When he finished treating her back wounds, he was tempted to stroke some of the soft, temptingly warm skin that she had exposed to him. Now was not the time, even if she could understand his intent. Moving in that direction before they could have the sata-drahi’at would only be torture for him, as his salavik would ache with the need to fulfill his desire to join with her.
Besides, he wanted to speak to his drahi and understand her words before they completed the sealing and he marked her as his forever. For now, all he could do was dream about the feeling of her warm skin pressed against his scales, the heat of her alien body seeping into him, filling him with some of her warmth. He would never have to keep an inferno stone close in the cold again with her beside him.
He thought guiltily of Farona, and how quickly he’d pushed her from his mind after a lifetime of loving her. He wondered if this, too, was Seta Zul’s influence—or if it was some magic of the nixir female.
The thought of his childhood love filled him with a sense of sadness and regret. Telling Farona about Sarah would not be easy, but she revered Seta Zul as much as any yan-kanat. She knew that only the drahi chosen for him had any chance of bearing his nestlings. She also knew how much he wanted nestlings of his own, and how worried he was about not being able to produce them, even with his drahi and Seta Zul’s blessing.
Despite his feelings for Farona, he could not regret now that Seta Zul had decreed this nixir to be his drahi. She had more than proven herself, even though he hadn’t expected to claim such a fierce drahi. He had never imagined being in an unthinkable situation where his mate had to defend herself, without him there to protect her. He never wanted her to be in that position again. Even his duty to his people would not draw him from her side again until he had her safe in the skilev.
As he motioned for Sarah to give him her hand so that he might coat her singed palm with the paste, he accepted that he might have eventually grown too complacent with a partner like Farona. He had seen even the most compatible couplings turn sour many passings after a sealing, as if they had let Seta Zul’s fire die from neglect when they fell into a cyclic pattern that led to dullness and discontent. Too much familiarity seemed to breed in them a sense of boredom.
The kind of female who would try to crush an attacker’s skull with a scorching inferno stone, or bury a stolen dart into its eye to save herself, was the kind of female who would never grow boring. She would always keep him on alert, even after he became Jotahan—a retired guardian. Her deviousness would challenge him. Her ferocity would heat his blood as much as her body would warm his scales.
For now, her eyes were lowered as he tended the burned skin of her palm. Her free hand clutched the fabric of her torn tunic to her bare chest, concealing her full mounds from him. They were for feeding nixir young, he’d been told, like the teats of a snow stalker fed its kits. Except that the nixir females were always swollen, even when they weren’t producing for young. It was yet another intriguing, alien thing about his drahi that he wanted to explore.
From what he knew about crossbreeding with nixirs, the yan-kanat traits were almost always dominant because of the Ajda blood—except in very rare cases where some nixir traits were passed on through multiple generations—meaning any nestlings born to her would likely be able to eat the same foods an adult yan-kanat could eat at birth and would not require her milk to thrive.
By the time he was finished with the paste, he realized that the lowered gaze and tight skin around Sarah’s mouth, coupled with her trembling muscles, was a sign that her stoicism was cracking. When her gaze lifted to meet his for only a brief moment before it lowered again, returning to studying the inferno stones, he saw that her eyes looked wide and slightly wild. He realized that she was barely holding it together, and suspected that she did so thus far because he was there.
He would have been flattered by that, if he didn’t also suspect her tight grip on herself had more to do with a distrust of him than a desire to impress him. The nixirs kept their guard up at all times, always prepared for an attack. It must be exhausting to live among their kind, always watching one’s back, always waiting for your own people to turn against you and try to kill you at the first sign of weakness. Without the yan-kanat to slaughter, nixirs turned on their own kind, as if they could not end their violence even when their enemy left the battlefield.
It was strange that the nixir that had attacked his Sarah had not looked like her. It had looked more beastly. More like the vurruk that provided the heat-resistant furs that the yan-kanat used to keep the warmth of inferno stones close to them when the heart of Theia grew cold.
It had still smelled like a nixir. It was a pity that the nixirs were creatures with such darkness in their hearts that they would seek to destroy the yan-kanat, and even had the arrogance to go after the Ajda themselves. This new breed of nixir, which the urvak zayul had dragged from the cave by the time he finished tending Sarah’s wounds and rinsed out his crock, looked even more vicious. More twisted by the darkness that plagued their spirits.
Sarah had pulled her tunic back on with far more ease than she’d taken it off, now that the pain inhibitor had dulled the area. She still stared at the pulsing light of the stones, seemingly unwilling to meet his eyes again. He wondered if he had the strength to banish the darkness that lived inside her, as it lived within all nixirs, born from the betrayal of the titans. He had to trust that Seta Zul would not have chosen her for his drahi if he was not strong enough to save her from her own nature.
For some reason, the goddess had chosen her to be his drahi, and it was unwise to question the wisdom of the Ajda. He would teach his nixir that she could lower her guard among the yan-kanat, and trust that his people would not attack her at every turn. She would know that she could be safe, and find happiness among them. Perhaps then, she would avoid the fate of turning into something as monstrous as those beastly nixirs. He would ensure that his love would be enough to save her from herself.
17
Sarah accepted the mug of tea from Jotaha, but met his intent gaze only briefly before returning her contemplative stare to the hot river stones. Her shoulders tensed every time he moved to his pack, and the anxiety about him discovering her theft and finally understanding why the bat-cat thing had a dart in its eye was enough to pull her out of the darkness of her thoughts.
She wondered what he would do when he realized that she’d stolen from him. He would also have to realize that she was planning to use the weapon on him. There was no way she could explain to him that it was only a contingency plan, in the event that he posed a threat to her. Now, she didn’t have a plan, and because of her actions, he might very well retaliate.
Though, if she was being entirely honest, she didn’t truly believe he would hurt her. Not now. Not after he went through so much to come to her rescue. He had been severely wounded. So much so that worms were coming out of his neck. That was something she couldn’t unsee, but his reaction to the freaky event proved that those things were a part of him, and the one leaving his neck was a sign of a bad thing happening to him. Yet, he had still made his way back here from wherever he’d been wounded by the monster, in order to protect her.
No, she was more worried that he would simply leave her. Just pack up his stuff and walk out of the cave, leaving her to find her own way home in the darkness because of her ingratitude. Leaving her alone again.