Strangely enough, he didn’t mistrust Sarah. He didn’t think she would attack him or betray him. Part of that was because Seta Zul would not have chosen her for him if she were capable of betraying him so readily. But another part of him had come to admire Sarah. Her tenacity did not come from a life lived by taking advantage of the unwary. She did not complain when driven at a hard pace, she fought back only when feeling threatened, and she cooperated when she felt safe. She might be nixir, but she was not a monster. He understood that now.
The revelation that not all nixirs were the same as the violent and aggressive enemies he’d fought in the urvaka was an uncomfortable one, though he was grateful Sarah was different. Things would be much harder if she was like all the others.
Or perhaps they were not all the same, and some of the lives he’d taken had belonged to nixirs like Sarah.
He pushed aside that thought. It did no good now to reflect upon the nature of his enemies. The others had come to the urvaka with evil intent, breaking a treaty their own leaders had agreed to, fully understanding the consequences. He had simply acted as the hand of yan-kanat justice, to show the nixirs what their perfidy would gain them.
He would not allow himself to dwell on the question of why Sarah herself had broken the treaty. He told himself it was only because Seta Zul had willed it.
21
Sarah still felt the burn of her embarrassment as she helped Jotaha fill his pack, and distracted herself from the awkward encounter by sniffing the food items. She recognized two of them, but was pleasantly surprised by the last pouch. It smelled delightfully sweet with a hint of fruitiness. She couldn’t tell what kind of fruit, but there was something fructose-scented in that pouch. Her mouth watered at the thought of it, even as her stomach had protested at the iron scent of another bundle of blood bars. She didn’t think she’d ever truly acquire a taste for them, but Jotaha seemed to love them.
If he was hoping for a sexy reunion with the other alien, he made no effort towards that end. He’d put his greaves back on and had remained in the geode with her, instead of heading out to seek the other alien. It left Sarah confused about what his intent had been. Had it been arousal that had caused that alien erection, or had it even been an erection? Maybe it had something to do with how he relieved himself. Maybe he just had to drain the little lizard.
Despite their travel in close proximity for what felt like days, she’d never actually seen him go to the bathroom at all. He must have been relieving himself when she slept, because he was always awake before her. Perhaps that was why he understood her desire for privacy and always turned his back and gave her space when she needed to use the bathroom. Maybe he also liked to keep those things private.
They hadn’t stopped for a potty break since they left the caves, though it had probably been an entire day of walking before they reached this geode. She had snacked as she walked, and she and Jotaha had both drunk from his water skin as they walked. Fortunately for her, her body appeared to be using the water she drank rather than needing to get rid of it. In fact, she was constipated as all hell, so there wasn’t as much need for bathroom breaks in her case.
Jotaha also hadn’t needed a bathroom break, but that had to change eventually. That was probably what she had seen then, and she shoved away the feeling of relief that he wasn’t necessarily involved in a romantic relationship with the other alien.
It shouldn’t matter to her, but she was finding that it did. She felt oddly possessive of Jotaha. He was her hero, dammit. She should get to keep him. How often did a girl get rescued by a handsome warrior? It was true that he was a little bit on the scaly side and had claws and a tail, but those attributes were ones she was growing accustomed to, and if she really was in an alien world, she had better get used to seeing lots of tails and scales. It wasn’t likely there were a whole lot of humans around.
The teeth and fingerbone necklace probably meant humans weren’t all as welcomed as she had been by Jotaha. So too did the reaction of the other alien when he’d caught sight of her.
Jotaha led her out of the geode after scooping up her fur and tying it onto the pack on her back. It was clear he wanted to take the pack away from her, and there was even a long pause after he tied it to the pack where she swore he was debating doing just that. Then he let it go, and she was relieved they didn’t have to fight about it. The pack chafed against her scabs a bit, but they were surface cuts. Jotaha had been impaled in his shoulder. He shouldn’t have to carry the pack in that condition.
He had already done so much for her, and she felt guilty accepting all his help without giving him anything in return but a burden. A burden that didn’t make him popular with his fellow alien, as she found out when they left the geode to encounter the meanie again.
The other alien said something to Jotaha in a low, dark tone, and Jotaha responded in kind, his scales beginning to glow. This seemed enough to back the other guy off, but he didn’t look kindly at either of them. With a final hostile glare in her direction, he turned on one heel and strode back to the geode, turning his back on them in what was so clearly an insult that she figured that kind of stuff was universal.
“Prick,” she muttered, glad that the other alien wasn’t Jotaha’s mate. Her hero deserved better than that.
She was going to make Jotaha’s life miserable by her very presence. She just knew it.
He’d turned to glance at her when she spoke, but apparently realized she was talking to herself and returned his attention to the path ahead. It wasn’t actually a path, or any visible sign of a trail through the cracked desert, but he seemed to know exactly where he wanted to go, moving confidently in one direction towards a flat, distant horizon.
The sun was setting, and the leaden sky lit up with purple and orange colors, much like an Arizona sunset. Though it was far more colorful and beautiful than the washed out grayish color of daylight, it was also a reminder that they’d soon be walking in darkness. She felt the weight of exhaustion pulling at her, wishing she could collapse and sleep for a month straight, but continued in Jotaha’s wake without complaint. He had somewhere he wanted to go, and she wasn’t about to be left behind because she couldn’t keep up. At least Jotaha could light the way with his glowing scales.
Their walk in relative silence gave her a lot of time to think about her situation. She’d taken a peek at the mountain they’d left, and it still rose like the imposing spine of a sleeping giant at their back, despite the distance they’d walked from the cave exit. The labyrinth of caves and tunnels it held would be impassable without a guide, and she didn’t think Jotaha would take her back through it to the seam even if she could ask him.
Even if he did agree to guide her back to that place, she had no way of getting out of the mines the way she had entered them. She would need Jotaha’s help and a whole lot of ropes, and pitons, and all the other climbing gear she knew nothing about just to scale the horizontal shaft. Assuming it hadn’t collapsed completely.
Then there were the creepy bat-cat creatures they might encounter again. She couldn’t handle another life-threatening battle with one of those. Two close calls with evisceration were two too many.
Then she would have to find a way out of the Arizona desert and back to the road. Her phone was long gone, probably lost in the fall. She couldn’t call Beth, even if she wanted to talk to her former friend again. There were coyotes and mountain lions in that desert, not to mention rattlesnakes and scorpions and really big centipedes that came out at night. It was no friendlier to traverse without food or water than this barren desert they were walking through now.