Page 41 of Rok's Captive
“My earring,” I say, touching my naked earlobe to demonstrate even though I know he can’t understand. “It’s gone. It’s—” My voice catches, and to my horror, I feel tears pricking at my eyes. “It was my mom’s. She gave them to me right before she—before she?—”
I can’t finish the sentence. I never can. Instead, I continue searching, panic mounting with each passing second. It could be anywhere—lodged in a tiny crevice, buried in the dust, lost forever in this godforsaken alien wasteland.
“Please,” I whisper, my voice cracking as I crawl toward where I’d been lying during the fever. “Please be here. Please.”
I dig my fingers through the sand settled there. Nothing. My heart sinks further with each empty handful.
“This can’t be happening,” I mutter, crawling faster now, more frantic. “Not the earrings. Anything but those.” The tears I hold back blur my vision as I search. “I’ve already lost everything else.”
I’m so consumed by my search that I don’t notice the alien moving until a shadow falls across me. I’m about to look up when a sound stops me cold.
“Jus-teen.”
The voice is so rough, so guttural—like stone grinding against stone—that for a moment I don’t recognize it as speech. When it registers, I freeze completely, my hands hovering above the ground.
Slowly, I look up.
The alien is standing over me, those golden eyes fixed on my face with an intensity that makes my breath catch. His mouth—that strange, alien mouth with its sharp teeth—is slightly open, as if he’s surprised himself.
“You—” I stammer, momentarily forgetting about the earring. “You cantalk?”
He doesn’t respond, just continues staring at me with that same intense focus.
“Say something else,” I urge, rising to my knees. “Anything.”
He remains silent, but slowly crouches down to my level, bringing his face closer to mine.
The world seems to shrink around us, the cave walls fading away until all I can see is him—those topaz eyes flecked with gold, the strange patterns of light beneath his skin, the sharp angles of his face. He’s so close now that I can feel his breath on my lips. My heart hammers against my ribs as he just stays there, studying me with such intensity that it feels like he’s looking straight through to my soul.
I should move back. I should put some distance between us. But I don’t. I can’t. It’s like I’m paralyzed, caught in the gravity of his presence. The rest of the universe has disappeared, and there’s only this—only him—filling my entire field of vision, consuming every one of my senses.
Finally, his gaze slides from mine. Shifts to something to the side. To the crushed leaf he’d been working on, reduced to a paste, with some of it coating one long finger.
“So you can talk,” I whisper, gaze traveling over his face. “You’ve understood me this whole time? Or just my name? Why haven’t you?—”
“Jus-teen.”
I gulp.
That strange rasp is like he hasn’t spoken in years, maybe never. It sends a shiver down my spine. I can’t look away from him.
He leans in, even closer than before, his gaze sliding to my lips.
“What are you?—”
Before I can react, he raises his finger—the one coated with the crushed leaf paste—and brings it to my lips.
That’s all I manage before his finger slides between my lips. The paste is bitter and herbal, with an underlying sweetness that reminds me of molasses or licorice. I instinctively suck, trying to swallow the strange substance before I have time to think better of it.
The alien makes a sound the moment my lips enclose his finger—a low grunt that seems to come from deep in his chest—and his pupils dilate sharply, consuming the gold of his irises.
Something flutters low in my belly in response, a sensation so unexpected that I jerk back, his finger slipping from my mouth.
“What was that?” I ask, my voice embarrassingly breathless. “What did you just give me?”
He doesn’t answer, of course. Maybe “Jus-teen” is the only word he knows, or the only one he can pronounce with that alien mouth of his. But his eyes remain fixed on my lips, and there’s something in his expression that makes heat rise to my cheeks.
“I need to find my earring,” I say, trying to focus. “It’s important. It’s?—”
