26. Rin

26

Rin

The gun in my hand feels like a giant weight. Like I am becoming part of the very thing that I hate, but I remember the look in the alien's black eyes and it helps harden my resolve.

Roshan pulls us along. It is going to be difficult to push recent events out of my mind, but we don't have the time to waste dwelling on that now. Who knows if there are more on the way?

Kuret takes control of the reins as we move back into the clearing, his face extremely focused on the road.

I put the gun in a place it can't accidentally be fired, but keep the knife. I fiddle with the weapon in my lap, turning it every which way, and allow the events that just took place to play through my head.

He is taking an entirely different route than the one we had planned earlier and the forest has started to change. The most obvious difference is the abundance of what looks like mushrooms peppered here and there on the previously smooth barks of the trees we passed.

I still can't believe that we were attacked in our sleep like that. There truly is nowhere safe.

Kuret believed we were safe and by association, I did too, too exhausted to question anything. I'm sure that if Roshan had not stirred, I would have kept sleeping the entire way or gotten up when it was too late.

I don't want to begin thinking about all the things that could have happened if I didn't toss that rock when I did. I'm still surprised it worked at all.

Roshan is moving quicker than he ever did with Tehlmar steering and it warms my heart that he is now seeing the good in Kuret.

I believe in the judgment of animals, and I was determined to keep my distance and stay on alert around him as Roshan had. Then he proved to be more than a senseless killer and the events of tonight have shown me a different side of him.

There was not enough time to think, but I could see that during the struggle, he tried to fight without killing. I can see what he meant now by having to kill or be killed off first. I'm caught between a fight of morals and survival, but I know what side I am choosing now.

It seems that Roshan has chosen as well, or he would be resisting Kuret. I was afraid I would have to keep shuffling along in front of him with my ankle injured… wait, now. I just realized I've been walking on it just fine since I woke up.

After a quick rotation, I confirm that it isn't hurting anymore. Quick checks on my other injuries let me know they've healed as well.

I glance over at Kuret and notice that his wounds are also closed up. He's using his hand without favoring it and I'm not sure he even realizes it yet as focused as he is on our surroundings. The glow from his chest gives me a clear view of his leg wound.

Our quick healing is a mystery, but not one I can solve just by staring at him… though I can't seem to stop following the long, hard muscles in a V pattern, leading to somewhere that makes me press my thighs together.

Kuret has a body type I am not used to seeing in the men back home, not that I have much experience. He is big and well-built but made of mostly lean muscles. As far as I can tell, he has almost no body fat, but I highly doubt it's from special exercise regimes or diets like it is for humans. It's just the way his species is built.

His muscles and markings follow patterns that would scream alien , even without his dark-gray skin, sharp teeth, and the nostrils on the sides of his face. Then there's his long braids, which at first terrified me when I saw animal bones woven into them.

Now I notice there are other things woven into them. Beautiful little sculptures of animals I've never seen before, rough beads, stones, even a few feathers. They tinkle together in a soothing sound when he moves.

I'm still staring when he pulls us to a stop, my face flaming when he catches me at it. I'm about to comment about his braids when he starts speaking.

"This should be far enough for us to rest again for a while."

I shake my head to fling off my, quite frankly, disturbingly erotic thoughts, then look around. He's found another cave. The region must be teeming with them to have seen so many in such a small area.

He gets out of the cart, his hairless brow furrowed as he looks down at his leg. I assume it must feel better than it should.

"I'm healing far faster than normal here, Kuret. Are you as well?"

He looks back up at me, his large eyes with their horizontal pupil communicating his puzzlement. "Yes," he confirms. "This happened with another wound, and it isn't natural. Why would they make me heal faster if they just brought me here to hunt me?"

My own brow furrows as I try to get into the mindset of a species that traffics women and brings people to a planet to hunt them. Then I realize it must take a lot of resources to capture, contain, and move people as dangerous as Kuret.

"Well," I say, drawing the word out, "it's just a guess, but maybe it's because you are expensive… uh… prey. If a hunter wounded you, but didn't kill, and you got away, they wouldn't want you to die holed up somewhere you couldn't be found."

He blows out a breath that makes his braids shift and his large hands clench, sending ripples of light through his marks. "That makes sense, in a terrible sort of way," he grits out.

His hands unclench and he opens the injured one to look at it. Then he shifts his weight on the ground, clearly testing how much he can rely on it.

"I am not quite healed enough to fight, but enough to teach you some ways to defend yourself. Will you let me?"

He's staring at me intently and a surge of fear passes through me. I hadn't thought the decision would be quite so soon.

He lets out another breath and starts speaking again. "If another one of those creatures was about to attack you, what would you do? What if next time there is a whole group of them? They aren't always solitary, Nasrin. What would you do?"

My hands shake. I would defend myself. I would defend Roshan… and Kuret. I glance down at the gun, remembering the burn of the barrel in my mouth, which sends a shiver of fear snaking along my spine. I need to put those memories aside. They were from a very different life in a different world.

Before coming here, I would never have considered it, but that terrible green creature, Tehlmar, the leering genali… Who knows what other amoral people are out there. Defending myself doesn't make me anything like them.

Learning how to use weapons just means I'll know how to keep Roshan and me alive. It would put some of the power of taking care of myself in my own hands. I glance down at them. Not being able to use weapons meant I was at the mercy of terrible people on Earth. It will mean the same here, but even worse.

Defense doesn't make me evil.

The thought sends a shock through me, and I tear my eyes from my hands and look at Kuret. Defense didn't make him evil, either. I think back to the fight with the green creature and realize he listened to me when I told him how his extreme violence disturbed me.

As much as I long to, I still don't trust him, because that would be stupid. But so far, he's done exactly what he said he would do.

"Alright," I say, clearing my throat when it comes out in a weak whisper so I can speak more decisively. "Yes. I want you to teach me."

His eyes open wider, and his lips stretch out into a large smile, sharp white teeth making divots in his dark lips. I swallow hard, tamping down the instinct to run from the intense gaze of a predator. A moment later I feel the fear transition to increasing tightness in my belly and I nearly groan at the pulsing between my legs.

No. I will not find such a thing as him looking predatory a turn on. I will not.

Neither my mind nor my body listen to the small part of my brain sending out vociferous protests.

When he speaks again, it startles me out of staring at his lips and wondering if they are soft. "Excellent. Let's get started, then."

He reaches inside the cart to grab water containers and heads to a small stream that's bubbling out of the cave entrance. It must be an underground spring. I try to focus on it, but my eyes keep drifting back to him as he moves away, the growing light in the sky allowing me to greedily take in every detail.

When he walks, all the muscles in his back ripple in the most deliciously seductive ways.

I can't take my eyes off him.

I'm thinking the most indecent thoughts, and I don't know how to stop them—or if I even want to. I want him to use those rough hands to touch me. What? I do? I press my thighs together. Yes, I do. A wicked shiver runs down my spine and into the wet hidden spot between my thighs.

I blush. I need to focus.

My body feels unsteady as I climb down, my heart racing and a kind of anticipation I've never experienced before rushes through my veins. It's something I never thought I would experience, truth be told, since the best I could have hoped for was an arranged marriage with someone old or desperate enough to ignore my activism.

They would have held me captive for it, of course, and I would have hated them. I never let myself think of feeling something like this, and though part of me is saying I'm being stupid and that I don't trust him; the other part is screaming that this might be my only chance to find out what it feels like.

From the sounds of it, this Ree person is making a new version of containment and another ache shoots through me at the idea of recreating the same sort of injustices on a new planet rises, but I push it aside.

I'm going to die here. If I want to feel the pleasure my body is promising I will feel with Kuret, this is the time. Visions of how appalled my family would be try to bubble up, but I force them down, rubbing at my aching eyes as I do it. They lost the ability to comment, even if just in my mind, when they sold me.

So what if I don't trust him? If he wanted to kill me, he would have. It's like all those American shows I've managed to sneak watching. None of them trusted each other, they just got their pleasure and moved on.

Should I have other things on my mind right now? Of course. Am I likely to die tomorrow? Yes.

Resolves tightens in my belly right along with arousal. I will learn to defend myself.

I'm also going to get Kuret to touch me. The thought of it makes me groan, whatever the genali did to me surging along all my nerve endings as soon as I stop resisting it.

Now that I've decided to do both things, as usual, I can't make it happen soon enough. I push myself away from the cart, feeling like the predator now as I stalk behind Kuret.