Page 17 of Xara and the Xenobeast

He knelt down next to the bed and carefully removed the remains of the bandage before cleansing the wound. Fortunately, the new damage was only minor. He retrieved more of the healing moss from his rapidly diminishing supply and placed it carefully over the wound. His focus has been on her injury but as he began to tie the fiber strips around the moss he became increasingly aware of the smooth golden skin beneath his hands.

Her scent surrounded him, the warm, feminine fragrance making his pulse quicken and his cock stiffen. A growl built in his throat, his need for her growing by the second.

His fingers trailed across her inner thigh and she gasped, a soft startled sound than only added to his arousal. He looked up and found her watching him, her eyes wide and dark, those pretty lips parted as she leaned towards him.

He jumped back so quickly that he almost fell, his usual control deserting him, and she gave a frustrated sigh. He ignored it, pointing sternly at the bed as he rose to his feet. Stay.

“Don’t you growl at me,” she said, sitting up straight despite the pain in her leg. “I’m not one of your—whatever you hunt out there. I’m a person. A scientist. I’m just trying to understand what’s happening.”

He stared at her, momentarily frozen by her outburst. No one spoke to him that way. Not since... before. Her finger jabbed toward his chest, stopping just short of contact, her eyes flashing with defiance rather than fear.

“You’ve been feeding me, tending my wounds, protecting me—which I appreciate, by the way—but you won’t talk to me. Won’t explain anything.”

She jabbed a finger at him again not quite touching him but making her point.

“I understand you’re some kind of apex predator with the whole silent-and-deadly routine, but if you expect me to stay put, you’re going to have to give me something. Information. Communication. Anything. I know you understand me.”

She was right. He understood her perfectly through his translation implant. He’d been trained to comprehend dozens of languages, though speaking them had been deemed unnecessary for a weapon. Weapons didn’t need to communicate—they needed to execute.

But she wasn’t treating him like a weapon. She was treating him like a person.

The realization unsettled him deeply.

He turned away, retrieving a piece of meat from the fire, offering it as a distraction while he gathered his thoughts. When their fingers brushed, the contact sent another jolt through his system—her skin so warm and soft against his.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “But food isn’t answers.”

He studied her face—the determined set of her jaw, the intelligence in those hazel eyes. She wasn’t going to back down. She wasn’t going to cower.

He hesitated, then picked up a stick from the floor. With deliberate movements, he began to sketch in the dirt near thefire pit. Simple lines formed a crude but recognizable figure—elongated limbs, a scaled body, large multi-faceted eyes.

She leaned forward, her curiosity instantly engaged. “What is that? Who are they?”

He tapped the drawing, then pointed at the already fading mark on his arm.

“The lights? They’re made by these creatures?” She studied the drawing intently. “Are they sentient? Do they have a civilization?”

The barrage of questions made his mouth twitch with something almost like amusement. He nodded once, a short, sharp movement, and her eyes widened.

“I knew you understood me!” Her face lit up with a smile that made his chest ache. “Do they have a name? These beings?”

He hesitated. Speaking was forbidden. Communication led to connection, and connection led to weakness, but her eager expression broke through decades of conditioning.

“Tal’Shai,” he said, his voice a deep, rough rumble from disuse. The sound of his own voice startled him. How long had it been since he’d spoken aloud?

“Tal’Shai,”he said, his voice a deep, rough rumble from disuse. The sound of his own voice startled him. How long had it been since he’d spoken aloud?

Per pretty lips parted in shock.

“You can talk!” She leaned toward him, excitement radiating from her entire body. “These Tal’Shai—up on the cliff youseemed to indicate that they were hostile. Was that what you were trying to tell me?”

The smallest Graxlin pup chose that moment to scamper across the bed, chirping excitedly. It climbed onto his knee, then began batting playfully at one of his sensory tendrils. The tendril curled reflexively, gently lifting the pup into the air as it squealed in delight.

Xara laughed—a bright, unexpected sound that punched straight through his defenses and into some long-dormant part of him. The sound was pure joy, unrestrained and genuine.

He froze, his tendril still holding the squirming pup. Her laughter was... beautiful. Like nothing he’d heard in years. Decades, perhaps.

“Look at you,” she said, her voice warm with amusement. “The big, scary predator playing with a baby.”

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