It was unfair to expect her to make her way through the urvaka in a sitak that didn’t fit her properly. Though he found her clothing unflattering and it was still filthy, stained with blood, and riddled with holes and ragged tears, he had kept it, in case she felt too vulnerable being naked and rejected the harzek altogether.
She had not rejected his mating gift, but it had suffered much damage. Nothing he couldn’t have repaired, eventually, but for now, she needed clothing that she could move around in. After her reaction to the urvak zayul merely cleaning away her waste, he knew he needed to get her out of the urvaka so she could feel safe.
There was another advantage to returning the hideous nixir clothing to her. The way the sitak fit her so poorly revealed far too much of her body. Though he’d initially considered its softness off-putting and alien, his body seemed far more drawn to it than his mind. The blood of Seta Zul, goddess of fertility, that sealed his arousal had identified a drahi that appealed to him on a primal level, even if he resented it. His response to her pheromones was unmistakable, even if he resented that too. He wanted her. Wanted to perform the first mating ceremony with her. His body was eager for it. It was ready to pass the brand of the seal to her, even as it seared his own scales.
His mind might reject the idea, might find the fullness and roundness of her body too alien, too outside his experience—too reminiscent of his enemy—but his body had made up its mind.
Her original clothing would conceal most of her flesh, which he wanted to stroke and taste to explore her alien form. That curiosity and desire felt wrong to him after all these passings of viewing the nixirs as prey.
Sarah remained still and silent by the stone ring, sitting again with her knees pulled to her chest and held there by her arms. She stared into the pulsing light of the stones, though he felt her glances fall upon him as he paced. She obviously sensed his agitation. He wished he could explain the reason for it, and reassure her that it was not because of her.
Even if it was.
He was not above manipulating the truth. From what he knew about the nixirs, they were masters of falsehood. Lying was so second nature to them that they did it from the moment they learned to speak. Would Sarah truly judge him for omitting some of the truth, when her people had invented the lie?
That question didn’t matter yet. Sarah couldn’t really understand what he said anyway. Gestures were sufficient for the basics, and she knew how to ask for food and vandiz, or mo-err, as her people called it. If she grew hungry or thirsty, he could meet those needs. He’d packed enough food and drink to cover four cycles in the urvaka, just in case the invaders the urvak zayul had sensed approaching proved too cunning to be quickly dispatched. It turned out that Sarah was the one to cross the boundary, alone, so the extra supplies proved unnecessary. He could leave the urvaka in less than a cycle, since he knew its secrets, but taking her along meant slowing his pace considerably.
The other nixirs had carried strange things in their packs, and he’d claimed some of their weapons, abandoning the ones that smelled like nixir alchemy to the pit with their bodies. He would never bring such terrible things back to the skilev as trophies—though not all Jotahas held the same view on that. The daggers, though, while not beautiful, were strong and serviceable. Most of their possessions he left to the urvak zayul to destroy or spirit away to some unknown hiding place for their own, unfathomable reasons.
His drahi had not carried a nixir weapon with her, though she had found one in the pit, making him realize the folly of not destroying its functionality before leaving it behind. A nixir with more training could have done more damage to him with that weapon before he took them down. If he hadn’t been so distraught by the activation of his seal at the sight of a nixir female, he would have approached her with more caution. Jotahas in the past had made the foolish mistake of forgetting how dangerous the nixirs were, growing over-confident after previous hunting successes.
He cast a glance at his drahi, noting that her eyes kept closing. When that happened, her body would sag. Just as it looked like she would fall over, she’d jerk them open again, suddenly tensing.
She was probably exhausted. Whatever had left those marks on her body had no doubt worn at her spirit too. Traveling through the nixir tunnels had been harrowing for her. That much was obvious.
After the third time of her eyes closing, he realized he couldn’t wait for her to ask to return to the furs he’d laid out for her. For whatever reason, she fought her exhaustion and would not move to sleep on her own. If he was going to take her through the urvaka soon, then he needed her to be well rested and alert.
He turned to her, and she immediately tensed as he approached, regarding him with wide, wary eyes. He paused far enough away from her that she wasn’t in his shadow. Certain that he had her full attention, he gestured to the furs.
“Sarah, akonrir.”
“A cone rear,” she said slowly, in what was obviously an attempt to repeat him. She looked from the furs to him, then back to the furs. “I sure hope that means sleep and not ‘time to make alien babies’.”
He remained silent, and she sighed and pushed herself to her feet. It was clearly an effort for her and the sound of her pained groan had him rushing towards her to help her. He froze in place when she violently flinched away from him.
As he slowly backed away, she sighed and shook her head. “Sorry, big guy. You still kinda scare the shit out of me when you move like that.” She regarded him with a steady gaze, squaring her shoulders as if she had bolstered her courage. “Inhumanly fast and all that. Like a snake striking.”
Then she stretched her arms towards the stone ceiling, groaning again, though it sounded less pained than when she was climbing to her feet. He’d been so concerned about her pain that he’d failed to notice her seam was bared to him until she shoved the fabric of her shift down with both hands, as if only just realizing it herself.
He turned away, feeling the seal on his groin pulse as his salavik responded to the sight. She had a seam, like the one all yan-kanat had—male or female—only hers had a patch of curly fibers partially concealing it. He knew that nixir males were different than yan-kanat males. He had seen images of their anatomy. He had also come across some males who were lost in the urvaka relieving themselves, dropping their guard just long enough for him to dispatch them. They were obscene with their exposed salaviks, and he still wondered how it could possibly be safe always dangling outside their body. It was also disgusting that they passed their fluid waste through the same organ that they used to mate, instead of from their clavek with their solid waste, as the yan-kanat did.
Her seam appeared to trail from low on her pelvis down between her legs, whereas a female yan-kanat’s sat on the front of her pelvis, like his did. He had no idea how her vessel was shaped but knew that it would be compatible enough to bear him nestlings. If she couldn’t produce a family for him, it wouldn’t be because of her body being mismatched with his.
He had not satisfied his curiosity when he was treating her wounds. It would be unacceptable to explore her body with desire while she was unconscious. Not to mention unwise, given the need to wait until the sata-drahi’at before his salavik could even leave his seam in arousal without experiencing painful burns.
That didn’t mean the sight of it lacked an effect on him. He tried to calm his agitation, keeping his spines lowered with effort. High emotions caused them to stand erect, and sometimes it was a battle to flatten them to avoid giving away his internal turmoil.