by Izzy Shows
I felt myself deflate.
How could I explain that his voice was dangerous to me?
Walter laid a hand on my arm. "Siva?"
He was close, but he hadn't quite gotten the beginning right. My shoulders slumped, and I offered him a halfhearted smile.
"Yesssss," I said.
But I didn't feel any of the happiness that Walter and Mersssssee clearly had felt when I had gotten their names right. I was too caught up with the look on the warrior's face when I snapped at him. It had been painful to watch, and I wanted to make him smile again, though I had no idea why.
He doesn't believe in you. And he hasn't exactly been kind to you. Why should you care how he feels?
That was just it—I shouldn't. I shouldn't care at all whether he was upset or not, whether I had taken something away from him, because he didn't matter. But the way his smile had affected me, almost as much as his voice—I wanted to see that smile again.
If it hadn't been for the warrior—like a storm cloud hanging overhead on a sunny day—and the threat of Zvarr at my back, this would almost have been a peasant trip. I had always wanted to meet someone from another world.
But I would have preferred to meet them in a different situation, when their lives weren't in danger.
We continued that way for a bit, in silence, before Walter regained his enthusiasm and started to teach me some more words. I learned sssssand and rock and sssssky. Strange words, and they didn't roll off my tongue correctly, but it was important that I learn them.
"Walter?" I asked, and he looked at me inquisitively.
"Yesssss," I said, pointing to my smiling lips. Then I frowned, still pointing, and held up my hands in a helpless gesture.
"No," he said.
I made a face at the harsh word, like a rock sinking to the bottom of a pond. I didn't like it one bit. "No."
Now I understood two words, words that were much more important than sssssand and sssssky and rock. Those words were all well and good, but yesssss and no would help me with everyday situations during my imprisonment with the creatures.
I looked over my shoulder to see how far we had gone. The creatures moved so slowly, though again I was sure that if it had been just me and the warrior, we would have made much better time. Not that I would want to be alone with him.
I was pleased to see that the domicile we had been in was no longer visible in the distance. Perfect.
That was exactly what I needed to lift my spirits after the interaction with the warrior.
I cast a mischievous smile at Walter and Mersssssee, who looked very confused, and then I threw myself into the sky. My fingers painted a number of sigils to manipulate the winds, but it wasn't that magic that I truly used. It was the power of Vivoth that powered me into the sky and held me aloft—this was not a talent that was given to the Stryx, or to any Eyrusian.
Zvarr and I were the only ones with the power of flight, and that was because we had been Chosen.
Laughter bubbled out of me as the wind swept along my back, and my hair flew behind me like a streamer.
Gods above, it was a delicious feeling to be in the air and moving so freely. I had done this only once, during my battle with Zvarr, and I hadn't been able to enjoy it because of that.
But now I had a bit of time to be myself and enjoy the moment.
It was glorious, and I wouldn't trade it for anything else. Exactly what I needed to heal my soul.
For a while, I simply flew, gliding above the creatures while they walked. I had to fly in little circles so as not to get too far ahead of them, and I was thankful that my clothes had been returned to me, so I wasn't ambling about in the white gown they had given me. My own clothes afforded me a much greater range of movement.
After some time, curiosity got the better of me. I looked down at the creatures on the ground—Walter, Mersssssee and the warrior—to see what they were thinking. They were gazing up at me with awe in their eyes, and I smiled down at them.
I gestured with one finger to manipulate the winds again, to bring their words to my ears. I knew I wouldn't understand them, but I couldn't help my curiosity.
Walter sounded very anxious indeed, and Mersssssee wasn't talking, which was unfortunate.
It was the note in the warrior's voice that went straight to my heart.
It was reverence.
Kaidan
Xiva was something out of a fucking fairy tale. Her laughter was a drug I didn't think I would ever get over, and the sight of her flying through the skies… That should have been impossible, but she made it look effortless.
I had never wanted to fly before—had never even thought about it, of course—but looking up at her, I ached to be with her in the skies.
What a stupid thought. Why would you want to fly with her? Foolish.
I reprimanded myself and forced my eyes straight ahead. Walter was very anxious as soon as Xiva took flight, but I'd told him to calm down. This wasn't the kind of experience when you worried about whether or not Anders would find out and be upset—it was the kind of experience when you just thanked your lucky stars you'd been able to witness it.
That aside, though, I didn't want to be here, and it was clear as day that Xiva didn't want me here.
The look on her face when I'd said her name—I would have sworn she'd been pleased, or something along those lines. The emotion had been hard to read, but she hadn't been upset. And then she had been upset, snapping at me like I'd done something wrong.
I knew I hadn't pronounced it wrong. I had a good ear, and I'd caught the syllables she used, the way she stretched out her s's. I'd mimicked it perfectly, and yet she'd snapped at me for doing it.
Whatever.
I shouldn't even be here on this stupid trip. It was a waste of my time.
Orders are orders.
And my orders were to stick to Xiva like glue, and besides, someone had to protect the kid. Walter would do something dumb as soon as the opportunity presented itself, and I had to be there to keep him alive.
Mercy was an anomaly. I didn't know why the engineer had had to put up such a fuss to be involved in the trip, and she'd been a real—well, I didn't like to use those words about women, but she'd offended me.
She’d come straight to Anders as soon as she heard we were leaving base, and said it wasn't safe for a woman to be alone with two men.
Like I would hurt her. Like I would ever hurt a woman. The very thought was repellent to me.
I'd had to fight women before—there were plenty of matriarchal societies out in the galaxy, and several breeds of aliens where the physicality of the males and females was switched in comparison to human physiology, but it always made me a little sick.
Maybe it made me misogynistic, but my mother had raised me to revere women.
They were beings to be protected, cherished, and cared for. Not to put in a dangerous situation.
Try telling that to Xiva, though. She kept sticking her nose into trouble, and she'd been fucking terrifying when we'd unearthed her.
Everything she'd done, except for that flight, had been some kind of trouble.
Glory, but that flight. Just thinking about it again made my heart light. I'd never seen an alien fly like that, without wings, but she made it look so easy. So much fun.
I hadn't seen her look carefree before, and it was… Well, it was almost nice to see her like that.
It made me curious. I wanted to know what else she could do. I had just about accepted the fact that she had probably pulled the energy out of thin air when she attacked us in the tunnel, and maybe it was possible that she had made the diagnostic machine glow. It was kind of hard to dispute that after watching her fly.
Did she have any other tricks up her sleeve? I wanted to find out, but I didn't think I could talk to her.
Not after the way she'd shut me down when all I'd tried to do was say her damned name.
Would've been nice to hear her say mine.
I shut the door on that train
of thought real fast. I didn't need to hear her say my name. I didn't need to hear her say a damn thing.
We kept walking for a few more hours, and by then the suns were starting to set.
"We need to make camp soon," I said to no one in particular.
"I know, but there's nowhere good for it, right?" Walter said.
"We're probably not going to find anywhere good," Mercy said. "There's nowhere good on this whole planet."
I arched an eyebrow. Negative Nancy, much?
"Xiva!" I raised my voice, hoping she could hear me up in the air.
She flinched immediately, so I knew she’d heard me, but it seemed like she was going to ignore me for a minute there. Then, slowly, she came down in large circles that gradually got smaller, until she landed right in front of me.
She said something in her language that sounded like a question.
"Rest," I said. "We need to rest." I mimed sleeping.
I don't need to rest, but these kids sure do.
I knew I could keep going through the whole night, but one look at Walter and Mercy and their flushed faces and tired eyes, and I knew they'd drop soon.
She frowned, snorting, and shook her head.
Walter came around, nodding. "Yes, rest."
She sighed and made a face at him, then nodded. "Yesssss." Then she pointed forward and a little to the left. "Ressssst."
"Sounds like she knows where to go," I said, grinning.
Her eyes brightened for a second, the blue hue of her skin flared and then muted before she looked down at the ground. She mumbled something incoherent, and then she took off into the sky again. Not too high this time, and she was waving at us to follow her.
We set off again, and it didn't take long for us to reach the destination she had in mind.
An oasis. An actual, honest-to-God oasis. I hadn't thought we'd find anything like that here, though it made sense that where there were deserts, there were oases.
She touched down on the ground and turned to smile brightly at us.
"Ressssst," she said.
"Yes," I said softly. "Good job."
Her skin flared again, and she looked away from me.
I frowned. That had to mean something, but I didn't for the life of me know what.
I shrugged and immediately got to work, shrugging off the backpack I had on. Inside were various supplies, including three tents, micro-sized and ready to be enlarged when you pressed a button.
Walter and Mercy joined in, and for a second I forgot about Xiva, and then I looked up.
She was walking to the edge of the water. What was she doing?
My eyes widened when I realized what was happening.
She had stripped off her clothes faster than I had thought was possible. Not fast enough for Walter and Mercy not to kick up a fuss, though.
The sight froze me to the spot for a moment.
Her body was gorgeous. She was a tall woman, rivaling me in height, but she had soft curves. Curves that hadn't been hidden by her clothing, but God damn, were they beautiful to look at.
Fuck. No.
I averted my eyes immediately, as soon as my brain kicked into gear again, and I felt my cheeks flame. That wasn't the mortifying part, though. Other parts of me had responded to the sight of her.
I could hear Walter and Mercy continue to make a big to-do about it, and Xiva was responding to them in a confused tone, but I didn't dare look up again. It wasn't right; she deserved to have at least some of her modesty preserved, and not to have some asshole ogling her.
She made a soft sound that went straight to my groin, and I couldn't help it then. My eyes rose of their own accord, drinking in the sight of her.
She was gesturing at the water, and finally she mimicked swimming.
"Oh, she's going to take a bath," Walter said. "Of course. That makes perfect sense."
Of course it did. It didn't change anything, though.
"Well, still, a little warning would have been nice," Mercy said. She sounded a little grumpy, but I guessed that fell in line with her thoughts about what would have happened to Xiva if she'd been alone with us.
Nothing would have happened to her. I would never touch a woman like that, alien or not.
I turned away again, this time with my entire body so that I wouldn’t be compelled to look at her again. I hadn't missed the way she'd stared me down the second time.
For the first time, I cursed the form-fitting shape of the tech suits we wore. She had to have seen the way I'd responded to her.
It's natural. Anyone would respond to a naked woman like that. It can't be helped.
That still didn't do anything to make me feel better about it.
"Mercy, nudity is clearly not a concern in her culture, and we should respect that. We cannot hold her to our own standards. That’s simply unacceptable," Walter said.
Nudity might not be a big deal to her, but it damn sure was to me.
I was careful to keep my eyes on the supplies the rest of the night, and I didn't even look up at her when she came back out of the water.
Kaidan
It was the smallest sound, a sound that wouldn't have bothered a normal man even when he was awake. The sound of a boot crunching in the sand—but it woke me up.
I didn't move, didn't change the rhythm of my breathing, just glanced around to see if any of the others were awake. No one was outside their tent that I could see, but I had a limited field of vision.
Closing my eyes, I focused on my hearing.
I picked up the sounds of the three of them sleeping in their tents. I was supposed to be in the tent with Walter, but I'd insisted on sleeping outside. Not because I didn't like the idea of bunking with someone else—hell, that was the way it was in the military—but because I thought someone should be on alert in the event of an attack.
Walter and Mercy had laughed at me.
I was glad of it now, though, because if the three of them were in their tents, that meant there was someone else out here with us.
The footsteps were coming closer now, and I could smell them.
Dirty. They haven't bathed in several days, at least.
Pirates, most likely, then. What were they doing on this planet?
The memory of the pirates I'd killed en route to the planet came back to mind, and along with it their mention of a woman hiring them.
Sabotage.
I was sure of it, but it didn't do me any good to think about that now. I had three people to keep alive, and—I inhaled deeply to catch their scents again—five attackers.
It wouldn't have been a problem if I was on my own, but as it was…
It wasn't safe for me to go into rage with three innocents nearby; the chances of their being injured were too great. I knew I could take three men in my normal state, but that still left two others who could theoretically harm the others while I was busy.
I cursed under my breath.
There was no good fretting about it, though. I was going to have to make do with what I had and hope that I could keep them all busy until I got through them.
I waited, paying careful attention to the sound of the footsteps. They would expect us all to be asleep, easy targets. If I waited until they got here, before they got down to business, I could take them by surprise.
It would be the only advantage I had.
Crunch.
They were just a few steps away now.
Crunch.
Coming closer.
And then the damnedest thing happened.
Xiva launched out of the tent like a goddamned firecracker, a war cry on her lips and that brilliant golden energy flaring from her fingertips. I gave myself all of a second to be amazed by the sight in front of me, and then I jumped to my feet and joined the fray.
It should have been difficult, fighting with someone I didn't know, someone who didn't know my strategies.
But it was surprisingly easy, fluid, like we had fought together all our lives.
She was a
t my back the entire time, keeping step with me as if she knew exactly where I was going to move before I moved there. I was damned glad to have her there when two of the pirates leapt into the air over me, proving that they had been genetically modified as well.
Instinct told me to move, to whirl and keep the attackers in my line of sight, but the firm press of her back against mine stopped me.
You’ve got three of your own to take care of. Just trust her.
The thought was a difficult one to process—trusting this strange woman to have my back in the middle of a fight. I had never fought with a woman before, though I had been in my fair share of fights against them. It wasn't that there weren't women in the military these days; it was just that with the gene modifications going on, everyone was careful to keep the groups segregated. They couldn't risk a male going into rage because a female had been threatened. That just wouldn't do.
So, this was a foreign experience for me, but I was surprisingly calm throughout it. The sound of her voice, chanting in that soft, silky language, was soothing to me, keeping me from going into rage.
God damn, if I had known there was a way to keep the rage contained like that, I would have lobbied for diversification of the teams.
But somewhere deep inside, I knew it wasn't because I was fighting with a female, and it wasn't just the sound of her language that was soothing me. It was her.
If it had been anyone else, if she had had a sister and that was who I was fighting with, instinctively I knew the other female wouldn't have had the same effect as Xiva.
The three in front of me were keeping their distance, pacing this way and that as they kept their eyes on me.
"What's wrong? Scared?" I called, egging them on. I had a knife in one hand and my blaster in the other, and I was half-crouched in case one of them rushed me out of nowhere.
I knew I could take them, and they seemed to know that too, because they were wary of me.
Just get it over with. Go to them if they won't come to you, I urged myself, but I couldn't bring myself to leave Xiva's back unprotected. I was worried that if I took one step away from her, she would find the two pirates she was dealing with surrounding her, and the idea of watching her go down…
