Chapter Eighteen #2
“Your cowardliness has rubbed off on me,” she muttered.
“Okay,” I laughed. “Okay…I see…So I don’t care if you’re from Saturn to Mars and back. I will smack you back to the damn sun if you try me again. I’m too old for this back and forth. I don’t do that.”
“If that will get us somewhere else faster, by all means…” She said with an uppity tone as she blinked. “Do it.”
I jammed my tongue into my cheek, peering at her before looking away. I would do it too but what would be the point if she wouldn’t actually get smacked to the damn sun. Neither of us said anything as she looked around with protruding lips.
“This really does feel like home,” she whispered before reaching down to touch the sand.
“A hand grabbed my shoulder,” I said out loud. “A man’s hand for sure. Did you get a look at his face?”
“No.”
Glaring at her, I sighed. Even if she was lying, I wasn’t sure how it would help if she remembered his face.
I pulled at the book that she managed to take with her from the library.
The Old World of Sakuran. Turning towards the middle of the book, a black dragon with dark blue eyes spread across two pages, flying over a city deep within the desert.
I’m almost certain this is what I saw in the sky but when I looked up, I could see the pink haze in the distance.
The sun was beginning to rise which meant that the direction was east of here.
“This is where you grew up?” I asked, turning through the pages as I saw decorated black kings and queens dripped in golds and silver.
There was a single man, darker than I, sitting on a woven throne holding a gold spear.
Each finger was decorated with rings, his face was painted with markings and two women stood by his side with hair as long as Ayira.
“Sakuran is your grandfather?” I asked as I turned the page. “Maybe he’s the reason we are here…In this book, this is the old world so the magic used there must be ancient…”
“He was abusive, a tyrant, and a murderer. I doubt he is the reason we are here,” she said with her arms folded across her chest. “We are here because you represent the moon, and I represent the sun. Nothing else. I do not understand why you are avoiding it.”
“Because I want my fam…” I stopped talking when Ayira stood up to look east at the dim lit sky. “Forget it. You’re not listening to anything I have to say anyway.”
“I am not,” she replied.
Ayira sat back down and sighed. I felt guilty because I wasn’t sure where this uncertainty was coming from. I never had to deal with any of this before. I always had my parents, and grandma to fall back on. Then it switched to Namir and now…
Where did I lose my confidence all of the sudden?
“You are a follower,” Ayira noted. “You follow who you think is right and when asking for those to follow you, they don’t because you are not a leader. My father always says a leader does not ask for people to follow him. He just looks over his shoulders and sees them behind him.”
“You followed me here,” I said with a tight mouth as my jaw locked. “If I can recall correctly, you followed my every step to this exact point.”
“I did.”
“Yeah you did.”
“Where is the moon? Where is this Gaia they speak of?” She asked, her accent becoming thicker as she became more condescending.
The princess act was no longer just an act, she was showing her true bitchy colors.
It didn’t help that the sun rising gave her a sense of glow from behind as the light touched her skin.
“Maybe she can come and walk with me to find out about this place…Maybe explore and see where we are and why…Instead of sitting around in the sand waiting for something else to happen.”
“Fine.” I slammed my fist into the sand, grabbed the book and stuffed it in the bag. Her eyes widened with surprise as if she was shocked her tactics of pushing me actually worked. “Let’s go on a fun adventure and figure out where we are and why…Shall we?”
…
The walk through the sand felt like a struggle march, shoveling through with each kick of our feet as the sun continued to rise.
Neither of us spoke for at least 10 minutes into the walk.
Just concentrated on our steps until she slipped.
That slip caused her to reach out with a scream while I clumsily grabbed her arm, watched her drop down a slope of sand and then proceeded to fall behind her in the process.
Both of us landed together like a clump of clay before peeling apart as she burst into laughter.
I swiped at my mouth, spitting out the gritty dirt just as my bag came tumbling down behind us and hitting my leg.
“I’m glad one of us is enjoying this!” I snapped as I swung the bag over my back. Brushing my sweats off, she grabbed my arm to pull herself up as we slowly started to walk again. “The one time I made fun of this man’s hound-like nose…I bet he could find a way out of here…”
“Who?” Ayira asked with curiosity gleaming in her eyes.
“Namir. He’s…he’s good at this kind of stuff… tracking and navigation. I’ve never been good, even with a GPS. Maybe when I get back, I’ll sign up for that navigating class as an elective…”
“Your boyfriend, yes?”
“Yes, my boyfriend,” I mocked with a mimicking frown. She smiled as our steps slowly became in sync with one another.
“Why do you act like a child?” She questioned as I stared at her with my hand on my chest, offended to say the least.
“I like to say I have a youthful personality.”
“How does he deal with you being the moon?” She asked before looking out. “Whatever husband my father had for me…I fear because of what I am and what I can do, any man would suppress it by any means…”
“Mmmm…Not Namir…I make him howl for me on most nights,” I said with my own sly grin. Ayira gasped as she looked at me with her eyes lighting up. “I just mean…he’s aware…and he’s more than fine with it.”
“He is not intimidated?”
“Of what?” I laughed. “I can’t do anything to that man if I tried.
Besides… I’m…a vampireeee,” I groaned with my fake claws scratching at the air.
Ayira stared at me as I straightened up and brushed my hair off my shoulders.
“I think the last person I want to intimidate is the person I care for the most. I wouldn’t want to hurt him the way he better not hurt me. ”
“I don’t want a husband,” she suddenly decided. “I don’t want to be with one man for the rest of my life. I want…”
Ayira paused as we continued to walk the endless landscape of desert and dunes. I watched our feet continuously mirror and reflect with each step.
“I want to just be like this…Out in the world. I feel like there is so much to see and I haven’t gotten the chance to experience anything.”
“Like what?”
“Hmmmm…” Ayira suddenly grinned. “What is it like?” She leaned in close as I watched our steps carefully. The same swoosh of our feet, back and forth, side to side, even our angles were the same.
“What is what like?” I asked.
“You and your boyfriend…when you become intimate.”
Blinking, I stared at her, shocked.
“You mean, sex? Well…I dunno…regular men I suppose wouldn’t be as…violent?”
“Violent!?”
“No, that’s not the word…Damn it. Aggressive?”
“Aggressive?” She repeated while I looked up.
“Pain…pleasure…Hmmmm…”
“I do not know if I want to hear anymore–––”
“No no no no,” I laughed. “I’m trying to find the words.
I don’t know how to describe it but it’s…
it’s like getting your body broken down to the point where you’re desperate to be left to pieces.
Then he carefully takes his time putting you back together in the most…
” I inhaled sharply as I felt my skin tremor with chills.
“You just want every inch of you touched and tortured. Not in a dangerous or really painful way…If he knows what he’s doing?
He should be able to bring you so high, you can taste euphoria, like actually taste it and believe me, I have. ”
“Ohhh….”
“Yeah,” I concluded, proud of how I described him.
I wasn’t really a fan of talking about him in that way, especially to another woman but while we’re in the desert, possibly about to die of starvation and dehydration, these could very well be my last words.
“That’s a werewolf for you babes.” Namir may be many things.
A pain in the ass, a helicopter mom, and overprotective bodyguard but sex?
He’s a God amongst men and dogs. I don’t have to have much experience to know he’s up there with the best of them.
“But it's all in what you like…You may like something more… gentle or…softer. Me? Take me through there…take me through there,” I playfully sang. Realizing she didn’t recognize the song; I cleared my throat.
“Yeah, maybe something calmer and chill for you, more intimate.”
“Maybe,” she said as we continued to walk. “But I believe I want something just like that.”
“Just like who?” I stopped as her eyes widened.
“I mean a werewolf…”
I jabbed my tongue into the side of my cheek, realizing I misheard her before puckering my lips with a nod.
“Yeah, they’re cool,” I shrugged. “It’s a bunch of wolf shifters.
Not too many werewolves that I’ve met anyway.
Come to think of it…I can’t ever recall or remember if I met anyone else outside of Namir.
When I got to the Underground…he was the first werewolf I ever met.
At least that I know of. He had two brothers, oh!
His brother that… .well…He was one too before he passed, the other… Seth…He’s your average shifter.”
“Ohhh,” she nodded, taking it in.
“Since you literally breathe fire, you may need someone that is like you…or maybe someone to cool you down like water.”
“The second territory in the Kingdom is filled with those who belong to the rivers and lakes. I have no desire to know what their life is like…”
“You have sirens where you’re from, like Solomon?”
“Yes, but they don’t look like him, not like the ones out here.”
“Tuh, nobody looks like the ones out here,” I muttered.