Page 28 of Finding Her Heart
He made that throat noise.
"You want me to ask questions you aren't going to answer?"
"What are you doing, Annabell Roe?"Mama's voice asked in her head. It sounded like her mother. But Annabell was asking herself because she didn't know. A new world and life surrounded her, difficult to translate, to understand, passing by too fast to take in and study. She felt things during the last rest she'd never thought to feel.
Those dreams and hopes evaporated years ago. Listening to her brothers, their nagging dried everything up. She let them shame her with their ideas and prejudices. They did it out of love. And fear. They cared about her. Older and more experienced, they knew things she didn't. Benjere, the bossiest, in particular, knew how everyone should live.
"A cup and a plate go in the cupboard, the blanket and the sheet go in the cupboard, but not the same cupboard,"Mama said. But it wasn't Mama, it was Benjere, using that as an example that she had her place in this life as a girl and his sister. To Benjere, staying in one's correct place was important.
Leaving the sidetrack along the waterside, the war beasts ran under the boughs of trees. They huffed and vocalized as they traveled, some of the other Orki joining in. Annabell thought she might understand a few of the growling words from the Orki, but she couldn't be sure. The Orki language was a complex arrangement of guttural sounds. Vowels in the language appeared in a word like a howl, a groan, or a grunt. There were other sounds and pitches that she knew she couldn't hear or replicate.
She hoped Doku-ni at least understood when she talked. He seemed to. Some things he understood unexpectedly well.
Her stomach rumbled, and a wave of heat poured over her. "I need to use the latrine hole, please. Are we stopping soon?"
Zerzer answered with two happy yips.
"That had better be a yes."
Another two yips followed, with perfect timing.
They went beneath the interwoven branches of two trees, dripping a curtain of delicate lichen vines. On the other side, the slanted wall of the ravine, with rock arching over them in a solid roof of nature. Another Orki camp. Not enclosed, and not stocked with provisions, there were still signs of many visits.
The large, black Orki, with a lighter-colored war beast, crossed her line of vision, a woman-shaped bundle in his lap. There was no knowing who. Attempting to see better resulted in Doku-ni taking command of her eyes again.
They went right to a rocky place off to the side, downwind of the widest part of the cliff roof. Doku-ni dismounted, pulling a spade from the pack of things attached to Zerzer's saddle. Another rider arrived, and before Annabell even thought to look at him, Zerzer moved, giving the other male her back.
"Don't look at anyone or anything. I get it, Zerzer, some custom or another. But I would like to know why. And I would like to know if is it always this way?" Her stomach grumbled and twisted hard. Another wave of heat went over her, in her, burning up under her skin and making her vision double. This felt a little like the sour stomach, a common sickness in the Valley, starting in slow waves, rather than the steady build of having to make waste in one facility while leaning over a bucket to catch the sick from the other end. Doku-ni wasted no time, plucking her off the back of the war beast and setting her down over a fresh hole. He took the animal skin, helping her again while her body trembled weakly.
This wasn't a sour stomach.
Squatting to make waste, her legs creaked with pain. Her cycle sometimes hit like this, early days of arousal followed by cramping and sick. As a precursor, arousal vanished with the discomforts. If this was her cycle, something was wrong. She was experiencing everything at once, plus feverish heat waves. Perhaps this sickness came as the result of the emotional trauma of the last days. She didn't know. Familiar and foreign at the same time, as strange as her emotions, this was just one more thing on top of all the other changes.
Doku-ni brought her damp green leaves in one hand, and a waterskin in the other. Guiding her to his shoulder, his eyes narrowing with sympathy, he encouraged her to lean into him so that he could help. Although she felt weak, his musk-spice smell and soothing purr infused her hungry energy. Opening her mouth, she stole a taste of his skin, unable to stop herself.
Fumbling at her own clean-up, he brushed her hands away, doing it for her. It was the most humiliating and intimate experience of her life. She was a widow, had endured enough living to become dull with it, but everything with this male happened like it was the very first time. He tended to her without making her hate herself, as if it were a privilege.
He set up the bed as he had the night before, but this camp did not block out the light of the Child the way the other had. The Orki may live with their days and nights in reverse, but she did not. She'd slept most of the ride, not deeply, but enough that while she felt physically tired and achy, she knew she wouldn't sleep under that sun.
Doku-ni gave her food and water, taking some himself after removing his gear from Zerzer and leaving her to take care of some of her own needs. Annabell's eyes wanted to wander around the camp, curious to see everyone else and take in information, get some answers to her questions.
Squatting next to her while he ate, Doku-ni watched her closely. If her eyes wandered, he made that negative grunting noise. The third time it happened, his hand shot out, clasping her firmly at the throat, giving her a gentle squeeze. A reminder.
No threat, she knew. He could cut off her breathing or crush her windpipe and break her like a twig. Wanting her to understand, his white eyes pushed his will at her from beneath his mobile, telling brows. The flattened nose and nostrils flared as he huffed a deep breath. He had harsh cheekbones and that wide, tusked, dangerous mouth. Not human. Stunningly different. She loved looking at him. His hand controlled her, a halter like she put on the head of her donkeys, taking charge. This was not a male who would hesitate to direct her where he wanted her to go.
He could make her do almost anything with his hand on her throat—control her breath, her body—the grip triggered a need to yield to his greater strength and determination. It should terrorize her, but his hand hold was too perfect. Zings of alarmed awareness climbed down her back, buzzing the tips of her fingers, stiffening her nipples, and swelling the hidden, waiting nub of flesh at the apex of her thighs.
Speaking volumes without saying a single word, he unclasped and drew back with deliberate slowness. Annabell took a deep breath. "Yes, I understand. Don't look anywhere but at you."
She almost smiled when she said it. What was wrong with her?
Something was definitely wrong. With a sigh, she closed her eyes and bent her head so that when she opened them, all she would see was the floor. "But it's hard. You don't speak. You don't tell me what you want, what is going to happen next. You don't tell me where we are going, or what life is going to be like, or how I am going to learn the things I need to learn to survive. You don't tell me that everything's going to be okay."
He tapped the hand holding the food he'd given her. He wanted her to eat. He explained much without words, simple things, but not what she really needed to know. She would have to trust him.
Tonight’s meal, under the morning sky, was meat from an unknown source. She preferred the cake, bread, or fresh vegetables from the garden. "Do you have vegetables? Do you eat vegetables?" she blurted.
Head tilting to the side in response, he grunted, the slightest smile on his lips. "My papa told me a hundred stories as a child, but there is a lot I do not know."
