His frustration was clear, but the drug he’d given her kept her from feeling the same defeat. An unusual optimism still kept her as warm and cozy as the feeling in her belly. “Jotaha, Sarah draw he?”
He jerked his head up at her second attempt to repeat the word he’d said to her multiple times. “Drahi.”
“Draw he?”
He made a huffing sound, turning his head as his nostrils flared and his mouth curved upwards. His head spines quivered slightly. She had the sneaking suspicion he was laughing at her. Probably at her pronunciation of the alien word which never quite matched the way he said it.
She shrugged. “Okay, so I can’t say ‘draw he’ with that weird inflection you add to it. I wish I knew what it meant.” She studied him as he returned his gaze to her. “I wish you could answer all my questions! I have so many of them.”
His head spines twitched as he studied her in silence. Like her, he probably wondered what he could possibly say to bridge the communication gap. Maybe he was as curious about her people as she was about him.
A quick glance at the trophy necklace reminded her that this wasn’t his first encounter with a human. He probably knew a hell of lot more about her people than she thought, though he clearly hadn’t taken the time to have conversations with them.
Given the likely reaction of a human soldier to a creature like Jotaha bearing down on them, it wasn’t really surprising that a language lesson never took place in his previous encounters. She honestly couldn’t blame the soldiers for firing first and asking questions later, and even had a difficult time blaming Jotaha, since he was probably defending his territory from armed intruders.
Still, he didn’t have to take such grisly mementos.
“A-yee Weesh? Hako-os a-yee weesh?”
“A-yee weesh?” He’d managed to confuse her again. The uprising tone at the end of his words suggested that his kind asked questions much like humans did, but she had no idea what he was asking.
“A-yay We-ish? Hako-os a-yay we-ish? Sarah shiru a-yay we-ish.”
She repeated his words under her breath, suddenly noting the familiarity of the sounds. “You mean ‘I wish’?” She realized as she considered what she’d said earlier that she’d repeated those words multiple times. Perhaps, like her, he was looking for patterns in her language. Words that he could recognize from multiple use and repeat.
His shoulders squared as he sat up straight. “Dree,” he said, his tone suggesting excitement. “Eye we-ish.”
“Dree?” She wondered if that meant “yes” or was it more like “hurray, this alien doof finally got what I was trying to say!”
He dipped his chin to his chest, once. “Dree.”
Sarah rubbed her palms together, finally feeling the same sense of excitement that he must be feeling, given the change in his body language. “I wish Jotaha understood me.” She pointed at herself. “I, Sarah.”
His spines, which had lifted slightly from his head in his apparent excitement, flattened again. “Aye-Sarah?”
She sighed, realizing it wasn’t going to be that easy. “I am Sarah.”
“Aye yam Sarah.” He still seemed confused about what she was trying to say, and she had the sinking feeling that he thought she was telling him more of her name. Perhaps her hopes were too ambitious.
She pointed at him. “You are Jotaha.”
When he merely blinked at her, his spines now completely flat as his shoulders slumped again, she sighed, cursing the complexity of the English language. She shook her head, realizing that this was hopeless. Drug-fueled optimism be damned. She wasn’t cut out to teach an alien the English language. Especially when she didn’t know his. She had no idea how they were going to manage, and suddenly, she wasn’t feeling so pleasant.
Her stomach loudly growled as the warmth filling it faded. Jotaha tensed, his gaze shifting from her face to the source of the sound. His spiny brows drew together, shadowing his eyes.
Sarah sighed as another growl from her demanding stomach caused him to rise into a half-crouch, staring at her stomach like he thought an alien was going to burst out of it. His spines now fully erect like a crown on his head, his body began to glow the blue color that contrasted nicely with the glowing orange tattoo on his dark green scales.
“Sarah hungry,” she said, rubbing her hand over her belly. When he still looked concerned, backing away from the river coal pit a few steps as his hard stare never left her stomach, she motioned to her mouth like she was eating something. “Hungry.” She patted her stomach again as it gave another impatient rumble.
“Hon-gree?”
She nodded, pointing to her mouth, then her stomach. “Hungry, yes! Dree!”
She sure hoped she’d understood that word correctly. Now that the warmth was leaving her belly, it was reminding her that it had been a long time since she’d eaten. She wished she knew how long exactly, but that was a concern for another time. Right now, she just needed to feed the beast grumbling in her belly before Jotaha decided to cut it out of her.
8
Jotaha rose to his feet, staring at his drahi’s stomach with concern. Within him, the chanu zayul—little spirits—pulsed, sharing their glow when they sensed the rise of his aggression in response to a perceived threat. He could repress the glow through calming mantras, but saw no reason for stealth in this situation.
Though he had slain many nixirs, he had never bothered to study their corpses closely before throwing them into the zayul pit to feed the brood. He had no idea if nixirs carried another life form within them that benefited from them, as it gave them advantages. If his drahi had some form of barruk zayul—inner spirits—then it would explain the strange growling coming from her stomach.
The hunger of zayul could be a terrible, agonizing thing. Though Sarah appeared to be comfortable, she patted her belly as if to soothe her zayul, and made a motion that they must be fed. In Jotaha, the chanu zayul lived within his spine, enhancing his strength, senses, and reflexes as well as adding their glow to his blood and scales so that he could better serve as Guardian of the Dark Paths. If they were starving because he had failed to feed his own body, he suffered, his muscles seizing and his nerves screaming in pain until he ate enough to replenish his nutrients. He’d learned his lesson well after only one protracted hunt where he’d failed to eat for many cycles. He never let himself get to that point again.
He had already intended to feed her, once she was calmed enough by the yanhiss, but he had waited until her speaking slowed. It had been clear to him, despite not understanding her, that she took comfort from the mere act of talking. Maybe to him, or to some nixir deity, though she must know he didn’t understand her words any more than she understood his.
He had not planned on finding a mate with her own zayul. Only the Jotaha endured the combined blessing and curse of the chanu zayul. No female had ever been chosen as Jotaha. The very idea was unthinkable. Nixir warriors who posed a serious threat to a fully-fledged Jotaha would decimate a female, with or without the chanu zayul lending their gifts to her.
The hon-gree growled again from her stomach, and she made a face as she once again motioned to her mouth with one hand, repeating the name of her zayul.