Page 45 of Defiance
Someone laughed. Not Charlie, but a woman sitting near her. The other guests had begun to arrive for the main event in the two weeks since their arrival, so the mulling voices over the first official dinner belonged to a variety of species rather than hjarna alone. Shilpakaari guests sat with misters at their backs to keep their skin hydrated, and Charlie sat near them trading animated stories. The first time she’d snagged her hand with a fishing hook made them wince, but theahktopisthat stole the rainboot off her foot made them laugh.
And she listened with her whole body. Her brows spoke louder than her mouth, following along with each tidbit of information she soaked up. She squeezed her arms beneath her chest and leaned as far over the table as her bowl of fresh cave clams andreighimushrooms would allow. Her eyes would widen, her mouth would turn soft, and she’d twirl a bident in her fingers, enraptured by the stories and knowledge they shared with her.
Someone said something funny and Charlie smacked the table with a guffaw, throwing her head back. Novak found himself smiling, his tail swaying gently behind him. She soaked up each new experience like a sponge, always in the moment and never anywhere else. Maybe it was a symptom of the pain she’d suffered, taking nothing for granted.
Despite the greedy reasons he’d chosen her for their mission, she was a good representative for humans. When someone confided in her, she really listened. Her investment in their stories and life’s work was genuine.
When Charlie smiled, the stars aligned and all was right in the world.
But guarding her had been torture.
Sath La?we might have been an obnoxiously good-natured man but his mind was sharp and skeptical. They watched each other more than Charlie knew. HIXBS’s host couldn’t hear orsmell like an advenan, but those eyes saw a lot more than they let on. Temperature shifts, extremely minute adjustments to Novak’s scales, the flare of his nostrils. Though they didn’t see the visible light spectrum, hjarna vision was so refined that the wind looked like an ocean current to them. A well-trained hjarna rifleman could shoot a coin out of the air a mile away without target assist or optics.
Which meant Novak couldn’t breathe Charlie in. He couldn’t watch her too closely either, or show how furious he was each time La?we bowed and dusted her with his crest’s expensive powder. Hadn’t she realized it was a proposal to dust her with his crest like he wanted to paint her skin with his milt?
Novak milked his fangs daily thanks to the invisible pissing match. He thought about what she’d said in the restroom every day as his helices spun together, crushed in their cloaca and desperate to sink inside her again. That maybe advenan men didn’t want to disappear on their quarries. Maybe they’d been forced to. Because his instincts sure as shit thought Charlie was his. If anything, he wanted his fang marks to be permanent.
Novak’s only consolation prize was that HIXBS’s supposed golden boy couldn’t see how Charlie’s silk burned like the setting sun in visible light. Her coppery red plait and the speckles of spice on her cheeks were for Novak only. Something La?we could never have.
Even if Novak could never haveher.
At least he could look his fill from the discretion of the potted ferns along the wall.
Charlie was wearing her silk in a low, twisted bun at the nape of her neck. The tabard she’d chosen for dinner was sleeveless and sideless, exposing muscular arms and the curves of her hips. Her middle creased with a round, soft dimple that made him salivate. Her ribs slid beneath her skin as she stretched her in chair, and when she picked up her glass ofwater, he glimpsed the side of her breast. Full, low, and much paler than her arms and cheeks. Their points pressed against the length of Yaspurian linen, and Novak wished he could bite them.
How quickly did humans heal?
Did she still have a mark from the river?
Maybe she used a mediplasma…
He growled at himself and swore under his breath. She hadn’t used a mediplasma. He would have smelled it. The thought made his fangs throb, and a pulse of venom filled his mouth.
Sath turned towards Charlie’s laugh, balancing his hand on the back of her chair as he listened to her question. He leaned in conspiratorially, sharing an inside joke with the opposite side of the table. A venandi with grey plates and short spires chittered back and their host slid his hand down Charlie’s back as they all laughed. She glanced sideways at him, taken off guard.
Novak’s gaze darkened, the same tension he’d held since the river rolling back in, locking up his plume mail. He adjusted his fangs and squeezed his claws together where they were clasped in front of him.
He could kill Sath.
No one would know. They’d never find him.
Novak took a deep breath, wrapping his tail around the heavy potted fern at his side. It garroted the clay, plume mail cutting chunks out of the heavy maroon glaze.
A palace steward slipped through the courtyard door and tapped a small mallet to a bell hanging off a velvet cord. Conversation died down, people craning their necks to see who had arrived so late.
“Introducing Union Councilwoman Guei Boha, Chairwoman of Medical Innovation and Health Access!”
Many of the hjarna stood up, but Charlie was slow to join them, the color draining from her face. Some of it was fear, butanger too. Novak breathed in deep, focusing on the pulse in her neck and the whiff of sweat beading behind her ears. Guei was responsible for the human dolls that were seeping into the black market. Ones that looked like her.
The door swung open and Charlie glared, her fists clenched into white-knuckled weapons. Novak whipped the fern beside him, drawing her attention, then kept her stare. He nudged the air with his nose and gave her a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Come on, sunset, you can fake it,” he murmured under his breath. She blinked anxiously, putting on a bright smile, and set her eyes on the hjarna walking through the door.
“Boha! Such an honor, yes,” Director Caher said with open arms. “We didn’t expect you for another sol.”
“Bi?dou, it’s always such a treasure to see you, my old friend.”
They embraced, brushing each other’s hands and palms, catching up in friendly murmurs while the rest of the party sat back down and slowly started up conversation.
