Page 9 of Dweller of the Mists

“I can’t,” she whispered with another frantic glance around. “This place is the only safety I have. Out there I will be exposed, and… I… I just can’t.”

Hope rose so quickly within him that he felt momentarily unbalanced by the emotion. He blinked at her in surprise. She wasn’t afraid of him. She was terrified of the swamp. He gave the dwelling a critical look and shook his head. Without a word, he leaped into a higher branch and then over her head as he made his way to the trailer. From the corner of his eye, he watched as she jumped to her feet, a look of alarm on her face.

“What are you doing?” she shouted just as he dropped to the roof of the dwelling with a metallic thud.

He met her eyes grimly. “This dwelling cannot protect you from a cazka. A single cazka is a dangerous foe even for a Bia, and this place would not have proved to be an obstacle to me if I wished to get in.” He wrestled with himself, uncertain of how much he wished to say—he did not want her to be afraid of him, but she had to understand, and there was only one way to do that. “When I spoke to you from the position before, I planned on removing you forcibly, if necessary,” he admitted. “Anything to end the stalemate between us.”

Without another word, he bent and stabbed his claws into the metal. It squealed in an unholy fashion as he demonstrated exactly how he would have extracted her, his claws cutting through the metal effortlessly. He grunted slightly as he peeled the section back, barely daring to meet her eyes. The horror that he found there gutted him but what shocked him the most was the way he trembled as if he were a rejected male to be pitied.

“Noelle—” he began hoarsely but she shook her head and lifted a hand in a request for his silence, the hushing motion one that Bia also practiced with their young.

“I just… I need a moment,” she mumbled, and she sank heavily back to the root.

Her eyes remained fixed on the bit of metal he held and he guilty pressed it back into place, all the while trying not to cringe at the way the metal continued to squeal as he manipulated it.

“I did not wish to frighten you,” he said quietly as he sank into a crouch, his gaze never shifting away from her face which had suddenly gone very pale. “It was the best way I could think of to demonstrate what little safety this dwelling truly offers.”

She nodded, and he recognized the numbness to her movements. “No, I get it,” she assured him in a wobbly voice. “I’m just having a hard time wrapping my mind around how precarious my situation has been every day I stayed here… and all the while, the only reason this place offered me safety at all is because of you.”

“Is it so bad to have an ally?” he queried gently.

She shook her head, and her expression softened as she looked up at him. “Not at all. But I do have an unexpected empathy for all the unsuspecting crawfish I dug up and had for dinner… I’m kind of getting how that feels,” she added with a quiet chuckle that sent a little thrill down his spine.

He was suddenly hungry to hear her laugh again. “These crawfish can tempt a male to abandon every bit of his sanity?”

A giggle bubbled up from her, making him tingle delightfully. “Oh, I’m sure that someone somewhere has been pretty tempted to do some crazy stuff by a good crawfish boil,” she returned amid her laughter.

Gwum grinned in turn. He really had no idea what she was talking about, but the context from her clues led him to believe that it was some sort of small creature that was retrieved from the swamp, boiled, and consumed with some relish.

“I was not aware that humans had Bia dwelling on their planet,” he teased. “Surely only a young Bia male would lose their sanity trying to eat whatever he finds at the bottom of the swamp. Before reaching maturity, a male is nothing more thana stomach with two legs attached to move it around to wherever the food is.”

A peal of laughter escaped her, warming his hearts and delighting his senses despite the fact that she slapped a hand over her mouth in an embarrassed attempt to muffle it.

“Do not hide your laughter,” he chided. “Laughter is celebrated as a great gift from the gods. Enjoy it fully like all Bia do.”

She gave him an uncertain look, but her hand slowly dropped from her mouth. “I’m more afraid of drawing something here that might hear me and decide to eat me.”

“Right now I am the only thing here that would wish to eat you, so you do not need to worry about anything else,” he assured her.

He did not understand why her face suddenly turned pink or why she was suddenly so interested in looking at anything else but him. He rubbed the back of his neck as he regarded her, completely perplexed by her reaction. Perhaps now was simply a good time to present his gift. With a quiet hum, he opened his satchel and dug into it. Her eyes were on him now. He could feel her watching him and he intentionally slowed his movements to prolong the moment. He wished to savor it.

Gathering the flowers carefully, he lifted them from the satchel and cautiously approached the edge of the trailer before dropping down onto the root system just a short span from where she stood. Her eyes widened as they took in his offering and her face grew even pinker.

“Oh… Gwum, they are lovely but I’m not sure… I… uh… on Earth it would be forbidden for you and I to, uh…” She gestured helplessly between them, and his eyes widened with comprehension.

She thought he was interested in mating.

His loins tightened with unexpected interest, but he pushed that foolishness away as he quickly shook his head in denial of the direction of her thoughts. “No, Noelle, you misunderstand. It was just a gift to brighten your day, especially as I leave tomorrow.”

“Oh!” An embarrassed laugh escaped her as her face turned an alarming shade of red. “Of course that would be it. Not… oh, gods,” she mumbled, burying her face in her hands.

“It is not meant as a slight against you,” he continued awkwardly. “You are truly a fine and lovely female. It is just that I do not wish to sacrifice myself upon the altar of mating.”

She lifted her head and squinted at him. “Are you saying that you’ve never…”

He choked as comprehension gripped him. She was questioning his capabilities! Normally that would be something he easily ignored, content to let others think whatever they liked of him, but he was feeling unreasonably defensive about it.

“I have,” he loudly interrupted, startling her enough that she jumped and then giggled at her own reaction.

---