Chapter 7 #2
If she wants to look at my back, I will give her something worth watching.
I straighten my spine, roll my shoulders once, and step onto the ledge.
The drop yawns to my right, full of cold air and moving water. There is no bottom, just black.
Behind me, Mih-kay-lah’s footsteps are small and careful. Her scale-tunic scratches faintly against the rough stone.
Twice, she wobbles.
Each time, I edge my glow a little brighter, spreading light along the rock so she can read every crack.
Ahead, the thread of water shows itself as a thin silver line along the wall, dripping down into tiny channels carved by time.
Mih-kay-lah makes a small sound at the sight.
The water looks like the pool we use for bathing. Clear, restless, eager to move.
But the smell is not the same.
I lean in, drawing it deep into my nose.
The wrongness is stronger here. It burns.
“Worse,” I project. I force the word in mouth-speak through my throat. “Strong.”
She inhales too, her nose wrinkling. “It still smells fine to me, which actually makes me terrified.”
We keep moving.
The ledge narrows further, forcing me to turn. I angle my body so my back faces the drop and my front faces the stone. Mikaela copies the movement behind me.
The path is barely wider than my shoulders now.
Every time I step, her body brushes mine.
My glow answers without asking my permission.
Light builds under my skin, brighter between my thighs where the flesh is already heavy and hot. The glow there pulses in time with my dra-kir, broadcasting my condition in a ridiculous, golden strobe.
My pouch has become a signal flare.
I try to angle my leg to shade it. There is nowhere to move.
Dim, I tell my body.
For the love of the dust, dim.
It does not dim.
Her scent is everywhere now. Skin and stone-dust and a faint tang of firebloom from the coo-keen. And underneath, there’s the quiet, sweet scent that belongs only to her.
It gets under my tongue, coats the back of my throat.
Mih-kay-lah stops moving.
I feel her gaze drop. Straight to my glowing lap.
I brace myself. I expect her to jerk away, to shift closer to Kelvan to put distance between us, to make the little sound she makes when someone bites into a raw heart with enthusiasm.
Instead, she vocalizes, “Well, that’s something you don’t see every day.” She pauses. “It’s actually really helpful. Good light.”
She shifts her basket, leans in slightly, and uses the pulse of my traitorous member to inspect a crack in the floor.
The dust might as well strike me down where I stand.
She is using my arousal as a lantern.
“Flashlight,” she mutters, lips pressing together.
Another human word I do not know. Fla-shlaight. But from her tone, I gather it is some kind of useful tool.
I want the stone to open and swallow me. At the same time, something slow and foolish in my chest preens.
My member is useful.
It serves my female. It is a very bright, very helpful member.
“Yes,” I manage, keeping my eyes fixed firmly on the opposite wall. “Flash… laight.”
“Handy,” she whispers, stepping carefully within the circle of gold.
Handy. I am almost sure that is their word for claws.
If she touches me now, I will fall off this ledge and die with gratitude.
“Hold,” Kelvan sends suddenly, sharp in the mindspace.
The stone under our feet vibrates.
A low, grinding groan rolls through the chamber, deeper than any of us. The sound of weight changing where weight should never change.
Every muscle in my body locks.
“Back!” Zan projects, his mind-speak snapping like a struck spear.
The ceiling over the middle of the ledge makes the kind of rumble you never want to hear from overhead stone. Then it cracks.
For a single moment, nothing moves.
Then everything does.
A slab of ceiling the size of Haroth tears free and drops straight down onto the path where Kelvan stands.
Mih-kay-lah flinches. The basket slams against her chest.
“Down!” I roar.
Instinct moves quicker than thought.
I snap my arms around her waist and turn, twisting our bodies and slamming us flat against the wall. I shove with all my strength, pinning her between the stone and my chest, curling my shoulders forward to make myself a shell against the falling world.
The world turns to noise and grit.
Rock hits rock, a deafening series of blows. Dust explodes around us in a thick wave. The ledge bucks under our feet as shattered pieces bounce and twist.
Something the size of my fist clips my shoulder, then my hip. Pain flares hot. I ignore it.
I hold her tighter.
Her head tucks under my chin. Her fingers knot themselves in the harness strap at my hip. The hard edge of the basket digs into my side; I do not let it go.
The worst of the fall ends in a rain of smaller stones, then tapers off.
Silence rushes in to fill the space.
Not true silence. My dra-kir is still pounding hard enough to make my ribs ache. Water still drips down the wall. On the far side, I sense Haroth cursing in the mindspace, Zan growling at the mountain.
But no more stone is falling.
Slowly, carefully, I ease my grip.
Dust hangs thick in the air, turned to a cloud of gold by my over-bright glow.
Mih-kay-lah is very still in my arms.
“Mih-kay-lah?” My voice feels like it has been scraped with rough stone. I force her name through anyway. “Mih-kay-lah. Hurt?”
She drags in a shaky breath. Then another. Then she lets out a word in her language that I have heard many times but still do not fully understand.
“Fuck.”
The shape of it is familiar. She uses it when she is angry. When Ain is too bright. When the coo-keen does not go well. Often when she catches me watching her.
“This time is… hurt?” I ask cautiously in my own tongue, trying to sort her tone.
Her chest shakes against mine.
For a dra-kirbeat, my blood turns to ice. I imagine her eyes leaking, that strange female reaction to pain or fear. I do not want that. I would rather fight the mountain than see that.
Then the shaking turns into a long, rough exhalation against my collarbone.
Relief hits me so hard my knees nearly give.
She is not broken.
I lower my forehead to the top of her head for a bare moment, unable to stop myself. My glow answers, flaring bright enough to turn the whole narrow stretch of tunnel into an artificial dawn.
On the far side of the new gap, Haroth’s presence brushes mine.
“By the dust,” he sends, stunned. “Sarven. You glow like Ain.”
I blink and pull my awareness back to my own skin.
He is right.
Light pours from my arms where they cage Mih-kay-lah. From my chest pressed along her back. From my thighs bracketing her hips. Every floating mote of dust becomes a spark.
But it is not the wild, uncontrollable blaze when the bond strikes.
I test my control, tugging at the light as if pulling on a rope. The heat could crack the wall at our backs, so I force the light down, terror for her safety warring with the instinct to shine.
It answers. It sinks from blinding bright to a softer warmth.
Control.
Not the claiming glow, then.
I shine for her. But I do not erupt.
What more do you want? I snarl inwardly at my own stubborn hide. She is here. She is under my hands. She smells like fear and strength and something that feels like peace. Am I not enough? Is my soul too dark for the dust to bless?
Nothing answers but the echo of my own thoughts.
Mih-kay-lah shifts in my arms, pulling my focus back where it belongs.
I lift my head and look.
Where there was once a continuous ledge, there is now a gap as wide as a body length. The fallen stone has taken a section of the path with it, ripping fractures up into the ceiling and down into the unseen floor.
On the far side, two shapes loom through the settling dust: Haroth in front, Zan behind.
I look down into the darkness below us.
Kelvan is nowhere in sight.
My dra-kir spikes again.
“Kelvan?” I push into the mindspace, scanning.
“Alive,” Kelvan answers from somewhere below. His thought is strained, but clear. “Stone took my leg. I am stuck, not gone.”
“Do not move,” Zan snaps. “The ledge on our side is cracked. If you shift your weight, more may fall.”
Haroth’s mind brushes mine again. “Sarven. The path between us is broken. You and the Daughter are alone on that side.”
Alone.
The word settles strangely in my chest.
My arms tighten, just a little, around Mih-kay-lah.
“We are stable,” I send back, forcing my thoughts to be calm and flat. “We will not jump like fools. See to Kelvan first. Then we speak of paths.”
There is a pause. I can sense them considering how to proceed.
“Good,” Zan replies at last. “We will free Kelvan and search for another way. Or make one. If the stone allows.”
If the stone allows.
The stone rarely allows anything.
It is as stubborn and impressive as my Mih-kay-lah.
I become aware again of how close I am still holding her. I have curled her into my chest, and my glow is still wrapped around us both like a second skin.
Slowly, I let myself unwind, making sure we are both steady on our feet.
The ledge is barely wide enough for one. Sitting is safer than standing. I shift, slide my back down the wall until I am braced against it, knees bent, feet planted a claw-span from the drop.
“Sit,” I say, patting the small space between my thighs.
Her eyes flick between the gap, the hole below, and our brothers across the way. She swallows, then lowers herself carefully into the space I offered.
Her back fits easily against my chest. Her hips settle between my thighs. We become one strangely assembled creature with too many limbs.
She is warm and solid. Each shift of her weight sends another line of heat straight through me, pooling heavy where heat already stirs behind my seal. If she senses the insistent pulsing, she will surely want to move.
So, I tense everything and focus on simple things: the feel of the rock at my spine. The steady drip of water. The faint vibrations from the other side.
We sit like that for several long breaths, watching Haroth and Zan move around the fallen stone, talking quietly with Kelvan below.
Eventually, the tight set of Mih-kay-lah’s shoulders eases. Little by little, she lets more of her weight rest back against me.
Her next words come slowly. I catch “water,” “bad,” and “here.” She gestures with her hand at the drop before us and the darkness beyond.
She is showing me the path. The stone has cut off the other bank, trapping us on this side.
“Yesss…bad,” I echo, forcing the Een-gleesh words out because I want her to hear it in her own tongue.
Her eyes flick up at the sound.
“Path back…is broken,” I add in Drakavian, gesturing at the gap in the ledge. “But I…stay here. Mih-kay-lah…and Sarven.”
She goes very quiet. Those deep brown eyes search mine for the longest while.
Then, softly, she says one word I know as well as my own name.
“Team.”
The sound of it in her mouth sends a strange, steady warmth through my bones. I know this word. Jah-kee uses it when she talks about herself and Tharn. About how they move together.
Now Mih-kay-lah uses it with me.
“Tee... elm,” I repeat carefully, tasting it. “Teeem.”
She gives me a small, quick smile. Then a shiver rolls through her, sharp enough that I feel it all along my chest and arms.
My body moves before my mind decides.
I wrap my arms around her again, this time on purpose, forearms banded over her ribs and across the front of her soft middle, careful of the basket in her lap.
She goes stiff, every muscle locking.
She holds herself a breath-width away from my chest, as if hoping to hover there indefinitely rather than give in to contact.
“You… warm,” I say, tapping my glowing forearm to draw her attention. The enemy is the cold. Not me. I will not let it steal from her.
Her breath leaves her in a short, shaky rush. She trembles with the effort of keeping herself away. But the damp chill of the stone is patient. It seeps through every layer.
Slowly, her resistance fails.
She lets herself sag back, spine settling against my chest as if her bones have finally given up.
The contact is sudden and heavy and very, very good.
“You’re like a giant space heater,” she mutters, voice tight but no longer sharp. “Just… a massive personal heater.”
Hee-ter.
I remember Jus-teen explaining something like this once. A box that humans use to make warmth from nothing. A thing they miss when Ain goes to sleep and the dust cools.
If she wants to think of me that way, I will accept the title.
The stone pulls heat from us fast. For a Drakav, almost all of our warmth comes from inside. Our glow and lifeblood adjust. For a human already tired and worn thin by body-fire and worry?
Not acceptable.
I straighten my spine a little more against the wall, haul her more firmly against me until there is no room left for the cold to slip between us.
I am the hee-ter.
It is a noble role.
I will be the hottest hee-ter in the clan.
On the other side of the gap, my brothers still work to free Kelvan and find us a path.
But here, with Mih-kay-lah tucked between my legs and my arms around her, I have no intention of moving.
Let the mountain do as it pleases.
I have nowhere else I need to be.