Once again, his sight stars spasmed onfriends.But that was his only reaction. When he said nothing else, I turned and began to walk back the way I’d come before.
Gahn Thaleo, for how intimidatingly large he was, was also somehow completely silent. It was only the prickling of my scalp, the resonating ice down the back of my neck – like my spine was a tuning fork somebody had just struck – that told me Gahn Thaleo followed close behind.
By the time we reached the entrance into Gahn Thaleo’s mountain, Grim, Valeria, and Dalk were already boarding her shuttle outside. Valeria saw us through the shuttle’s viewscreen when we got closer, and she gave us a brief nod before powering up the engines. Instinctively, I moved backwards, away from the power of the vessel that was about to lift off. My back hit stone.
Warmstone.
I nearly jumped out of my damn skin, snatching myself out of Gahn Thaleo’s reach. Not that he was reaching for me. That seemed to have been a one-time thing, solely to protect my stupid fingers from the cold.
“Sorry,” I found myself stammering, taking several steps away. Valeria’s vessel buffeted the air. My hair whipped around my face, momentarily obscuring my view. The whine of the engines intensified, then receded as the shuttle moved swiftly through the night-drenched mountains. Light from the stars and the band of broken asteroids that surrounded this planet, like a belt of misshapen moons, lit the shuttle’s way until it was gone.
“Dalk has returned to the Sea Sands,” Gahn Thaleo said mildly. There wasn’t any gloating that I could detect, but I doubted he was sad about that fact. He wasn’t easy around any males who weren’t from his tribe, but he and Dalk had a special tension between them. Dalk had been held prisoner here once, back before we’d hammered out our alliance with Gahn Thaleo and Gahn Errok, and I knew that he’d been a particular handful for Gahn Thaleo’s guards.
“Probably just temporarily,” I said, noticing that Fiona hadn’t boarded the shuttle with him. I doubted Dalk would be willing to be parted with her for long, even for something important.
Gahn Thaleo made a non-committal noise in his throat, a sort of closed-mouth sigh. His sight stars were trained on the sky we’d watched swallow up the shuttle.
“Because he will want to return to his friends,” he said, still not looking at me. “Rather than remain in the Sea Sands, among his own people.”
“Yes,” I replied slowly. I wasn’t sure Gahn Thaleo even required a reply from me, or if he was just musing aloud. But when I spoke, he turned his sight stars on me as if with rapt attention.
“Dalk is gone. Grim and Valeria, too. You have three fewer friends in the Deep Sky now.”
“So?”
“So. I can remedy this.”
I gave a startled laugh. “You’re volunteering for the job?”
I knew that Gahn Thaleo wanted us to be comfortable here. That he was, in a way, trying to woo us by playing the immaculate host. But was he actually offering to be my friend? What the hell would he even know about the subject? He just told me he’d never had one!
He sliced his tail through the air behind him, a stark gesture ofno.
“I meant my people. There are many who could be friends to you in my tribe. I noticed you and the other new women seemed to chat easily with Zaria.”
A limping sort of heat lurched through me, culminating in my cheeks.
Jesus Christ. Why the hell had I thought that this block of ice carved into the shape of a man actually wanted to be my friend? I shook off what felt dangerously close to humiliation, choosing instead to believe that it was relief.
“Phew,” I said. “For a second there I thought you were the one making me an offer of friendship.”
“No. I was not.”
“Because you don’t have friends.”
“Because I offend you,” he said with something close to softness, but not quite, his sight stars intent upon my face. “And I would never make you an offer that was so deeply unworthy of you.”
I gaped at him, searching for any hint of cynicism or mockery in his words, his eyes. If someone like Gahn Errok had said such a thing, it would have been positively dripping in bitter sarcasm. I could literally picture Gahn Errok’s handsome face pulled into a sneer.Sorry the idea of my friendship offends you.
But not so with Gahn Thaleo. It seemed to be nothing but a simple statement of fact. He wasn’t giving me the alien version of an eye roll or fishing for a specific kind of reply. At least, I didn’t think he was. But how could I really know for sure?
Did I even need to know? The man didn’t want to be my friend. And I told myself that was more than fine by me, whatever his reasons.
I was saved from having to come up with a reply by the arrival of Tilly, Oxriel, Zoren, and Warrek. Warrek seemedto have inserted himself into their little group, very clearly following along wherever Tilly went. Oxriel and Zoren looked a little apprehensive about their new fourth wheel, but Tilly didn’t seem bothered. She had a small smile playing about her lips as she reacted to something Warrek said to her.
“Hey, guys,” I said when they were within earshot, glad of something else to focus on besides the strange Gahn I’d somehow ended up spending a good chunk of this evening with. Warrek raised his tail to Gahn Thaleo, letting the tip of it pass before his eyes as a show of respect for his Gahn.
“Greetings, Nazreen!” Oxriel said jovially. “Did Valeria come this way? Did she find Dalk?”
