He gets it. Fuck me the way he looks at me, is he interested? Those half-lidded eyes of his make my panties melt.
“Dinner,” Khiara says, setting his own bowl at the table.
One hand on his chair he pauses looking from me to Dilacs with a frown so deep it makes his tusks touch his nose. He grunts, pulls the chair out, and drops heavily onto it. My cheeks flush with embarrassment as if I’ve been caught red-handed doing something wrong.
It’s not wrong. I didn’t do anything.
Sure. But it feels wrong. I don’t know if Dilacs is interested anyway. Sure when he looks at me with those eyes it makes me hot, but in the end, they’re his eyes. How else is he supposed to look at me? I’m probably reading more into it than is there. I take my seat at the table and focus on my bowl.
“Thank you,” I say, talking to the steaming stew.
I can’t bring myself to look up. Too many things spinning in my head and none of them are helpful. I’ve been living with Khiara for a while. Near as I can figure it’s been close to a month. I haven’t seen any of the other girls in a long time. Even the Maulavi have quit coming on the regular, thank all that’s holy.
“Yes,” Khiara says, slurping loudly. “Of course.”
Dilacs is more delicate. Well, that’s not a very ‘manly’ way to say it. He has better table manners. Wait, more accurately, he has table manners that agree with my human sensibilities. I don’t know what the table manners of the Urr’ki actually are.
Ah the joys of interacting with and being, more or less, the prisoner of aliens. The Urr’ki are to a one as alien as they come. Khiara has forest green skin with long black hair that he binds into braids with beads that look like they are made of iron. His eyes are so dark they look almost black. He has a long, thick beard and his tusks are ivory in color rising from his lower jar. He’s the one I was ‘assigned’ to by the Maulavi when I was split off from the other human captives.
His brother, Dilacs, is similar enough to see the family resemblance but only in passing. His skin is a lighter shade of green. His eyes are a rich, vibrant blue. He’s clean shaven and clearly the younger of the two of them. Khiara’s face has several old scars that crisscross his face while Dilacs’s is smooth and clear.
Dilacs watches the world with heavy eyelids that look almost sleepy or distracted but I think I know him well enough to know that he is anything but. He’s sharp, fast on the uptake, and misses nothing.
I reach for the bottle of seasoning but Dilacs does at the same time and our hands meet at the middle of the table. His large hand easily covers mine and as our skin touches a static shock leaps between us.
“Oh,” I gasp at the shock.
Khiara looks up from his bowl, utensil half-way to his mouth. His eyes on our hands where they are touching each other, eyes narrowing, and a deepening frown on his face. I jerk my hand back once more embarrassed, though I don’t know why.
I’m not his. I live in his house. No, don’t live, I’m a prisoner here. It’s not like I can leave.
And that subtle, or not so subtle, reminder dampens my mood. I do my best to not think about the fact that I am, in the end, at his mercy. He, for his part, doesn’t ever push it. My status as a prisoner was very clear when the Maulavi were coming not only every day, but sometimes multiple times a day, to question me over and over. Since that’s stopped it’s become less obvious and more like some kind of normal. A comfortable, okay normal, though it would be nice to see other humans.
Dilacs uses the seasoning then silently offers it to me. I stare at it for probably too long a moment before my mind catches up to what’s happening. I take the bottle with a murmured thank you and flavor the stew.
“It’s really good, Khiara,” I say, trying to break the heavy feeling of the silence laying over the table.
“Heh,” he grunts, slurping loudly.
As he shovels the stew into his mouth some drips onto the table with a sploosh sound. All around his bowl are little speckles of the stew that have fallen like tiny rain drops of mess disturbing the cleanliness that exists on the rest of the space. It makes me feel twitchy.
Comparatively, the space around Dilacs’s bowl is clean. He doesn’t slurp his food. When some of it does inevitably spill he immediately cleans it with his napkin. They may be brothers, but they are also night and day to one another.
Dilacs notices my gaze. He frowns and then follows my eyes as I shift my gaze to the mess around his brother's bowl. His frown deepens then he closes his heavy eyelids and sighs. He opens his eyes, holds mine, shrugs, and then shakes his head.
Keeping it as soft as possible I sigh and shake my head too. He chuckles and once again Khiara looks up frowning. He glares at his brother and grunts then says something in their rough, guttural language.
Dilacs responds with what sounds like a harsh bark. I can do nothing but look between the two of them. I’ve seen them do this before. Once it ended with the two of them in blows. Dilacs didn’t come around to visit for several days after that which, honestly, sucked. I miss him when he’s not here.
Khiara’s hand clenches tight and he slams it down onto the table making me jump. Involuntarily I yelp, sliding my chair back. Both of the Urr’ki men look at me and I raise my hands, shaking my head.
“Sorry,” I mutter, using my napkin to clean up the stew that slopped out of my bowl.
“No, I am sorry,” Khiara says. “That was uncalled for.”
I force a nervous smile. They’re brothers so I suppose some tension is natural but I really hate it when they do this.
“I also apologize,” Dilacs says.