Page 44 of Resisting the Alien Rider

I didn’t.

And then she left me there.

17

MAGNOLIA

True to his word, Garrek did get me up early. Before dawn, my whole tent trembled when a big blue fist struck the pole frame of it, three times in rapid succession. Like an unnecessarily dramatic version of knocking on a door.

“I’m up,” I groaned, yanking off my silk bonnet. I rubbed my face sleepily, wishing for what felt like the millionth time that this planet had something that might resemble caffeine. I’d put my hair in Dutch braids last night, and a quick slide of my hands along their lengths told me they’d survived alright, so all I had to do now was get dressed.

When I emerged, fully dressed and with my hat on my head, I saw Garrek waiting in the gloom of pre-dawn by the shuldu. I was so used to seeing him with his vest that finding him so completely shirtless first thing in the morning made me feel kind of funny. My chest went hot and tight as my gaze tracked along thebroad lines of his shoulders, the strong planes of his chest.

“Magnolia?”

Apparently, he’d been talking to me. And I was too busy gawking at his muscles to notice.Nice one.

“Sorry,” I breathed. I cleared my throat. “What’s that?”

Garrek was holding something beneath his arm that I didn’t recognize.

“It’s a stool. So you can get up and down on your own.”

He unfolded the contraption, revealing a step-stool with two levels. It looked brand new. My eyebrows shot up.

“Did you… Did you make that?”

“Of course I did. You think I need to carry around a stool like this for myself?”

“No. Of course not. What would a seven-foot-something behemoth need with a stool?”

“Seven feet?” His purple eyes narrowed. “Did you hit your head?”

“No. Never mind. It just means, yes, I acknowledge that you’re extremely freaking tall, oh mighty shuldu rider.”

I sounded a little pissy. Maybe I was. But Garrek didn’t rise to meet my mood. Instead, something like dark laughter danced in his eyes.

“Tall-ass rider.”

The unexpected recall of last night’s conversation just about slapped me in the face. My mood shiftedinstantly, and before I knew it I was wiping tears from my eyes as I desperately tried to keep my laughter inside so that I wouldn’t wake Killian up yet. At one point, I was so far bent over in my wheezing that my hat fell off.

I reached for it, but Garrek was already there. He’d closed the distance between us without me even noticing, and when I stood, he carefully placed the hat on my head.

Then he turned and started walking back towards the shuldu where they were tied to the trunks of trees. And what I saw then killed my laughter dead as a knife.

Garrek’s back, usually covered up by his vest, or hidden while he faced me, was on full display in the greyish light. His hair was tied in a simple low ponytail, which made it easy to see that gouged into the meaty muscle was the criss-crossing violence of dozens of wounds.

Panic rose like vomit so fast I couldn’t speak. Had that happened last night? How the hell hadn’t I noticed? Why hadn’t he said anything?

But the more I stared at the mess of his back, the more I realized that these were old wounds. Completely closed over.

Scars.

My own words from last night came back at me, like a sobbing echo.

Words about how I knew he wouldn’t have killed his own father without a good reason.

And there that reason was. I knew it intrinsically. I knew it without being told.

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