Page 36 of Taken to Nobu
His ridges change color ever so slightly, becoming a sickly green.Is he remembering what happened last time I was out on my own in the cold white? Why wouldn’t he be? Nothing has changed between us. I have given him no reasons to trust me.But I can try.
Without breaking his gaze, I take in air. A lot of it. I let the cold fill my lungs, let its white flakes swirl through me. I don’t break his gaze. “I’m with you,” I say, firmly and evenly, hoping that he knows these words for what they are: true.
His ridges radiate color again, just a splash colored orange. “Xhivey.” I smile at his back as he turns away.
Down the path from his house and around the rim of the valley, I realize that there are actual doorways leading directly into the stone. Sitting up a few steep steps, most are marked by crude stone awnings that keep the cold from totally claiming the space. A few of them open when we pass by and males and females bow to us from the entrances. One male is holding what looks like a pot, one female an ion tong.
In another open doorway a very old male stands slightly hunched and achildhides behind his legs. I only get the quickest glimpse of the small being, so quick I can’t tell if it’s a boy or a girl. Still, when we step past, I realize I’ve got one hand in the air. I’m waving.
At the place where the valley wall begins to curve in towards its center, there’s another entrance. Low, but broad, I can already see that lights glow along all the walls of the huge space, swirling and pulsing like currents in a river. And I can hear the sounds echoing within, even through the cold white. They are fighting sounds.
“Is this…” I’m totally shocked. I don’t know what to say.
The cavern is immense, easily large enough to dock a dozen intra-quadrant transporters. Passing underneath the awning and fully entering the massive space, the Okkari stands to the side. I can sense he’s judging my reaction and he must be pleased with what he sees because he’s smiling ever so slightly.
I turn to face him. “This is our date?”
“Though I am not overly familiar with humans or your customs, the examples given ofdateoutlined in the manual were…insufficient, in my novice opinion. The manual spoke of evening soirées filled with meals and childish games. I thought that perhaps this may be more suitable for a female of your calibre.”
“I…” I glance around, raking it all in. There are fifty warriors in here, maybe more, organized into five different groups. The closest group is headed by a male shouting orders while the rest of the fighters assume different formations.
Two groups slightly further away are made up of pairs squaring off against one another and fighting in choreographed movements. In the next group, pairs fight in free form while the last group closest to the cave’s curved heart has formed a few small clusters. In each, a single fighter faces off against multiple opponents.
And the weapons. Bycomets, the weaponry. The armory lines one whole wall, though it looks like most fighters are using swords, from where I’m standing. A couple use spears that I find familiar, while a few in the farthest groups use weapons I’ve never even imagined — things that look like chains with large, spikey balls on either end; knives with multiple blade ends that whip and whirl around the one who wields them; large nets that, as I watch, are used to bring the largest fighters to the ground.
If I felt intimidated before, I don’t know what I feel now. On the colony, all we have are crude spears made of wood and sometimes, if you’re lucky, metal. Nothing like this. Nothing that’s mounted to rock walls, gleaming black and white and chrome in stacks that span beyond my eyes’ peripheries. Something must be powering at least a few of the weapons, because from where I stand I can feel their electric charge splitting the air, making it sing.
“Kiki,” Okkari says in a low voice.
I start. “What did you say?”
“I said that I hope that this alternative for a date pleases you.” He’s asking a question again without asking.
It annoys me that he doesn’t, but I also find it a little funny. Cocky. And cocky is something I find familiar. I feel the tension in my mouth relax just a little as I answer, “Hexa. It does. It’s really cool, I mean. A good idea. Am I going to get a tour or just watch the training or…”
“Nox. It was my intention to have you train with me.”
“You brought me on a date to fight me?” I say and when he doesn’t answer, I laugh. It bursts out of me a little wobbly, a little tortured, but it unsheathes itself all the same. I laugh so hard my stomach hurts. I laugh so hard I see several fighting warriors turn. Ridges fire with color, but none so bright as the Okkari’s. His face is bejeweled again.
I clap my hand over my mouth, sure that at least one of those colors is mortification. I’m laughing like a fucking lunatic. Not in a pretty way. And that’s what all men want, isn’t it? A woman who’s pretty?Men who want pretty women don’t ask them on dates to fight them.
His colors die, but there’s a downturn to his mouth that wasn’t there before. “If this is unacceptable, then…”
“No. No. I mean nox. It isn’t,” I cut in, feeling renewed flames alight inside my belly, more powerful than the cold that drifts into this cavernous space. “I love it. I mean, it pleases me greatly. This is a great idea. I’d love to fight you…I guess.”
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep a straight face. In all my many dates of little colony boys, not one of them thought to do something like this.And he’s an alien.And that fact is starting to distract me less and less.
“Xhivey.” He exhales gruffly, turning to face the wall of weapons. “Then you will select your weapon, unless you would like to fight me barehanded as you did during the Mountain Run.”
There’s something seductive and teasing about what he says and the way he says it and I feel myself flush. Memories revisit me in living color.His body on top of mine, pumping, pushing. My thighs clenched around his hips, holding, pulling.
“A weapon would be most appreciated,” I say, but my voice breaks.
He smiles very softly. “Very well.” He takes me to the wall mounted with poles and pikes and metal swords with multiple blade ends, large squares with strange handholds, huge flails that look like it’d take seven hands just to wield one of them, huge discs that brim with electricity and look something like shields, and throwers and launchers and axes and hammers and thin little arrows that are covered in thorns that glow in the dark.
Walking the full length of the wall takes forever.Or maybe it only feels that way because we’re walking side-by-side.I can feel the brush of his outer arm against the fur I’m wearing every fifth step. It’s so consistent, I start to look forward to it.I shouldn’t.But fuck it. I walk a little closer to him and wonder if he notices. There’s no subtle rumbling, no comment, no colors from him.Does he like it? Does he hate it? What is he thinking?
It takes me a moment to realize we’ve walked the full length of the wall and have arrived at the very last weapon — some sort of curved bow with a blade on either end and no string connecting them. It dangles on its own hook.
