Chapter 18 #2
I covered my chest with my hands and crossed my legs, all peaceful languor vanishing when she came right up to the tub and peered down at me.
Not so demure now, she seemed like a woman on a mission.
“What does she want?” Jaxin asked, the knife still in his hand, his head cocked in curiosity.
He did not consider her a threat, even if she was three times bigger than him.
I shrugged and shook my head, but the answer became almost immediately obvious when the giantess shook out her bundle of clothing—she was here to dress us according to their customs.
“I think,” I said to Jaxin, a bit of heat in my cheeks as I allowed her to help me from the tub and dry me, “she’s here to prepare us for a party.
” Then I pointed at the tray the elegant, tall Radin giantess had placed on the table.
It was knee-high to her, that table, but still up to my chest. On the tray lay woven strands with flowers, along with two tall cups filled with a fragrant, steaming liquid.
The liquid turned out to be some kind of stimulant—subtle and not harmful to either Jaxin or me—but definitely tailored to revive our flagging energy reserves.
The giantess had dressed me first and was now draping fabric around Jaxin’s hips with very gentle fingers.
It had allowed me a moment to test the fluid with the supplies from Jaxin’s medkit.
There weren’t just stimulants in it, but also a generous amount of minerals and nutrients.
Exactly the kind of blend a healing body needed.
“She wants us to drink that?” Jaxin said.
With a growl, he snatched the last long swatch of fabric from her fingers and tied the final knot on his hip himself.
“Is it safe?” When I explained my test results, he nodded thoughtfully.
“Can you take a sample to take with us? This sounds just like the special replenishing stimulants Dravion makes.” He took the offered cup from the giantess without hesitation and tossed back its contents.
I tried not to laugh at the size of the cup in his hands, which was more like a vase than a cup, really.
I couldn’t possibly drink all of it, but Jaxin polished off what I couldn’t finish with a satisfied smirk.
“Who is Dravion?” I asked as I swiped a slide from my sample kit through what was left in the cup to do as he wanted.
He was right, this might be very useful to analyze.
“He’s our half-Aderian doctor on the Varakartoom,” Jaxin answered, politely lifting his chin so our hostess could drape her flower garlands around his thick neck.
He should have looked ridiculous decked out in flowers, but it looked…
well, kind of nice. Frankly, he looked very appealing in the toga-like fabric draped just around his hip and one shoulder.
I knew he packed a lot of muscle, and that he was a big guy even for his species, but it was very different to see it all without the armor.
His gray skin was paler on the front than the back, and if you squinted in the lantern light, it almost edged toward purple.
The scars only made him look more powerful to me, a warrior who had lived through the fires of Charontin and lived to tell about it.
A male so strong he could withstand anything, and everything I sensed about him—everything I knew—told me he wanted to use that strength to protect me.
I had never had a protector like him before.
Guards, yes. But a male so devoted that I could feel how much I mattered, even through layers of conditioning that told him not to feel? It was a heady combination.
The giantess wasn’t finished with him yet, ducking very low to wrap strands of flowers around his ankles. She was shocked, but she hid it well, when she saw the webbing of his toes. Then came curiosity, which seemed to be a favorite emotion among these Radin giants.
“What’s the other half?” I asked Jaxin, remembering that he’d described his ship’s doctor as half-Aderian.
No wonder that massive wound had not killed him, he had access to an Aderia-trained healer.
It was not false pride to state that Aderia produced only the finest doctors and surgeons.
I had always regretted that my powerful empathy made it hard for me to function in practice as a doctor.
It was a useful gift in that profession, but not when it was as powerful as mine.
“Dravion? You won’t like the answer, little one,” Jaxin said, but he shrugged.
The giantess had finished with him, and now it was my turn to be adorned with the flower garlands.
Some of these flowers appeared to be the very ones I’d come to this world to study.
“Grolarnx,” he said then, and yes, that did catch me by surprise.
My head shot up. A giant finger almost stabbed me in the eye by accident, but I couldn’t help my reaction.
The Grolarnx were barely sentient, and extremely deadly.
I didn’t know they were even genetically compatible, let alone capable of leaving a female alive long enough for a child to be born. They ate everything.
“Told you,” Jaxin said, but not with humor.
He wasn’t judging me for my response either, though I sensed a sharp spike of protectiveness rise in him.
He cared about this strange genetic fluke, about a creature both gifted healer and dangerous and deadly.
It was exactly the kind of thing I expected him to feel beneath all that armor.
“I look forward to meeting him,” I said, and I meant it.
Of course, that made Jaxin glare, a surge of possessiveness washing over me that made my toes curl.
He swept the hands of the giantess aside, lowered the last strands of the flower garland around my neck, and then he claimed my mouth in a kiss.
I would have stayed there, lingered in that moment and in the passion he was ready to ignite, just to prove his claim.
“I’m yours,” I told him, murmuring it against his mouth.
“But I think there’s a party waiting for us, and we’re the guests of honor.
” It was too bad, really, because the stimulants in that drink had begun to work, and I felt energized, strong, excited.
I also felt very much turned on. As Jaxin pressed against me, I felt his cock—hard and thick—press against me through the silk that draped our bodies.
So was he. Neither of us wanted to leave; we wanted to test out that massive bed instead.