Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
AIRIK
Hands. Small and hot. Everywhere.
Almost no part of him had been left untouched by the hands that worked him so fervently.
Stop it. Stop wanting it. This is killing you faster.
And then he was a child again. Little. Hiding under a broken wooden desk, one side tilted to the floor. Lying beneath long legs. Someone who had once mattered to him. His…father—
Don’t think of that word—that’s not what he was!
His progenitor tapped a foot, mumbling. Do not be afraid…do not be afraid… The ayngels explicitly said it to the humans in one of their holy books. Why would they kill us, then, for mistaking us for one of them?
More hands on him, pulling him out from under the desk. A woman laughing above him.
Mother. He could not stop this word, no matter how he raged against the memory of it.
So weak. Why was he so weak and sleepy?
Airik wanted to cry, but it’d been so long since he had that he couldn’t remember how.
You shouldn’t be listening to Urrthen superstition, little boy, the woman said. Or else you’ll go mad like your father.
The man scoffed, then ruffled Airik’s hair. My madness is due to you, cheranna.
A bitter flavor, yet somehow sweet, coated Airik’s mouth. Whatever dream—nightmare—he’d been in…vanished.
He sucked in air, only for the scent of her to drown him again.
A hand, the same small one as before, pressed against the left side of his chest. Someone was with him. Someone who needed him. Someone who smiled at him without wanting anything in return. Someone who, despite her constant gratitude, seemed oddly annoyed that he had saved her in the first place.
She is mine. I’ll keep her—
Not yours! You are nothing but untouched. Untaken. Unconquered.
He bolted upright, crashing through a sea of murmured sweetness and warmth.
“Nora!”
She would have left him. She would have seen him covered in blood and been frightened by how easily he could become that way.
Rubbing his chest and not feeling anything but skin, he looked down to find he’d been cleaned of every drop of poisoned blood.
“Nora…” His voice came out as a pained groan, his head heavy, unable to lift it to look up.
“I’m right here,” a small voice said to his right.
Forcing his neck straight, he turned to Nora. She wore her own orange shirt, one hand tugging it low around her bare thighs. She held out a bottle of water to him. Strands of hair stuck out from her head. In the hut’s darkness—was it night again?—her eyes were shadowed and purple beneath them.
“Hi,” she said, smiling. Greeting him casually, as if she hadn’t performed a miracle. A cleansing of his body, holding him afloat, warming him with her own body until he’d been reborn from the brink of death, transformed.
He couldn’t remember everything. Something had kept him under. But he’d felt her, dreamed of her.
Airik flexed his shoulders, feeling…all right.
His arm ached, and so did his throat and chest, but she had kept him whole.
Impulsively, he thrust his hand to his nose, seeking that floral, musky scent.
The smell of Nora burst into his brain. A torrent of sea and fruit blossoms drove him to press harder against his face to get more.
“I washed you,” she said. “Do you still smell blood? There’s plenty of soap if I missed a spot.”
Airik pushed his hand down, repulsed by the thought of washing away the traces of her left on his skin yet unwilling to reveal the depths of his apparent delirium.
“You’re…okay?” she asked hesitantly.
Was this the power of a human’s touch? Why the Veynari now wanted them brought into the fold? Or was this just Nora’s power over him?
He forced himself to look at her. His mouth dried seeing her hands in her lap, over her plump thighs. He was not…okay.
Glancing at the bottle, he asked, “How long?” Water would not quench this thirst, crushing his throat.
“Just a day,” she said, holding up the bottle again.
He’d never slept longer than several hours at a time—even with sleep serum.
When he didn’t take the water, she took a sip herself. A drop escaped her lips near the bottle’s wide opening, rolling down her chin.
It was only then that he needed it, too.
Her fingers didn’t brush his as she passed the bottle into his open hand.
She spoke as he drank: “You had some kind of reaction. I didn’t know what to do, so I washed you and gave you human meds.
I’m sorry—I couldn’t ask you, but I didn’t want you to die.
” Her hand twisted in the hem of her shirt.
“And…I had to touch you. A lot. I didn’t know how to build a fire to warm you. I’m sor—”
“I told you to go,” he said. “Still here. You did not leave me.” It was said with as much wonder as anger.
Her head snapped up, glaring at him as if he’d insulted her. “I couldn’t fucking leave you. Who would do something like that?”
The muscles in his body loosened, overriding his mind, and he leaned toward her. Maybe to have her weight anchor him through the dizziness still upon him.
“I’m sorry—for screaming,” she continued, scooting back. “When you told me not to. I was just…I’ve never been so close to an animal that big and—”
“Where is Lucky? Where is my sword?”
Her eyes widened in panic as she dropped the bottle, water splashing onto her lower body. A drop slipped between her thighs, spreading where they pressed together.
He turned away, thirst ravaging him even though he’d already drunk from the bottle. Water licked from her body would taste better than anything—he was as certain of this as he was that the suns would rise the next morning.
His head felt heavy as he looked around. Everything around him was as he had left it, including the margorok’s carcass. He spotted his gun, wrapped in a cloth, its handle sticking out from Nora’s pack. Good.
“You’re not going to hurt Lucky, are you?” She crawled over Airik’s legs, careful not to touch him but to catch his gaze. “Because he’s a good boy. He helped me—us. I won’t let you do a thing to him—”
“Let me?” Airik snorted. She had finally learned what a morazir was. “No…demon eyes. Not to hurt him. Or you. Never…” He couldn’t find the next words, her nearness clouding every single one of his thoughts. “I need…you far.”
“Oh, of course. Sorry.” She jumped back to where she’d been sitting.
He pushed to his knees, then to a stand, feeling like he fought the planet’s spin to keep from swaying.
“Wait—don’t try to walk!”
He groaned, trying to steady himself as he searched for his things.
Lucky’s body was halfway burrowed into the stump of the margorok’s neck, ripping off chunks of meat. By the size of the crater, he’d been eating for hours.
Airik reclaimed his clean sword—Nora must’ve rinsed it while he slept.
“Your little friend is poison. Wash him.” Airik shoved his legs into his remaining pair of clean trousers, still not turning to her. “Take a shirt from my bag. To cover more of yourself.”
He heard the rustle of fabric as she went through his things.
“If you want,” he said quickly. It wasn’t her fault he was a salivating beast, worse than the one he’d just slain.
“Thank you,” she said. “I think this shirt is too hot to wear here anyway… I’ll just leave it behind.” She sounded…broken.
Before he could tell her she could wear whatever she wanted—that he’d blindfold himself if he couldn’t tame his thoughts—he heard her hurry to the pool. “Bath time!” she called out.
Lucky gave Airik a strange look. He barked something. Short and long calls, irregular in pattern.
Without waiting for a response from Airik, Lucky dashed to the pool, followed by a splash.
They returned only a short while later. Lucky’s fur puffed around his face, brilliant again, and Nora had put on his shirt and her own pants.
“We’ll move somewhere with a door that can close,” Airik said. “And then I will show how to build a fire.”