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CHAPTER FIVE
Fiona
Dalk loomed over me, glaring downwards as I unhooked the fastener on my seat and stood up. I hadn’t realized how damn close he was. When I popped up out of my seat my tits crashed right into his abs.
He didn’t even have the decency to move or look awkward about it, either. Just stood there staring down at me, his sight stars pulled in so tight that they were like shiny metal bullets about to shoot into my brain.
“Are you going to move anytime soon?” I huffed, feeling a tingling heat expanding slowly outward from where we touched. He made a sound that could only be described as a growly alien harrumph and then he finally stepped back, just enough for me to squeeze sideways past him.
Dalk followed immediately behind, a looming, angry Sea Sand shadow at my back. We were the last ones left on the shuttle. As we approached the open exit, I could see the translucent turquoise stone of the ground outside Gahn Thaleo’s mountain that looked so much like ice over a crystal-clear lake. I was about to hop on out of the shuttle when Dalk forced himself out first, landing with agile ease on the shining ice-like stone before he turned and grasped my elbow. I looked at his hand on my arm, then at his face in confusion.
“It’s not that far down to the ground,” I told him. I’d jumped out of this shuttle countless times by now.
“You have little legs,” he growled. “It is farther for you than for me.”
“But it still isn’t far.”
“Are you two nearly done over there?” Valeria asked. She had her sunglasses on, but I could tell by the set of her mouth that she probably had her eyes narrowed behind the dark lenses. Valeria was tall, at least six feet in her own right, but her massive mate Grim absolutely towered behind her, a glittering statue of ruby scales that dwarfed even the two other Sea Sand men flanking him.
“Yes. We are,” I snapped at the same moment that Dalk snarled, “No.”
“Why are you being so pissy?” I huffed, trying to tug my elbow from his grip. He gave me a startled, affronted sort of look and then gaped down at himself before narrowing the scope of his sight stars at me accusingly.
“I did not piss!”
“No, not that kind of piss!” I gave an especially hard tug, and Dalk actually let go this time. He didn’t move, though. Just stood there staring at me like a great big wall of very pissed-off alien male. “It means angry. Or, like, irritated.”
“I am often irritated,” he grumbled, watching me as I prepared to hop out of the shuttle. “Have you never noticed?”
I gave a bark of laughter, because who the hell hadn’t noticed that?
“Well, this is why I suggested you take a break and go home for a bit! I just thought it might do some good for the state of your mental health.”
The affronted look was back.
“I am just as healthy – no – I am even healthier than any other male of my age and anyone who has said otherwise has put a lie upon my name that he must answer for. Who was it?” He turned and aimed a spear at Oxriel’s innocent expression. “Was it you?”
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
I took this opportunity of distraction to finally hop down out of the shuttle. Only, as merciless fucking fate would have it, I had to hit the one little slippery patch of stone as I landed. My foot slid to the side, and my hands were too full of cards to latch onto the side of the shuttle for balance.
I was about to go down. Hard.
Dalk hadn’t even been looking at me. He’d been focused on poor Oxriel, staring at the other male like he was about to drive a spear right through his sweet, smiley face. And yet, when I started to slide, it was like he fucking sensed it. The speed with which he snapped his body around towards mine was goddamn inhuman, which I guessed made sense considering the fact that he absolutely wasn’t human. But it was still surprising. A shock to the system to experience the way that much brutal strength and power bring itself into motion so fucking fast. Someone as brawny and bulky as Dalk should have been slow, but he wasn’t. He moved like a lick of dark lightning in the bright air, his fingers seizing on the arm he’d released not one minute before.
“This,” he hissed, sight stars practically vibrating down at me, giving my arm a slight squeeze as he steadied me, “is why I do not leave the Deep Sky.”
I squinted at him in the scalding sunshine, my heart hammering from the adrenaline of the tumble I’d so narrowly avoided. It definitely wasn’t beating that fast because of how close he was to me. Or because of how warm and powerful his hand felt on my arm. Or how, goddamnit, that grumpy scowl of his actually looked so fucking good etched into the harsh, masculine lines of his face.
I expected Dalk to let go of me when the sound of Deep Sky men – Gahn Thaleo and some of his warriors – approached. And he did, but not without a long, silently brooding moment of hesitation. And not without stepping in front of me as the other men came across the bright, pale stone towards us.
“Hey!” I said, swatting at his back with one of the paper cards, being careful to avoid all the blades strapped to him. “I can’t see!”
“You do not need to see,” he grunted.
“Oh, I suppose I’m just supposed to pass out these cards with my bloody eyes closed, then? Just toss them in the air, maybe, and let the wind carry them where it will?”
“That would work.”
