Damn.What will Theodora think when she wakes up and I’m not there? She’ll look for me. I know it. She won’t rest until… shit. She’ll go into the jungle. She’ll think I’m in there. And then some monster will get her. Because of me.
No!
I get to my feet and give Crat'ax a hard slap across his huge back. “Go back! Back! Now!” My voice goes shrill. That monster kind of scared me into silence, but I’m not coming willingly, and he has to know that.
Crat'ax spins around, alarmed at my sudden outburst. But he sees no danger and glances at the rope I snapped before. “You should be quiet.”
“Go back,” I repeat. “Go there!” I point behind us, to a random point on the beach.
“No,” the caveman says, glancing at the rope, then back at me. I get the message:I can tie you up again.
Powerless, I sit back down. I’m not going to jump into the ocean again. That monster could be lurking just behind us, and I never want to feel those tentacles around me again.
Crat'ax goes to stand at the stern, bare feet braced, shoulders rolling with each stroke of the oar. The boat has no sail. The tech is all based on muscle, balance, and stubbornness. Each time he lifts the oar, water beads and slides down his forearms, catching the faintest gray light. He moves with perfect confidence, eyes scanning the horizon and often the sky above us.
It’s unfair that fear and attraction can coexist so easily. It makes me suspicious of my own brain.
I draw my knees closer and tuck my hands into the leather sheet he draped over me earlier. I did not ask for it. He did not ask permission. He hesitated anyway, as if unsure whether touching me would burn him.
That hesitation kind of matters. I cling to it. He may not be all bad.
The current drags us along, a steady pull that makes the paddling easier. I can feel it in the way the boat glides forward between strokes, like a conveyor belt I did not agree to step onto. If this were a river back home, I would be calculating miles per hour. I would be estimating how long until the next bend. I would be doing math instead of panicking. Well, he knows I’m not coming willingly. But next time I have a chance to get away, I have to make it count.
I swallow and force my attention outward.
The skirr surfaces alongside the hull, slick and dark, its finned back catching the light before it vanishes again. When it reappears, it chirps softly, a sound like wet glass tapped with a fingernail. It keeps pace with us, never quite touching, never straying far. It’s a mix of otter, tuna fish, and a good amount of beaver in its tail, too.
“Your friend,” I say, shaping the words carefully. My mouth still trips over this language, like my tongue is wearing the wrong shoes. I don’t have fangs like the cavemen do. “Plik.”
Crat'ax glances down, then away. “He’s not a friend.”
Plik pops up again, closer this time, and bumps the hull with its head. It makes a pleased sound.
I snort despite myself. “Sure.”
He pretends not to hear, although my tone should have been obvious enough.
Crat'ax feeds me when the light grows strong enough to see my own hands. They are dried strips of something chewy and salty, handed over without ceremony. I hesitate only a second before taking them. Hunger is persuasive. So is the realization that if hewanted me weak, he would not be offering food. Accepting food doesn’t count as consent, anyway.
The juice comes next, poured from a sealed bladder into a shallow cup. It is tart, cold, and startlingly good. I drink too fast and cough, and his hand lifts as if to steady me, then stops in midair. He waits until I catch my breath before lowering it again.
“I will not hurt you,” he says, awkward and earnest.
“I know,” I tell him, then remember myself. “Know,” I repeat, tapping my chest.
It’s not true — for all I know, he may be planning to cut me into pieces. But letting him think that I hold him to be an honorable man can’t be wrong. He might want to prove me right.
His mouth curves, just barely. It does something inconvenient to my stomach.
As the sun creeps up, he starts to talk. Not in a rush and not like someone trying to convince. Just words, offered into the space between strokes.
He points ahead, where the coastline bends and the land darkens into layered greens. “My village,” he says. “There.”
I sit up straighter. I know that word. Village means people. People mean eyes, opinions, and decisions that will not be mine. And possibly not Crat'ax’s.
“How far?” I ask, not thrilled that I will soon be surrounded by dozens of these giants. I haven’t even gotten used to this one.
He thinks, then lifts his chin toward the horizon. “When the sun climbs high.”
