Chapter 6
Haven
Haven was confused. Was this not what she was supposed to do?
From what Haven had observed from the aliens of the Coalition, when someone had their mating instincts triggered, the other or others would fall in line and let their own instincts be triggered in turn – if they hadn’t already.
No one really questioned it. No one fought it.
The universe or the gods or fate or whatever you believed in had decided that was your person, so why play the hard to get game?
Why pretend like it was going to be anything other than what it was?
The captain had decided that she was to remain locked up until she divulged her secrets – which was rather what she expected. And exactly what she wanted. It meant that she got to stay on the Humility. The punishment was her goal.
Sure, not being able to go anywhere wasn’t super fun, but the nest itself was comfortable, and she was having a lot of fun poking at the Big Guy. The nest also had everything she needed, including a little privy to use and wash up in built into the back.
Vytln was grumpy and focused and he was obviously having an issue with her. Because she triggered his mating instincts by crawling into his trap. He was resisting the urge to claim her, and she wasn’t sure that he had to.
And if he wanted to mate her, and being his mate meant she got to stay on the Humility, then why bother fighting it?
Sure, she didn’t know him that well, but he was interesting.
And she really loved the Humility. She could go along with it if it meant getting all the benefits that came with it. If she wouldn’t have to leave.
To her surprise, however, Vytln didn’t immediately jump at her offer.
He should be excited, right? He should be making it happen.
He was pretty big, intimidatingly large, actually.
He was not only tall but broad and muscular.
The glowing cracks all over his upper body, easily visible through the sleeveless black tank top he wore, only made him seem larger, more impressive.
He could easily hold her down and take what he wanted.
She admired that he wouldn’t. And admired his large figure.
He could definitely carry a heavy engine.
But her offer to let it happen seemed to cut off all that tension that had been winding him up since he found her in his trap. Now, though he had his arms around her, though she felt the pleasant heat pouring off him in waves surrounding her, his expression was closed off.
He asked-
“Are you attracted to me, or are you just saying this because you think you should?”
It was a question she didn’t expect. And one she didn’t have an answer to.
Vytln wasn’t ugly. His features were… inhuman, but not unpleasant.
Blocky, rocky, hard and uncompromising. His nose was square, his jaw was square.
The ring of short horns on his head were rough and chipped in places.
They looked like they’d do a lot of damage if he rammed them into someone.
Something she could too easily see him doing.
It seemed like the sort of wild, half bestial attack he would make.
His shoulders were broad, his biceps were big, his hands were like plates, his thighs like tree trunks.
He wasn’t the biggest guy on the crew, but the proud way he held himself, the way he stood unapologetically, the way he towered over her, cracks and eyes burning like embers, made him larger than even life.
He was human-ish, but completely monstrous. Like a rock ogre or a golem. She couldn’t say that she didn’t like it though. He was interesting to look at. She was curious about him. She wanted to know how his body worked.
And since she normally had no interest in the squishy sciences, that said a lot.
So… maybe?
Is this what attraction was? It wasn’t similar to the itch she sometimes scratched with other nomads she passed. That feeling was just a biological urge to purge. Something she did that felt good, that satisfied in the moment but was quickly forgotten.
No, this was more similar to the excited fluttering in her belly she felt when she discovered something new and interesting to learn.
But because it was new, because it was unfamiliar, it took her too long to decide on the answer.
Vytln must have decided that her answer was a negative one, because – rather reluctantly – he released his grip on her and stepped back.
Allowing her more room to look over his body.
The gray jumpsuit he wore on his legs looked like he’d ripped off the top part, leaving the waist above his belt messy and frayed.
The black boots on his feet were huge, like boats.
She kind of thought she could see more cracks there in his legs and on his chest, faintly glowing through the fabric.
She blinked at them before gesturing at the biggest glowing mark she could see there on his right forearm. Spreading out there on the outside of his arm was a thick network of cracks, like safety glass that had shattered but maintained its form.
“What are those being?” She asked. “Marks?”
He lifted his arm, giving her a better look at the crisscrossing series of cracks.
They were 3D, creating crevices in his skin.
They were chaotic and beautiful, and she wondered if those were like some kind of fancy tattoo she didn’t know about – very possible – or maybe they were like birth marks for his people.
The look on his face gave her a clue before he said softly, “They’re scars.”
“Scars,” she repeated, frowning, her eyes moving over them again.
The thick network on his right arm, the slightly less thick network on the left.
There were more on the rest of his arms, across his chest, one cracking up his neck.
They must continue under his pants, almost certainly around his back where she couldn’t see.
His face, really, was the only place free of them.
She thought they were beautiful.
But they were all… scars.
Injuries. Wounds. Unhealing cracks and crevices marking him permanently. So many. All over his body. Looking at them, knowing that they were proof of him being hurt, suddenly made the beautiful horrible.
“I am being sorry,” she said, reaching up and, slowly, gently, putting her hand over the crisscrossing network of scars.
He was very hot blooded. She could feel the heat coming off of him like it was pouring off a campfire. But she loved it. She was always cold, probably anemic, if she ever cared to get it checked, and she was used to working around hot engines. It was pleasant to her.
The scars looked like they would burn. Like glowing coals that were the only remnants of a once raging bonfire. She even hesitated over them, half worried they might burn her, but also giving Vytln a chance to pull back if he wanted.
But he didn’t, and when her fingers gently came to rest on the marks, she found that they were definitely hot, but not burning. They were rough though, like a hardened scab. Or a raw piece of pumice stone.
“Don’t be sorry,” he said, staring at her hand where it rested gently on him. The barest hint of a connection that felt somehow both delicate and powerful. “They’re wounds I earned fighting. They are marks of my power. I’m proud of them.”
“Would others being proud of them?”
He didn’t answer, which told her enough. She smiled at him again.
“I am liking them. Very warm. Very tough.”
He gave her a look that told her he didn’t at all miss her weak attempt at agreeing with him. Even if she did mean it, the words had absolutely sounded placating.
“My people are tough,” he said, turning his arm, showing her the soft underside. Softer. His entire body was hard and toughened, so it was a relative term.
There was only one stray crack on the underside.
The rest of the brown skin there was whole and intact.
She touched it as he clearly intended to let her do.
The skin wasn’t rounded like hers was, nor was it polygonal like he was a video game character from the 90s.
But it was somewhere between those points.
It wasn’t quite hard like stone, though her eyes were convinced it must be, but it was certainly tougher than her skin, more like thick leather than flesh.
“Very tough,” she agreed, tapping her nail on his skin. It didn’t really give like hers would. She imagined it would be much harder to cut. To injure.
And if that were true, just how hard was he hit to leave so many marks all over his body?
“I’m very resistant to cutting,” he said. “My skin will heal from most cuts just fine. But blunt damage cracks and spreads open. And if the damage is bad enough, it won’t heal together and even when it heals, it leaves the cracks behind.”
“Blunt scars,” she said in wonder. It didn’t just look like broken glass, it acted similar to broken glass. His skin shattered, it didn’t cut.
Fascinating.
And terrible.
“Why?” She asked, raising her eyes up to his. Why had he been injured? Where had all these marks come from? What happened to him?
It was hard to find all the words to form the questions. She wasn’t eloquent enough in Standard to get her point across completely. But he didn’t need her to.
He also didn’t answer. But his jaw tightened. He pulled his arm back, breaking that tenuous connection he had briefly allowed between them.
“You have your secrets, I have mine,” he said. “Didn’t you say you were going to fix my stabilizer? That was the only reason I let you out.”
It was an extremely obvious attempt to change the conversation. But she allowed it to happen, following after him as he led the way back to the workbench.
And for the first time in her life, she was more interested in a person than the broken technology spread before her.