Page 14 of Romancing Rem'eb

“Eat,” he tells me, voice gruff. “There is time for us to explore our bond later.”

Normally I’d make a sharp retort to that—or a teasing one—but I’m still throbbing with all kinds of emotions I shouldn’t have for a stranger I’ve just met. A man whose people just kidnapped me. So I shove a slice of fruit into my mouth and then pick up something that I thought was a slice of cooked game bird. It’s not. It’s got a strange, almost bouncy texture to it, and I pick it up and sniff it. Nothing. “What’s this?”

“You do not have that above? Mushroom?”

My eyes widen. “This is mushroom?” It looks like a palm-sized chunk of pale meat. “It’s huge.”

“It is a plant that grows up from the ground,” he explains to me as if I’m an idiot. “We tend them here and then harvest them. They like the darkness.”

“I know what a mushroom is,” I say grumpily. This whole language barrier is really turning into a pain in the ass. I take a nibbling bite, and it has a mild, nutty flavor to it, more pleasant than any raw mushroom I recall eating on Earth. With a pleased sound, I take another, larger bite.

“I am glad my people’s food brings you happiness.” Rem’eb sounds thrilled, as if me eating is one of his great joys in life. How often have I heard the same notes from the sa-khui males as they fed their human mates? God, I always thought that was such a corny cliché. Now, watching Rem’eb watch me stuff my face, it’s clear that feeding is a thing between mates.

Not that we’re mates.

Please don’t let it be resonance, I beg my khui silently. Please let him be unreasonably sexy and I’m about to get my period and that’s why I’m ultra horny. Resonance will screw everything up. Please just let me have an arm fetish or something.

I eat in silence, trying not to watch him too overtly. He pours water from the pitcher, and I notice a piece of fruit lands in my cup. The addition of the fruit to the water makes it lightly sweet and twice as refreshing, and I wonder why we haven’t done that back above. Too busy drinking hot teas, I suppose. I finish my drink and study him. “Are you going to hang around all day?”

Rem’eb tilts his head, regarding me. “I do not make out your words. Help me understand you. I wish to know what you are saying, more than anything.”

My face grows hot again. I decide to switch topics. “What’s this?” I pick up the yellow cloth and hold it up to him. “Do I wear this?”

“It is fabric. For bedding. Do your people not use bedding?”

“I know that it’s fabric,” I tell him, dropping it into my lap. “I just…wait. Fabric?” I grab the material again and run my hand down it, looking for seams or messy stitches. When I knit, the loops and knots are never as tight as I’d like, but this is beautiful and shiny and silky to the touch. “Where are the stitches? Who made this? How did they make it?”

“Fabric,” he says again. “It is material we create.”

“Augh!” I point at the decorative, overly-large stitches in my leather bandeau top. “Where are these? The stitches. Where are they in the fabric?”

It takes him a moment to realize what I’m asking, and then he shrugs. “I do not know. I am not an expert with a loom. That is not a skill I have worked at.”

“Oh my god,” I shriek, excitement flooding me. I forget all about them being the enemy, and my kidnappers. “You have a loom? Where? Can I see?”

“You…this is good?” He watches me as I clasp my hands in front of my chin and nod enthusiastically. “Then I shall bring you a loom.”

“That would be amazing,” I tell him, and reach out to touch his hand in gratitude. “Thank you.”

“Dankhu,” he agrees, and touches his chin in a mimic of ASL.

Oh. How sweet and clever of him. He’s already trying to learn my language. I give him a happy nod. If I can get out of here and get a loom to look at? This might be worth all the trouble. A loom is my pie in the sky, my dream item to figure out. If I can get a loom working, I can weave fabric from the wool yarn we make. Right now we’re knitting and crocheting, but I’ve been thinking about bigger projects with tighter stitching. Blankets, cloaks, whatever we can make. Washable layers, since leather is good for a lot of things, but panties aren’t one of them. So yeah, I want fabric. I want to learn how to make it because it’s another skill humans had made huge advancements with and the sa-khui have not. I even suggested to Tiffany at one point that we ask the computer at the Ancestors’ Ship about weaving equipment, but any time we ask for information beyond the logbooks or languages, it generates error messages. Mardok says the error messages have been increasing, and so we’re not to use the computer unless it’s an absolute emergency.

But these people have looms. They know how to weave.

I’m suddenly torn on leaving right away. I need to find out where R’jaal is and if he needs rescuing, but…a loom. Damn it.

“I will see about getting you a loom,” Rem’eb promises me. I finish my meal and he lingers for a little while, pointing at objects and asking for the word (or gesture) for them. After a while, he reluctantly gets to his feet. “I must go now. I have to speak to my father.”

I jump to my feet, worried. “You’re coming back, right?”

“I do not understand your?—”

Grr! I get up and take his hand in mine, then press his large fist to my breasts. It’s dramatic, sure, but it also gets his attention. “Rem’eb…return?” I gesture at the door, then mime with my fingers to indicate him walking out and then coming back. “Return?”

The look on his face is stunned, and I wonder if pressing his hand to my tits was too much. “Yes, my stranger, I will return to your side. Of that, have no fear.” His thumb rubs over the back of my hand, and his gaze is locked on me. “I do not think I could stay away if I tried. I will return with your next meal. I promise.”

I manage a small smile and touch my chin in thanks. Then I pause. “R’jaal? Will you find out about him?”

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