It is good food. Really good. Tender, savory, and fresh in a way nothing on the saucer ever is. The fish flakes nicely as I chewslowly, letting myself enjoy it even though I know I shouldn’t get comfortable. “Back to ship.”
Crat'ax pours more fruit juice from a skin pouch into a shallow cup. The liquid is thick and fragrant. “Today you will meet the tribe,” he says. “If you want. Try some of this.” He gestures to a wooden plate holding a small heap of dark berries. “From the Hidden Reef.” He points vaguely toward the open sea.
Cora was right. The language is surprisingly easy to understand. The sounds are rough and guttural, but the structure has a kind of blunt logic to it. I still miss many words, but I am usually close enough to guess what he means.
“Then go back?” I ask, keeping my tone light, even curious.
I am almost certain he plans to keep me here. According to Cora, being abducted by a caveman is practically a rite of passage for Earth women on Xren. Apparently, now I can check that box, too. Once. That is all I intend it to be. Theodora must be losing her mind right now.
“My friend wait,” I add, more softly.
“The Plood are not your friends,” Crat'ax says. “We are your friends. The tribe.”
“Friend not dothisother friend,” I say, crossing my wrists and lifting them to make the meaning unmistakable.
“You were resisting,” he replies evenly, with a flash of clear, purple eyes. “I had to tie you. But now you are freed from the Plood and safe in this village. The Deep gave you to me. It will not accept me giving you back. That is the worst insult. The Deep would never give me anything again. It would drag me beneath the waves the first chance it got.”
I study him as he speaks. I already had a good look at him this morning, in the pale light before he brought me to this hut, but daylight sharpens everything. He could be around my age. Maybe a little older. His eyes are a deep, striking purple, the same shade as the stripes on his skin, and there is nothing dull or simple about them. His hair is wild, thick, and glossy, but I don’t see him as the kind of guy who takes any particular care of it, except binding it back, gathered with a strip of leather. His muscles move beneath his skin with slow, controlled power, like boulders shifting.
He is nothing like Sprisk. He might as well be a different species entirely. Sprisk had too much dinosaur in him, all jagged edges and looming menace. Crat'ax is far more human in his proportions and expressions.
Which somehow makes him radiate even more danger. I guess the fangs help with that.
I wipe my hands on the leather sheet he put around me last night and stand. “Where is tribe?”
He rises, too, and opens the hut’s door. “They are everywhere. Most are good men. But no tribe has only good men.”
I get up and step outside onto the wooden planks. They feel solid beneath my feet, barely flexing even as waves slap against the poles below. The structure creaks softly, the way a living thing breathes, but nothing about it feels unstable or poorly made.
The huts are large, built to accommodate eight-foot-tall cavemen without wasting space. There must be close to a hundred of them, spread across the bay like a wooden city floating above the sea. The village does not fill the entire bay, but it fills enough of it to feel commanding.
A group of men approaches.
“Chief Brun'ax,” Crat'ax says. “This is Callie. A woman given to me by the Deep.”
“Not given,” I correct immediately. “Taken.”
“Ah,” the chief says, breaking into a wide, delighted smile. “A woman in the village. Indeed, the only woman on Xren. Where do you come from, woman?”
“Callie,” I say sweetly. “Not ‘woman.’ Callie.”
“Ah,” he repeats, still smiling. “Where do you come from, Callie?”
“From Earth,” I tell them. “Today go back to ship.”
A chuckle ripples through the group, because of my voice or my accent, probably.
But one voice stands out. It has a sharp, unpleasant edge to it. The man who spoke is heavily scarred, his stripes faded and uneven, as if something had tried to erase them. His gaze slides over me in a way that makes my skin crawl. It’s the same troublemaker I recall from yesterday.
“Go back, she says,” he growls. “The Plood must miss her, Crat'ax. Will you take her back, or shall I?”
His eyes linger far too long. I swear he licks his lips.
I shift closer to Crat'ax without quite meaning to.
“No one rejects what the Deep has given,” Crat'ax says calmly. His voice does not rise, but it cuts through the murmurs instantly. “That insult would bring the Deep’s anger on theentire tribe. Callie will stay. She is confused from being freed from the Plood.”
“That would confuse anyone,” the chief agrees easily.
