He wanted her to want him, needed her to look for him. He hated that, besides his brother’s quick revival, he wanted to consume her every thought.
But whenever he made a move to rise and help her with her hunt when she was on the verge of giving up, she’d get right back up with a groan and go at it again.
Call me, Yahiro. Remember I’m here now too.He envied Quist. Even when unconscious and undisturbed, he received her lips freely.
Every time she threw her spear aside to check on his brother, she would place her lips over Quist’s, and every time she did it, Sundamar rubbed his own, wishing the female would search him out and do the same.
She went to spear another phena and failed.
“Fuck!” She released her weapon into the water and allowed it to float away as she dropped to her knees and fell back onto the ground with a rattling sigh.
He unclenched his hand and stepped quietly out of the gloom and went to her side. She startled when his shadow fell over her pinkened face and quickly sat up. He approached slowly, hoping not to startle her away, and watched as her brow crinkled and she leaned back.
“Your eyes are hooded,” he murmured, staring into her eyes for the first time. Sundamar had never seen such cloudy, stormy eyes. “Why?”
Her mouth twisted, opening and closing before she found her words. “I don’t trust you.”
It felt like a hammer to his gut.
“Why?” Sundamar kneeled so that he would be eye level with the female. His armor pressed into him in all the wrong places.
“You almost killed Quist!”
His jaw ticked. “Quist almost killed himself.”
“So he picked up your sword and sawed into his side? I don’t think so. He wouldn’t be so stupid.”
Any nervousness she might have had was now gone. She held his gaze unflinchingly. He pressed his fist into the soil. “He disobeyed his commander.”
“You tried to take me away!”
“I wasn’t going to hurt you!” His voice rose as he dug his fingers into the ground.
“How was he supposed to know!? Quist promised to protect me!” she screamed, getting on her knees and pushing at his chest. His body didn’t move.
“And I wouldn’t? I can protect you as well as he can! Better. I would be the better choice.” Sundamar barely heard his own words but felt the burn of them on his tongue.
Yahiro turned her rolling eyes away from his, and he wanted to tear a tree limb from limb.I’m losing her.He reached out to take her hand but stopped himself. It went unnoticed as she lifted herself back to her feet and went after her spear. He followed her every move and hated the wariness in her gait.
“Go away. I liked it better when you weren’t here.” Her voice was numb as she lifted her ridiculous weapon and failed to spear another phena.
“I’ve been here the whole time protecting you, making sure you and my brother were safe. I’m your commander: you obey my orders, I don’t obey yours.”
“Wow.” He didn’t understand the word. “Last time a man watched me without me knowing it, I destroyed him, but not before he took my life so completely that I ended up on an alien world. I’m going to be my own person now, and tell you I don’t obey any man. Not anymore.”
His eyes narrowed, confused and angered by what she said.Another man watched her?Sundamar looked around before he convinced himself they were alone.Dead—dust... back into the void.Could the female have the power to do that? It was one thing to die by nature, another thing completely to be destroyed. Only a Creator had that kind of power.
“I won’t take your life like this being had and send you away...”
Yahiro shot him a look before turning away and stabbing the water over and over with her spear until it broke in half. She threw the remaining half away. “You already have!”
Her yell rang in his ears and he stood. They came to a head and he reached out to touch her but she flitted away and grabbed the extra cloth from her pants before heading back through the tree line and toward Quist’s unconscious body.
“I have?” he grunted to himself and pulled out his broadsword. His muscles bulged and twitched with the need to break something apart. Sundamar heard her tired, angry groans from far off behind him as he lifted his sword and took his frustration out on the land. He wanted to go to her. The pull inside his gut yanked him in her direction, but he pushed it down and did his best to ignore it.
Her eyes had storms.
The afternoon had come and gone by the time he stepped from the water with a pile of hacked up phena corpses in his arms. And as he headed back to Yahiro and his brother, the sweet smell of the female’s scent filled his nose.
