Jotaha wasted no more time, uncertain what price the zayul would demand from her for allowing them to grow angry enough to growl. The chanu zayul within him never did such a thing, but the nixir were an alien and strange species. Who knew what oddities their bodies contained? He would have much to learn about his nixir before their first mating ceremony.
He rushed to his laden pack, brushing aside his armor and sheathed daggers to extract his packet of kirev cakes. The kirev cake was laden with nutrients that would feed a body and its zayul well.
He withdrew one of the cakes and returned to the stone ring, cautiously approaching Sarah this time, mindful of her skittishness. It was clear the yanhiss was wearing off as her agitation began to show. Perhaps her zayul had sped the dissipation of the drug within her blood. His darts had always felled the nixirs quickly when his aim was true, and he’d never hesitated to dispatch them immediately in the past, so he had no idea how long it took for their bodies to flush drugs or poisons.
He crouched down when he noted that the inferno stones cast his shadow upon Sarah as he neared. The disparity in their size was yet another thing to which he would have to grow accustomed. Farona was only a couple of handspans shorter than him—being taller than most female yan-kanat—though much smaller and more delicate than him. He towered over his nixir drahi—who was smaller than most female yan-kanat. He would need to be mindful of the difference in their size, especially during the first mating. He had hoped to avoid that issue, since his size had always been a problem for him and having a taller lover had been a relief.
Again, he questioned the wisdom of Seta Zul in choosing a tiny nixir for his mate. Though the bitterness had faded some as he’d dealt with her, realizing that she was not like the others—despite her occasional violent ferocity—he still resented having his own choice taken from him. He and Farona had grown up together, were perfectly suited to each other, and had always planned to be mated. It was difficult to accept the abrupt and dramatic change in the path of his life.
He handed the cake to Sarah, noting that she bared her teeth in what he suspected was a positive expression for the nixir. Then her gaze fell upon the cake, and her lips drooped, her brows coming together in a frown as she took it from his hand.
She slowly drew it towards her face, her nostrils flaring as she cautiously sniffed it. The nixirs lacked the forked tongue of the yan-kanat that could detect the faintest of odors, instead apparently relying entirely on their breathing orifices to smell things.
His tongue flicked out as if reminded of its purpose, and her gaze immediately shot to him. She shivered at the sight of it and scooted backwards, putting more space between them. He kept his tongue in his mouth after that, though he watched her sniff the dense kirev cake again, her expression crumpling up as her lips peeled back from flat but somehow still painfully sharp teeth.
“Ew, it stinks like raw meat,” she muttered.
Then her rounded, obscenely fat tongue poked out to touch the kirev cake. She drew it back in, smacked her lips, and shook her head, her face once again crumpling with pulled back lips. Her eyelids clenched shut as she shuddered. “Gross.”
She pulled the cake away from her face, her gaze returning to him as her tongue darted out—fleshy and pink and slick with saliva—to lick her lips.
He contained his own shudder. This was his drahi, and he would learn to appreciate the strangeness of her body. He glanced down at the glowing seal he’d exposed to her, vulnerable in his nudity. He really had no choice in the matter. Then he watched her shrug her shoulders as she sighed heavily, bringing the kirev cake back to her mouth.
He would not take his resentment out on his drahi. She had no more chosen him than he had her. Seta Zul had decided their fates and guided her path to intersect his for some unfathomable reason of her own. The will of the Ajda was not always clear. He would not punish Sarah for that. He would make the most of this mating, and try to find something to love about his vicious nixir mate, even though she was incapable of loving him in return.
She took a cautious bite of the kirev cake. He would have worried about her flat teeth breaking on the hard cake, but he’d felt too much of their bite to assume she couldn’t crush the cake into manageable chunks. Some of the cake broke off with a loud snapping sound. She chewed it, though the expression on her face suggested it was not a pleasant experience.
He wondered what nixirs regularly ate, wondered what food their zayul demanded and if it differed from their own tastes at all. The kirev cake was a popular treat for many yan-kanat, but it also served well to nourish the chanu zayul. Most yan-kanat loved anything made with kirev, and there were many dishes that were. Farona had been an anomaly in that, far preferring anything ane—sweet—to anything savory like kirev dishes.
Again she smacked her lips after swallowing her bite. “I suppose it’s not so bad. A little salty. Very irony.” She narrowed her eyes, studying the cake closely. “This is made of blood, isn’t it?” She pulled another face that he was now coming to associate with disgust, given the tone of her voice and body language.
Despite her apparent distaste, she sighed and took another bite, then another. “It’s an acquired taste, I guess. I tried blood pudding on a dare once. It tasted a lot like this. As in, really gross.”
Since her hon-gree remained silent as she consumed the rest of the cake, he assumed it was appropriate food. If the hon-gree lived in her stomach, then they probably tasted the food directly, as opposed to the chanu zayul, which only benefitted from the nutrients after they entered his blood.
He wondered if the hon-gree caused her any strange feelings, stirring in her stomach the way the chanu zayul sometimes stirred in their position latched onto his spine. He always felt the flutter of their movements in the base of his skull, or as brief shooting pains through his arms and legs before their tendrils again settled.
“When in Rome,” she said after swallowing the last bite of the cake. She glanced at the mug as if she was thirsty.
He hoped she did not want another crock of yanhiss. Too much could be dangerous and turn the belly fire into poison. It might even kill her hon-gree, perhaps leaving her vulnerable in some way he could not comprehend.
He figured he would try to give her vandiz instead. He’d found containers on the nixirs he’d killed that were filled with vandiz. He believed it was for the nixirs to drink, and figured that they required it like the yan-kanat did. In some ways, they weren’t all that different. The containers themselves had smelled strange and felt too smooth and unnatural in his hands, so he had discarded them and the vandiz they contained along with the nixirs’ bodies.
He picked up the crock and rinsed it clean with some of the vandiz from his skin, before filling it with more. Then he handed it to her, again crouching so he didn’t overwhelm her. She was calmer than she had been before drinking the yanhiss, but the tension in her body was rising with every movement he made as she watched him warily. He didn’t want to frighten her again and see her shying away from him.
She took the crock, glanced at the liquid inside, then raised it to her mouth, her nostrils flaring again as she scented it in the inefficient, nixir way. A cautious sip seemed to please her, and she took a large swallow from the crock. She made a long, drawn out sound as her eyes closed that he wasn’t certain was a nixir word at all. Then she raised the crock to her lips and gulped the rest of the liquid down.