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CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Stephanie
Tomorrow came, andI was no closer to an answer about what I wanted to do. We ate a quick morning meal in the Sky Hall with Gahn Thaleo’s people. We were already all packed to go, and after saying goodbye to the people we’d met, Gahn Thaleo saw us to our ship. The only question now was, where would that ship take us? To the settlement area under the Vrika’s peak? Or to Gahn Errok’s territory?
As if my question had conjured him, I heard his voice, an echoing boom across the aguir circle.
“Kindly step away from my mate, Thaleo.”
The fact Errok had left off the title “Gahn” when addressing Thaleo was so obvious an insult that the missing word felt even louder than his spoken ones. A muscle in Gahn Thaleo’s scarred cheek twitched. If he wanted to do anything about Errok, he decided against it, instead wishing us a safe flight before moving out of the way for Errok.
My breath caught when I saw him. Fuck him for being so good-looking. I wasn’t a shallow person. I didn’t care how someone looked. But when you got smacked in the face with beauty like that, it became harder and harder not to notice.
Even though he was in enemy territory, Errok swaggered across the aquamarine stone as if he owned the place. His weapons straps, bow, and quiver had all returned to his bulky torso, cutting hard lines over his smoky violet and blue flesh. His hair looked freshly combed, a long silken tumble of blue-black down his strong back. It seemed impossible that only a few days ago I’d seen him fall on this very stone. Seen him nearly die.
His moonlit sight stars found my gaze, lasering a white-hot path right through my sunglasses and into my brain.Screw you, Errok. Get your laser beam eyes out of my head.
“Why are you getting in this vessel?” he asked, frowning, as he reached me.
“Good morning to you too,” I said, rolling my eyes.
He ignored my sarcastic greeting.
“I thought I told you that once we were in the Deep Sky, you would only ride with me.”
“And I thought I told you that you don’t get to decide anything for me!” I snapped.
“Is there a problem here?” Valeria had been getting the others settled in the ship, but she poked her head out the open shuttle door to see what was going on.
“No problem,” I assured her. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Oh, there most certainlyisa problem, or there very soon will be, if you think you are getting on that shuttle instead of riding back with me,” Errok snarled.
“What do you mean, ridingback?” I asked. “I haven’t even decided if I’m coming to your territory yet!”
Errok’s mouth fell open in affronted rage. He cast a hateful glance at Thaleo who was still standing nearby and who’d obviously heard everything. I could practically see Errok’s thoughts steaming angrily out of his ears, like a cartoon character’s. He was likely thinking something along the lines of,why the hell will my mate accept Thaleo’s invitation into his territory but not mine?
Finally, his flashing eyes returned to me.
“This is an insult so great that-”
“That even your ancestors will feel it?” I finished for him. “Yeah, I had a feeling. But you insult people all the time, so maybe you should be used to that kind of thing.”
My eyes lowered, lingering on the place he’d been torn open. The place that had bled under my frantic hands.
Then, I turned and stepped through the shuttle’s door.
“Have a safe flight home, Gahn Errok.”
The shuttle door closed with a click of finality.
I tried not to think about what Errok was doing out there – if he was standing there, frozen in place and offended, or if he was trying to claw that door right open – and found my seat beside Fiona.
