Chapter 1 #2
“I just thought you should know.” She tilts her head, all innocent. “He seems very interested in what you’re doing.”
“They’re all interested in what we’re doing.” I set the ladle aside, flexing my fingers. “We’re like live theater they can’t figure out.”
But I know who she means.
In the shadowed section of the cavern, where the firelight doesn’t quite reach and the air feels cooler, there is one male who isn’t hovering close like the others. No eager puppy energy. No sidelong glances as they pretend to sharpen spears or refill waterskins.
They call him Sarven, but I’ve dubbed him something else.
Stabby McGoldy.
He sits half in darkness, long legs bent, broad back resting against the cave wall. A long blade of bone is braced across his thighs as he draws a smoothed stone along its edge with focused, unhurried motions.
Scritch.
The sound slides through the low murmur of conversation and crackle of fire. A soft rasp, rhythmic and steady.
Those red eyes, though, aren’t on the blade.
They’re on me.
Not with the bright, hopeful intensity of Haroth when he’s picked out a particularly sparkly “wedding rock.” Not with the shy curiosity some of the other males have when they watch us brush our hair or lace our sneakers.
Sarven’s gaze is something else entirely.
Focused. Measuring. Quietly fierce.
Of all the women in the cavern, I’ve never seen him watch anyone the way he watches me.
It makes something inside me go tight and restless. My breath stutters. My pulse skips in ways I do not care for.
I force myself to look away, but my eyes keep drifting back.
Because speaking as a former science teacher, purely from an anatomical standpoint, Stabby is built like someone designed the perfect predator and then gave it abs.
Broad shoulders that taper to a narrow waist. Arms corded with muscles that shift under golden skin whenever he moves. And those hands. Large, long-fingered, surprisingly elegant for someone who spends his time sharpening stabbing things.
And that dark scar that runs down over his right brow, past the corner of his eye. It makes his face look harsher when his jaw tightens, that thin line pulling taut with the movement.
Stop staring, Mikaela.
I snatch the heavy bone handle up again and wrench my gaze back to the pot, pretending the stew is solely responsible for the slow throb behind my eyes.
Think about the planet sickness, I tell myself. The fever. The headache. The way the air feels thick some evenings. Do not think about the alien in the corner who looks like he could tear a boulder in half and yet hasn’t moved an inch all night.
I can still see him, though. In my peripheral vision. The way his arm glides as he draws the stone along the blade. The shift of muscle in his shoulders. Occasionally, the last dregs of daylight filtering in catch on his skin, turning it almost molten.
Why couldn’t they have patchy fur? Huh? Or weeping sores. Or a third arm dangling uselessly from their chest cavities. No, they had to be tall, broad, and attractive in a way that my brain recognizes as dangerous, and yet completely, utterly alien.
Heat crawls up my neck. I pretend it’s just the proximity to the fire.
As the evening stretches on, the noise in the cavern shifts.
Voices soften. Most of the women drift to their sleeping alcoves.
The line of women at the stew pot dwindles as bowls are filled and carried away.
Pam finishes her braid and goes to help Alex at the sick alcove.
Erika packs away the last of the dried gourd, announces a “much-needed pee,” and disappears toward the back tunnels.
Little by little, I’m left alone at the fire.
Alone, in a sea of Drakav.
And I can still feel only one of them.
Scritch.
The stone runs along the blade again. The repetitive sound sinks into my nerves, like fine grit under an eyelid, an irritation I can’t rub away.
Scritch.
I wipe down the flat stone we use for preparing food, hands moving automatically, mind buzzing. The cavern has grown quieter than I like. The space between each sound feels too big.
I should walk away. Take my bowl and my rag and go to my assigned sleeping mat. Lie down. Close my eyes. Pretend I don’t know exactly where he is without looking.
Scritch.
But my patience, thinned out all day by the headache and the heat and the too-bright orange stew and the heavy weight of eyes on me finally snaps.
I turn.
Slowly.
He’s where I knew he’d be. Still half in shadow, still separate. The firelight has sunk low, just enough to catch the curve of his horns, the angle of his jaw, the glint of his weapon.
As if sensing my movement, he pauses. The stone stills halfway down the blade.
Those crimson eyes meet mine.
He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blink or look away or pretend he was checking the fire all along. There’s no sheepishness in him, none of Haroth’s eager, boyish hope. Stabby simply regards me, his attention as steady and unblinking as the desert stars.
It feels, absurdly, like he’s been waiting for me to look.
Or like he’s daring me not to.
My heart gives an annoying little jump against my ribs. I lift my chin to pin it back into place.
I’m hot, tired, feverish. I’ve spent all day babying stew that was hardly fit to eat, and all night being low-level observed by a giant alien with a knife. I am not, under any circumstances, going to be the quiet, accommodating entertainment in this scene.
I cross my arms over my chest. Plant my feet.
His gaze dips briefly, taking in the angle of my shoulders, the line of my arms, then comes back to my face. These Drakav might not understand all of our words yet, but they understand posture. Challenge. Boundary.
“Problem, Stabby?” I ask.