Not only that, I have a curious reaction to them: the fear that kicks up inside of me swells in very sexual places, even if it doesn’t feel sexual at all.
Involuntarily, I take a step backwards, and my back crashes into my captor’s solid front. Just the presence of his body against mine sends a jolt through me—and this one is definitelyactuallysexual. I’m breathing more rapidly, and I try to control that. I look up at the sky, trying to ‘not look down,’ as everyone always says to do. But it’s too late. I’ve looked down. And it’s crazy far down.
“This is Kerz transparent steel,” he tells me, his voice low and vibrating against my back. “It’s safe. Proceed.”
I look down again—I know, big mistake—and the result is hyperventilating, which I try to control because I know better. I also want to keep it quiet. I will my feet to move but they simply won’t.
“I c… c… I can’t,” I stutter. “I’m afraid of heights. I can’t walk here.”
So much for playing it cool.
I realize too late that I’ve given this maniac a huge advantage by revealing how frightening I find this. Damn. It.
I force myself to look up at the sky. The blue planet we orbit colors one side of the sky green-blue, and a faint white line delineates its outline, before the blue of our own sky.
I’m busy trying to get my act together when I feel his hands slide from my shoulders to my biceps, which he encircles easily with his large hands. He moves his hands to my elbows, cradling them, so his fingers support my forearms, which are still crossed petulantly across my torso. He pulls the fabric of the robe up to my elbows, and when my skin is bare, he slides his hands and forearms over mine.
When I’m next to him like this, my head barely comes up to his mid-chest, so I know that he had to lean down to breathe so close to my hair, making some of it move and tickle my scalp. “I have you.”
The patches on his arms, hiskryth, touch my skin. They are soft, and they are almost hot. Other than that, they transfer no special sensation that I can feel physically.
But it’s as if they contain a drug, and I feel it move from his skin to mine. My heart rate slows, I stop hyperventilating. I no longer care about the glass floor. I feel… just fine.
I try to move my foot. It works. I take a step forward, and he follows with me, still holding my arms, still strong and steady behind me, pumping whatever it is he possesses in thiskrythof his into my own blood.
Or at least, that’s how it seems.
Halfway across the bridge, I laugh. It escapes my mouth before I can tell it not to. But this is really something. Something amazing. I can look down, I can look all around, I can just stroll along and I don’t even feel sick to my stomach.
“Are you afraid?” he asks me suddenly, stopping. “I’m here.”
I let myself lean back against him, even though I don’t need to. It’s intoxicating, whatever he’s doing to me. “No,” I say, smiling. “It’s just… I’ve never been able to do anything like this. It’s so… cool.”
I look down at the gorge. It’s hundreds of meters to the bottom, and it would normally make me so dizzy I would fall if I looked down from a place like this. But now it’s just… interesting.
“It’s beautiful,” I whisper, in awe.
He doesn’t respond, but he doesn’t make me move forward right away, either.
When he finally nudges me forward, I’m a little hesitant to leave the view behind, and I almost say something.
But I’m not here as a tourist, I remember sourly. I’m a captive. And as we approach the other side of the lengthy tunnel, I’m reminded of that.
Cool, damp air greets us as we approach. The tunnel leads to a tall palace that is made of black stone, and the construction of this building is much more primitive, much more like an ancient building, than the structure we have left behind.
I resist, and he pushes me gently.
“What is the atmosphere made of here?” I ask him frantically, smelling air that is wet, and charged with organic odors. “I don’t want to—”
“The atmosphere is a nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide blend similar to all humanoid planetary atmospheres,” he says, his voice once again cold.
“What about microorganisms?” I say frantically. “I could be exposed to—”
“There are numerous hybrids and humans living in the port cities by the Big Sea,” he says stoically, gently prodding me forward. I should say basically lifting me by my elbows like I weigh no more than a small box, and half-carrying me. “There are no more life-threatening microorganisms here than on your planet of origin or the one you occupied prior to your arrival at your father’s… festive occasion.”
“But—”
I stop talking, cutting myself off, because his claws, which I had forgotten even existed, somehow, are extending slowly from his fingers. I feel them, like a housecat’s extended claws, scraping against my skin. This is accompanied by the faintest, deep growl that I can only feel, not actually hear, against my back.
