Prologue - Day 80
Winona
He knows, she thinks when she feels him watching her. And she glances down and finds her hand trembling one more during their makeshift 'council meeting'.
He comes to rooms that night, waiting before she calls or asks. Merely from that look in her eyes.
He must think she's a coward, is what she think, at first.
She's not a leader.
And she hates it so much, that the knowledge claws it's way up her throat to strangle her whenever she lays down to rest.
But then he shows up again and again. And she doesn't think he's put so much time into a coward.
Tonight he's here to. A black mass in the shadow of her room. Quiet, and unignorable, and there.
They talk -sometimes she yells, obtuse to the comfort he come to offer. Always coming to tell her she's doing well, so she can scream that she isn't. That she's going to lead them all into an early grave.
It's the other time when the day starts to put a nervous tick behind her eye that things start to change, like the time in the cave.
That he look in his eyes that bare and raw with a challenge she wouldn't rise to. No interest in fighting, because she needed him to make her stop. Just her mind. Just for a bit.
"Tell me to stop."
But her eyes are exhausted and her mind is weak, so he says it again, you're doing well, just to rile her, she thinks. When she reaches to smack him when her tells her again, and her mind reacts so violently to traitorous idea because he's lying. It's not hard. Just a thump of a fist to his chest, but he catches it as it swings again - and she's backed up against the unforgiving cement wall of her little home, before she can suck in a breath.
He's caught both wrists in his grip and holding them barely to the side. Not uncomfortable but it's out of her control and she slumps - melts like putty between the wall and the heat of his chest in relief. Her head falling to the muscled curve of his shoulder and they stand there for Gods know how long.
Long enough for the hot moister of her breath to dampen the tan skin there beneath her mouth, to cause a flush to rise up in its wake.
She stares at it. As she finally leans away. For some reason seeing a flush on his skin made the alien before her so much more human that she ever suspected.
The he meets her eyes and the violet glow in the darkness of the room sweeps that revelation away as quickly as it came, because they do glow. Like they're illuminated by some glow stick gel that's coagulated into a spikey rings of fire around his inner iris.
He looks at her with a odd expression. It's asking her something but she doesn't know what. She doesn't want a question that she has to answer.
So she glances at her wrists in his and wriggles them a little. He doesn't loose them, not even a hint.
They're not touching but for that when she straightens away. And he glances between her eyes.
That same look.
'Tell me to stop.'
She doesn't know if he says it , or if she heard it in her head.
But he steps into her, and there hips meet, and she nearly sighs.
Her lips part to, but it catches in her chest when he leans down into her space where there breath meets. So close, past the point where she can see both his fangs without straining her eyes. The tips peaking out beneath his lips just so.
He smells a bit unearthly too, it's nice, kind of flora, kind of metallic. And a bit like that cleaner they use on there guns.
He's never been so close, she realizes, she never had an alien so close other than Egora.
Egora, though, was no Tamanii soldier. And even then, Egora was three-quarters human and still towered over her own statuesque form - significantly.
Him. He's so big that in the way there standing she's almost positive the guard at her door -surely pretending not to know the current goings on, really wouldn't see her at all past his broad towering form.
What must he be thinking?
It was one of Euros' men too. And she sure he could scent her in that way that all the Tamanii could.
Her heart pounded a little at the memory of the men speaking around the camp fire. 'Like they're in fucking heat' they'd said about the human women, and that was just when they were ovulating.
What would she smell like now when there was a tingling heat between her thighs that she couldn't deny. Something un-ignorable for a male in such close proximity, she was sure. And then wondered if her scent was what had started them down this path.
All the times her turned to her when the wind changed direction. All the times his eyes had met hers the instant her mind wandered to places it my e shouldn't.
maybe she just smelt nice. She'd believe that over him respecting her leadership qualities,
There eyes haven't left one another's when she hears a step, step, of someone coming around the corner, in what were definitely military grade boots - and then the distinct sound of a stumble before silence.
Euros doesn't turn, or physically acknowledge the intrusion. And she can't decide if pushing him away would be a better option the staying there, hidden behind his bulk. But it's her room, who else would be crowded against the wall, panting like they been doing more than they had.
"Get. Out." Euros' command is aweful, unquestionable, and openly aggressive.
It shouldn't be, they were meant to be leaders.
She doesn't need to see, she can hear who's ever interrupted back up a pace, and can guess the thump is him hitting the doorframe, or wall, or maybe her dresser, in uncoordinated haste.
'Yes- YES, commander. Right away.' He's gone without another word and she's left to wonder how quickly this will spread.
Clearly something on Euros' mind too.
"I'll head him off." He says, and he's released her before she can protest, though she wouldn't because he should go. He's right, this can't spread.
His jaws tight but it's the only place she can look because she can't quite meet his eyes. She nods though, and make it seem controlled and put-together, and not the jerky head bob it feels like.
"This will do no good spreading through the males." He continues, then pauses, before, "or your humans."
There had been unrest between them. That was no secret. And he was right. This. Whatever it was...happening between them. Was not the push they needed right now.
She nodded again. Knowing she can't trust her voice but she makes sure he knows that she agrees.
It's cold without him pressed against her. And there's a shrill sound of the wind blowing in through the slight crack in her window as the rain pelts the glass.
There's a flash, and a explosion of sound through threw once quiet space.
It'd begun to storm. And badly, at that.
She glances back at him. He's crossed the room toward the open door, theres a puddle the guard had tracked in in his haste, whatever he had come to say was probably important.
Should she try to sleep or try to work? Her mind was so muddled she couldn't be sure either endeavour would be successful tonight.
She wants to ask him to stay when there gazes meet again; to continue where this may have gone, and have him tell her where it was going with that unwavering promise that had been in his gaze, before they'd been interrupted.
Instead her jaw tightens and she nods in dismissal.
And the door shut quietly behind him.
