Chapter 5 – Aidro
Himari had a lot of useful skills, and she spent the day smugly making sure I was well aware of that. She could weave baskets and ropes from random things she found lying about, and was interested in just about everything she found, though cautious with the plants in case of a reaction.She made our makeshift dwelling a little more homey, showing me how to weave bowls out of rushes and making mats for us to sleep on. I spent the day helping her, standing guard a little, and most of all watching her. If she caught me, I pretended to be worried about drones. And if she didn’t catch me I stared at her for hours, like I could drink her irritating presence in and keep it close to my heart.
We picked berries, and she explained to me how she was identifying what was most likely to be edible, but I didn’t understand it. She was brilliant, while I’d had very little schooling. So sometimes, listening to her speak was fascinating, but I was sure I missed most of it and the lag with my translator wasn’t helping. She sometimes tried to use her translator and speak in Tholkon. If anything made my dick hard, it was my native tongue on Himari’s pretty pink lips. I forced her back into our little shelter after a little while, though I got the feeling she could have happily explored all day.
She was chatty as she showed me how to weave, touching me a little too much for my comfort, but then leaving me be and going quiet once I got the hang of it. I glanced up at her and found her intent on her work, making a mat for us to sleep on. Fuck, she was beautiful like that, with her black hair falling across her cheek, glossy in the half-light coming through the door. Her tan skin was lovely in the light, smooth and shining. She glanced up, and this time, when she caught me watching, there was nothing I could say.
“Why won’t you tell me more?” Himari asked. I tried to ignore the question, because she was annoyingly persistent, and because I still had the taste of her on my fangs, and it was making my dicks hard. It wasn’t that I was attracted to her, it was simply a natural result of binding myself to her. Something of her essence would always flow through me now. Or would it always have? I wasn’t sure how the goddamn soulmate thing worked.
“More?”
“About yourself. I’ve been talking about myself since we met. You know everything about me.” And that was true. I’d memorized her details. She’d grown up in a place called Colorado, in the mountains. And she’d had a pet goat, whatever that was.
“I don’t tell stories like you do. I never had a goat named Goatis who stole people’s clothing.”
She laughed, shaking her head at. “Well, you could say something.I know nothing about you, except that you escaped your home world with Uli. And that’s only because Caroline told me that. Then, the one thing you say is something so awful that I don’t even know what to say. But you won’t elaborate.”
That got my hackles up, and I couldn’t control my reaction. “We’re not best friends bonding around a campfire. You don’t need my story,” I snapped. She took a shaky breath, ducking her head. I felt like an ass, but I didn’t know how to take the words back. I leaned against the steel panel on the side of our little cabin, resting on one of the mats she’d shown me how to weave.
“You don’t have to be a dick, Aidro. We’re in this together.” She moved a little further away from me, and I wasn’t sure if it was because I’d chased her off or not. She sat cross-legged and, pulling the bowl into her lap, looked through the berries. “It’s called being friendly. People do it all the time. Do we need to do lessons? Like how I taught you to weave baskets?” Her voice went a little quiet when I was mean to her, but then she’d get mad—her spine straightening, her eyes narrowing. And that was when I wanted to fuck her the most. She sparkled with a dangerous fire when she was pissed off.
“I don’t want to tell you anything that might make you afraid of me while you’re depending on me for survival,” I said firmly.
“Yeah, that’s really the way to go about it.” She rolled her eyes and popped a dark blue berry into her mouth. “Because you couldn’t possibly just tell me what happened and let me make my own decisions.”She chewed another berry, her eyes challenging me.
“Are those safe to eat? You said you needed to test the new varieties that you hadn’t found near camp.” I restrained myself from snatching the basket out of her lap, but just barely.
“It would be best if we only have one or two,” she said, shrugging and popping another into her mouth. Her eyes rolled back and she moaned, and she looked a bit like I’d imagine she’d look as I buried myself between her soft legs. I shook myself as she swallowed, and waited. I knew I shouldn’t have marked her, but my fear and worry had driven me over the edge of control. And it was no excuse to do something like that to someone.
I took a handful of berries and popped them into my mouth, groaning in pleasure as the sweet, tart juices exploded in a burst of flavor.
“That was a bad idea,” Himari said, reaching over to wipe a little juice off my chin.
“Don’t touch me,” I muttered. She snatched her hand back, frowning.
“You know what? You bit me. I remember how we woke up this morning, how you were touching me. Why get all growly about a simple affectionate touch?”
“I don’t have good self-control,” I said, grabbing more berries and stuffing them into my mouth, because I needed something to do.
“Aidro, I only tested the blueish berries,” she said, reaching for my hand. But it was too late. I’d already swallowed.