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“Oh. I didn’t realize. I’m sorry to be such a burden—”
“Not a burden,” R’jaal says quickly, shaking his head. “I am strong enough for the both of us. I will be your strength for now.”
“Okay,” I manage, and then give him a weak smile. “But when it’s my turn to carry you, you’re going to be pretty disappointed.”
He snorts with amusement and then offers me the tube of water to drink, the same one from earlier. It’s a woodsy, cork-like substance, with a hollow interior, and I wish I felt well enough to really examine it and try to ask the two strangers questions. As it is, I just drink a few sips and then lean heavily against R’jaal again.
A sickness explains things. I’ve been sleeping a lot, and even when I wake up, I’m tired. Maybe it’s something in the food here that’s causing me issues, or lack of sunlight. But R’jaal doesn’t seem too worried by my sickness, so I suspect he’s seen it before.
I’m so grateful to R’jaal for being such a good friend and companion to me that I could just kiss him. Then, of course, I realize we haven’t kissed at all. Two orgasms? Sure. A kiss? Not so much.
This really is the weirdest friendship…though to call it a friendship seems unfair. I haven’t forgotten R’jaal’s early declaration of me being his mate.
I have to admit, I’m kind of warming up to the idea…
…which means I’m probably feverish, because that’s crazy.
Isn’t it?
It feels like hours later when the temperature seems to drop to the “normal” chill of the caves and I can reach for R’jaal’s fur wrap again. My hair dries into a sweat-crusted mess and I smell bad, but no one turns to point at me. Set’nef and Tal’nef seem to be leading us through an endless maze of tunnels of varying sizes. The glowing moss, not so present in the super-heated lava tunnels, is growing far more evident once more, filling the otherwise dark tunnels with a soft, pretty light.
The brothers stop, pausing in front of what looks like a moss-covered pile of collapsed rocks. They look back at R’jaal and myself, and Set’nef approaches.
“This next area is a tricky one,” Set’nef tells us in a low voice. “We will pause here to drink water and rest, but we must be mindful of the sounds we make. There are creatures here that are angered by loud sounds. We must be quiet. We do not speak louder than I am speaking now. Do you understand me?”
R’jaal nods. I do, too, though I’m a little worried about the whole “loud sounds” thing. Didn’t I see a movie with something like that? Didn’t I write a fanfic with something like that?
Oh, right, a Pitch Black and Star Trek crossover that involved Vin Diesel’s Riddick topping Spock in complete silence. Just thinking about it again makes me squirm a little uncomfortably. It was rather sexy and hot, possibly the sexiest thing I’d ever written.
Huh. For someone that’s sick, I sure am pervy at the moment.
Tal’nef nods at his brother, and then the two four-armed aliens slide a large boulder to the side, just enough for the four of us to slip through, one by one. I wobble through, clinging to the wall, and I’m embarrassed at how weak my legs feel. All the heroines I write are ball-busting badasses, but here I am, a fainting, delicate female clinging to the big strong man. It’s pathetic of me and I need to do better.
Even so, I’m scared. There’s been so much going on and nothing in this world is normal to me. I worry I’m going to break some sort of unspoken rule and cause a problem, and the last thing we need is more problems.
R’jaal senses my fear. He puts a hand on the small of my back in quiet reassurance, and I’m so grateful for his presence.
When I come through on the other side, I nearly run into Set’nef’s back in surprise. The striated moss that provides the gentle glow in here highlights a massive cavern sweeping before us. This must be another lava tunnel, I realize, one so very big that the dimly lit ceiling seems so very far away. The more shocking thing about this new cavern is that it’s not empty. Everywhere I look, there is more glowing moss and an absolute forest of mushrooms.
They’re not just regular mushrooms, either. My mental image of mushrooms are the white ones you can get at the grocery store, or the red caps with the white dots that show up in the movies. These monsters are the size of trees, some thin and pointy, some with an enormous ruffled frill, and a bed of smaller ones covers every inch of the ground, the roots crisscrossed with that of the thick, springy moss that we’ve been eating for the last several days.
