Chapter 6
I will push you down the damn cliff.
Baelor
Wendy’s hand was so small in mine I was surprised by the strength of her grip. She held me like I was her lifeline and letting go meant inevitable death.
Which, from what Nitochi had muttered before she grabbed him, made complete sense.
“Not now, some of her captors might have escaped,” he had said to my bath suggestion, ready to jump back into the air and finish the job I was certain was already done. After all, Nitochi was not known to leave survivors—especially in this situation.
Wendy’s skin was raw around her wrist. Her whole body and clothes were covered in mud, dirt and blood—partly thanks to my brother holding her so tight during their flight, I assumed.
I led her through the high tunnels of the hive and stopped at the closest empty pool area. “Are you okay?” I asked but felt immediately stupid for asking. Of course she was not okay. She had been held captive for days, and—
“I’m fine,” she answered, turning to me with a soft smile.
Fine? Was she really? “You are trembling like a feather in a storm,” I said.
Her smile faltered. “I-I…I’m just a little shaken up. It’s been a stressful few days.”
I squeezed her hand gently. “I understand.”
She turned her face away to cast a look at the water. “Where does it come from?” I tilted my head in wonder and she added, “The water. It’s…I mean, we’re pretty high, right? I could barely see the top of the trees when Nitochi made us land…Are we inside a mountain?”
A mountain? “I…I guess. Gemini has rocks protruding from the ground and this is where we build our nests.” Some kind of mountain, when we think of it. “Some hives have sources of water underground, and it travels up and down from the center, filling natural pools on different levels for everyone.”
Her face lit up. “A hive? I wish I could have seen from the outside…”
I frowned, confused. “You did not?”
Her cheeks became redder. “I—I was too scared to look around when Nitochi flew us here.”
Right. She did not have any wings. As if she had not already been terrified, she had to take her first flight one minute after meeting Nitochi, who just conveniently killed every living thing in her vicinity.
“Apologies,” I said. “When we will take you outside, we will use the stairs reserved for the children to come and go.” She gave me a puzzled look but I continued before she could ask anything else, “I will leave you to it.”
She blinked. Once. Twice. “I—uh…Is there any…soap?”
I let the word sink in my mind. It did not translate but…Shit, I know that word. Was it—
“Oh, yes. Soap,” I repeated. “The foaming stones are on the edge.”
She followed the direction of my finger, narrowing her eyes. Was it too dark for her to see?
“The…foaming stones?”
“Yes. See? The green, round rock over there.”
“That’s…Is that soap?”
Shit. Did I translate it wrong? “I…Yes? It is what we use to wash our skin and hair. It makes foam when wet.”
“Oh. Oh, yes, okay! I’m sorry, I—”
“No apologies,” I said, giving her hand a squeeze before letting her go. I cast her one last look as I went back to the tunnels leading to our nest.
No one would be interrupting her at this hour but just in case, I hung the purple rock under the frame, signaling everyone who might come by that the pool was in use.
Nitochi was still pacing when I got back to him.
“Oh, so you did listen to me,” I said, walking to our ice column to prepare some food for our little human. She must be starving.
“You heard her. There is someone else looking for her. Someone else who wants to steal her from us. I should not waste my time here arguing with you when I could be out there, ensuring she remains safe, you—”
“She is right,” I interrupted him. “It can wait tomorrow.”
“It does not. What if the human tracks us back here, huh? Somehow finds a way to get to her?”
“He will not.”
He stopped pacing, hands turning to fists at his sides, black eyes staring straight into my part of the soul we shared.
“You do not know that.”
“What I know is that, for some reason, you are stalling.” I threw him the fire stones and pulled a pan out of one of the alcoves. “That finding her in danger riled you up, and you are itching for a fight.”
“I am not,” he gritted out, taking a couple of steps before crouching next to the fire pit, scratching the stones against each other with a bit more force than necessary.
“I am concerned. She was tied to a fucking tree, Bae. Being taunted by that—” He stopped and clenched his teeth as he stared at the little flame starting to spread on the wood. “By that scrawny human,” he spat.
“See, I think I am right.” He glared at me. “You killed them all, but it was not enough to quench your need to spill blood.”
“Me staying is pointless,” he added.
I chuckled, shaking my head. “Why, because you cannot understand each other?” Nitochi grunted. “Wendy is right, I can translate. Or do the sign thing, even though I am not sure what she meant by that.”
He let out an annoyed sigh as he stood back up, leaving the stones on the floor next to the fire.
“I will go. It will not take long and she will barely notice that I am gone.”
The slices of meat that Nitochi prepared now on the pan, I placed it on the fire and scoffed. “She will.”
That stopped him in his tracks. He froze and turned his face just enough to look at me from the corner of his eyes.
“I mean, you are the one who rescued her,” I added, my voice lowering as I focused on the sizzling meat. “The first of us she met.”
“Bae—”
“I know it was not what we agreed on when we accepted this…experiment. But this is how it happened.” I met his gaze head on. “Your part of our soul will take the lead in this union.”
The muscle in his jaw ticked. “Is this why you wanted to wait until morning for the rescue?” he asked.
I gave him a sad smile. “Yes. But you were right. And if you had not gone, she might not have been here anymore. So I know we agreed I was to take the lead, but now it has to be you.”
His throat bobbed, hands flexed. “Are you okay with this?”
I shrugged again, not sure what to do with my body. I needed time. Time to accept that she would grow closer to him than me, when I was the one who had pushed for this to happen. “I am. Because it means she is alive, and with us. Are you okay with this?”
The expression on his face shifted, like he was not sure himself what to think of all this. “It is not set in stone,” he said. “We cannot understand each other and who knows when that will be fixed. I will make myself scarce and—”
“Stop acting like a child,” I deadpanned. “It is the way the souls of our people work.”
“I cannot be the lead in this union,” he snapped. “I am not—”
“If you start talking nonsense about not being good enough, I will push you down the damn cliff.” Nitochi rolled his eyes. “Yes, I know you can fly, but it will relieve my nerves.”
“It is not—not that I am not good enough. I just…Every human we ever met saw me as a monster. One even shrieked and prayed to his god that I would not eat him. She was terrified of me when—”
“She was terrified, period. Put yourself in her place! Alone, prisoner of a bunch of other humans on a strange planet. She had no idea who we were—who you were when you killed all of them and took her away.”
His face softened, like he was replaying the whole event in his head. She did not seem too scared when they arrived, he must have shown her the paper. She must have figured out who he was at some point on their way back here.
“I…am scared. I was not supposed to take the lead, she—”
“She will notice if you take off,” I repeated. His hand flexed again, the thought not sitting right with him. “You are the lead. Accept it, and learn to act like it.”
He cursed, turning his face away from me. He was still cursing when he turned his back to the opening on the outside and walked toward the tunnels. Toward the baths.