Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
AIRIK
Nora kept her head down as they walked toward the cliffside wall, flinching with each step down on her left foot. The human was in pain and would not admit it to him.
“Take it,” Airik said, offering his arm. “Faster like this.”
She licked her lip with that little pink tongue of hers, looking between the crook of his arm and her feet.
Her fingers curled around his arm. The suit—with excruciating precision—transmitted her heat to his skin. His stomach tightened, an anxious reaction he thought he’d lost years ago in the starfields.
She vibrated with an emotion he couldn’t place, compulsively brushing a finger back and forth along her lower lip. Apprehension, or maybe fear. And worse than that, a troubling resignation to a fate he’d decided for her.
He felt a squeeze on his arm.
Nora looked at him, her golden skin pale. “Why don’t I hear the waves?”
“Too small to hear.” He hunched a little, giving her a better grip. “The ocean is calm.”
He pointed at the rounded portal cut into the rock wall, far off in the distance. “You see when we get there.”
“Okay,” she said quietly.
It took them four times as long as it would have taken him to walk alone. A unique kind of torture, supporting her, feeling her, and not talking to her. She was trembling.
Untouched. Untaken. Unconquered. You can’t care for her without breaking your oaths. It’s best for both of you to be left alone, apart.
The moment they reached the rock face, Airik steadied her, then slipped his arm away, rushing to the portal. He needed space, or else it felt as if his arm would forever hold her heat.
She made a sound of confusion but remained where he’d left her. The noon suns shined upon her hair, and he had to turn completely or risk losing the little left of his mind.
There were steep steps down the hill, which hadn’t seemed so dire before, but with Nora, they were impossible. He sighed, glancing once at the ocean before turning back.
Dread shot through him.
Nora’s eyes had glazed over, as if her mind had fled, leaving behind an empty shell. Her eyes stared through the portal to the water, vacant and unseeing.
“Nora?”
She blinked, a sheen of moisture on her skin. “I…I just need a minute. I—”
A small wave crashed onto the beach—barely a splash.
But it was enough to make her slam her eyes shut and jerk back. She fell to her bottom, her face contorted with pain.
Understanding hit Airik like a hammer to the head. “Nora? Is it the ocean? Are you…afraid of it?”
She let out a strangled sound. “I-I’m okay.”
He growled. That was confirmation enough. For whatever reason, the ocean terrified this human. He had clothed her feet, and she, knowing where he wanted to lead her, had smiled and said Thank you, a term of gratitude.
Stupid human, he thought, angry with himself for not noticing sooner.
An image of her dead and broken flashed in his mind. Mangled beyond recognition by an animal’s assault. Or worse, gasping for breath after kudra exposure, looking helplessly at him with those big brown eyes. Desperate for help he couldn’t give her.
It had been a long time since his body had truly been his own. The Veynari held every aspect of his being in a tight hold. But the suffering of watching Nora die was fully within his control to avoid.
Gently, he used a gloved fingertip to brush hair out of her eyes. “I will carry you.”
She stood up, giving him a shaky smile until she noted the wrap around his hand. “I’ll be okay. This isn’t even the same ocean, you know?”
“Same ocean as what?”
Her eyes on his still-bandaged hand, she straightened. “Never mind. I’m ready to go. Thank you for giving me a minute.”
She still shook. This wasn’t simply a human’s predilection to fear but bone-deep pain, bound to memories.
“We should go,” Nora said. “I want to see what’s left of the shuttle.” Without waiting for him, she dropped her head and tried to take a step down.
He caught her by her braid, tugging once to stop her.
“What the fuck—”
Pulling her back by the collar, he pushed her into the wall so her back was to the rock barrier. She let out a gasp, her cheeks flushing.
He stilled for a second, baffled by her response and the tension growing low in his own belly at her sudden compliance.
Does she enjoy this? She must. There was no other reason to test him this way.
“This is why you go,” he said, his breath much too quick. “I said: Listen to me. I decide what to do. You said okay. Does that not mean yes?” He loosened his grip, though it hadn’t been firm to begin with. “The rock is dangerous. I said I will carry you.”
Her lips parted, her breath short gasps.
“If I carry you, you will not have to look. No sound. You will be…safe.”
Before she could respond, he turned and knelt.
She hesitated.
“I’m sorry,” he heard her say quietly behind him. Then he felt her hands on his shoulders as she pressed her body to his back.
Fates bury me, he thought, feeling all of her at once. The thought occurred to him to turn off the tactile sensors, but he didn’t. Instead, he bore her touch, clenching his jaw until he thought his teeth might shatter.
She lifted her injured leg, letting him hook an arm beneath it, and then she did the same with the other so all her weight was on him.
Her arms wrapped around his neck, and she dropped her head against his shoulder, blocking her vision.
“Thank you,” she said. “If I don’t have to look, I think I’ll be okay. ”
If his sword’s gravity engine was strong enough, he’d stop the ocean’s churning and the planet’s spin if it helped her. With a sinking feeling, Airik realized there wasn’t much he wouldn’t do for the little human who’d fallen from the sky.
Except keep her with you, where she’d be safest. You might as well. You’ll worry about her until an extraction team arrives—you’ve the same disease as your progenitor, it seems.
He couldn’t do that. Maybe he could leave her on his ship, where she didn’t have to face the sea. He’d stay in her destroyed shuttle to maintain distance. Or maybe he could roam the forests, wondering if perhaps it wasn’t him suffering from a brain injury.
“Tighter,” he said, taking a step down through the portal. A cold wind whipped across them. He turned to shield her. “If you swing, harder for me.”
Nora hesitated. “Are you sure—”
“I said to hold me tighter.”
She made a noise of annoyance but squeezed him a little harder.
His entire body tingled from the pressure.
“I didn’t want to choke you,” she said after a moment.
He scoffed to cover any other noises he might’ve made from her touch. “I can take all of your strength, Nora Shaw, number 1178 of the Abeona.”
“Incredible memory,” she said, not sounding as impressed as she ought to.
In case she had any thoughts of talking more, he tugged her firmly against him, pressing her thighs to his sides.
She settled against his back with a slight wiggle.
By the True Father, she was hot. Scalding.
Still, he didn’t turn the receptors off.
The feel of her was too exquisite to lose, and he knew he’d never feel anything like it for the rest of his life.
Where her thighs opened around his back raged like wildfire. Her rapid breath blew against the audio receptors.
Rushing down the last few steps, he nearly stumbled onto the sand. Thank the Six Realms for the suit. He needed all the protection in the cosmos against her.
“Am I too heavy?” she asked hesitantly. “You can put me down. I’ll be—”
“No.” He tossed her up a little, cutting her off to show how easily he could do so. “Why? Are you big for a human?”
After catching her breath and regaining her grip on his neck, Nora chuckled against his shoulder. “No. I’m pretty short for a human—not even average.”
“Not average…or normal.” The white-haired human who’d loved animals from the vault recordings had a term for something beyond the ordinary. “Then, the word you are is extraordinary?”
“Extraordinary?” She laughed, her cheek grazing the side of his neck, sending bolts of sensation down his back.
“Sorry, but I’m not anything special or…
extraordinary.” She continued snickering, thoroughly amused by his apparent miscalculation.
But much too soon, her joy faded. As if remembering where they were, she pressed her face against his shoulder, away from the ocean, which had receded almost entirely out of view.
A strange tingle radiated from the center of his chest, and again he wondered if he were ill.
Airik doubted that another creature like Nora Shaw existed anywhere else in the universe, that she was anything other than extraordinary in her world.
“What about you?” she asked just as he regained his stride. “Are you average?” She shook her head. “No, I bet you’re…extraordinary.” Her cheek heated, the suit registering the change.
He tightened his grip on her knees, following the trail of sand and glass that led to her shuttle. “A little,” he answered, unsure how to explain all that he was not.