Chapter 9 #2
He nodded slowly, and she realized he’d understood most of what she’d said.
His vocabulary might be limited, but his comprehension was expanding by the minute, his mind making connections and filling in gaps with frightening efficiency.
She thought he’d ask more questions, but instead he returned to the original topic.
“Teach me,” he said, sitting back down on the bunk. “More words.”
Something about the directness of the request and the hint of vulnerability in his voice made her chest ache. He was trying so hard to bridge the gap between them.
“Okay.” She went over and sat next to him, folding her legs beneath her. “What do you want to know?”
As they continued, she realized he didn’t learn words the way anyone she’d ever met learned words.
He absorbed them. She’d say something once, twice at most, and he’d have it—pronunciation, usage, approximate meaning.
When she moved to simple sentences, he parsed the grammar almost instantly, rearranging words with an intuition that bordered on unnerving.
“This,” she said, pointing at the environmental panel, “controls the temperature. It keeps us warm.”
“Temperature.” He rolled the word around. “Controls. Keeps warm.” His eyes moved to her. “You keep me warm. Before.”
Heat immediately rose to her cheeks. “That was the blankets and the heating system—”
“No.” He touched his chest, then pointed at her. “You. Warm.” A pause. “Safe.”
Safe. The word hit her harder than it should have. She’d spent the night wrapped in his arms because she’d felt safe and apparently, impossibly, he’d felt the same way about her.
“Yeah, well.” She cleared her throat, looking away. “That’s what you do when someone’s injured. You keep them warm.”
“Is normal? For you?”
The question caught her off guard. “What do you mean?”
He gestured at the space between them. “Sleeping. Together. Is normal?”
Oh God.
“Not… I mean, it can be, b-but…” She was stammering. Why was she stammering? “It depends on the relationship. Usually people who sleep together are… close. Partners. Family.”
“Partners.” He tested the word. “Mates?”
The heat in her cheeks intensified to what felt like a full-on conflagration.
“That’s… Yes, that’s one kind of partner.
But there’s also business partners, work partners, dance partners—” She was rambling now, words tumbling out in her desperation to redirect the conversation.
“The point is, people don’t usually sleep with strangers.
I don’t usually sleep with strangers. I don’t usually sleep with anyone, actually. ”
The admission slipped out before she could stop it, and he went very still. “No one?”
“No,” she said defensively. “I prefer sleeping alone. I sleep better alone. I’m not—” Good at being close to people. Comfortable with intimacy. Capable of letting my guard down. “I’m just not used to it.”
He was quiet for a long moment, obviously processing her words. “But with me. You sleep.”
It wasn’t a question.
She started to deny it, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. “I was exhausted. I hadn’t slept in days. You pulled me down and I was too tired to fight about it.”
His lips curved, just slightly. “You would fight. If you want.”
He wasn’t wrong, but she didn’t want to admit that either.
“It seemed like a practical solution at the time.”
“Practical.” He seemed to consider this. “Practical to sleep with enemy?”
“You’re not—” She stopped herself. Isn’t he? some part of her brain demanded. I still don’t know what he is or what he wants or why he was buried under the ice.
But the part that had curled against his warmth and slept more deeply than she had in years was already providing counterarguments.
How gentle his hands were when he’d pulled her close.
The way he’d insisted on sharing food with her even when he was starving.
The careful way he moved around her, like he was constantly aware of his own size and strength and determined not to frighten her.
“I don’t know what you are,” she admitted. “I don’t know where you came from or why you were under the ice or what any of this means. But…” She met his eyes. “I don’t think you’re my enemy.”
His expression softened, and the blue of his eyes seemed to intensify, almost glowing in the dim light.
“Not enemy,” he agreed. “Jaz is…” He paused, searching for a word. “Friend?”
She’d taught him that word twenty minutes ago, in the context of explaining why she had so few personal items in her habitat. I don’t have many friends, she’d said, and immediately wished she could take it back. I prefer it that way. Less complicated.
He’d listened with the intent focus he gave everything, and now he was using the word back at her like a gift.
“Yeah,” she heard herself say. “I guess you are. You’re my friend.”
The smile that crossed his face was small but genuine, and it transformed him.
The sharp angles of his features softened, and the predatory set of his jaw relaxed.
For a moment, he didn’t look like an ancient being of unknown origin.
He looked like someone who’d been alone for a very long time and had just been offered something rare and precious.
Dammit.
Because the more human he looked, the harder it was to ignore certain other facts.
Like the breadth of his shoulders. The defined musculature of his arms and chest. The way his scales caught the light when he moved, creating patterns that were almost hypnotic.
The deep, resonant quality of his voice, which did things to her nervous system that she absolutely refused to examine.
He’s not human, she reminded herself firmly. He’s an alien. Or a genetic experiment. Or something else entirely. And I’m stuck in a tiny dome with him during a polar storm. This is not the time to develop an inconvenient attraction.
But her body wasn’t listening to reason. Her body remembered the heat of him against her back, the strength of the arm that had held her, and the way his tail had curled around her leg like it belonged there. Not to mention that intriguing hardness against her back.
Retractable, her traitorous brain supplied again. Which means it’s there when he wants it to be. Which means when I felt—
“Jaz.”
She jumped and looked up to find he was watching her again with that too-perceptive gaze.
“Your face,” he said. “Changes color. When you think.”
Oh, perfect. Now he was commenting on her blushes. “It’s what happens. To humans. When we’re embarrassed or hot or—”
“Embarrassed?”
She should not have used that word. “It’s when you feel uncomfortable about something. Self-conscious. Like you’ve done something wrong or foolish.”
“Sleeping with me,” he said slowly. “Embarrasses you?”
“No. Yes. It’s—” She dropped her face into her hands, groaning. “It’s complicated.”
“Explain?”
“I can’t explain. I don’t have the words. You don’t have the words.” She raised her head, desperate to change the subject. “Tell me something about you. Where you came from. What you remember.”
Sorrow flashed across his face for a second before his usual neutral expression resumed. “Remember… pieces. Fragments. Place under the ice. Duty.” His hand moved to his chest, pressing flat over his sternum. “Here. Something… empty. Missing.”
“Missing?”
“Others,” he said roughly. “Others like me. We…” He struggled for words. “Keep memories of… many.”
He was a guardian, she thought. A protector of something important. “What happened to them? The others?”
The silence stretched. When he spoke again, his voice was very quiet. “Gone. All gone. I am…” He paused, searching. “Last?”
The word hung in the air between them. Last. The last of his kind. The last guardian of whatever buried place he’d emerged from.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and meant it. “That must be…” She couldn’t find the words either. What did you say to someone who’d woken up to find everyone they’d ever known was dead? “I’m sorry.”
He nodded once, acknowledging her sympathy without requiring more of it. “And you,” he said, changing the subject. “Why here? Alone?”
It was a fair question, and one she’d never been good at answering. The truth was too pathetic to share. She shrugged. “I like it here. The solitude. The independence. I’m my own boss. I make my own decisions. No one telling me what to do or how to do it.”
The words sounded hollow even to her own ears. She’d spent her life convincing herself that she preferred being alone, but in the space of a single conversation with this alien who wasn’t really an alien, that carefully constructed narrative was starting to unravel.
“Alone,” he repeated, and she could swear there was disapproval in his tone. “No family? No mate?”