They've found some of the girls! My heart leaps to my throat when I first see the bird-men returning. Rynn flies me back to the heart of the village when he tells me his second-in-command had also rescued someone from the jungle depths.
Chastity is the first to land, screaming and throwing fists at the Trixikka who carries her. She lets out a yelp when she sees me and hurries on over to wrap her arms around me in a tight embrace, no doubt as pleased as I had been to make it out of that jungle alive.
Alana and one of the quiet girls I hadn't spoken to - Bea, I think she said her name was - were a different story though. Some of Rynn's people were doing all they could to try and coax them back to health, but they were either overcome with exhaustion or worse. I pray that they will pull through.
"You've been here, surrounded by all these tall, dark and feathery guys all this time?" Chastity asks once she’s finally convinced that the Trixikka were friends and not foe.
"Not the whole time. I was turned around in that scary jungle for quite a while," I say as we sit beside the fire lit outside the healer's hut. Trixikka males approach us somewhat warily now and again, offering different foods and drink. "I didn't experience it at night though."
Chastity's jaw tightens as she stares into the flames. "That place is full of..." she shudders, "...things. Unimaginable things." She's quiet for a while and it makes me wonder what she's reliving. But instead of elaborating, it seems she mentally switches lanes in her mind, a bright and curious expression sweeping across her features when she turns to me and asks, "so, you and the big boss-man, huh?"
I blink back at her. "Huh?"
Chastity takes a sip of water from the hollowed wooden cup she'd been given. She eyes Rynn across the fire, still giving orders to his men to continue the search for the others through the night. "Don't tell me you haven't considered it? These bird-guys are incredibly easy on the eye and that one saved your life. I'd say you owe him a handy at the very least."
I gape at her. We’re stranded on an alien planet - a wholly primitive one, from what I can tell - with no hope for any kind of friendly rescue, and her mind goes straight to the gutter? "He's... he's a differentspecies,Chastity!" I say, praying that I can play off the heat in my cheeks as a reaction from the nearby blazing fire. It’s certainly not from trying to convince myself that I, too, have noticed that our feathery saviors are all delicious-looking snacks. No way.
Her answer to that is to lift one shoulder in a shrug and pop a piece of bright purple fruit into her mouth. She catches the eye of the Trixikka who had brought us the food and gives him a sultry smile. The lights on his bare chest race down his abs to disappear into his loincloth. "Oh,come on," she says, turning back to me, "these guys beat any of the aliens we've met so far in the looks department."
I shake my head and look away, catching the attention of Rynn, the fire between us, embers twirling into the early evening air as the firewood pops and crackles. The rippling heat distorts his features a little from where I'm sitting but I see those lights on his chest start to pulse and burn brighter. "Just because they're hot, it doesn't mean you have to sleep with them, you know?" I say, voice quieter than I had intended and eyes still fixed on Rynn.
Chastity chuckles beside me. "Are you tellingmeoryourself?"
Rolling my eyes, I tear my gaze away from Rynn. "Let's just concentrate on finding the other girls safe and sound before we start fucking our way through the locals, shall we?"
Chastity snorts in agreement and mulls over which piece of food to try next. There's a small gathering of Trixikka standing not too far off, all very intently invested in watching her make her choice. "Speaking of girls," she says, picking up a piece of something wrapped in a steamed leaf and giving it a sniff, "where are the alien women? So far all I've seen is a whole lot of man-meat flying around here. Not that I'm complaining."
Chastity is right. I still didn't know what the deal with the Trixikka women is and sitting here, waiting around for either Alana or Bea to wake up is driving me to distraction. I need to do something.Anything.
"Can I ask you something?" I say, approaching Rynn after making sure Chastity is ok with me leaving her side for a while. Turns out she is more than happy, with a string of curious Trixikka admirers growing by the second.
"Of course," Rynn says, ducking his head.
"Where are all your women?"
He sucks in a breath and wets his full lips before speaking. "Many, many generations ago, the males of my people did not treat their females with kindness. And so, they were taken away from them." He watches me, his features a little guarded.
"I don't understand."
Rynn rubs at his chiseled jaw, faintly smiling to himself as he looks me up and down, contemplating something. "It may be easier if I were to show you, little-light."
I wrinkle my nose at that. I'm not the one whose skin is lit up like a DJ booth at a nightclub. "More flying?" I amnota fan.
Rynn nods. "To the Eyrie Caves. There is only one way to get there. Flight. Why do you not enjoy the air?"
"Oh, don't know," I say, waving a hand. "Maybe because the chance of falling hundreds of feet to a brain-splatting doom is, you know,quiteterrifying."
Rynn simply holds out his big hand. "I will never let you fall, Zahreenah.” His turquoise eyes gleam as his intense gaze demands all my attention. “Never."
RYNN
We do not visit the Eyrie Caves often. They are a reminder of how Trixikka used to live. We would be housed up here, at the top of our mountain, nesting in the clouds. Our males would launch into flight daily, soaring through the skies, and hunting the jungles below to provide for their tribe. But our females were forced into a wing-clipping practice - a tradition that should have been stopped generations before our Goddesses turned our hand. The females and young would be left behind at the Eyrie Caves with no means to leave the mountain.
"I don’t think I’ll ever be used to that," my Zahreenah tells me as we land at the mouth of the mother cave.
"I can hold you tighter on the descent if you wish?" The thought is a tantalizing one. The press of her soft, curvy body against mine serves as a reminder of how different we are. Not just in wings and tail, but because she is afemale. She islife. All of us, born from her kind.
Zahreenah makes an amused noise from her nose and then mutters something I do not hear.
