“You are manipulating me, female,” he accuses, but there’s no anger in his tone.
Sophia flips onto her stomach, totally unbothered, her dark hair fanning across her back. “Of course I am,” she says, kicking up her feet and throwing a conspiratorial wink in my direction. “But I’ve been thinking that these bucket-baths just aren’t cutting it and I really could do with getting properly clean.” She peers at her nails, utterly aware of how much sway she has over that huge man of hers. “I wasn’t going to ask you, but if you let Polly speak to her man, maybe we could take a dip together?”
Zarriko doesn’t take his eyes off of his girl. “Like a date?”
That makes Sophia turn around and sit up. “A date?”
“Skye taught me about human mating rituals,” he nods, wetting his lips. “I wish to court my female properly. She taught me this word - this ‘date’.”
The smile that spreads on Sophia’s face is slow, warm and genuine. “Yeah,” she says quietly. “It can be a date if you want.”
* * *
The hut they’re keeping Aloryk in is a smokehouse, normally used for curing foods. The walls are blackened by the many fireslit in here over time and currently, there are bunches of different herbs hanging down from wooden racking in lieu of fish and meats. The hut is circular, like most of the Trixikka structures, but the ceiling is a dome shape sculpted out of clay. There are a few purposeful small holes scattered in that dome, casting dots of light on the earthy ground beneath my feet.
I can’t see all that well in the dark of the smokehouse, but the few sparing shafts of light slice through the blackness just enough for me to make out the central trunk of wood, acting like a pillar… and the strong hands that are bound back around it.
“Aloryk,” I whisper, coming closer and moving in front of him.
I hear him shift, the rope groaning as he tugs at his bound wrists. I hate this. Kneeling on the ground in front of him, I watch his skin-stars zoom all over his body, denoting the shape of him, making it look like he’s made of stardust against a black sky. He sits with his back to the pillar, his arms pulled back around it making me ache at the sight. “Polly,” he sighs, his voice sounding dry. “I thought I could scent you.”
After a little while, my eyes begin to adjust and I see a waterskin and a half-empty platter of food. “Are you thirsty?” I ask, already moving before he has a chance to answer. Uncorking the waterskin, I offer it to his lips. There’s a spot of sunlight streaming in through the roof that highlights one of his vivid violet eyes, his sweaty, dirt-stained tanned skin, as well as the lock of hair that flops over his forehead so artfully it’s as if a stylist had fussed over him.
That violet eye stays on me as I tip the water into his mouth, and my sight has adjusted just well enough now to catch the dribble of water running out from the corner of his mouth down to his jaw.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, meaning more than the water. “I don’t know why they insist on keeping you tied up.”
He swallows and chases any errant drops on his lips with his tongue. “I do.”
“I’ve tried asking them to at least untie you-”
“Polly, I am bound like this because Zarriko knows very well that if he should give me any kind of freedom, I would tear through his village to get to you at any cost.”
I… what do you even say to that?
That one highlighted purple eye is trained on me so intently, it makes my belly do little flips. And I can’t help but notice how the beam of light casts just the most perfect shadows on his handsome face. It makes his jawline look dangerously chiseled and his cheekbones enviously high.
“But-”
“Zarriko’s men are not mistreating me, Polly,” he reiterates. “They have unbound me to eat, they have let me stretch my legs and win-” the word ‘wings’ seems to stick in his throat for some reason. He looks away from me for the first time, his clenching jaw framed in that one shaft of sunlight. “I would have happily killed that male who was holding you,” he says, his voice a little quieter - a little more hoarse. “They consider me dangerous, and rightfully so.”
“But you’re not-”
“Why did you not claim me as your mate?”
Ah. We’re getting straight to the crux of things, I see. I was let in here with strict instructions not to untie Aloryk from the post. And I won’t lie, I did have intentions on ignoring that - especially when seeing him this way feels like a shot to the heart. The cowardly part of me is glad that I haven’t done that, though. Because when he’s bound like this, I could still run away without having to hash out this conversation that obviously needs to happen one way or another. It’s that same cowardly part that didn’t explain to Delphi who we really are to each other, it’s that same cowardly part that never reached out to my dad inadulthood, and it’s that same cowardly part that made me run away from this man instead of confronting him about that lie he told.
Shit.
I take a big breath and let it out slowly before kneeling next to Aloryk’s legs. From the little lights zooming up and down his tail on the other side of him, I see the thing twitch once, twice, as if it’s annoyed that I didn’t sit on that side so it could wrap itself around me. Aloryk’s eyes almost glow with the intensity I see behind them as he waits for me to start - to explain myself. I open my mouth to demand why he snuck out in the middle of the night to meet with another woman, but none of the words come out, and I just end up sighing instead. “You know Delphi?”
That single shaft of sunlight perfectly frames the way his brows knit together, highlighting his confusion.
“Well, she’s actually my… half-sister.” That felt weird to say out loud. “She’s part of the family that my dad had in secret. She’s part of the family that he chose over my mom and me.”
I can see Aloryk’s skin-stars gathering at his temples as he processes what I’m telling him. “What does Daffy have to do with you being my mate? What does she have to do with you and I?”
There’s a beat or two of nothing - just a fragment of a moment where I sit there and wait. I wait for him to connect his lie with all of what I’m telling him. For him to realize that out of all of the people for him to sneak out and see, that she might well be one of the most triggering to me.
