He sets me down on a hard surface, holding me by the shoulders in the darkness. It’s humid and warm, and shimmers of blue light flash across the surface of a body of water next to me. I see his face, caught in the glow of the planet, and my heart almost explodes with feelings. Relief, for one, and fury, and fear. And, impossibly, love.
It’s true, what I wrote on the pot in my bathroom. I see it in his face, and I feel it in my bones. I don’t know how or why, or why I cannot summon a true memory of him to make it seem more intellectually real. But there is no doubt that it’s true.
“What are you doing, you stupid, stupid girl?” he hisses. He squeezes my arms, and it isn’t painful, but it’s firm. I worry that he will shake me to death.
I close my eyes and tears well up beneath my lids, pouring out to my cheeks. I shake my head. “I have to go,” I blubber. “I can’t… I don’t…”
He presses his lips to my closed left eyelid, and water pours like a waterfall from beneath my lid. “Anya,” he breathes. “What am I to do with you?”
I tip my head back and look at him. “It’s true,” I whisper.
The sadness, or fear, that turned on the tears evaporates, and with them, the spigot is closed. A few tears pool in my eyes and drop away as I blink, my mouth open in disbelief.
He looks confused.
“You love R,” I whisper, “and R loves you.”
This elicits a growl from him. “What are you saying, youkryzakt maoinpt harakhan…” He sputters on in Kerz, cursing me, I guess.
“I wrote it on my pot,” I say, wonderment in my voice.
This quiets him, and now he glares at me with narrowed eyes.
“I wrote myself a note,” I say. “In blood. It’s… I wrote it, I hid it where no one could see it but me, so I would remember. Or I think it’s why I did that. I have… I can’t remember, I don’t remember, but it was my blood…” I hold up my finger, which he shifts his gaze to look at briefly and only becomes more agitated upon seeing.
“What are yousaying?” he seethes. He does shake me, but very lightly, and then he releases me violently and turns to a rock, which he punches so hard that it splinters into a spray of atomized dust.
I gasp and take a step back. His kryth is violently yellow, and I can see that he’s enraged.
Maybe I’m going to die. Maybe I have this all wrong.
“How?” he says, staring at the rock with his fist balled up. “How could you be sostupid?”
He turns toward me, and I stand, trembling. What the hell should I say, I wonder? Nothing occurs to me.
“If Zethki finds you here…” Hiskrythflashes, and for a moment I actually believe he might self-combust.
I look out at the forest. I’m desperate now. “Then… let me go. Just let me go,” I say.
I don’t really mean this. I know that I don’t; it isn’t what I want. It was never what I wanted, and now that Rysethk is in front of me, I understand that.
He moves toward me with his terrifying speed, but I barely have time to react to that before his arms are around me. “I will not let yougo.Anya. You stupid… you stupid…kryzaktche mogt…” His voice trails off.
His demeanor changes. “You are not going. You are not going anywhere. You are mine, Anya Mann. You will havemychild. You will not leave here, do you understand me?”
“But…” I protest. I shake my head. “How? How is… I don’t understand.”
It’s a tense moment as he stares at me, and I feel like it could lead to anything. He could eat me, or kill me, or fuck me, or spank me, or … just anything. Slap me.
He pulls me tightly to his chest and squeezes me tightly. Into my hair he breathes, “You must trust me.Kryth’a sar slorim.Anya. You must give me time, you must not destroy my plans. Iwillhave you. Not Zethki. Do you understand?”
He steps back from me, holding me by the shoulders, almost like a coach giving an athlete a pep talk. Except his words are much more serious.
“I will return you to Zethki now, and you will wait for me.”
I stare at him, and he stares at me, and if there were a source of fire anywhere near us, the air would incinerate. I lean toward him, impelled by a need I have never felt; I want him so much that I don’t think I could wait to feel him inside of me if the air were actually on fire.
He puts a hand to my neck, trying to keep me away, his thumb pressing gently into my flesh but with the current of his strength, a warning, coiled in his thumb. I lean in anyway, following his lips as he attempts, half-heartedly, to tip his head away.
