Chapter 5 #3
“A boundary,” he said, a smirk curling his mouth.
His worry had already disappeared, replaced by amusement.
His eyes flicked to my tight clasp on the end of his tail and that grin grew wider.
“I was worried that I misread the signs but I don’t believe I did.
” Boy, was he right about that. Heat stole over my face; I hadn’t blushed like this since high school.
“Ask your questions, Precious Farah,” he drawled.
***
Zeidon
I was filled with elation over the progress we’d made today.
Farah was holding my tail tip clutched tightly in her grasp, as if she feared I’d leave if she let go.
Not a chance. I was as eager to speak with her as she was to discover the answers to the questions she’d rained on me over the past few days, more and more each day as she got stronger.
“How did I get here? And where is here?” she asked, her beautiful sapphire blue eyes darting around the cave curiously.
She was getting tired again, lying limply inside my nest, and the Sleara with the injured wing curled up on her lap.
I knew she had named it, which meant the Sleara was here to stay.
That made me happy because it meant she loved animals too.
I raised my hand to gesture around the room, “This is an ancestral cave that I’ve claimed.
You are on Serant, and I found you, at the bottom of a lake.
” I still remembered how she’d looked inside that strange egg thing with the translucent lid.
Pale, afraid, and so incredibly beautiful it took my breath away.
I knew then and there that I’d made the discovery of a lifetime, and found a treasure unparalleled on Serant; or beyond our skies.
She frowned as if my words made no sense. “So I didn’t dream the cold water, did I?” she asked. I shook my head, and she shuddered as if that bothered her. “I really was in a stasis pod then, but how? I should be dead.”
I hissed, baring my teeth in reflex against a threat that wasn’t there.
No, she should not be dead. She should be here, with me; she was exactly where she was meant to be.
“Who harmed you?” I demanded. My fist clenched around the knife handle on my hip, and my tail wanted to whip out to snatch up my hunting trident.
Her frown disappeared like snow before the sun, a smile flirting around her mouth instead.
“Easy there, Zeidon. There’s no threat to fight.
They’re not even on this planet, so far beyond our reach, we might as well forget about it.
” I huffed but relaxed the tight grip on my knife and forced my tail to relax again in her grip.
She was no longer clutching it so tightly, her strength fading.
“Explain it to me,” I said, even though my instincts told me that I should withdraw so she could sleep. I didn’t want to stop talking with her now that we had taken our next turn in our courtship. It was selfish but I couldn’t stop, I couldn’t pull away from this contact.
She sighed, her eyes taking on a faraway cast. “I think it suffices to say that I was accused of doing something I did not do, but my government didn’t care and they punished me for it. I was supposed to be executed, but I woke up here with you, instead. I don’t know how that happened.”
I did not know who this ‘government’ was, but they sounded like they were in charge.
If my precious Farah said she hadn’t done what she was accused of, I believed her.
Which meant her people had betrayed her.
The scales on my back rattled with my unrest, my fangs itching to sink them into whoever had caused her this sadness and pain.
I pushed those feelings away, she said they weren’t on Serant, and there was no way for us to leave so I could hunt down the idiots that had done this to her.
“I know how you got here,” I said instead, “With a skyship. It crashed. As all skyships do on Serant.” I didn’t know why that was or why the ships kept coming when they ended in fiery deaths each time they arrived.
Maybe that was the way skyships sought their end; by plummeting to Serant’s unforgiving surface.
I just couldn’t imagine that they wished to do that when they carried living beings aboard, like my mate.
She smiled again, slower and smaller, her eyes heavy-lidded. She was fighting sleep, and I definitely shouldn’t keep her awake any longer. “Skyship, huh? Was it a big one or a small one?” I was not sure why that question mattered to her but it roused her enough to pin me with a fierce stare.
“It was in several pieces. The largest of which lay at the bottom of the lake I found you in.” I shrugged, unsure how to explain how big the skyship must have been.
I was pretty good at estimating such things, considering just how many wrecks I’d visited.
The ship she’d come in I’d classified as a medium one, but would that make sense to her?
“Maybe three times the size of this cave chamber?”
“Ah,” she said softly, “It must have been a long-range shuttle then. Do you think there are more survivors? We should look for them.” My mind flashed back to the other portion of the wreck and the burned and scorched remains of the two males of her species I’d seen.
Then I recalled the way that female Bitter Storm warrior had cut the head off that one male to carry around as a trophy and I shuddered. No, there were no survivors.
Thankfully, she was asleep, too tired to wait for my answer.
I sat staring at her face in rest for the longest time, unwilling to leave her side.
Eventually, duty called and I forced myself to get back to work.
There were far too many tasks waiting for me, especially when I had a nest of young Ayala to care for.
They needed food every three hours at this stage.
With the tip of my tail still curled inside her tiny fists my range was a bit more limited than it normally was.
I still did not dislodge her gentle grip.
She needed me, so I would not leave. Once all the tasks were complete, each animal pen clean, each animal fed, I settled down next to Farah for my own meal.
Tonight, I’d sleep next to her. The thought of any more distance was impossible to stomach. I did not want to be the one to break the connection of my tail in her hands. I’d sleep at her side on the floor, and in the morning, she’d be the first thing I’d see.
Srazz eyed me suspiciously from his own bowl of food as if he knew I was about to take a liberty I shouldn’t with my female.
Then again, Srazz always looked grumpy and suspicious.
I was used to ignoring it. When I laid down, I wondered if the little traitor would crawl into the nest with my mate again, or if he’d find a coil like he normally would.
He chittered, making his discontent clear when he spotted the new sleeping arrangements.
So far, I’d curled up just outside the door to this chamber, but now I was the one closest to the warm fire.
With a baleful glare, he clambered over me to settle on a coil between the two of us and I laughed. He’d compromised, sort of.