Chapter 11 #2
“Holding on,” I said, but I wasn’t quite ready for the jolt as he began swimming.
So much power, so much speed. There was nothing like clinging to his back as he cut through the water with powerful efficiency.
My legs dangled against him, my fingers growing tight and slick as I held on.
He propelled us from the tall cliff, across the lake, until we reached the white, sandy beach on the other side.
Not anywhere close to where we’d gone in last night, but miles down.
That was clever, because now we wouldn’t be close to where we’d left the giant.
Perhaps it was enough to get rid of our native tail entirely.
As we reached the shallows by the bank, he rose gracefully to his feet and walked out.
I could not keep clinging and splashed into the water, soaked and cold, definitely more tired than I’d like to be.
Slogging out after him, I discovered he was restlessly pacing, his back to me, as if he did not want to tempt himself by looking.
I felt it then, the stab of pain in his chest and the struggle as he tried to contain passion as wild and vast as last time.
A thrill? I was practically humming with excitement.
Now was not the time to poke at this, as much as I wanted to have him tangle with me in another kiss.
So I focused on squeezing as much water from my clothes as I could.
Then I tried a few Yadasca poses to limber up my muscles.
It was a dance without music, and I was so familiar with it that I did not have to think as I made each move.
Drops of water flew left and right in a spray of motion, but like me, they fell into a resting pose by the time Jaxin had composed himself and turned around.
There was something about his expression that made me think he might have caught the tail end of my attempt to limber up my muscles.
I needed him to think I was strong again, that the rest had put me in a good place after the exhausting, terrifying events of the last few days.
I had a feeling that any sign of weakness on my part would still cause him to call off my flower sample mission. That I couldn’t allow.
“We need to travel in that direction,” Jaxin said, pointing with one hand along the side of the oblong lake into the distance.
There, the lake emptied into a river that headed to the coast in a long, winding path.
I hid a wince of dismay when I realized where we were going, but Jaxin’s sharp features grew sharper. “What’s wrong?”
I bit my lip as I contemplated how best to answer his question, but in the end, I simply requested my tablet from one of his waterproof pouches so I could pull up the map and show him.
“These are known locations of the Radin flower I need. As you can see, they’re not fond of water, but prefer a drier, slightly elevated kind of terrain.
” I tapped a finger on the Kertinal landing strip that had to be our destination.
“It’s too rocky here, and too wet all along the path toward the landing strip from here…
The nearest spot would be this location, and it would mean an extra day of travel. ”
I had my senses stretched wide, hoping that I could pick up even the slightest shift in emotion he might feel.
If I could sense just a hint of what was going on inside his head, I might be able to predict the answer that followed that long silence.
His eyes went from me to the tablet, bouncing repeatedly between the spot for the flowers and the landing strip.
“You can’t finish the cure without it?” he asked once, and when I nodded, his expression seemed to grow more defined.
I was beginning to sense something from him too, something that bordered on determination and hope.
Not wild passion, that was an emotion I thought even a Rummicaron might feel in the heat of the moment, but real feelings, subtle and nuanced like any other.
With it came another stabbing pain in my chest, one I struggled to hide from him.
“So we’ll go?” He nodded, secured my tablet with research once again, and then led the way.
For the first stretch, we walked in silence as the two of us abandoned the lake to head deeper back into the jungle.
It was still wet, and the muddy ground was tough going, but I held my tongue.
If his chest ached, it had to be an injury he was hiding beneath that armor.
It couldn’t be good for him to carry me like he’d done yesterday, so I wasn’t going to give him an excuse.
After we’d gone perhaps two miles in silence, he slowed the pace just a little.
I did not take that as an invitation to come walk at his side; he’d gone back to feeling like the trees around us.
No emotions, no pain. It was not the blissful rest it had seemed to my burned-out empathy, as it had been yesterday.
It felt a little lonely, and that was a tough realization to come to.
It meant I was more used to having the feelings of others in my head than I’d realized, and I wasn’t as self-sufficient as I’d like.
An even more daunting prospect: what if it was his feelings I now craved to know?