Okay, she didn’t have to wonder.
The safest thing for her would have been to stay back at her apartment that they’d gotten for her.
But she knew she didn’t usually follow the safest path.
After all, she’d joined a program designed for crossbreeding humanoids with other species, just to see how it would go, so she could get off of Kerde and get away from the Rhysgarrds and their insane reach.
Not her fault she saw stuff when she was working for them.
If they didn’t want their business known, they shouldn’t have done it in front of staff.
Not that she was a snitch.
She had no idea why they thought she was the snitch—she grew up on the streets, she knew better than that. And she was fully aware of what happened to those who did share their knowledge of the Rhysgarrds’s inner workings. She’d seen it.
And where does she wind up? Here, on Kantenan, stranded, with crazy Kantenans after her and by proxy, Stron.
Seriously, she needed to find a ship and just go float around in empty space or something, get away from everything.
She sighed as she walked, evidently loud enough that Stron noticed. His pace slowed as he walked. For a second, he glanced at her, one eyebrow raised slightly, and then he went back to scanning their surroundings.
The tunnel hardly seemed like the same place they’d been in just a little bit ago. Evidently, when they’d been in Knobb’s place, some kind of setting switch happened, like daytime to nighttime.
The lighting had changed—it was darker, but still illuminated. More like a nightlife club rather than the market they’d been walking through before. Now, also the crowd had grown.
More shadows all around them. More places for people to follow them without them noticing.
She didn't like this. And then she caught it again — not a trace this time. Clear. Unmistakable beneath the stone and shadow and the sour press of bodies around her. Vetiver and ash. Her stomach went cold. She'd been telling herself it was the cave before. It wasn't the cave. She stayed close to him, not trusting anyone else at the moment besides him.
But only because she didn’t have a choice on who else to trust.
Stron didn’t say anything at first. “If they think we are in Courtship…” his words trailed off.
“What about it? Will we get a free pass or something?” Adryel asked.
“There are certain things a Gol-Vett is protected from,” Stron said, his pace even slower now. Others who walked around them kept glaring at them.
They seemed to be holding up traffic in the tunnel.
Stron, however, didn’t seem to care.
“Like being in a relationship?” she asked.
His gaze met hers, and it had more intensity than she’d seen before. “In Courtship. It is not the same as having a companion. Anyone can have a companion, with anyone else. But Courtship is more. And respected as such.” He said the words low, and leaned down, saying the last of it against the side of her head.
Even through the cloth, she could feel the warmth of his skin and his breath, and it gave her a shudder.
Like one of those good ones.
He lingered against her cheek for a moment, before pulling back, his horn grazing the hood.
“Uh huh,” she said.
He pulled away, though he kept his hand on her, touching her back, and she felt like he was prepared to yank her against him if he had to.
In the classes they’d taken before arriving, one of the details was that the Kantenans took mating bonds very seriously, because it was as much a biological response as it was an attraction.
Would it be the same for them? She didn’t know. Graecey had been vague on that point, only saying that was part of the mission of the study. They were testing to see if the attraction went both ways, and if there was a biological connection that manifested when mating with the other humanoid.
