He made no comment when she left the cave. She didn’t have to hunch over like he did, since the ceiling gave her head plenty of space at her full height. Poor Jotaha did not look like he was made for these smaller tunnels. She wondered why his species was so tall if they lived in this vast cave system. It seemed like they would have evolved to be shorter, or to crawl like those creatures in that cave horror movie she’d recently watched.
She hadn’t seen any more of his kind in all the walking they’d done, but there were plenty of places others like him could be hiding in all the many forks they’d passed.
She had plenty of time to ponder these questions, as Jotaha remained mostly silent during their long, seemingly endless journey through tunnel after tunnel. The mysteries could only keep her distracted for so long. Eventually, her strength flagged and she started stumbling, every muscle in her body aching from a lack of rest, damage, and walking forever in the wake of Jotaha, who seemed to possess endless stamina.
Probably noting her fatigue, he led her to another cave with a higher ceiling that he could stand tall in. This cave contained more of the glow stones, a fact she discovered when he used his combat knife to push them together into a ring that started glowing as soon as one stone came near another. Within minutes, he had a warm, light ring glowing, and had dropped his pack to withdraw his mug and waterskin.
After seeing that she was fed and hydrated, Jotaha unwrapped the two furs she’d used and rolled them out near the stone ring. The cave wasn’t spacious enough for him to place his fur anywhere else but right beside her two.
She would have to lay right next to this alien stranger. The idea should have made her nervous at the very least. He would be very close to her while she slept. She’d be easily within reach of his hands—his body. Instead of horrifying her, the thought intrigued her, and made her feel warmth in a place she’d tried for so long to pretend was dead.
There was no way she was perving on her lizardman alien protector. That would be a step too far, wouldn’t it? Her life had changed so much in a time frame she couldn’t even pinpoint because she hadn’t seen the sun for so long. But had she changed so much that she could consider being with an alien without a macabre undertone of horror to the idea? Had she changed so much that she could consider such things and experience an actual tingling between her legs, and a flutter of anticipation in her stomach, instead of a sense of fear and dread?
Her unwelcome and unexpected feelings of attraction to Jotaha turned out to be irrelevant, as he didn’t touch her at all while lying beside her. She would know, because she couldn’t sleep and ended up just lying there listening to his soft, steady breathing, wondering if he would make a move on her. His deliciously masculine scent surrounded her, reminding her that for all his inhuman traits, there was still much about him that resembled a desirable human male.
She had the unnerving realization that her feelings towards Jotaha had experienced a radical shift the moment he buried his blade in the bat-cat monster trying to kill her. He’d come to her rescue. A knight in shining armor—literally—was a tough thing for a girl to resist. Even when she wanted to.
18
His drahi’s scent was driving him crazy with need. The only thing keeping him from reaching for her when her body heat was so close to him as they lay beside each other was the grim reminder of the cost of his salavik everting while the seal remained active. If he ever wanted to mate successfully with his drahi, he could not afford to risk his mating spine in such a reckless way.
The seal was a lifetime commitment for a male yan-kanat. If he followed through the sata-drahi’at with his drahi, then he would never be able to evert for another female. Even on the rare chance that a yan-kanat male stopped loving his mate, he would always cherish her and be gentle with her, because she would be the only mate he’d ever have after the sealing.
There were rare occasions where a drahi refused to be marked by the male Seta Zul chose for her. She could not be forced. The seal would not brand her if she rejected it and turned away from her male. For a male who could not convince his drahi to accept his seal, all yan-kanat would know he was a failure. In that event, the blood of Seta Zul could be removed safely by Seta Zul’s priests, allowing the male to seek solace in the arms of another lover, but neither the male nor the female who rejected her role as drahi would ever produce nestlings after that. Seta Zul did not appreciate her will being denied.
When he’d requested the seal so that he could start working on a family, he’d had no fear that Farona would reject his claim and his mark. She would have been right there with him, gladly entering into the sata-drahi’at with the same meditative chants and serene calm with which she approached all their lovemaking. It hadn’t even occurred to him that he might have to win the affection of his drahi before claiming her.
Now, he faced a difficult challenge. He had been so frustrated and angry about the fact that he had been sent a nixir drahi that he hadn’t thought about whether she would even accept him as her mate until he started them on the path home. Though concern over her safety remained at the forefront of his mind, he could not keep it from straying to thoughts of what would happen once her safety was assured in the skilev.
Sarah, thus far, had shown no interest in his naked form. He couldn’t be certain if it was even a nixir custom for a female to study the lines of her future mate’s body to ensure that he would be a good partner for her and provide strong nestlings that she would not have to fear losing before they had even left the nest.
Jotaha was at the peak of his strength and vigor. He had trained for his role for the majority of his life, ever since he was taken out of the nest to become a jotah—guardian in training. He was far stronger than any of his peers, and even most males of the yan-kanat, barring the other Jotaha who shared his training and bond with the chanu zayul.
Yet she had not shown much interest in his body, hardened by muscle and honed by his physical prowess. He knew his shape was not significantly different from the males of her species, though his size exceeded theirs, and he was much stronger than they were.
His height had been an issue that had almost altered his path when he’d suddenly hit a growth spurt during training, and he’d nearly been switched to a sentil path. If he hadn’t learned to fight in a crouch or crawl almost as rapidly as he ran, he would not have been allowed to enter the initiation room at all. Even then, if the chanu zayul had rejected him, he would be hunting snow stalkers and visloga and other deadly predators in the mountains or in the deserts of the barrens, instead of the far deadlier nixirs in the urvaka.
Despite growing to the height of a sentil hunter rather than remaining the shorter height of the typical Jotaha, he didn’t think his size alone would be enough to distress his drahi. It was more likely that it was their differences that kept her from seeing him as a male. When he could speak to her and truly explain things, and understand her words in return, perhaps he could make her see that they were more compatible than she might believe.
Until then, he had to rein in his growing desire for his soft, warm drahi. He tried to dredge up his initial resentment about her being chosen by his seal, just to cool his ardor. The problem was that the more time he spent with her and saw how courageous and determined she was to survive the challenges that were thrown at her, the more he respected her. As he learned to respect her, he saw her as more than simply a nixir, a female of the species that had been so arrogant as to slay even one of the Ajda in their never-ending quest for power.