But ultimately, the biggest barrier to her returning home was what she would do once she made it safe and sound to her townhome. She would have to face a future where she knew things—wondrous, impossible things—about the world, and no one would ever believe her if she tried to tell them about it. She would be isolated and alone—even more so than she had been before—because of that knowledge. That meant there was really no future on Earth that promised as much as the unknown one that faced her if she kept following Jotaha to his destination.
Part of that possible future could be Jotaha himself.
As she walked, she pondered all their interactions, wondering if she could trust her instincts about his body language given that he was an alien. Some things he had done made her think that the kind of things she’d been daydreaming about might not be out of her reach.
A different perspective than the two she’d already considered could be placed on the incident inside the geode, where Jotaha had taken off his greaves. He hadn’t stopped to go to the bathroom yet, so if he’d had to do so at that time, then he was still holding it, which didn’t seem sensible. He clearly wasn’t all that friendly with the other alien, so she doubted now that they had ever been romantically involved.
No, he had been looking directly at her when his unusual alien groin bulged. Considering the possible meaning of that made her flush with a different emotion than embarrassment. It had been so long since she’d thought about having a sexual relationship with an actual person instead of a battery operated appliance. James had ruined her in that regard, just as he’d ruined her innocence, using her until she became pregnant, then casting her aside in anger when she refused to abort the baby.
She had tried a couple more times in college to have a relationship, but they had both been abject failures, mostly because of her hang ups. She feared they would throw her away her like James did—like her parents did—so she never let them get close enough to her emotionally that it would hurt her if they did. College-aged men weren’t known for being patient and mature about relationships. They’d been happy for the sex, but had moved on fairly easily when they realized that it would take effort to gain anything more from the relationship.
Now, she thought about sex again, but knew it wouldn’t be so simple if that was what Jotaha was interested in. This wouldn’t be some fling with a frat boy, just as human as she was and perhaps even from a similar background. She couldn’t even understand what Jotaha was saying, much less comprehend what kind of culture he came from. That wasn’t even taking into account all the physical differences between them.
His size alone was intimidating. It was very rare that any human grew so tall, and the breadth of his shoulders and size of his muscles was proportionate for his height. That bulge of his certainly had been as well. She wasn’t sure he would even fit her body in a way that was comfortable. He was huge, and the claws that tipped his fingers and the sharp teeth he had also concerned her. Would he end up hurting her by accident in a moment of passion? Or did his species bite and scratch each other as a matter of course during mating?
Since she couldn’t ask these questions of him, she had no way of knowing just how dangerous a sexual relationship with Jotaha would be. That should have had her pushing the thought away, along with the fantasies that thought inspired. Instead, she found herself stealing glances at Jotaha’s broad back, her gaze roving guiltily down the v-shape of his torso to take in his waist, heavy with muscle rather than fat, then down to the ridged line of his tail, swaying back and forth with each step he took.
Her fingers itched to touch his scales. She wanted to know if they were as sleek and smooth as they looked on the front, or as rough and ridged as they looked on his back and tail.
She pondered the mobile spines on his head that seemed to speak of his mood far more than his expression did. At times, those spines would lay tight against his well-formed skull. At other times, they would bristle just a bit, making him look more relaxed and at ease. She knew he was angry and filled with aggression when they stood fully erect, but still had trouble with interpreting his body language when they sat at other positions on his head.
He appealed to her, and she couldn’t deny that anymore, at least not to herself. Whether she appealed to him in the same way was up in the air, and she couldn’t imagine why she would. She looked terrible—filthy, hair matted, desperately in need of a hot bath and a toothbrush—yet there were hints that maybe—just maybe—he might be interested in her too.
The uncertainty gave her hope, and anxiety. Her stomach fluttered with nerves whenever she thought about just how she could eliminate that uncertainty. She didn’t think she had enough courage to make an unmistakable move on him to see how he would react. The fear of rejection was too great.
22
Jotaha watched Sarah sleep on the furs he’d laid down as soon as they stopped at the campsite, which was little more than a lean-to built between two of Theia’s blood drops. He bit into the fibers of his mouth cleaning brush, grinding them together in an almost unconscious sign of his anxiety. The glow of the chanu zayul still recovering inside him sparked along his scales with his concern.
Sarah did not seem to be doing well. She’d been clearly tired from the time they left the cave, but this last stretch to the campsite had seen her stumbling with exhaustion. He cursed himself for allowing her to bear the burden of the pack, even though he understood her need for that bit of security. He would not allow it again. Instead, he would furnish her with one of his belts and some pouches filled with food as well as the nixir dagger for a weapon so she would feel more prepared. It would be a far lighter burden, while still keeping her supplied to her satisfaction.
After his drahi had fallen into a deep sleep, her skin sheened with moisture and disturbingly pale beneath the dirt that smudged her face, he’d settled on his fur beside her. He’d watched her face as it relaxed in sleep, the lines of strain and discomfort fading from her alien features as the light from the inferno stones highlighted her jutting nose, full lips, and fibrous brows, casting deep shadows on her eyes that made her face look far too similar to the nixir skulls that were on display in the temple.
After rinsing and then returning his mouth brush to its pouch in his belt, he picked through the items in his pack, withdrawing the harzek, the sitak that had a fortune in kivan—seashell currency—sewn onto it. Some of the shells he’d had specially carved for the robe had been lost in the urvaka when the garment was torn, but it hadn’t mattered to him, and he understood why now. It had been made with Farona in mind. The expensive beauty of it would please her, which was why he had chosen such a treasure to present to her.
The robe was no longer an appropriate gift for his drahi. It belonged to a future that was not to be, and he couldn’t even dredge up any more resentment for that fact. In his worry over Sarah’s health and the way it seemed to be suddenly failing, he realized that he already thought of her as his, though he had yet to bind her to him with the seal. Sometime in the cycles since he’d found her in the urvaka, his feelings towards her had drastically changed. Now he knew he couldn’t let her go, nor could he again present her with a gift intended for another.
He would have a new harzek made up, one designed specifically for his nixir mate. Something unique and special that no yan-kanat could appreciate. He studied the matted fibers atop Sarah’s head, suspecting that they were not intended to be so tangled. Perhaps she would like a tool to straighten them, so that they lay sleek and flat atop her head. The shataz that had been taken from nixir lands in the past had been fond of jeweled implements they called “combs” made of precious metals that were prized by both nixirs and yan-kanat, like gold and silver. Even the Ajda coveted gold and silver, and had originally been drawn to Gaia because of her bountiful supply of it.