near the bedding. “I guess you guys eat down here on the ground?”
“I did not think to bring a table for you,” he says, answering my question. He watches me tuck my legs under me and adjust my short skirt. “May…I join you?”
I look up in surprise. I can’t really tell him no, since he’s my captor, but I get the impression that if I looked unhappy about it, he’d leave. Huh. I gesture at the tray. “Be my guest.”
He sits across from me, on the far side of the tray, and crosses his muscular legs, his impossibly long tail curling around one thigh. Rem’eb leans with one hand on the floor, two tucked into his lap and the other resting comfortably at his side. He watches me, making no move toward the tray.
I gesture at it. “You want some?”
“It is for you. You must be hungry.”
Strangely enough, I’m not all that hungry. I suspect anxiety is knotting up my stomach and staving off the worst of hunger. Even so, I need to eat to keep up my strength if I plan on escaping, with or without Rem’eb’s help. I eye the tray before me, worried that the foods here won’t be anything I recognize…and immediately spot some familiar bright red fruit slices.
I pick up one and arch a brow at him.
Rem’eb looks ashamed. “It is a dirty secret of our people that we raid the forbidden garden above from time to time. There has always been more than enough.”
I shake my head, wagging the fruit at him again. “But you stole all of it from above.”
It’s like he knows what I am accusing him of. “There has always been enough in the past,” he amends. “One of my father’s men noticed your people had been taking more and more and they grew upset and plucked all from the vines. It will come back again.”
“Mmhmm.” I let my tone show my disapproval even as I take a bite. It’s juicy and fresh, unlike the last bits of fruit that I had that were dried. The flesh is so soft and delicious that the juice dribbles down my fingers and I automatically lick them, not wanting to waste a bite.
Rem’eb makes a hungry sound in his throat.
Well…so much for not trying to seduce the guy. Looks like I’m doing it without realizing it. I give my fingers one last lick and then, because I can’t resist, offer him a slice, holding it up to him as I lean across the tray.
If I’m going to play with fire, I might as well get burned, right?
He grabs my wrist in his grip—gently—and takes the slice of fruit into his mouth, his lips grazing my fingers. Heat clenches through me. That’s not playing with fire. That’s walking straight into an inferno.
“You feel this between us,” he murmurs after he swallows it. He doesn’t let go of my hand, either, just lets it continue to hover near his face, his lips. “Do you not?”
There’s no sense in denying it. I nod.
“If it is not resonance yet, it will be.” And he sucks on my juice-dampened fingertips.
I gasp, pulling out of his grip. My nipples are hard and I’m breathless.
“And I am looking forward to it, Tia the Stranger.” His gaze is full of heat and promise. He’s not like anyone I flirted with in the past. There’s no bragging, no uncertainty. He knows exactly who he is and what’s going to happen. It’s that utter certainty that’s making my belly coil with want.
For the first time, I feel like someone sees me and wants me, all of me. It’s not like back on Icehome Beach, where the more I joked around and flirted, the less everyone liked me. I can flirt with Rem’eb and he’ll flirt back. He’ll eat it up like fruit and ask for more. I can be myself without being afraid that I’m too much.
The way he looks at me, I get the impression that I can do no wrong in his eyes. He could find me standing over a dead body and would ask if I need help with the knife.
The realization makes me shiver, just a little. I’ve flirted a lot in the past, especially with I’rec. But he grew annoyed with my constant teasing, as if I was disappointing him on some level. It always made me retreat. But if Rem’eb doesn’t disapprove of my teasing, and he doesn’t retreat…it’s not flirting for him. It’s a promise.
I sit back down and stare at the spread of food before me, my cheeks hot.
“Eat,” he tells me, voice gruff. “There is time for us to explore our bond later.”
Normally I’d make a sharp retort to that—or a teasing one—but I’m still throbbing with all kinds of emotions I shouldn’t have for a stranger I’ve just met. A man whose people just kidnapped me. So I shove a slice of fruit into my mouth and then pick up something that I thought was a slice of cooked game bird. It’s not. It’s got a strange, almost bouncy texture to it, and I pick it up and sniff it. Nothing. “What’s this?”
“You do not have that above? Mushroom?”
My eyes widen. “This is mushroom?” It looks like a palm-sized chunk of pale meat. “It’s huge.”
“It is a plant that grows up from the ground,” he explains to me as if I’m an idiot. “We tend them here and then harvest them. They like the darkness.”
“I know what a mushroom is,” I say grumpily. This whole language barrier is really turning into a pain in the ass. I take a nibbling bite, and it has a mild, nutty flavor to it, more pleasant than any raw mushroom I recall eating on Earth. With a pleased sound, I take another, larger bite.
“I am glad my people’s food brings you happiness.” Rem’eb sounds thrilled, as if me eating is one of his great joys in life. How often have I heard the same notes from the sa-khui males as they fed their human mates? God, I always thought that was such a corny cliché. Now, watching Rem’eb watch me stuff my face, it’s clear that feeding is a thing between mates.
Not that we’re mates.
Please don’t let it be resonance, I beg my khui silently. Please let him be unreasonably sexy and I’m about to get my period and that’s why I’m ultra horny. Resonance will screw everything up. Please just let me have an arm fetish or something.
I eat in silence, trying not to watch him too overtly. He pours water from the pitcher, and I notice a piece of fruit lands in my cup. The addition of the fruit to the water makes it lightly sweet and twice as refreshing, and I wonder why we haven’t done that back above. Too busy drinking hot teas, I suppose. I finish my drink and study him. “Are you going to hang around all day?”
Rem’eb tilts his head, regarding me. “I do not make out your words. Help me understand you. I wish to know what you are saying, more than anything.”
My face grows hot again. I decide to switch topics. “What’s this?” I pick up the yellow cloth and hold it up to him. “Do I wear this?”
“It is fabric. For bedding. Do your people not use bedding?”
“I know that it’s fabric,” I tell him, dropping it into my lap. “I just…wait. Fabric?” I grab the material again and run my hand down it, looking for seams or messy stitches. When I knit, the loops and knots are never as tight as I’d like, but this is beautiful and shiny and silky to the touch. “Where are the stitches? Who made this? How did they make it?”
“Fabric,” he says again. “It is material we create.”
“Augh!” I point at the decorative, overly-large stitches in my leather bandeau top. “Where are these? The stitches. Where are they in the fabric?”
It takes him a moment to realize what I’m asking, and then he shrugs. “I do not know. I am not an expert with a loom. That is not a skill I have worked at.”
“Oh my god,” I shriek, excitement flooding me. I forget all about them being the enemy, and my kidnappers. “You have a loom ? Where? Can I see?”
“You…this is good?” He watches me as I clasp my hands in front of my chin and nod enthusiastically. “Then I shall bring you a loom.”
“That would be amazing,” I tell him, and reach out to touch his hand in gratitude. “Thank you.”
“Dankhu,” he agrees, and touches his chin in a mimic of ASL.
Oh. How sweet and clever of him. He’s already trying to learn my language. I give him a happy nod. If I can get out of here and get a loom to look at? This might be worth all the trouble. A loom is my pie in the sky, my dream item to figure out. If I can get a loom working, I can weave fabric from the wool yarn we make. Right now we’re knitting and crocheting, but I’ve been thinking about bigger projects with tighter stitching. Blankets, cloaks, whatever we can make. Washable layers, since leather is good for a lot of things, but panties aren’t one of them. So yeah, I want fabric. I want to learn how to make it because it’s another skill humans had made huge advancements with and the sa-khui have not. I even suggested to Tiffany at one point that we ask the computer at the Ancestors’ Ship about weaving equipment, but any time we ask for information beyond the logbooks or languages, it generates error messages. Mardok says the error messages have been increasing, and so we’re not to use the computer unless it’s an absolute emergency.
But these people have looms . They know how to weave.
I’m suddenly torn on leaving right away. I need to find out where R’jaal is and if he needs rescuing, but…a loom. Damn it.
“I will see about getting you a loom,” Rem’eb promises me. I finish my meal and he lingers for a little while, pointing at objects and asking for the word (or gesture) for them. After a while, he reluctantly gets to his feet. “I must go now. I have to speak to my father.”
I jump to my feet, worried. “You’re coming back, right?”
“I do not understand your?—”
Grr! I get up and take his hand in mine, then press his large fist to my breasts. It’s dramatic, sure, but it also gets his attention. “Rem’eb…return?” I gesture at the door, then mime with my fingers to indicate him walking out and then coming back. “Return?”
The look on his face is stunned, and I wonder if pressing his hand to my tits was too much. “Yes, my stranger, I will return to your side. Of that, have no fear.” His thumb rubs over the back of my hand, and his gaze is locked on me. “I do not think I could stay away if I tried. I will return with your next meal. I promise.”
I manage a small smile and touch my chin in thanks. Then I pause. “R’jaal? Will you find out about him?”
His brows furrow.
I think for a moment, and then free my hand. Holding one finger up, I say my name. “Tia.” I put the second finger up. “Rem’eb.” I point at the first one again, then the second. “Tia. Rem’eb.” Then I lift a third finger. “R’jaal.”
Recognition dawns on his face. “I do not know.”
And he doesn’t look happy I asked.