He stopped, hovering above the treetops, and jerked.Hers? Yahiro’s?Part of him screamed to keep going, to get to her, to give her his protection and his life... his body and the cockstand he still had while another part of him, the one that forced him to think through every situation, forced him to think throughthis.
The female could be lying.He glimpsed Yahiro’s face.
But if Annie had something of hers, it would be worth it to have a gift when he first approached her. He didn’t want to be shot again. He wanted that gut-wrenching connection and need in her so when they came together, she would trust him.
Fuck!
He turned back, gun out, and with an urgency that had been building up in him, he aided the humans after all.
***
YAHIRO
The sunstone reappeared when night came as it had several nights past, however this time, it formed within the lank of string that Quist had fashioned into a necklace for her. She palmed and played with it on her chest.
Sundamar glanced her way constantly, whenever she made a move or a sound, and it made her jittery. He and the night did little to help settle her nerves.
Not when it seemed they remained only one step ahead of the monsters in the forest.
The stone warmed her against the night chill and yet her skin remained prickled with gooseflesh. Yahiro looked forward to dawn just as much, if not more, than the sun-god that walked beside her.
The fingers she kept clasped around the cloth inlay of his armor tightened. She had moved closer and closer to his side as the darkness deepened around them. Sundamar didn’t stop her, not even when her leg brushed against his with every other step.
It’s not because I want to be closer to him.She argued internally with herself.It’s because Ineedto be closer to him.Him and Quist. When she was huddled into Sundamar, Quist’s wings grazed over her body.
If someone were to tell her she would actively seek out several men’s—alien men’s—attention a week ago, she would have numbly tuned them out. After William and the Snake, she had sworn off everybody but herself.
“Are you okay?” Sundamar canted his head in her direction.
“Yes,” she whispered although she didn’t feel okay. His voice caressed her skin like hot chocolate, sex-on-a-stick; it made her body knot into pieces and she hated herself for it.I’m Yahiro of Quist, not Sundamar!But after her time spent with Sundamar, her body screamed otherwise, and when he’d presented her an angry pile of phena, her heart began to follow suit.
She released her stone for a moment to pet one of Quist’s feathers, only to get her fingers tangled in some of Sundamar’s long hair with it.
She pulled away, burned.
“You don’t need to pull away. I like your fingers in my hair.”
Nothing she did now went unnoticed.Even when I need to hide for a bathroom break,she thought sullenly.
The knowledge that Sundamar had almost stole her away and killed Quist should have sobered her against any tender feelings toward him. And yet, despite everything, she wanted to peel away his gilded armor and press her flesh against his.
Instead, her hand landed on her hip where she used to have a pistol, her fingers clenching over the empty space, wishing she didn’t have to cling to these aliens for protection, wishing she could protect herself. When she proved to herself it wasn’t there, she took hold of her stone again.
Quist groaned and jerked in Sundamar’s arms and her eyes returned to him. “He’s been doing that more and more.”
“He’s waking up.”
“He is? How do you know?”
Sundamar glanced back at her again.Again and again and again.“We’ve been speaking in each other’s heads.”
Yahiro squinted her eyes and pursed her lips. “Telepathically?”
“If that’s what it means, yes.”
Somehow she wasn’t surprised.And I’m not even on my meds anymore.Space prisons, wormholes, aliens, aliens with wings... The only thing she thought could surprise her now was if she woke up suddenly in an ice capsule and all of this had been one elaborate dream.
“Can you read my thoughts?” she asked, more interested rather than worried. She laughed internally.All my worrying has already been reserved and allotted.
