Page 10 of Gemini
Her smile faltered. “I-I…I’m just a little shaken up. It’s been a stressful few days.”
I squeezed her hand gently. “I understand.”
She turned her face away to cast a look at the water. “Where does it come from?” I tilted my head in wonder and she added, “The water. It’s…I mean, we’re pretty high, right? I could barely see the top of the trees when Nitochi made us land…Are we inside a mountain?”
Amountain? “I…I guess. Gemini has rocks protruding from the ground and this is where we build our nests.”Some kind of mountain, when we think of it. “Some hives have sources of water underground, and it travels up and down from the center, filling natural pools on different levels for everyone.”
Her face lit up. “A hive? I wish I could have seen from the outside…”
I frowned, confused. “You did not?”
Her cheeks became redder. “I—I was too scared to look around when Nitochi flew us here.”
Right. She did not have any wings. As if she had not already been terrified, she had to take her first flight one minute after meeting Nitochi, who just conveniently killed every living thing in her vicinity.
“Apologies,” I said. “When we will take you outside, we will use the stairs reserved for the children to come and go.” She gave me a puzzledlook but I continued before she could ask anything else, “I will leave you to it.”
She blinked. Once. Twice. “I—uh…Is there any…soap?”
I let the word sink in my mind. It did not translate but…Shit, I know that word. Was it—
“Oh, yes.Soap,” I repeated. “The foaming stones are on the edge.”
She followed the direction of my finger, narrowing her eyes. Was it too dark for her to see?
“The…foaming stones?”
“Yes. See? The green, round rock over there.”
“That’s…Is thatsoap?”
Shit. Did I translate it wrong? “I…Yes? It is what we use to wash our skin and hair. It makes foam when wet.”
“Oh.Oh, yes, okay! I’m sorry, I—”
“No apologies,” I said, giving her hand a squeeze before letting her go. I cast her one last look as I went back to the tunnels leading to our nest.
No one would be interrupting her at this hour but just in case, I hung the purple rock under the frame, signaling everyone who might come by that the pool was in use.
Nitochi was still pacing when I got back to him.
“Oh, so youdidlisten to me,” I said, walking to our ice column to prepare some food for our little human.She must be starving.
“Youheardher. There is someone else looking for her. Someone else who wants tostealher from us.I should not waste my time here arguing with you when I could be out there, ensuring she remains safe, you—”
“She is right,” I interrupted him. “It can wait tomorrow.”
“It does not. What if the human tracks us back here, huh? Somehow finds a way to get to her?”
“He will not.”
He stopped pacing, hands turning to fists at his sides, black eyes staring straight into my part of the soul we shared.
“You do not know that.”
“What I know is that, for some reason, you are stalling.” I threw him the fire stones and pulled a pan out of one of the alcoves. “That finding her in danger riled you up, and you are itching for a fight.”
“I amnot,” he gritted out, taking a couple of steps before crouching next to the fire pit, scratching the stones against each other with a bit more force than necessary. “I amconcerned. She was tied to a fucking tree, Bae. Being taunted by that—” He stopped and clenched his teeth as he stared at the little flame starting to spread on the wood. “By that scrawnyhuman,” he spat.
