Chapter
Seven
G wum streaked through the water as he swam across the pond, eager to visit with the human female. Noelle. Her name flowed strangely off his tongue and yet it had a beautiful cadence to it that he found to be delightful. Just as she was. Although they never came closer than him in the water and her safely seated in front of her dwelling, she had a lively spirit that slowly revealed itself as they conversed.
What had begun as a stilted conversation that first day had grown over the last few solar rotations. It had also revealed to him the frightening circumstances of her situation that had her traveling through the swamps. It was why he had not tried to close the distance between them. Seeing her gradually become calmer and more relaxed was worth the delay. It had helped that the cazka was in a different part of its territory rather than venturing near the dwelling. It would not last much longer, but it was a good reprieve for her that she needed. He just wished that the nangash could wait. It was already beginning to wilt very slightly despite his best attempts in the hollow of the tree where he was currently keeping them.
Today, he would have to say goodbye if she decided not to leave with him. He could escort her to her supplies where she hoped to find the others who had come to Kren with her as it was in the same direction he was traveling, but he had to leave in the morning, regardless of whether she came or not.
Any unfamiliar pang tightened his chest, and he stopped swimming to rub it with one hand. That was strange. He had never had issues with his health before. Perhaps he needed to rest for a time upon returning to his maternal pond.
He did not want to think about that now. He just wanted to enjoy what was left of his time with the fascinating human. He did not like the fact that she would soon be alone. She would be frightened and sad there alone. He hoped that she decided to come with him. Perhaps he should bring her a gift. He brightened at the thought but then promptly grimaced. What did females enjoy receiving as gifts?
He knew of the traditional courting gifts that a male would bring to a female, hoping that she would choose him once she decided to mate. Competition was fierce, and males were not above wooing the female they desired. Such gifts were usually food items designed to show ability to care for her, but he did not think Noelle would enjoy them. He was uncertain if she would even find the delicacies enjoyed by Shoowilp females to be pleasing. They were completely different species, with likely very different ways of experiencing food. For that reason, the odds weighed heavily in favor of her not liking them.
What would he enjoy if he were female?
Gwum huffed mirthfully. If someone deigned to present him with a gift, the answer was easy. He would not mind being brought plants to cut down on his own necessary foraging. Noelle had delicate skin… Perhaps the gyil. The gel acquired from pulsing the thick flower petals would be good for her to use to create a protective barrier over her skin. It was a gift he believed was considerate, so she would naturally enjoy it.
Tipping his head back, he scanned the branches above him, searching for the familiar bloom of the parasitic gyil flower. They typically grew plentifully in the oyal trees which were identifiable by their notched limbs and the whorl pattern on the bark of the tree. Ah, there! The pale purple flowers were not luminescent so far more difficult to spot, the petals just visible against the deeper lavender gray leaves of the host tree. With a grin he leaped for the lowest branch and made his way up the tree, until he reached the branches where the mist was thinnest and gyil bloomed in a ray of sunlight. Unlike a Gwyr, he found the intense sunlight uncomfortable, but he did not let it interfere with his careful collection of the flowers.
With the utmost care, he snapped the stem and gathered the bloom up into his hand. It was so large that the flower nearly filled the space between his claw tips and the bottom of his palm, and its rich perfume seemed to grow even more potent by the moment. Taking care not to bruise the flower, he tucked it into his satchel, resting it gingerly on the bed of nangash leaves that still filled the bottom. With the gyil flower stored, he turned his attention to gathering a second and a third flower. Three hardly seemed like enough, but as Gwum had no room left in his satchel—not without dumping out the nangash leaves that his people needed—he reluctantly left the remaining flowers behind and resumed making his way back to the dwelling.
The moment it came within sight, a renewed excitement filled his chest. He hated finding a safe place to sleep at night. It forced him to leave the pond and take refuge in the nearby trees, and the necessity of finding food in the morning inevitably drew him even farther from Noelle. But now that he was returning to her, all of that fell away. It was unimportant. All he cared about at that moment was seeing her lovely, unusual human face.
To his surprise, Noelle was already outside. She sat on her favorite root perch, her face tilted up to the morning sun as she breathed in the sweet air. She appeared to be unaware of the nightglow insects that clung to her hair like a luminous crown, their light a glorious radiance despite dimming with the rising of the sun. As if suddenly aware of his presence, she opened her eyes, and a tiny smile curled her lips that made his hearts stutter. Her hands brushed over her clothes, self-conscious of the dirt that clung to her. He did not care about such things. She could be wearing the healing mud from the bottom of the swamp and still be the most beautiful creature to him. That realization was shocking but there was a rightness to it that thudded like a pulse through his veins.
His hearts in his throat, he crept closer, his hand going to the satchel where the gyil flowers waited.
“Good morning, Gwum.”
A small shiver of pleasure ran through him, and he smiled as he dropped into the lower branches of a nearby tree. “Good morning, Noelle. How was your rest?”
An expression he did not recognize flitted far too quickly across her face, but he gave it little thought, focusing instead on the way her smile grew in response.
“It wasn’t bad. Very quiet. I’m not accustomed to the sounds… or the lack of sound… that this swamp makes.”
He cocked his head, baffled as he took in the surrounding sounds of the pond. “The swamp is alive with continuous song and sound. It sings even now. Do you truly not hear it?”
She shook her head and her smile grew rueful. “I’m guessing that I’m missing out on a lot, huh?”
He did not understand the sound at the end of her question but chose to ignore it, inferring that it must be something that stressed the question. He nodded grimly, suddenly more worried about his little human than ever. If she did not leave with him, she would be even more vulnerable than he had originally believed. He had never heard of anything having such dull senses on all of Kren. That meant that she had not been merely distracted when he had followed her, but she had truly heard nothing at all.
Another shiver ran over him, but this time out of fear.
Her smile dimmed at his wordless reply and a flicker of emotion darkened her eyes with concern. “That worries you, doesn’t it?”
Again, he nodded. “The swamp is beautiful,” he began, “but it is very dangerous. If you cannot hear its song even now, then you are unlikely to hear the creatures that hunt within it. You did not hear them,” he amended, clarifying. “I thought that perhaps you just did not recognize the sounds, or were too distracted that you ignored them as something not notable enough for concern. But you did not hear them at all. If I had not come across you?—”
“I would have died before I even reached camp,” she concluded and looked around warily and choked on a gurgling sound in her throat. “I could have had that creature you spoke of sneaking up on me while I sat here waiting for you and would have died before I realized anything was wrong. Shit, it wouldn’t even had to sneak up on me,” she muttered.
Gwum have her a sympathetic look and leaped to a branch that was closer to her, wanting more than anything to soothe her worry. “I would not have let it hurt you,” he assured her. “I would have heard it moving through this part of the swamp long before it reached the human dwelling.”
She swallowed thickly. “But you cannot stay.”
He nodded regretfully. “I cannot. But… you may accompany me.”
A look of fear rose within her eyes and his hearts plummeted. She was still afraid of him. She still did not trust him. He hoped for too much in such a meager amount of time.
“I can’t,” she whispered with another frantic glance around. “This place is the only safety I have. Out there I will be exposed, and… I… I just can’t.”
Hope rose so quickly within him that he felt momentarily unbalanced by the emotion. He blinked at her in surprise. She wasn’t afraid of him. She was terrified of the swamp. He gave the dwelling a critical look and shook his head. Without a word, he leaped into a higher branch and then over her head as he made his way to the trailer. From the corner of his eye, he watched as she jumped to her feet, a look of alarm on her face.
“What are you doing?” she shouted just as he dropped to the roof of the dwelling with a metallic thud.
He met her eyes grimly. “This dwelling cannot protect you from a cazka. A single cazka is a dangerous foe even for a Bia, and this place would not have proved to be an obstacle to me if I wished to get in.” He wrestled with himself, uncertain of how much he wished to say—he did not want her to be afraid of him, but she had to understand, and there was only one way to do that. “When I spoke to you from the position before, I planned on removing you forcibly, if necessary,” he admitted. “Anything to end the stalemate between us.”
Without another word, he bent and stabbed his claws into the metal. It squealed in an unholy fashion as he demonstrated exactly how he would have extracted her, his claws cutting through the metal effortlessly. He grunted slightly as he peeled the section back, barely daring to meet her eyes. The horror that he found there gutted him but what shocked him the most was the way he trembled as if he were a rejected male to be pitied.
“Noelle—” he began hoarsely but she shook her head and lifted a hand in a request for his silence, the hushing motion one that Bia also practiced with their young.
“I just… I need a moment,” she mumbled, and she sank heavily back to the root.
Her eyes remained fixed on the bit of metal he held and he guilty pressed it back into place, all the while trying not to cringe at the way the metal continued to squeal as he manipulated it.
“I did not wish to frighten you,” he said quietly as he sank into a crouch, his gaze never shifting away from her face which had suddenly gone very pale. “It was the best way I could think of to demonstrate what little safety this dwelling truly offers.”
She nodded, and he recognized the numbness to her movements. “No, I get it,” she assured him in a wobbly voice. “I’m just having a hard time wrapping my mind around how precarious my situation has been every day I stayed here… and all the while, the only reason this place offered me safety at all is because of you.”
“Is it so bad to have an ally?” he queried gently.
She shook her head, and her expression softened as she looked up at him. “Not at all. But I do have an unexpected empathy for all the unsuspecting crawfish I dug up and had for dinner… I’m kind of getting how that feels,” she added with a quiet chuckle that sent a little thrill down his spine.
He was suddenly hungry to hear her laugh again. “These crawfish can tempt a male to abandon every bit of his sanity?”
A giggle bubbled up from her, making him tingle delightfully. “Oh, I’m sure that someone somewhere has been pretty tempted to do some crazy stuff by a good crawfish boil,” she returned amid her laughter.
Gwum grinned in turn. He really had no idea what she was talking about, but the context from her clues led him to believe that it was some sort of small creature that was retrieved from the swamp, boiled, and consumed with some relish.
“I was not aware that humans had Bia dwelling on their planet,” he teased. “Surely only a young Bia male would lose their sanity trying to eat whatever he finds at the bottom of the swamp. Before reaching maturity, a male is nothing more than a stomach with two legs attached to move it around to wherever the food is.”
A peal of laughter escaped her, warming his hearts and delighting his senses despite the fact that she slapped a hand over her mouth in an embarrassed attempt to muffle it.
“Do not hide your laughter,” he chided. “Laughter is celebrated as a great gift from the gods. Enjoy it fully like all Bia do.”
She gave him an uncertain look, but her hand slowly dropped from her mouth. “I’m more afraid of drawing something here that might hear me and decide to eat me.”
“Right now I am the only thing here that would wish to eat you, so you do not need to worry about anything else,” he assured her.
He did not understand why her face suddenly turned pink or why she was suddenly so interested in looking at anything else but him. He rubbed the back of his neck as he regarded her, completely perplexed by her reaction. Perhaps now was simply a good time to present his gift. With a quiet hum, he opened his satchel and dug into it. Her eyes were on him now. He could feel her watching him and he intentionally slowed his movements to prolong the moment. He wished to savor it.
Gathering the flowers carefully, he lifted them from the satchel and cautiously approached the edge of the trailer before dropping down onto the root system just a short span from where she stood. Her eyes widened as they took in his offering and her face grew even pinker.
“Oh… Gwum, they are lovely but I’m not sure… I… uh… on Earth it would be forbidden for you and I to, uh…” She gestured helplessly between them, and his eyes widened with comprehension.
She thought he was interested in mating.
His loins tightened with unexpected interest, but he pushed that foolishness away as he quickly shook his head in denial of the direction of her thoughts. “No, Noelle, you misunderstand. It was just a gift to brighten your day, especially as I leave tomorrow.”
“Oh!” An embarrassed laugh escaped her as her face turned an alarming shade of red. “Of course that would be it. Not… oh, gods,” she mumbled, burying her face in her hands.
“It is not meant as a slight against you,” he continued awkwardly. “You are truly a fine and lovely female. It is just that I do not wish to sacrifice myself upon the altar of mating.”
She lifted her head and squinted at him. “Are you saying that you’ve never…”
He choked as comprehension gripped him. She was questioning his capabilities! Normally that would be something he easily ignored, content to let others think whatever they liked of him, but he was feeling unreasonably defensive about it.
“I have,” he loudly interrupted, startling her enough that she jumped and then giggled at her own reaction.
“Sorry, sorry,” she rushed soothingly, and he stared in surprise when she crossed the short distance separating them and gathered the flowers into her arms with an expression of delight. “They are so beautiful. Thank you, Gwum.”
His throat bobbed with the effort to swallow, and he inclined his head in acknowledgment. The urge to point out that the flowers did not compare to her beauty was on his lips, but he kept the words captured tightly within him.
What insanity had now descended upon him? Perhaps she was this crawfish she spoke of indeed because now he wanted to explore every texture of her soft body with his tongue and nibble upon her with his lips until he was well sated with her flavor. Perhaps he was truly experiencing a moment of madness.
“All right,” she agreed with a little chuckle. “So we leave in the morning then?”
He nodded in agreement and then looked from the flowers and back to her again as she continued to stare down at them admiringly. “Are you not going to eat them? They are quite nourishing for the skin.”
For some reason she erupted into another peal of laughter, and he found himself chuckling despite himself. He did not understand what they were laughing about but this female never ceased to entertain him.
“Show me how to eat them then,” she challenged, and something within him heated at the tone of her voice as she placed the edge of a blossom against her pink lips.
He shivered again, a pulsing tempo filling him as he nodded and stepped closer. How could he resist?