She stroked her hand over the fine weave of his tunic, feeling the hard muscle beneath flex at her touch. Jotaha didn’t put out heat like a human man. His body was the same temperature as the pod they were in. It was just another reminder of how different they were, and another concern about them having children together. How could a warm-blooded and cold-blooded couple successfully create viable offspring? If such a possibility was real, then magic really must exist in this world.
“You know, I wasn’t just trying to spare your feelings about this pod. I really do like it.”
She pulled away to take a step back, and Jotaha let her go, but she didn’t move far. She liked being near him, having him tower over her, powerful and almost overwhelming in a way that excited her. He still looked terrifying, but also sexy as hell. She knew now that threat from him would always be aimed at her enemies and never herself.
“The only thing it’s missing is a bathroom.”
He cocked his head, clearly confused because she used the human word for it. Then he seemed to figure out her meaning based on the context alone, responding before she had the chance to correct herself.
“There is a hygiene chamber attached to this pod.” He gestured to one wall near the bed. “That panel is a flap that opens onto the ‘bathroom’.”
Jotaha showed her that room, and patiently explained every item on the shelves next to the toilet bench and the tub basin. Both had drains that connected to pipes passing through the outer, lacquered hide wall, as did the smaller basin that served as a sink. All three had the same crank pumps, and the tub basin had the heating stones beneath it, which Jotaha showed her how to use.
The gritty paste with the herbal scent was for her teeth, and she chuckled at the realization that she’d walked all around the yan-kanat smelling like she’d scrubbed herself with their version of toothpaste. It was embarrassing but also funny.
They used moistened, herbal-infused fabric to wipe down their scales, and that had probably been the purpose of some of the “towels” the servants in the temple had brought her. The large basin itself was mostly used for soaking aching muscles, steaming sickened lungs, and warming their body temperature, like a hot tub. They finished off their bathing with oil for their body scales and wax on their head spines to make them shine and keep them from rasping against each other as they moved.
Jotaha said he would contact an alchemist to create the soaps and hair products she could use, and he had an order in already for a special comb, but planned on purchasing a brush from a craftsman that evening. He promised they would find something among the marketplace stalls that would work for her hair, even if it had to be one of their toothbrushes.
After her tour, he took her back out to the wing district. Sarah gasped at the beauty of the two moons shining bright and full, lighting up the night and dimming the mass of stars that filled the sky. Lanterns and inferno stones lit the walkways, and the city below them. The temple blazed with a beam of light shooting straight up from its steeple. Below that building, the eyes of the dragon skull glowed like beacons.
Jotaha pointed to the two moons, seeming to hang side by side in the dark blue sky. “Those are Theia’s eyes, looking down upon the beauty that her heart has become now that it hosts the children of the Ajda.”
“I like your creation story a lot better than all of ours.”
He tucked her close to his side, his heavy arm resting on her shoulder, making her feel sheltered and protected as the other citizens enjoying the night cast them wary, or perhaps even hostile, glances. “Our stories are intertwined, nixir and yan-kanat. This world only exists because of the nixirs.”
“It’s just a pity all this beauty was born out of violence. If humans and yan-kanat hadn’t always been at war, just imagine what Earth could be like right now.”
The other pedestrians were definitely giving them a wide birth as they strolled along the walkways. She wasn’t sure if it was because of Jotaha’s softly glowing scales or because of the female beside him, but she felt the weight of their stares and it unnerved her. She snuggled in closer to him, and he responded by tightening his hold in a reassuring squeeze.
“Violence sometimes has its place,” Jotaha said, seeming to ignore or not notice the other pedestrians, though the faint glow of his scales suggested he was more than aware of their glances. “The Overlord of the Ajda, Bal Goro, is a creature of destruction and creation. His violence was legendary, as was his brutality. If he wasn’t tempered by the wisdom of the other Ajda, he might have bathed the universe in rivers of titan blood before they could rally to stop him. Yet the battle he’d fought against the titaness birthed our world, and it was necessary to our survival.”
He gestured to a cluster of potted plants forming a little parklike sitting area on the latticeway as they passed it. “Our tree-keepers know that the forest must sometimes burn to be renewed. This is a lesson all yan-kanat learn at the knee of the elders. Violence can be tempered, but it is sometimes necessary for change and growth.”
He paused on the edge of a walkway, and since they were at the peak of the wing district, standing among the multi-pod manors, they had an excellent view of the temple and skull of Draku Rin below them.
“The elder gods shed their skin knowing that it wasn’t an ending to their journey. They knew that something new would grow in its place.”
He turned to face her, capturing her hands in his as his gaze fixed intently on her. “I used to fear change, even knowing that it brought growth, because it also often brings loss. My destiny was clear, from the moment I left the nest. I would serve as a guardian and destroy any nixir that crossed my path. To find you, my drahi, and to know that I would be forced to change, forced to reconsider my beliefs and lose my certainty about the evil of the nixirs I killed without mercy—it freed me from chains I never noticed were binding me, even though I fought it, doubting the wisdom of Seta Zul.”
He cupped her cheek, lowering his head until his lips hovered above hers. “I love you, Sarah. I’m so grateful to Seta Zul for tearing away the veil that blinded me by bringing you to me. You are a marvel, a wondrous creature of beauty and strength. I admire so much about you, and cannot wait to learn so much more.”
Overwhelmed by the feeling of everything going right for once in her life, her world suddenly shifting into place as dreams she’d never dared to entertain finally came true, she was spared the need to find words to express herself in kind when Jotaha’s lips claimed hers, drawing her deeper under his spell.
She was loved. Cherished. Desired. By someone who would fight to keep her, and who would chase her if she walked away. Someone she loved in return, opening her battered heart to the possibility of pain for the promise of fulfillment.
Jotaha had to leave the following morning to make arrangements at the temple. There was also some meeting of the jotahans to discuss the latest developments, in regards to the mutated humans and their increased threat. Sarah wished she could be at that meeting, to tell her own story of her encounters with the creatures, but Jotaha told her that only jotahs, jotahas, and jotahans could attend.
She was sure he left her out of the meeting partly because she was human, given that they were all trained to stop humans from entering this world, and punish those who did with death. The fact that she was female could have also been an issue, since females did not serve as guardians. Ever.