CHAPTER 3 #3
Eleri swallowed hard. That seemed like the worst-case scenario.
She’d much rather listen to Myla prattle on about how much better her life was on Brasnia Prime than talk to someone else who had come to gawk at her.
Her stomach rolled painfully, and she clapped a steadying hand against her torso.
She should have known better than to fill her stomach.
Even without the additional warning from the luxportal technician, she was a nurse.
She’d seen enough people in the hospital on Gaia come in with portal sickness.
“You have a visitor!” Myla trilled from the doorway. “Although if you’d rather me turn him away, I will.”
Eleri stood from the table and ambled around the corner to see who could possibly be there to see her.
S’samph stood in the doorway of the dwelling, his head ducked low to avoid hitting the top of the doorframe.
Her expression soured. She couldn’t imagine what more he’d have to say to her after their miserable conversation that afternoon.
“Can we speak?” S’samph asked. Eleri remained seated. After his blatant and, truth be told, cruel rejection that afternoon, she wasn’t exactly feeling charitable. Her stomach made a noise of protest in solidarity.
“Well go on then.” Myla made a shooing gesture with one of her wings. “Don’t let me get in the way.”
Eleri pressed her lips in a thin line and walked outside the dwelling while doing her best to avoid eye contact with the male who had snubbed her so completely earlier that afternoon.
She noticed Myla hadn’t closed the door behind them, nor had she made any effort to disguise her obvious eavesdropping.
The dim sun hung low in the sky, casting a gray tint over the blue dirt.
She took several deliberate paces away from the house. S’samph followed in silence.
Finally, Eleri stopped near the irrigation canal.
The sounds of flowing water in the background might provide at least some privacy, but then again, most other species had better hearing than humans.
She steeled herself and turned to face him.
He stood a good head taller than her, but she forced herself to maintain a steady gaze.
He stared back in silence, but she wasn’t about to start the conversation. She wasn’t about to open a dialogue when he’d been the one to close it. Finally, he sighed and flicked his tail back and forth in a gesture that she seemed to recall was impatience.
“Would you like to come back to my nest?” The words were muttered and barely audible.
Eleri tried to stop her jaw from literally dropping open.
Of all the questions to ask after this morning.
She tried to read his face and then the rest of his body from the flat dorsal frill to the downturn of his mouth, searching for any indication of his real intentions.
But Eleri had never been particularly adept at social games.
“No thank you,” Eleri said, crossing her arms against her abdomen, partly in defensiveness and partly to try and quiet her rebelling intestines.
“Are you sure I can’t convince you?” His voice was low, but if he felt bad for the way he’d behaved earlier, she had no way of knowing.
“You haven’t exactly done much convincing.”
“Will you take another as a mate?”
Eleri’s brows shot up in response to the blunt question. “I haven’t thought about it yet.”
S’samph muttered something under his breath and scuffed a boot through the dust, kicking up a hazy cloud. His frill clung tight to his spine.
In response, Eleri tightened her arms and stared up at him with narrowed eyes. “Why did you really come here? This afternoon you made it plain you wanted nothing to do with me.”
“So, you won’t come back with me?”
“You haven’t given me any reason to.” Her overwrought stomach chose that moment to complete its revolt. A wave of nausea hit her. Eleri clasped her hands over her mouth.
“Are you unwell?” His hand clamped on her shoulder when all she wanted to do was get away to vomit in relative peace.
Eleri tried feebly to shove him away, but it was too late. She was sick all over his boots. Splatters of dark purple leaked across the thick leather.
“You need medical attention.” He grabbed her elbow and tried to pull her in some direction, but she wrenched herself away.
“You’ve done enough.” Her voice was raspy from the sting of acid in the back of her throat. “Please, just leave.” A stubborn lump rose in her throat.
“If you are ill, I will bring you to the clinic.” His frill stood up straight as it was able. Eleri wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and came away with purple slime, a slippery reminder of the berries she’d eaten.
“No thank you.” Eleri shrugged him off and wobbled back to Pyo and Myla’s dwelling.
She wasn’t going to apologize for the boots.
She’d come to Laurus to live a quiet life where no one was bothering her for her time, credits, or anything else she didn’t want to give willingly.
It was a promise she’d made to herself as she’d stood with the rest of the colonists on the observation deck of The Spark as it left port.
“Stubborn female, you should go to the medical center.” S’samph muttered and tried to herd her away from the house. Eleri rounded on him with the last bit of energy she had.
“Please, just leave me alone.” She stumbled back toward the house, and this time he didn’t try to follow her.
Eleri spent the rest of the evening in quiet mortification.
She’d vomited all over S’samph and had essentially told him he could go directly to hell.
When Myla had tried to talk to her when she went back inside, she’d rudely walked right past her.
She’d heard the whole thing anyway. In a small town like Laurus, she knew the news of their interaction would be all over town in a matter of hours.
It was the price she paid for leaving a big city for a town of less than two hundred people.
Now she lay on the narrow hammock and stared at the ceiling.
Stars above and stones below, she had no idea what she was going to do.
It was too late to think about leaving now.
Her IA contract had been bought and sold.
A lifetime on Cassiaq-IV making herself useful as a mate or anything else.
She had no credits. No friends. No family who wanted her for anything other than the monetary value they could squeeze out of her.
Nothing except the possibility to work. For whatever it was worth, she tried to keep the thought of finishing her training at the clinic at the forefront of her mind.
It was something positive to come from this mess of a situation, and she would put all her efforts into learning as much as she could about medicine. S’samph be damned.