Large, warm hands clasped her back as she was pulled hard into a chest that felt too good to be true.
Her body thrummed, her pulse raced, sweat was on the verge of pouring out of every pore, and yet as this strange alien’s embrace tightened, her panic ebbed.
He caught her up in his arms, holding her into him, throwing her off-kilter when her body responded with something other than panic. It responded with heat.
“Are you unwell?”
She understood his words and whimpered. His piercings rubbed her chest as he situated her, the tease turning her whimpers into mews. Yahiro shakily pressed her hands against his chest and pushed some space between them.
Her mind raced, her body twitching, erratic, heart-pounding, breaths thin, but her thoughts were straight, although not continuous.
Has he poisoned me? Mind control powers? I don’t know anything about him or his species... Does he have a people?She pushed herself further away, his hold on her receptive, but he didn’t let her go.
Yahiro pressed her hand against her lips and screamed in frustration and continued to do so until her throat ached and she came down from the cliff of her panic attack.
When it was finally over, she looked up to Quist watching her with twisted, horrified features.
“Yahero!?”
She swallowed and wiped some of the sweat from her brow. “I’m okay now.” She felt like she needed to explain herself to this alien. She sniffled and pressed her forehead to his torso.I would want an explanation. Hell, I’d have run if he had an attack like mine.
“What is wrong? The noises you made were...” He stopped and lifted his eyes to the skies as if he were trying to find the right word. “They were like the distant echoes in a cave, ones that get closer with each blink.”
“So,” she sniffled again, watching him. “Not good?”
“Scary.”
She smiled in spite of it all. He didn’t look like a being that scared easily. The slight sway of his feathers caressed her.
“Am I scary?” she asked.
His golden eyes shot back to her. “Scary? No.” His accent reminded her of waves crashing against rocks, hoarse and airy, and so... inhuman. “Description eludes me.”
“Escapes me too,” she grumbled and he cocked his head, his eyes questioning. She repeated the words in his language, “Eludes me too.”His lips are so close.They were a light bronze, pouty, and wide. Wider than any human lips but not obscene. They were sexy.They make his smiles devilish.
Her hands, still on his chest, pushed some more. If she didn’t get away from him soon, her faked insanity wouldn’t be so fake anymore.
Yahiro peeled his fingers off her skin, and Quist, unmoving, let her with a curious glint in his eyes. Until her belly rumbled loudly, and he let her feet touch the ground.
She grimaced as her torn up foot mated the dirt with its wound.
“Oww! Goddamn it,” she hissed and using his arm as support, lifted her sole up to look at what she didn’t want to see. It was mud encrusted, inflamed, brown with dried blood, and thickened with swelling. Quist whistled above her as she lowered herself back to the ground to inspect the gash further.
“You’re hurt,” he groused, taking her limb from her hands and bringing it to his nose.
“Ech, don’t!” She cursed herself and repeated it in his language. “From last night,” she gasped out. His fingers swiped across her raw instep. He smelled her foot deeply before she could jerk out of his grip and stop him. The damage was done and she was mortified.
“Did I do this to you?”
“N-no,” she stuttered, still trying to tug her foot back. “I cut myself on the stone.” Her eyes widened.
The stone!She looked around frantically, forgetting her foot. “Where’s the stone?” It was nowhere to be seen. Her body squirmed until he let her go, and she moved away, searching on hands and knees. “Where is it? I can’t lose my light! I need it to see.”
“It disappeared.”
Her eyes snapped back to him. “Did you take it?”
“No. It faded as the sun rose.”
