“Thanas, you look excellent, Nova,” she practically sang with joy. “So … clean! You smell wonderful! And your hair is so beautiful. I have never seen such a pretty shade of brown before. Your clothes fit you perfectly, too.”
I blushed something fierce as I looked down at myself then at Surkah and said, “Thanks. I’ve never had clothes without mending patches on the worn sections. I love them.”
She beamed at me and then looked back at Mikoh. “Excuse us. We’re going to break our fast alone.”
“I’m accompanying you both.”
Surkah stomped her foot on the ground, and it caused my lips to twitch. She might be almost forty years old to the Maji, eighty years old to me, but behaved like the teenager she appeared to be.
“I want to go on my own with Nova. I never get to spend time alone with another female that isn’t my kin.”
“I won’t speak or engage in anything you both do, but I’m accompanying you both. Your safety is my number one priority.”
“Please.”
“This is not up for discussion, female.”
“Mikoh.”
“Surkah.”
“My intended,” she growled softly and stepped closer to him, putting her back to me. “I will be very thankful if you grant me this.”
Mikoh sucked in a deep breath, and I momentarily wondered where Surkah’s right hand went to until I heard Mikoh’s struggle for breath. I grinned and looked down as I scuffed my toes against the heated floor, trying to give them as much privacy as I could without walking away.
“My female,” he hissed. “The answer is still …”
I muffled a giggle with my hand when his answer was a groan instead of a word.
“What is your answer, my male?”
Surkah purred like a cat.
“Kuat damn me to the Underworld, but it’s … no.”
Surkah stopped whatever she was doing to Mikoh, and I heard his strangled whine of protest as she dropped her hand and shoved past him. She was pissed at his decision, but to be honest, no one looked more annoyed than Mikoh at the current moment. It meant his hanky-panky was indefinitely cut short.
I pretended not to see Mikoh adjust the front of his trousers for two reasons. One, because it was private, and he didn’t need me gawking at him. And two, because the outline of his penis was shockingly large. He didn’t trust me as it was, so I didn’t want him to think I was a pervert too.
“Shall I lead the way?” he asked Surkah through gritted teeth as he mockingly bowed.
When I moved to her side, she grabbed my hand and tugged me along with her. I had to jog to keep up with her long strides. I heard Mikoh’s soft growls as he followed closely behind, but he said nothing further. We walked down long hallways, passing by a few males who were dressed in the same uniform as Mikoh, with daggers strapped to the side of their thighs, and had serious expressions on their faces. I jumped when two of them lifted their right arms over their chest, roughly pressed their fists against their bodies, and bowed their heads. I looked at Surkah as she walked by them without so much as a glance their way.
Weird.
I moved closer to Surkah when we entered a large mess hall lined with tables and chairs. The room was huge, white and looked so clean and pretty. Maji occupied the left side of the room, and human women were on the right side. There were faces everywhere, human and Maji, but only the Maji stood, put their fists over their chests, and bowed their heads. Again, I looked at Surkah. She had told me she was a princess, but at that moment, I fully grasped that she really was a freaking princess.
I found it cool, but that emotion was wiped away when I took in the Maji. There were so many of them, and they were all so big, muscular, and damn tall. I had never seen a species were every male’s appearance screamed how masculine they were. If they decided to kill every human in sight, not one of us would stand a chance.
Surkah suddenly turned to face me when she inhaled.
“What do you fear?” she demanded.
I hated her heightened sense of smell.
“It’s just crowded in here, but I’m fine. I promise.”
Big. Fat. Lie.
I had to remember that my fear gave off a scent she could easily detect. I also had to suck it up. I couldn’t afford to become an annoying burden to the Maji; I didn’t want any extra attention from them. I sat with Surkah and Mikoh and was surprised when a male brought us three steel trays of food. I noticed he pointedly ignored Surkah and gave her tray to Mikoh. As a matter of fact, every male in the room made it their business to look away from our table. A few of them even moved tables to get further away from us.
“You weren’t joking about no other male looking at you,” I mumbled to Surkah. “They’re pretending you’re not here.”
She chuckled. “They might be curious if Mikoh wasn’t here, but they fear him.”
“I can’t imagine why,” I said dryly.
Surkah snorted, Mikoh grumbled to himself, and I grinned.
Surkah dug into her breakfast, but Mikoh didn’t. He looked at me like he was waiting for me to start eating before he would even consider beginning. I was hesitant because I had no idea what I was about to consume, and I didn’t know if I wanted to know. There was a thick-cut, dark brown piece of meat of some kind with a white sauce over it and what looked like mashed potatoes but was a little creamier and was blood red with herbs of some kind mix into it. My instincts told me not to eat it, that it could be laced with drugs, but the rational side of my brain told me the Maji didn’t need to go to such lengths to knock me out if they wanted to. Another quick glance around the mess hall told me the food was fine because other humans were happily eating it.
With an emphasis on the happy.
“It’s good,” Surkah said when she saw I wasn’t eating. “The other humans have said, and I quote, the ‘nicest food ever.’”
My lips quirked as I picked up my odd-looking knife and fork. I cut up some of the strips of meat into small bites and gathered some of the red mash and white sauce onto my fork and tucked it into my mouth. Flavour instantly burst over my taste buds, and I couldn’t help but groan. It was so good.
“Well?” Surkah’s lips quirked. “Is it the nicest food ever?”
I bobbed my head, making her and Mikoh chuckle. The human women were right; it was the nicest food ever. Granted, I only ate what could be grown in bad soil or whatever small, malnourished game I could catch and kill, but even on my hungriest of days, food never tasted as spectacular as this.
I cleared my tray in minutes, and I looked up at Mikoh when I felt his eyes on me. He had nearly finished his own food at this point, but his focus was on me and not his remaining food. I didn’t get a chance to say anything to him because he suddenly stood and walked over to the huge food buffet. The males who were queuing up for food moved aside when he approached. He gathered more food onto a clean steel tray and brought it back over to me. He silently put it in front of me and removed the now empty one to the side.
“Eat,” he said gruffly after I thanked him.
I continued eating because I was still very hungry. I managed to clear three-quarters of the food piled tray, but that was the best I could do without becoming violently sick and throwing up everything I just ate.