I had hoped Sevani’s visit would be the catalyst to ridding myself of the human quickly, but it appeared to be the opposite. Days went by without further word from him or anyone else, and I was returned to doing nothing but tending to Lena and ensuring the house was not infiltrated by sneaky Novai. By the time a full week had passed since my Elder had come to collect her brief recounting of the attack, I was starting to irrationally believe the rest of my life would be dedicated to her care.

Of course, part of the irrationality was due to a lack of sleep. In the ten days since her arrival, I had slept mere hours, usually unintentionally when the exhaustion took hold and plunged me into slumber on the cot I had set up in her room from which I watched her throughout the quiet nights. I was uninformed about the state of Pentaba, my warriors, and the Novai, and I felt as though I was in isolation just as much as Lena.

It seemed the lack of outside communication was beginning to perturb her as well. She asked me repeatedly to go out, to wander the Capital or even venture into the swamps—under my surveillance, obviously. I was admittedly tempted on more than one occasion to agree, but I had been given my orders and, no matter my feelings on them, I was not going to rebel against Sevani’s command, and I reluctantly rejected each request with insistence that she was to remain indoors.

“But nothing’s going to happen as long as you’re with me!” she protested in frustration.

“We cannot be certain of that,” I told her firmly. “You are safest here.”

She harrumphed her displeasure and crossed her arms, a behavior I found both immature and endearing. My attraction to her throughout the ten days had not lessened as I had hoped; on the contrary, I realized even her most minute traits, and hidden quirks were like magnets to me. I found myself carefully observing the way her lashes draped over her cheeks as she slept, the way her gray eyes flicked out over the view of the Capital below, the way her sensual rear swayed when she moved from room to room. There was nothing A’li-uud about her, and, to my surprise, I was enthralled by her innate humanness. Even the strangely delicate manner in which she ate her meals made something stir inside me. She was captivating.

It was likely due in part to the fact that we had started to talk. No longer was the house filled with silence, broken only by brief questions from her about when she would be able to go back to her shanty. From the time she awoke to the time she retired for the evening, we were conversing. She primarily drove the discussions at first, but Sevani’s short interview with her had sparked my interest in learning more about her, and I started asking her questions of my own as the days wore on.

“What is the purpose of a life coach?” I asked her on the tenth day. Though I usually stood from dawn until dusk, I actually slipped onto the couch beside her, where she was resting her chin on the backrest and peering out of the window at the Elder palace’s grand exterior.

She looked up at me in surprise and squinted slightly. “You heard me tell Sevani about life coaches.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “but you misunderstood my question. Why do life coaches exist? Why do humans feel a need for them?”

Lena twisted at the waist, no longer facing the window, fully facing me instead. She drew her knees up to her chest, wrapped her arms around her shins, and gave me a rather critical look. “It sounds like you’re implying my job is useless,” she said a little grumpily.

“No, but I do not understand why life coaches are necessary,” I explained. “Do humans need help to decide what to do with themselves?”

“Some do,” she said wryly. “I know I do lately. Don’t A’li-uud ever just feel like… like they’re going nowhere? Like they need some guidance?”

“Chiefs and Elders, and sometimes parents, provide all the guidance we need,” I replied, drawing myself up a little.

She crooked a brow and asked, “Chiefs and Elders and parents have a bias, though. Don’t you ever feel a need to have the help of a third party, someone who had nothing invested in your circumstances?”

I wanted to tell her I had never required such assistance, and, were it ten days ago, it would have been an honest response. With my mind completely muddled with fascination for her, however, I could no longer say such a thing. The truth was it would have been a great help to me to have someone with whom I could explain my developing intrigue toward her and receive unprejudiced feedback in return.

“Perhaps,” I said evasively, swinging my eyes toward the window to avoid looking at her.

“Well, maybe you should consider making a Pentaban or two life coaches,” she suggested. I chose not to speak, continuing to gaze out the window, but I felt the couch shift as she leaned forward unexpectedly. In a low voice as though she was imparting a deep secret to me, she added, “You know, that’s why I’ve been watching you so much.”

I snapped my eyes back to her involuntarily. “Pardon me?”

She smiled, the corners of her mouth lifting just enough to press her round cheeks into the corners of her eyes, and nodded. “Yeah. I know you’ve noticed. Like I told Sevani, a big part of my job is analyzing what my clients don’t say in order to figure out what’s the best path for them. I’ve been trying to figure you out, figure out what your path should be.”

“You could have just asked,” I pointed out.

“I could’ve,” she said with another nod, “but you’re not exactly the most approachable creature I’ve ever met.”

Though it was an observation far from a compliment, I was not offended in the slightest. On the contrary, I felt a burst of pride surge through me at her words. If that was her perception, I had done a better job than I had thought at pretending I had little interest in her.

“So what have you, as you say, figured out?” I asked, genuinely curious to hear her answer.

Lena lifted a finger and stroked her chin. I tried not to stare at the way the feminine nail skimmed from the divot beneath her plump lower lip to the smooth point of her jaw as she thought. “You do not lack purpose,” she mused. Her stormy eyes had drifted into fog, her mind disconnected from the present to recollect everything she had seen from me. “But you feel like you are. You don’t want to be stuck here with me because you feel you need to be performing as War Chief.”

“It is not personal to you,” I interrupted quickly. “I do not like being restricted to one place, cut off from my warriors and my kingdom.”

“I know,” she laughed. It was the first time I had heard her laugh, and it sent shivers down my spine. Melodic trills rolled through the air and plummeted into my ears, where they settled like nestling birds and filled me with a foreign lightness. The sound made me feel powerful and impenetrable and enslaved to her mercy all at once, and I delighted in it. I felt its quaking for several seconds after her laughter quieted.

“You are very intuitive,” I told her as a means to distract myself from this new addition to my growing list of infatuations.

Lena brushed a hand through her golden hair and lowered her chin to her knees. “It’s my job to read people, so I guess I’ve gotten good at that,” she said. “Or maybe you’re just really easy to read.”

It was my turn to quirk a brow. I had been called many things in my long years, but transparent was not one of them. “I sincerely doubt that.”

“I don’t know,” she said teasingly. “You’re the Tough Guy, right? You want everyone to think you’re strong and unemotional, but deep down you don’t really believe that about yourself. You’re probably closer to your mother than you want to admit, love hearing praise from your superiors, and secretly imagine having a passionate, unconditional romance.”

Her analysis was frighteningly accurate, and arousal rocketed through me. This woman, this human, was not just any human. She was powerful in her own way, able to understand things about me that I attempted to avoid understanding about myself. While everyone else in my life accepted the person I presented to them, she had burrowed past that in ten short days with barely any interaction.

I pounced forward, knocking her onto her back atop the couch cushion. She yelped, but the ghost of a grin still lingered on her luscious lips. Hovering over her with mere inches between our faces, I growled, “What am I imagining now?”