“Mine,” he says simply, voice hoarse.
I smile deliriously, boneless and utterly wrecked. “Oh sure, caveman. Yours. For now.”
- - -
Kenz’ox checks on Aker’iz and leaves the hatch open. Again, the dim light in the saucer changes when she’s in there, turning yellowish and soft. The hum is back, too. It’s as if it starts a process when Aker’iz is in here, but is not convinced enough to go all the way.
It should mean something. I should be able to figure it out. How alive is that thing? How active? Is it waiting for something?
Well, maybe. Right now I’m too relaxed and too flooded with sweet oxytocin to feel any urgency.
Kenz’ox stokes the fire and starts to make some skewers again. According to Cora, that’s the most common way to prepare meat in the tribes, too. It’s the closest they get to fast food. She gave us a good few recipes that I have partly committed to memory, and at some point I’ll make a decent stew. But not right now.
I glance over at him. He senses it and looks right back. The little smile on his face is so boyishly happy and shy that I kind of melt.
“You’re a good father,” I tell him. “Always thinking of Aker’iz. Protecting.”
“I don’talwaysthink of her,” he says with a little smile. “But most of the time. She’s my baby. My child. In the tribe, many times the boys are raised not by their fathers, but by the whole tribe. Especially the younger boys by the older ones, those who don’t have to go hunting. But when the tribe allowed me the use of the Lifegiver, I knew I would take care of my son myself. Of course, I would let him play with the others and learn from the other men as well, but he would sleep in my hut and keep his things there. I wanted to train him with the sword long before the Stripening. I would make a small sword for him, too. I had the iron piece in my hut, ready to turn into a blunt blade when I thought he could swing it. The trick with a sword isn’t the edge! It’s the weight. Learn how to use the weight, and the edge will take care of itself. And now… well.”
I don’t think he’s told anyone this before, and it makes me feel flattered. “You can teach Aker’iz to use the sword, too,” I tell him. “Her sword must be small, but also deadly.”
He puts two skewers over the fire. “Oh, I will. I wasn’t sure how girls are. I thought that perhaps they could never use swords, or they would not want to. But I see how you use the spear, and now I’m sure that women make great warriors. It makes me wonder how it was possible for the Plood to bring you here when you didn’t want to.”
I stretch my legs out in front of me and lean back on the big rock. “It was night. On Earth, my planet. I was sleeping. Well, almost sleeping. I was doing something we callreading, but there is no reading on Xren. Except for the letters on Aker’iz’s mug. The Plood ships came. Ruined the house and took me. And others, too. Many women were taken. It was fast and… terrible.”
I close my eyes as I think back to that night when my life was completely destroyed. I try to avoid it, but my dreams are full of it.
“Terrible Plood,” Kenz’ox seethes. “Servants of the Darkness.”
“They took me from Earth and went to a place in the stars. Aspace station.” I don’t think there’s a term for that in his language. “Many things happened there.”
“Bad things?” He doesn’t look up, but there’s a calm concern in his voice.
14
–Theodora–
I stare into the fire, trying to decide if it makes any sense to explain it to him. The chaos on that weird station—the smells, the aliens, having our clothing cut off and replaced with the jumpsuits, the absolute panic and screaming because we had no idea what the hell was happening.
Then being split up, the absolutely terrifying Vyrzy aliens walking on the walls and ceiling and looking at us like they wanted to eat us… And then Dex, taking Riley and Morgan and Callie and me with him, and us following him because at least he wasn’t Vyrzy or Plood and he kind of spoke some words of English.
Then back in the same saucer, with the Plood gone except for one that Dex chased out, the wild ride through space for hours, and then the hard landing when Dex lost control.
“Bad things,” I confirm. “But I think it could have been worse.” I still get a chill down my back thinking of those Vyrzy aliens. The girls and I are pretty sure that Dex saved us from them, althoughwe don’t know exactly what they wanted with us. We’re just sure it wasn’t anything nice.
He turns the skewers and puts four new ones on the fire. “You survived it. The Ancestors still have plans for you. And you escaped the Darkness and their servants.”
I have some idea what he means by that. Cora did tell us about that very peculiar member of their tribe who claims to be a dragon, which seems to be an alien species the cavemen callthe Darkness. Apparently that dragon was even here some months ago. And I remember the clear, calm day when we were all struck by an icy panic from out of nowhere, when we huddled inside the saucer, whimpering and weeping from an icy, mysterious fear while we heard the muffled sound of a voice outside.
There’s a sound from the jungle and I move closer to Kenz’ox. Right now I don’t mind needing his bubble of safety. We did something really cool together tonight, and I’m still blissfully relaxed and kind of giddy. Not that I’m part of his little family, of course. This was just some really nice spice in a drab life, a break from the constant desperation and fear and worry. Something life-affirming at last. Some real pleasure.
But I’m still a little surprised at how forward I was about making it happen. I touch the wound on my calf.
Kenz’ox hands me a skewer from the fire, dripping with fat.
“Thank you. You said krolts are venomous. Deadly?”
He bites into his own skewer. “If you get enough venom. Otherwise it makes you confused. Sometimes happy.”
