“Haisarkarnii?”
“Priests of the ancestors,” Dante says, as if that explains everything. “Her gesture was to indicate she considers you part of her family.”
I get a pain in my chest, a throb which I don’t quite understand. I’ve never really thought about having children myself. It wasn’t that I didn’t like them, just at thirty-one, I thought my time had most probably passed.
Dante looks at me with a slightly puzzled expression, his eyes clouded as he sways slightly.
“Is this it?” I ask him, moving closer to inspect the huge, scaly male. “Is this you turning into a…Kursarkarnii?”
Heat flows from him. Dante blows out a hot breath filled with smoke and cinders.
“It’s been a while,” he slurs. “I hoped the mating mix might have worked instead.”
He moves closer to me, tracing a claw through my hair. I feel it tug on the dried blood which has stuck some of it to my scalp, and he frowns the frown of a drunkard.
“What is this?”
“I need a bath.”
A wet smile opens up on Dante’s face. “I have aquiums.”
“I don’t even want to imagine what your aquiums are like, Dante, not after having seen your dining hall.”
“They are wet,” he says, his voice even more muzzy. “You would like them.”
“I think I’ll use the one in my quarters, if you don’t mind.”
“You should see our aquiums. They are the best on Vorostor,” Dante says earnestly, his hand tracing down the side of my face.
I realize I don’t have much of an alternative. I’ve already ended up in his med bay due to the behavior of his crew, and I’m not sure I want to take a risk wandering around on his ship unaccompanied. Plus it will give me the chance to find out more about his mutation and potentially how likely it is it will be solved.
We pass back through the airlock, not before I’ve had a final check over my shoulder to see if the little female Sarkarnii is still around, but she isn’t. I wish I’d asked her for her name, but the whole experience was completely overwhelming.
“Do the rest of the warlords know about the sarkarnlings?” I ask as we exit the med bay.
Dante shakes his head. “I was entrusted with them,” he says. “They are my responsibility.”
I am absolutely astounded he even knows the word.
A gaggle of Sarkarnii appear at the far end of the passageway. The instant they see us, they scramble to get away, a flashing bundle of scales, sparks, and smoke.
I come to a halt and look at Dante. He looks at me, his forehead creased, his eyes still clouded.
“What did you do?” I demand.
“Nothing they won’t recover from,” Dante growls. “They hurt you, and I cannot allow it to go unpunished.”
“But Dante, they’re your crew…”
“Doesn’t matter,” he grumbles. “If they hurt you, there has to be consequences.”
“It was mayhem in the dining hall.” I take his hand. He’s cold to the touch, and I don’t like it, not when the one constant thing about Dante was the heat from his body. “You have a lot of crew, do they all have the same meal time?”
“They eat when they want,” Dante says.
“And what about work and relaxing?”
He shrugs a shoulder. “As long as the work gets done. They can work around their needs.”
