“Asleep,” she corrected, climbing out of Quist’s lap and away from his heat. The canopy of wings shifted to stay over her head.
“A little less than a noon’s rising worth.”
That told her nothing but she didn’t care, didn’t ask, accepting it like how she was coming to accept everything else. Instead, she looked around, feeling disparaged and itchy. Her eyes landed on the rippling brook.It looks so fresh... so clean.The sweat, dirt, and grime under her awful skin-tight prison uniform quickly became unbearable. The phena waded undisturbed below the surface.
“Is that safe?” She pointed at the water. “Can I clean myself in it?” He followed her finger not unlike she had moments before in her dream and nodded.
She tentatively stepped out into the rain and Quist drew his wings back but not before he shook them out, sending the excess water flying. The squelch of water sliding underneath her uniform, lukewarm and uncomfortable, made her wish she could trade her left arm for a long bath and spa day. But she only had a running brook on an alien world to sate her needs and she wasn’t going to look a gift-horse in the mouth.
Not a gift-horse...The brook was the best thing to happen to her in awhile.
Yahiro hobbled to the edge and sat down, checking her foot, and to her amazement, found it pink and half-healed. She ran her finger over Quist’s feather and looked back at him. He remained seated under a tree canopy several yards away, watching her intently.In his sights.She took a deep breath and looked back at the water, subconsciously reaching for a gun that still was not there.
“I’m going to take a bath,” she stated.
“Why?”
She peeked back over her shoulder at the alien. “Because I’m dirty and disgusting. Why else?”
“You have Sonhadra all over you.” His eyes roamed slowly over her body making her swallow.
“Which means I’m dirty,” Yahiro replied dryly. “I also have blood, sweat, and tears on me as well. Don’t you bathe?”
His lips quirked up into a coy smile. “With water? No. Not unless Sonhadra tries to return me to the dirt early. The sun keeps me clean.”
“And if there’s no sun?”
“Hmm...”
She looked away and chewed on her lower lip, gnawed on it until it was raw and red. Her fingers itched to tear off her clothes but she didn’t know how the alien would react.Has he seen a nude woman before? Will he be repulsed by me? Am I opening myself to something that I’ll have no control over?
Does his kind rape?
Yahiro combed her drenched hair away from her face, wishing Quist was a human because she at least knew the outcomes of baring oneself in front of a human man.
And although Quist looked like a desert warrior, angel nomad, he also looked dangerous and at times, angry.
Yahiro played with the snap of her pants. “Would you give me privacy?”
“Privacy?”
“Eerrr. Uuh. Aloneness? Can you let me bathe alone?”
“Yes.”
She let out a long breath of thanks and waited for Quist to leave, glancing over her shoulder a minute later when he hadn’t moved. “Well?”
He shook his head in question, his eyes never leaving her.
“Aren’t you leaving?”
“No. I promised you life. And my eyes, Yahiro of Quist.”
“But you said I could bathe alone!”
“You will. I have no need to wash. I’ll wait for the clouds to disperse.”
She fumbled with the snap, dying to open it and tear off her disgusting clothing, but didn’t want to lead the alien on in any way.What if nudity means...?She wasn’t shy, she’d been naked in front of countless men, a way for the Snake to crawl under her skin, but she didn’t want to digress into culture shock any more than she wanted to keep her clothes on.
