Chapter 5
“How much do you need?” Tarek asked, but Jessa was staring at her palm again, marveling at the way the cuts had sealed themselves.
The skin remained pink and tender, but the bleeding had stopped entirely.
She could feel a faint tingling where his tongue had touched her flesh, a warmth that refused to fade.
Focus, she told herself sharply. He asked me a question.
“Enough for a small piece of cloth,” she said, pulling her attention back to the sunvines draped across the rocks like ribbons of captured light. “A large square, or perhaps a rectangle, like a scarf.”
He frowned at her. “That’s not much.”
“It’s enough.” She hoped her voice didn’t betray the anxiety coiling in her stomach.
A foot square wouldn’t satisfy Gerhard’s grand ambitions.
He’d been boasting to that merchant about bolts of the stuff, promising a supply that could make their village famous across the territories.
But a small sample—something to prove the cloth was real, that it could be made—should buy her time to figure out another solution.
Or at least time to run.
“Very well.” He moved towards the sunvines with the caution of someone who knew exactly how dangerous they could be. “Stay back.”
She didn’t need to be told twice. Her palm still throbbed with the memory of those golden tendrils tightening around her hand.
She watched as Tarek extended his claws, wickedly curved and gleaming like polished obsidian, and severed the vines with quick, efficient strokes.
He collected the lengths from several different plants, trimming rather than harvesting.
The cut portions fell limp immediately, losing that strange luminescence that had made them seem almost alive. Without their glow, they looked more like ordinary plant matter, golden-brown and unremarkable.
He gathered the severed vines and brought them to her, depositing them in her outstretched hands. The fibers were softer than she’d expected, almost silky, and she found herself running her fingers along their length automatically, the way she always did when examining new materials.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
He grunted in acknowledgment and turned to examine the sky. The sun had fully disappeared behind the western peaks, leaving only a faint orange glow on the horizon. Stars were beginning to prick through the deepening blue overhead, and the temperature was dropping rapidly.
“We can’t return tonight,” he said. “The path is too dangerous in darkness. I could manage it if I had to, but you can’t.”
Her heart sank. She’d known it was a possibility, but she’d been hoping they might try anyway. Every hour she spent away from Dani was an hour her sister was alone and vulnerable.
She’ll be fine, she told herself firmly. Miss Mavis will take good care of her. It’s only one night.
But the worry gnawed at her anyway, a constant ache beneath her ribs that never quite went away.
“Is there somewhere we can take shelter?” she asked.
“Here.” He was already moving, gathering fallen branches from the stunted pines at the edge of the grove. “The stones will block the wind, and the trees will hide our fire from below.”
Our fire. Such a simple word, our, and yet it made something twist in her chest. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been part of an our that didn’t mean her and Dani.
She watched him work while she examined the sunvines, trying to understand their structure.
The ones she’d found before had been brittle and dead, requiring hours of careful soaking before she could work with them, but they’d responded beautifully once prepared, almost spinning themselves into thread as if eager to be useful.
These vines felt different, more solid. When she tried to separate the fibers, they resisted, clinging together like they were still alive.
“It’s not working,” she murmured, more to herself than to him.
“What’s not working?”
She jumped. She hadn’t realized he was close enough to hear. He’d finished building a rough lean-to against one of the larger stones and was now gathering kindling for a fire.
“The fibers.” She held up the vine to show him. “The ones I used before separated easily. These won’t budge.”
He straightened, regarding the vine with those uncanny green eyes. In the fading light, she could see the faint luminescence she’d noticed earlier, a subtle glow that made him look distinctly inhuman.
Because he is, she reminded herself. He’s Vultor. Alien. Other.
“The vines you had before,” he said slowly. “Where did you find them?”
“Tangled in a fallen tree after a storm.”
“How long had it been since they were harvested?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, but they were very dry and brittle.”
“Then they were long dead.” He took one of the vines from her hands, his long fingers surprisingly delicate. “Sunvine needs to be processed in order to be useful. Drying it naturally can take weeks—”
“Weeks? I don’t have weeks.”
“But there are faster ways,” he finished calmly.
“So how do I process them?”
Instead of answering, he crossed to the fire he’d built and coaxed the flames higher. Then he returned to where she sat and arranged the harvested vines on a flat stone near the heat.
“They must be dried slowly,” he explained. “Too much heat and they burn. Too little and they rot.”
She watched the vines carefully, noting how they seemed to writhe slightly in the heat, as if trying to escape. “For how long?”
“Through the night. By morning, they will be ready.”
He straightened and turned towards the darkness beyond the firelight. “I will hunt. Stay here near the fire. Do not touch the vines until they are fully dried.”
“Wait—” The word escaped before she could stop it, and she felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment. She wasn’t a child afraid of the dark. She’d spent plenty of nights alone.
But never here. Never deep in Vultor territory, surrounded by dangers she couldn’t see or name.
He paused at the edge of the firelight, looking back at her. In the dancing shadows, his features seemed sharper, more predatory.
“I won’t be long,” he said, and his voice was almost gentle. “Nothing will harm you here. This is my territory.”
Then he was gone, melting into the darkness with a silence that shouldn’t have been possible for someone his size.
She drew her knees to her chest and stared at the fire.
The night sounds seemed louder without him. The rustling in the underbrush that probably came from some small animal. The distant cry of a hunting bird. The crackle and pop of the fire as it consumed its fuel.
And beneath all of it, the soft, unsettling whisper of the drying sunvines.
She tried not to listen too closely to that last sound.
She focused instead on the practical matters—how she would spin the processed fibers, what technique she would use to weave them, and most of all, whether she could create a cloth small enough to satisfy Gerhard’s immediate demands while convincing him that larger quantities would take time.
Time. That was what she needed. Time to find a way out of this trap and protect Dani from their uncle’s machinations without sacrificing everything their mother had built.
Some bargain, she thought bitterly. Trading one uncertain debt for another.
She thought about Tarek’s price—the unnamed favor he could call upon at any time. She should be terrified of what he might ask for. The Vultor were known for their cruelty and their disregard for human life.
And yet…
He’d healed her hand. He’d slowed his pace when she couldn’t keep up. He’d been gruff and taciturn, yes, but not cruel. Not even close.
Maybe the stories are wrong, she thought. Or maybe he’s just different.
Or maybe she was a fool who saw kindness where there was only calculation.
A branch snapped somewhere in the darkness, and she jerked upright, her heart hammering. But a moment later, Tarek emerged from the shadows, and she sagged with relief.
He carried a rabbit in one hand, already cleaned and ready for cooking. He speared it on a sharpened stick and arranged it between two other branches so that it was suspended over the fire, then settled on the ground across from her.
“You’re frightened,” he observed.
“I’m fine.”
“Your heart is racing.”
Damn Vultor senses. “It was dark. I heard a noise. It’s nothing.”
He studied her for a long moment, and she had the uncomfortable feeling that he saw far more than she wanted him to. But he didn’t press the issue, just turned his attention to the cooking rabbit.
“What do you call that?” she asked suddenly.
“A cottma. Why?”
“We call it a rabbit because it resembles an Earth creature with that name. We do that with a lot of things here on Cresca. It’s as if we’re pretending we’re still on Earth.”
He was studying her face again.
“Do you remember your home planet?”
“No. I was born here. Do you remember yours?”
“Yes,” he said after a long pause, and focused on the fire again.
The smell of roasting meat filled the small camp, and her stomach growled loudly. She blushed, but he didn’t comment. He just handed her the first portion when it was ready and watched with apparent satisfaction as she devoured it.
“When did you last eat?” he asked.
“This morning. Before I left the village.”
“That was foolish.”
“I was in a hurry.”
He made a low sound that might have been disapproval or might have been amusement. It was hard to tell with him.
They ate in silence after that, and she found her exhaustion catching up with her. After the long day, the warmth of the fire and her full stomach conspired to make her eyelids heavy and her thoughts soft and slow.
But when she tried to find a comfortable position on the rocky ground, sleep refused to come.
The stones dug into her hip no matter how she arranged herself, and despite the fire’s heat, the mountain air was bitterly cold against her back.
She curled into a tight ball, trying to conserve warmth, but shivers still wracked her body.
“This is ridiculous,” she muttered.
From across the fire, she heard him sigh—a deep, long-suffering sound.
“Come here.”
She lifted her head, certain she’d misheard. “What?”
“Come. Here.” He patted the ground beside him. “You will freeze before morning if you stay there.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shivering.”
“I’m—” Another shiver interrupted her protest, and she bit her lip. “I don’t think that’s appropriate.”
“I don’t care about appropriate.” His voice held an edge of impatience. “I care about you surviving the night without losing fingers to frostbite.”
It was a valid argument, and she was too cold and too tired to come up with a counter.
Slowly, she uncurled from her spot and crossed to his side of the fire. He shifted to make room for her, and before she could second-guess herself, she settled against him.
The heat hit her immediately. He was warm, radiating body heat like a furnace, and she found herself pressing closer before she could stop herself. He made a low rumbling sound—almost like a purr—and his arm came around her, pulling her firmly against his side.
She froze.
“Relax,” he growled. “I’m not going to ravish you.”
“I didn’t think—”
“Your heart is racing again.”
“That’s because—” She stopped, not sure how to finish the sentence. Because she was scared? She wasn’t, not really. Because she was uncomfortable? Also not true. The solid warmth of his body and the steady rhythm of his breathing left her feeling oddly safe.
And that was the problem. She knew better than to rely on anyone else for safety.
“Sleep,” he ordered. “We have a long journey tomorrow.”
Sleep, she scoffed. As if I could possibly—
But her eyes were already closing, her body relaxing into his warmth despite her mind’s protests. The last thing she was aware of was his arm tightening around her, and the low rumble of his voice saying something she couldn’t quite hear.
And then, against all odds, she slept.