He nodded, gesturing for her to climb up.
You’ve come this far,she reminded herself, then started climbing.
He followed her up, arriving at a structure so expertly woven into the branches that even knowing it was there it would have been near impossible to detect it from the ground. Only the one open door provided any clue that it was there. Margot climbed inside, shocked how spacious it was, as well as how sturdily built. The man entered behind her, leaving the door open. The way he moved, careful not to startle her, not putting himself between her and the exit, she couldn’t help but think he had done so to help put her at ease, leaving her an escape route if she wanted.
The man had to stoop as he walked across the structure, but only slightly. He picked up a basket containing a variety of fruits and vegetables as well as a gourd full of juice and another full of water, placing them all in front of her. He said something, gesturing for her to dig in.
“Does that meaneat?” she asked.
He nodded, smiling, pleased as she repeated the word in his own tongue.
“Thank you. I can’t tell you how much this means to me.”
He nodded, then pointed to a clean spot against the far wall where some blankets lay piled up.
“For me?”
He nodded again, then headed out the door, leaving her to eat and rest in peace.
Margot did just that, devouring a healthy portion of the food, then lying down to rest, just for a little bit. She was out cold in seconds, her body happily full and her mind at ease, embracing the feeling of safety for the first time since her abduction.
CHAPTER FIVE
Margot had woken in the strange man’s treehouse utterly calm, the sight of her surroundings almost comforting compared to her recent experiences, first regaining her senses after being abducted by the Raxxians, and then again recovering from a concussion after crashing on an alien world.
Next to those events, this was downright relaxing.
She rolled over, stretching long, her body still sore from the prior day’s exceptionally vigorous activities. She’d fled for her life, using muscles she didn’t even know she had, and pushing harder than she’d ever have imagined possible. But then life or death situations tended to be one hell of a motivating force. Now, however, she was paying the price. A small one she was happy to pay, given the raw, violent carnage she’d seen the monster unleash upon the Raxxians.
Movement caught her eye.
He was there, crouching comfortably, watching her as she woke. His eyes were even more beautiful in the morning light.
Wait, where’s the light coming from?
She looked around and realized that while the sides and floor were buttoned up tight, he had apparently propped up the roofin a few areas, the cantilevered design of the wood allowing both airflow and sunlight to bathe his treetop home without revealing it to the world below. It was quite clever, she had to admit, not to mention adding even more to her sense of security. The brutal Raxxians would not find her up here. At least, she was pretty sure they wouldn’t.
Now that she’d rested properly and had both fresh eyes and mind, Margot was able to better look at her unlikely host. As she’d noted when he had been distractingly nude in front of her, he was hairless so far as she could tell, except for the dark locks hanging from his head. Hair, she noted, that he had brushed out a bit and tied into a short, loose ponytail to keep it out of his face.
His jaw was strong, his cheekbones pronounced, and his brows only added to the piercing gaze of those copper and silver-gray ringed eyes. As for the rest of him, he was clothed in the same ratty attire he’d been carrying yesterday, the fabric now dry enough to wear. By the look of the place, as well as the patches in his tunic and trousers, he didn’t have many, if any, other changes of clothes. But he clearly maintained what he had with care, stitching up holes and tears as best he could. Even so, she thought he could really, really use some new threads.
“Thank you for last night. You saved me back there. I don’t know what I’d have done if I hadn’t met you.”
His cheeks blushed in the most charmingly shy way, some sort of reply flowing from his lips in his sing-song language, though she couldn’t understand a word of it. The gist, however, was pretty clear. Something along the lines of, “It was nothing,” or, “I was just helping.” Modesty, in other words.
“So, you understand me, but I can’t understand you, is that about the gist of it?” she asked.
He said something and shrugged.
“Yeah, easy for you to say,” she quipped. “But it beats, ‘Me Tarzan, you Jane,’ I suppose.”
His brow arched quizzically.
“Sorry. Earth reference.”
“Rrrthh?” he said, forcing himself to speak what she said rather than his own language as the translation thingy behind his ear would make her words sound.
“Yeah, Earth. Hey, how can you hear my real words? I’m still totally new to this, but I thought that thing was supposed to translate everything in real-time.”
