Chapter 11 #3
He turns my finger, examines the edge and makes one tiny correction before moving to the next.
Every movement is perfectly measured, leaving each nail short, smooth and exactly even.
Tiny crescents from my tough, hardened nails fall into his palm.
Whatever treatment the Med-Bay gave my skin did nothing to smooth them.
Or perhaps Talarin told it to leave them alone so he could do this himself.
“The scan found several deficiencies,” he says. “The worst is salt.”
My lips part, but no sound comes.
“Speak.”
“Then your scan is wrong. I made sure to trade for salt in the village. I know what my body needs.”
“You ran. You climbed. You walked for hours beneath the sun. We studied your tracks for six months. You never took the same route twice. You doubled back, cut switchbacks through the forest and crossed miles of unnecessary ground to prevent us from learning your patterns. You have been exerting yourself more than you knew.”
The clipper closes again.
Click.
I think of the headaches I’ve been getting. I thought they were from frustration.
“The stores we found held enough food to carry you through ten winters, perhaps more,” Talarin says. “I assume you have more wherever you live.”
My fingers tense inside his grasp.
He does not know where I live.
They hunted me for six months, but they never left the estate to search for my home. They wanted to catch me here, upon their land, where there could be no question that I was trespassing.
My home and the stores surrounding it remain hidden beyond their walls.
Talarin finishes my final nail and releases my hand. He holds out his palm again.
“Other hand.”
I place it in his before he has to repeat himself.
I hate the slight curl of satisfaction in his grey eyes. They are not nearly as emotionless as I once thought.
He positions the clipper over the thumbnail of my other hand.
I lift my freshly clipped hand and turn it beneath the sterile light. It does not look like mine. It looks as though it belongs to some other girl, one who has time to care whether her fingers are pretty and notices when one nail grows longer than the others.
“When you have completed these hundred days,” Talarin says, “if you choose to leave, I will send you away with dried beef, salt and honey from the hives south of the estate.”
My gaze snaps towards him.
I have long thought of smoking out the bees to reach that honey, but I never could. Not without telling everyone in the surrounding area that someone was living within the forbidden lands.
“Whatever you choose,” he says, “you will not leave this estate hungry.”
I give him a long, considering look, trying to see into the mind behind those slate-grey eyes.
This man has been alive for at least five centuries, perhaps even six, and the weight of every one of them rests upon that chiselled, intense face.
He trained right here on Colossus, fought in the Aurelian Army and still commands the respect of a man like the Commissioner, meaning he must have held some status before he retired.
Whether he came to this estate because he wanted to be left alone or not, somehow I have become his private project.
He is not speaking like an Aurelian who believes he has found his Fated Mate. From everything I know of their species, a man who knew that would not calmly prepare for a future without her.
He could not envision one.
But Talarin is not merely acknowledging that the contract will end. He is preparing and planning for it.
Yet he said if I choose to leave.
He believes there is another possibility. That sometime during these hundred days, they are going to convince me to stay.
The realization sends an uneasy shiver through me, the cold, sterile, recycled air of the Med-Bay brushing against my newly sensitive skin.
I have not depended upon anyone since I was fifteen.
Maybe they think they can make me crave that dependence.
Maybe I can use that to my advantage. If they believe there is a chance I will stay, then instead of making these hundred days as cruel and humiliating as possible, they might be gentler with me.
As I work through it, Talarin stares into my eyes with inhuman patience. This alien intellect does not flinch from my gaze or attempt to intimidate me. He simply matches it while I think.
Whatever this is, the cage and the contract are not their entire plan.
They want to change me into someone who will stay.
Unless they get bored with me first.
The clipper closes one final time.
Click.
Talarin releases my hand and sweeps the nail clippings from his palm into a small recessed disposal. He returns the clipper to its drawer, then washes his hands at the narrow basin set into the wall.
Every movement remains slow and exact.
When he turns back towards me, there is a new hardness in his face.
He reaches up and removes the respirator.
His first unfiltered breath is deep. His nostrils flare as my scent reaches him, and the erection beneath his robe gives one heavy throb. The controlled patience in his grey eyes becomes something hungrier.
He snaps his fingers once.
“Stand.”
I slide down from the slab. My newly softened feet meet the cold limestone, and the little bell at my throat tinkles as I straighten before him.
Talarin looks me over.
“It is time to begin your training.”