Jotaha had his hands on the female’s shoulders as he too turned, his eyes widening when he caught sight of Sarah standing in the doorway.
Her anger sparked into a full-blown fury that was more than a little from pure jealousy and possessiveness over an alien that had never belonged to her in the first place. It was still shocking and painful to see him clasped in the embrace of another woman. One who made her feel short, ugly, and fat. Sarah had started to think of Jotaha as hers, and now she knew he never had been.
The glow at her back seemed to brighten the room they stood in, which appeared to be some kind of sitting room. It was filled with furniture and décor that would have interested Sarah if she wasn’t so focused on the surprised couple.
“So, you understood me all along, Jotaha? Was I a big joke to you this whole time?” She waved her arms wildly. “Making all kinds of stupid gestures like a big, dumb, naked ape just so you would understand me!”
Jotaha’s jaw dropped, his sharp teeth gleaming in the rising blue glow filling the room as he stared at her. “Sarah!”
She crossed her arms, never breaking eye contact with him. She wanted him to experience the full force of her anger and hurt. “I don’t know what game you’ve been playing this entire time, but you could have been honest with me from the start.”
“You didn’t tell me she spoke Inferno-blessed,” the female said in a shaking voice, finally slipping her arms from Jotaha’s neck to sidle behind him, putting him between her and Sarah as if she were afraid Sarah would lunge at her and rip her face off.
To be fair, Sarah thought about it, but only in a hypothetical sense. Sort of.
Jotaha took a step closer to Sarah, reaching one hand out towards her as if to touch her like he wanted to reassure himself she was real. “Sarah, I understand you!”
She closed the distance between them and shoved his hand away, before propping her hands on her hips as she glared up at his face. She had to crane her neck this close to him, but she didn’t care. She was too outraged to feel the discomfort of the awkward position. “I know you do, now, you asshole! You knew English all along, and you pretended you couldn’t figure out what I was trying to say.”
“What is een-lish?”
She growled low in her throat, causing the female behind Jotaha to yelp and back towards the door, somehow making even a frightened retreat look graceful and feminine. “You played me, Jotaha! And now I know all about it. Don’t bother keeping up the game with me now. Your little prank is over.”
“The little spirits!” Jotaha said in a shocked voice. “They have made you understand Inferno-blessed. They have taught you how to speak it!”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, but I’m speaking English.”
He tried to touch her shoulder but she smacked his hand away from her. “No, Sarah, you are speaking Inferno-blessed!”
Sarah crossed her arms in front of her, scoffing at his words. “I have no idea why you keep saying Yan-kanat, but you….”
Her brows came together as her own words struck her. She heard Inferno-blessed, but when she said it, it came out as ‘Yan-kanat’. She shook her head as if she could dislodge a brain block. “Ir-olan shir’at English!”
Her eyes widened as she paid attention to the sounds coming out of her mouth. They were definitely not her own language.
“Vauteg!” She’d meant to say ‘oh fuck’ but that had come out of her mouth instead.
“Sarah,” Jotaha said in a soft voice, holding a hand out in front of him as if he was facing down a wild animal.
Given the female alien’s cowering form by the door, she suspected that was what she probably looked like to them.
Way to make a good impression for humanity.
“You are glowing. That means you are emotional, and probably angry. If you thought I tricked you, then I can understand why you would be, but I swear, I have never understood your language.”
This brought more confusion from Sarah as she narrowed her eyes on him. “Glowing? I’m not—vauteg!” She shook her hands out in front of her as if she could fling off the glowing bioluminescence that traced beneath her skin along her veins. “Why the vauteg am I glowing?”
She slapped at her body as if she could smack away the light that was beaming from it. “Make it stop!”
“You must remain calm, Sarah,” Jotaha said, grabbing her by both wrists and pulling her close to him. He wore a tunic that looked like it was made of fine linen, over a kilt-like garment, and had laced sandals on his feet. His body was cool against her skin, which felt like it was heating up as adrenaline pumped through her blood.
Her skin only glowed brighter the more anxious she got.
He brushed a hand over her hair, pushing it off her sweating brow. “The little spirits were not able to save your hon-gree. When the last remaining ones left your body, they were lifeless, but the little spirits said that you would recover, and they were right.”
“Hon-gree?” Those words didn’t make sense in her language or his. She pulled out of his embrace, suddenly feeling self-conscious, remembering that his girlfriend, or wife, or whatever she meant to him was in the room.
Only she wasn’t. She’d left them alone, apparently not concerned that Sarah would hurt her man.
Or steal him.
“Your spirits,” he said, his expression mirroring her confusion. “The growling ones within your belly.”
“My….” She patted her stomach. “You mean ‘hungry’?” She’d used that word often to tell him when she needed to eat. “That’s….” She chuckled and shook her head. “You thought I had….” Then the memory returned. The memory of her stomach infested by disgusting alien parasites.
She clutched her stomach. “Oh my god! The worms!”
Jotaha pulled her to him again, holding her in his iron-strong embrace until she grew calm, panting against his chest, her panic all burned out of her by the fruitless struggle against his superior strength. He was making soothing sounds to her as he stroked her hair with one hand.
“I am sorry, Sarah. We could not save them all. We have contained the ones that survived in a clay jar, but they are very hostile, and we needed you to tell us what they must eat to complete their maturation.”
“Jotaha,” she said, her voice muffled against his shirt. It smelled good. Like him.
“Yes, Sarah.”
She patted his chest. “I’m calm now. Super chill. I’m a block of ice. You can let me go.”
He slowly released her, as if reluctant to do so. Pity he was taken by the lizard version of a beauty queen. Now that she could understand him, she would be all over him, given half the chance.
Once they cleared up some of the confusion between them.
“You still have those nasty parasites?”
“Parasites?” His brow ridges came together as he repeated the word, which was actually “nixeran.”
She bobbed her head in a sharp nod. “Yep. Those are not spirits. They’re parasites that were probably killing me.” She glanced down at her hand, which was still glowing, though only faintly now. “Jotaha… when you said ‘chanu zayul’ you didn’t… uh… mean those worm thingies that came out of your neck, did you?”