Chapter 18 #3
“It’s not about having space from me. It’s about having something to call your own. Something just yours.” I swallow heavily as he meets my gaze. “I have a feeling you didn’t get much of that before you came here.”
I say nothing. I was not trained to want things that belong to just me. I am an Outerlander. We lived in shared villages and worked to serve those in the capital. There was nothing else for us.
It has been and always will be our duty.
Only, now that I’m here—now that I’ve seen the way humans live—perhaps there are things we could learn from them. Because they suffer as we do, and they have unkind, cruel people in positions of power just like us.
But they find happiness where we were told happiness and joy stand in the way of our true purpose.
And the lies I have swallowed for so many years now taste bitter.
“This bed,” Dante says, drawing my attention back to him, “will always be ours. But let me show you something, okay?” He takes me by the hand and tugs me out of the bedroom. “I was going to do this last night, but then there was the party, and then I had the weird reaction to the zitha.”
He stops at the same time I do, and he reads the expression on my face.
“Do you know why that happened to me? Is it…is it like a human thing? Or an allergy thing?”
My eyes widen. We did not speak of why he took the herbs. I assumed perhaps he was curious. Or that Everest talked him into it. Now I realize he does not know what they were.
‘Not zitha,’ I sign to him, spelling the herb name as best I can with ASL letters.
He frowns. “What?”
‘You took ruenox and oyen.’ I watch his lips curve through the letters like he’s testing how they’re pronounced. I send him the Eretharian words and what they mean in my head, and he jolts.
“Wait. So…” He licks his lips, then glances over his shoulder in the direction of the kitchen. “I’m going to call Everest later. I can’t believe he gave those to me.”
He seems confused, and I do not like that he feels this way. I don’t want last night to have been a mistake. I do not ever—ever—want him to regret me.
“Cielo,” he breathes out. I am no good at hiding my thoughts from him now that we have a connection.
His smaller body pushes me against the wall, and he lifts onto his toes.
He’s nowhere near my height or my size, and yet I feel completely safe in his arms. “I don’t regret that.
Any of it. Or you. Everest probably left them here by mistake—an accident,” he clarifies when I flinch, “but I wouldn’t change it. Last night felt…”
He doesn’t use words.
Instead, he sends me sensation, emotion, things that overwhelm me and make my cock stir in my sheath. I wish to release it, but I don’t. Instead, I let him take my hand and pull me to the second bedroom.
The door opens with a soft creak, and inside, there are gentle, small, flickering lights hanging near the ceiling that remind me of the caves at home with the glowing githyn floating along the walls.
There is no bed, but there is an oversized cushion like the one at the gym café that I once spilled my latte on.
There’s a table in the corner and a small machine that smells like coffee, and a row of hooks with coffee mugs dangling from each.
There are other things I don’t understand and don’t recognize, but I can feel Dante’s trepidation humming between us. He is not sure I will like this.
“Beauuutifllll,” I tell him.
He laughs. “It’s not much. Not yet. I thought maybe we could figure out some things you want to put in here. I gave you a Nespresso.” He points to the strange device that smells of coffee. “It’s not as good as the machine in the kitchen, but it’ll make small lattes whenever you want.”
I trill happily, and he grins wider.
“And maybe—if there are things from Erethar that you miss, things that Everest can bring back for you—we can put them in here, too.”
There is little, I think, that would survive on Earth besides us. Perhaps an animal. A xelshe would be a fine companion, but I’m not sure I want to take the risk.
I pull Dante close and lean down to kiss him harder and deeper. “Thank. You,” I say very slowly, measuring the human words with my lips and tongue.
Dante touches my jaw, then traces a touch over my cheek. “Your speech is getting better.”
It is. And I do not know if it is the cum, or him, or the fact that I am feeling more unburdened than ever before, but the changes are noticeable.
‘I still like this,’ I sign.
He grins wider and goes up onto his toes to kiss me. When he pulls back, he signs between us, ‘Same-same.’
Before Dante leaves, he pushes me to my knees, pulls out his cock, and feeds me his cum. For a moment, I think about protesting, but the scent of him and the taste of him are too tempting. I drink him down once more, sucking him dry, as though it’s the only thing I’m capable of doing.
He kisses me again when it’s over, whispering in my ear that he will see me soon. And then he’s gone, and the apartment is quiet.
I don’t like being on my own. It’s lonely. It reminds me of being in the dark, in chains, in agony. The memories of my experience are getting stronger now.
When I first arrived—when Everest pulled me into his lap after I was thrown through the portal—I didn’t remember much. Now, when my eyes close, I relive it, and the pain is overwhelming.
It’s easy to forget when Dante is here, but in these moments on my own, it’s too much.
I only last a few minutes, wandering around the room Dante prepared for me, testing the cushion—then trying and failing to work the Ness machine Dante set up for me. In the end, I put on my coat and leave, locking the door behind me and taking long strides toward the gym.
I do not know if my friends will be there. Or perhaps Quilliyn will be working. But even if I’m alone, the noise is enough to distract me. It makes the ache go away for a little while, and I can keep myself together until I’m with my Dante again.
The weather is warmer today, but the Earth’s air is a little thinner, and it makes drawing breath harder than it is on Erethar. The taste of the wind is not as sweet.
But Earth has so many things Erethar does not.
The trees are different, and the sky is pale. And I have not seen them yet, but I have read that there are vast bodies of water above the surface, crashing on the shore.
Water is not so precious a thing here, and I hope that one day, perhaps Dante will take me to see it all for myself.
For now, the freedom of moving around on my own is enough to keep my spirits up. I enter the gym and immediately spot Quilliyn wiping down one of the rowing machines.
“Cielo!” Quilliyn calls out. He drops the towel he was using to clean and bounds over. His gaze takes me in, a slow up and down like he’s assessing me.
Can he tell what I’ve done?
“You look well.”
I bow my head. “I…am well. Thank you, sire.”
“Cielo,” he warns.
“Forgive me.”
With a small sigh, he leans forward and touches his forehead to mine. It is not a greeting I have ever earned before from a royal, but Quilliyn gives it out so freely, and the comfort is like a human hug.
“Are you here to work out?” he asks.
I bite my lip and shrug. “Yes. I do not know what else to do with myself. Dante works, and I have no means to assist him with money. Humans pay so much to live.”
Even the Outerlanders do not want for basic needs. Not food. Not shelter. Not medicine.
It is cruel to know how some humans suffer for no reason at all.
“Yes. It’s…different,” Quilliyn says. “But Dante seems like he’s doing okay.”
I shrug. “Yes. But he is tired. And often unwell.”
Quilliyn’s ears flick, telling me he has some idea about Dante’s condition. “Is the zitha helping?”
My skin heats, and I can’t meet his gaze. The mention of zitha makes me think of last night and what we did. And the rules I broke. And how much I wish to break them again with my Dante.
“I can feel that,” I hear Dante say in my head.
“I miss you,” I send back.
My body erupts with warm affection for him.
Quilliyn is watching me carefully. Studying me. I cannot hide from him, and I am grateful he cannot hear my thoughts the way Dante can.
After a short while, his ears droop a bit. “Do you want a job?”
I blink at him. “A…job.”
“To help with Dante’s bills. It would be tricky. With the banishment, I wouldn’t be allowed to make it official. But no one checks in with me about that sort of thing. And no one would question me on who I hire.”
I’m not sure I understand, and I hum a trilling note to show him my confusion.
He beckons me along through the gym, then stops at the entrance where the little café sits. The smell of coffee makes my stomach rumble.
“I would pay you,” he says. “But it would be bending some rules. And it might be difficult as you can’t speak the human tongue—”
“I ammm,” I tell him slowly, “gettinnnng bettr.”
His eyes go wide. “I see.” He’s quiet for a moment, then says, “I could have you trained on making the coffee drinks so you won’t have to interact with the customers too much.”
I stare at him. I don’t fully understand what he’s offering me.
“It would only be a few hours a week, but I could give you cash at the end of the day, and you can use that to help Dante. Or put money away for yourself if you want to have your own home—”
I let out a possessive, growling hiss. I do not mean to make this sound. Never in my life have I ever made such a noise at a member of the royal family. It’s surely a torture sentence, if not death.
I’m ready to prostrate myself in my humiliation, but Quilliyn erupts into laughter and curls a hand around the back of my neck, knocking his forehead into mine again.
“I understand.”
Does he?
“Againstttt rulessss,” I say in English.
“I don’t give a fuck about the rules,” he answers me in Eretharian. “You must know that by now.”
I suppose I do, though it is still hard to believe.