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Her eyes cloud. “I am not a prey animal.”
“No,” I say. “I suppose you are not.”
She’s right. She may not have sharp fangs, a dorsal ridge, or even the most rudimentary claws, but her eyes are set in the front of her head and she has the temperament of a human, which is dangerous in spite of its weakness.
“I’m not weak,” she says. “It takes strength to be born to die.”
“I know you’re not weak.”
She nods curtly, her small strength so obvious to me, and yet so strange to behold. It is easy to think of humans as weak. They look it. They sound it. They even act it, most of the time. The subtle stubbornness of this species is easy to miss if one is only looking for raw power and absolute might. I am still not certain that Tres has chosen to survive. For the moment, she depends on me to will her into existence with every passing breath. It is not her fault. Her entire life she was told she only had one purpose, and now she finds herself in a realm of ultimate confusion, with a monster for an ally who cannot be relied upon to stay by her side.
I know I do not belong here. But I also know that Tres is the only creature for which I have ever felt anything resembling love. I am utterly devoted to her, though it breaks every rule I am familiar with, and many I am sure I am not. Our first meeting was so passionate, so wild. I want to take her fully, but I know the consequences of mating with a human. We will be irrevocably bonded if I mate with her. We will become one within the other. I saw it happen to Krave with his human mate. I watched with horror when I realized that he had transferred his loyalty from the brood to the girl who claimed his heart.
Tres already consumes my thoughts. I do not know if I could ever leave if we were to mate. The idea of leaving her to her own devices on this cruel world where humanity is only beginning to discover the concept of humanity, where many thousands of years of unspeakable cruelty is about to unfold, makes me sick. But Krave will not take a human from ancient Earth. So, I am beginning to realize, I may have to choose to be marooned here until the end of her natural life, protecting her from the monsters who call themselves men.
“I want you to stay here, in this cave,” I say to her. “I need to observe this tribe. See what kind of people they are.”
“Why?” She narrows her eyes in rightful suspicion.
I do not know if I will be given the choice to stay. My coming here was not of my doing. My leaving is not likely to be of my doing either. The presence of other aliens on this planet is of serious concern, as is the possibility that war is still raging in the future, potentially affecting life on this ancient world. There are too many variables to account for, but I know I do not know enough.
“Because we don’t know anything about them, and we need to know who our allies, or enemies are.”
Tres presses her lips together. “Trelok said that other people aren’t to be trusted.”
“Trelok wanted to sacrifice you to a mountain.” I need to find a way to take revenge on Trelok. Perhaps he cannot be killed, but he can certainly be hurt. Unfortunately, I do not have time for the luxury of revenge. “He may have been wrong about other things too.”
“He wasn’t wrong about Hyrrm,” Tres says, her expression wavering into doubt. “I was promised to…”
“You cannot be promised to a geographical feature,” I tell her, curtly. Her belief in spirits and all the rest of it may be charming, but it does not help us survive. She needs to develop a hunger for life, or all my efforts will be in vain.
She scowls at me even deeper. “Hyrrm is not a… jagrapherkal anything. He is the fire spirit of the mountain. He brings life and he brings death. He is…”
“It is nothing but hot rocks. And Trelok was hot air,” I dismiss her words. She needs to learn the reality of things. Her uneducated, simple world view allows her to be manipulated all the way to death. I need her to understand that she does not owe her life to anyone or anything.
Tress falls silent, her brown gaze sliding away from me. She does not like to argue with me. I frighten her. That frustrates me. I want her to be strong, not afraid of me, but it is the nature of a small human to be afraid of creatures greater than her.
