Page 68 of Emerald

She marches over and grabs on to my arm and I hold myself rigid so I don’t lash out.

“What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing. It’s just… just that there’s no use. I’ve tried and all I ever did was almost die trying to escape,” I say.

It’s a deflection, but it’s also the truth.

Her shoulders slump. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. There are so many deadly things in these caves. Venom bugs, things that look like cats with dripping green slime, and this really big…” I shudder. “...something that almost killed Kroaicho it was so strong.”

“Kroaicho. Right. So the terrible kidnapper has a name,” she says, her lip lifted in… disgust?

It’s so much harder to tell with humans.

I shake my head at the thought. This is exactly what I wanted. Humans to be with. And here I am being incredibly ungrateful.

I let out a long breath and let my mask drop. It’s no use. “I’m the reason you’re here, Rin.”

“Of course you are,” she replies. “We’ve been looking for you.”

I blink. “You have?”

“Yes! Why do you sound surprised?” she shoots back.

I shrug. “I just… I don’t know.”

“Kira and Ree came really close to grabbing Kroaicho and beating the information out of him, but he kept getting away.”

My jaw drops. He didn’t tell me something that important? “He saw them?”

“I assume so, since he ran off like a coward and caved in the tunnels behind him,” she replies.

She’s cursing in Farsi about his ancestry as my mind whirls.

I shouldn’t have expected anything else. I close my eyes and push it out of my mind, heart aching.

“Tell me what’s been happening,” I grit out.

***

It’s been at least a day. Rin ran out of stories to tell and aside from periodically trying to leave the way Kroaicho brought her in and being blocked by him, she hasn’t done much beyond pace and mutter in Farsi.

It’s making me want to shut down, but I keep pushing it off, especially since she won’t seem to listen to my attempts to implicate myself in her kidnapping. My guilt is like a steady wound and as long as she denies it, the wound remains.

Finally, she plops down beside me and pulls a braid over one ear. My eyes widen when I recognize the shape.

I pull my hair back and turn so she can see. “Do my ears look like yours?”

She snorts out a breath. “Well, at least you haven’t had sex with him.”

“What?” I say a little too loudly. How could she know about these strange urges? And what does that have to do with anything?

“You’re going to change until you have sex. Ree explained it to me. It looks like you got some of Kuret’s traits by coming in contact with me. Those are Qendi ears. Any other changes?”

I will my sleeves to pull back and she grimaces. “Those are from some sort of elf-like alien. They are not friendly.”

She shows me similar silver glittering on her skin, which is really pretty mixed in with the green branching marks. I point at one. “What about those?”

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