She pushed again and hissed, “Don’teverdo that again!”
Erin was surprised by the severity of the emotions pulsing inside her. She’d dealt with a lot of shit in her life—her mother, the twins, the courts—andneverhad she felt thisthingbuilding inside her, growing with every passing moment.
But one thing was clear. She was fuckingtiredof being a second thought, of having others control her life, take away her choices until she had no choice but to fight back.
To her mortification, tears sprang into her eyes and she closed them immediately. Even the twins had never seen her cry and she didn’t want to give Jaxor’an the satisfaction of knowing that he’d gotten to her.
She felt his clawed hand on her face, tilting it back, and she shook him off, dislodging his strangely gentle grip.
“Stop,” she whispered when his hand returned.
Both hands now, cupping her face. She refused to look at him.
Suddenly, an echoing cry bounced off the walls, reverberating all around them. Erin stilled, her wet eyes flying open, chills running down her arms.
“What...what was that?” she whispered, her voice ragged and scratchy.
More sounds came. Sounds ofcreatures, she realized. Alien creatures. She hadn’t seen any sign of a single one that day, even in the dark forest. But they weren’t in the forest anymore. Where were they?
Sounds of scratching and clamoring came next, growing closer and closer. Little feet. Little clawed feet, it sounded like. Dozens of them. More cries followed, loud and growling, funneling towards them. Their cries sounded like a cross between a bird call and a gorilla roar, something unfathomable and impossible.
Her body moved of its own accord, her hand wrapping around Jaxor’an’s wide wrist, instinctively seeking protection from a male who’d made it clear he wanted nothing to do with her. Jaxor’an murmured something under his breath, standing immediately, dislodging her grip.
“Wait,” she pleaded when he moved away quickly. It was dark wherever they were. When she looked up, she saw a twinkle of a star before it was covered again by the thick fog. They were in acaveof some sort. A mountain? There was an opening at the top where he’d navigated the hovercraft down, only big enough to fit the width of it and not an inch more.
They were surrounded by cavernous mountain walls and there were alien creatures down there with them.
Jaxor’an moved out of sight, jumping down from the hovercraft, his feet making contact with stone. She heard him pad away, swallowed by darkness. For a brief, dizzying moment, she wondered if he would leave her there.
Her heartbeat was thrumming loudly in her ears as the sounds of the creatures drew closer and closer. Now, she realized they must be scurrying down a tunnel in the mountain. One that led right to them. That accounted for the way the sounds echoed.
Closer and closer—
A scraping sound came and then bright light burst in her vision, making her eyes water as she quickly turned her face away. Blinking against the sudden, blinding assault, she saw Jaxor’an standing a handful of yards away. His hand—the one she’d bitten the night before—was wrapped around a torch flickering brightly with orange flame. He lit two sconces made of metal, which were embedded at shoulder height into both sides of a long, dark tunnel before him.
Suddenly, those cries changed, turned into surprised hisses and screeches. As her eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness, Erin saw a flash of slimy black flesh in the illuminated tunnel. It was a creature with pure white eyes, scrambling onsix legs, scurrying back the way it’d come, back into the darkness. It was the size of a dog, of a fully-grown retriever or a German shepherd…large next to her own barely five-foot frame, but small next to Jaxor’an’s.
She caught sight of at least five more creatures, shrinking away from the light. The sounds echoing around the tunnel made her think there were many, many more.
Erin’s heart felt like it was clogged in her throat. Her pity party from just a few moments before was forgotten as fear pulsed through her body.
When the sounds retreated far enough away, Jaxor’an turned back to look at her, half of his strong profile cast in darkness from the torch light.
“What…” Erin cleared her throat when it cracked. “What were those things?”
There was a metal barrel underneath one of the sconces. Erin watched as Jaxor’an took the cup dangling from its edge, scooped it into the barrel, and dug out something that resembled wax, yellow in color and shimmering with iridescent oil. He fed it to the flames in both sconces before he dropped the waxy cup back into the barrel.
Then he turned to her, leaving the twin fires burning, though he snuffed out the torch against the tunnel wall. Her tears were dried streaks on her face and he pulled her—surprisingly gently—from the hovercraft, grabbing her around the waist as he lowered her down onto the stone floor.
“Kekevir,” he replied. “The fires should always be lit after nightfall.”
That was all he said about the terrifying beasts. Erin didn’t take her eyes away from the brightly lit tunnel entrance. When she looked deep enough into the darkened places the light didn’t reach, she thought she saw the flash of their white, eerie eyes. She shuddered and forced herself to look away.
“Where are we?” she asked next, keeping her voice at a whisper. As if, were she to speak too loudly, those beasts would burst from the tunnel and consume them both.
Jaxor’an was studying her. Those blue eyes glowed.
“My home.”
