CHAPTER 5
ERRO
Erro couldn’t take it. He’d tried so hard to tell her, to explain to her who she was to him. His ele’a. But without a way to communicate, how was he supposed to tell Rachel the reason she was affecting him this way? How was he supposed to explain that such feelings were only ever evoked in the Traag by their fated mate?
When she had accidentally touched him, brushing her fingers against his already-hard shaft, a burst of fire had shot straight through his body. The hot drink spilling on his leg had warmed him up pleasantly, but her soft, unintended touch had ignited the flame within him in a way he had never experienced before.
He needed to get that translator!
Springing to his feet, he headed for the nearest door with no other thought in his addled brain than this – once he could talk to Rachel, he could tell her everything.
Yet, as soon as he yanked the door open, Erro realized his mistake. Traag, his home planet, was a very warm world. As such, his people found it literally impossible to function in the cold, and the icy blast that assailed him as he opened the door hit him like a tsunami wave, slamming into him with so much force it took his breath away.
“No!” Rachel shouted as she ran over and slammed the door shut, locking it for good measure.
Erro felt completely helpless as she grabbed him by the arm and led him over to sit down again. She was quick to wrap the warm blanket back around his shoulders, and then she cast him a look that was clearly a command to stay put, whether he recognized the words that went along with it or not.
A warm wave of amusement flowed over him, helping him to feel a little better. She was a mere slip of a girl, not even half his height, and yet it was obvious to him that she expected him to obey. And in his weakened state, it looked like he was going to have to do so, whether he wanted to or not.
It must have been the cold temperatures that had incapacitated him ever since his arrival on this world. The hot beverage that Rachel had offered him had only momentarily improved his condition, but now, with the icy rush of air back in his bones, he realized he had been cold for much longer than that.
How did the people live on this planet? How could anyone live on a planet with sub-freezing temperatures? He knew his own people would never be able to tolerate such a cold environment. Which made him wonder, was the rest of this planet just as cold as this? How did his fellow Traag-born soldiers manage to function on this world?
Surely, it must be warmer at the site where their base was located. Or did his fellow Traagen soldiers simply never venture outside? The idea made a shiver run along his spine. What a nightmare that would be, locked up at a military station for hundreds of quazets without even getting to go outside to explore the planet once. He hoped that wasn’t the case.
But even if it was, that was a worry for another time. Right now, he needed to get a translator. Although how he was supposed to look for his ship with the current weather raging outside, he didn’t know.
Searching for the vessel in his current form was out of the question. Traveling on the surface on two feet was far too slow, and he would freeze to death before he even got anywhere near his ship. But in such frigid temperatures, he had no ability to transform to his other half either. Until he was warmed up again, he would be unable to sprout wings or breathe fire. Which clearly meant that he was stuck here, in a primitive enclosure with a beautiful female – one that just happened to be his mate.
Erro grinned at the thought. Somehow, he was okay with that.
He watched curiously as Rachel brought pieces of wood into the room and set them inside of the brick hole in the wall. She then continued to light them up, making a fire. He had guessed the pit to be some kind of an archaic kitchen, but it now seemed more like it was used to heat the room rather than to cook food. Interesting.
Although what was more interesting was the curve of the female’s round bottom as she bent over and stoked the fire with a long stick. Erro straightened himself on the seat, suddenly no longer feeling as cold, although it wasn’t the fire heating up his insides. Her voluptuous bottom looked so soft, and Erro ached to touch it. The sight before him made his already-hard cock strain uncomfortably against his suit, and he groaned.
Rachel turned around to look at him at the sound. Her face went redder than the flames as their eyes met, and Erro’s amusement grew. Was she remembering the accidental touch? Or perhaps she might even be thinking about what it was she had been touching?
Erro could only hope that was the case. It certainly was the only thing he could think of at the moment.
The room grew warmer after some time as the fire continued to burn, allowing Erro to relax. Rachel got up from her position near the fire and looked toward the place she’d been seated before, but her expression revealed that she was hesitant to return to it.
Before Erro managed to invite her to sit back down, she turned around and walked to another room in her accommodations, only to return a moment later to take a seat on a smaller version of the cushioned platform he was using. Disappointment settled in the bottom of Erro’s stomach. Was she avoiding him?
“Rachel?” he asked softly, feeling slightly unsure of himself and the whole situation. He wanted to know what she was thinking about, why she had sat so far away from him, but he doubted she would’ve told him even without the language barrier. The thought pierced his heart. He really didn’t know his mate yet.
But when Rachel turned back toward him, her expression more questioning than reserved, a soft smile spread on his lips again. He couldn’t help but smile when he looked at her. She was so beautiful, with her brown hair and green eyes – more beautiful than even the sunrise flowers he had used to sooth himself when he’d thought he was about to die.
With a heady smirk, he realized he could sit and look at her for hours, and never grow tired. She looked straight back at him, her eyes deep and mesmerizing, lulling him into a trance.
In the back of his mind, Erro realized that she was probably expecting him to say something more. But truthfully, he wasn’t sure why he’d even said her name in the first place, other than to savor it as it rolled around on his tongue. So he didn’t say anything else, only continued to gaze at her.
A deep blush rose onto her cheeks under his scrutiny, and after a while, she shied her eyes away from him. Erro found her reaction amusing. He loved the effect he seemed to have on her. She might not be Traag, but there was no question she was feeling it too – the mate connection between them.
After a while of sitting in silence, Rachel stood up, walking toward the spot where Erro was sitting. His breath caught in his throat as she walked closer toward him and his heart leaped in his chest as he assumed that she would finally come to sit down beside him. But to his disappointment, she moved past him, and simply took the empty mug he’d set on the table.
She walked away with it, bringing it into the same room she’d disappeared to a moment earlier, and Erro’s curiosity awakened. Should he follow her? Or wait here for her return? She had returned quickly last time, but a part of him wanted to know what she was doing in the room.
Juggling his options, Erro decided to wait patiently for her to return. As she did so, he immediately noticed that she held not one but two mugs in her hands, both of them filled with the hot drink she’d offered him earlier – one for each of them.
Erro smiled gratefully as she walked back toward him and handed him one of the mugs, a soft pink hue coloring her cheeks. She set her own mug aside on the table and turned to look at the strange tree in the middle of the room.
Erro watched curiously as she brought out a container full of brightly colored objects and started to attach them to the tree. It already held a few of the bulbous decorations, and he tilted his head in consternation, trying to figure out what she was doing. When she caught him staring at her, she chuckled, and the action lit up her face in a way that heated his insides better than the hot drink ever could.
Holding up one of the shiny objects, Rachel said something in her language that sounded like, “Ohr-na-ment.”
He immediately understood it to be a name for the thing, although he still had no clue what purpose it served. From what he could see, these ‘ohr-na-ments’ did nothing but hang on the tree and twinkle. They certainly would be no good for any sort of practical application. And yet, Rachel was happily placing them on the tree.
Seeing his confusion, she cast her eyes about the room, and then nodded, bringing her hand up to her ear. She tugged the length of long brown hair out of the way, showing him her lobe. Attached to it was a polished gemstone that, like the tree’s decorations, simply hung there.
“Ohr-na-ment?” he asked softly, reaching over to her with his hand and brushing his fingers over the stone. She sucked in a breath at his touch, which he took as a good sign. He was sorely tempted to brush a few other things she happened to be wearing too, but he didn’t relish the idea of the woman tossing him out into the storm.
“Dza,” she said, nodding as she backed away from him. “Yes.”
“Yesss,” he repeated the foreign word, elongating the sound of the ‘s’, just as his people usually did, which seemed to make Rachel smile.
“Ohr-na-mentsssss,” she added teasingly, uncovering her other ear briefly to reveal a matching stone. Then, she tugged slightly on a string around her neck, revealing yet another stone on its end.
Erro stared at her for another moment, then asked her in Vezan, “Why?”
Rachel seemed a bit taken back by his question, her eyes darting between the globe in her hand and the jewel hanging from her neck, as if unable to find the words to explain why her people had such things.
Of course, it wasn’t uncommon for his people to possess jewels too. But most often they still served a purpose. In fact, an old mating ritual in his world involved the exchange of necklaces similar to hers, but as for these ‘ohr-na-ments’… He simply couldn’t understand their significance, and she didn’t seem to be able to explain it to him either.
Erro smiled at her softly, giving her shoulder a little squeeze and shaking his head. There was no need to try to explain it. Not yet at least. Not with the few words they shared. He hadn’t really even meant to ask. It was just that her voice was so sweet and melodious, and he’d wanted her to keep talking to him – even if he couldn’t understand what she was saying.
“Rachel?” he tried again when she didn’t give the ohr-na-ments an explanation. “Do you know what ele’a means?”
She looked at him curiously, clearly trying to understand his words, but finally shook her head.
Of course, she didn’t know. She probably didn’t even understand what he had asked her, although she did blush again as she heard him say the word that had elicited her nervous response to begin with.
Her sweet woman’s scent increased in the room, making his body burn from the inside, and she made a point of concentrating on hanging the decorations rather than looking at him. Her efforts to appear unaffected despite the strength of her desire amused Erro greatly. But the truth of the matter was, he was almost sure if he stepped over to her and tugged her against him, she wouldn’t put up much of a fight.
The only reason he didn’t test out his theory was the fact that he was in no shape to do anything with the woman even if she did come willingly into his arms. His head was pounding harder than ever, and he knew by now that it must be a concussion. The very fact that he was still hazy about so many details of his current assignment and how he’d come to be here at all told him that, even if the throbbing ache hadn’t been a good enough clue.
There was no way he wanted to seduce a woman right then, no matter what his painfully hard cock had to say in the matter. Not when the culminating activities would be likely to jar his head so many times it would be a race to see if he would come first, or pass out during the attempt.
Erro didn’t even realize he’d started to drift off until Rachel startled him awake again. The warm fragrance of food assaulted his senses. Apparently, she had prepared a meal. And while Erro appreciated the gesture, with his head so bad off, he was beginning to feel nauseated from the pain. He wasn’t sure he’d even be able to identify her offering, let alone ingest it.
Nevertheless, he wanted to please her, so he sat up in his seat, taking in the two soft, white portions that surrounded what looked like meat and vegetables between them. He took a tentative bite before he wanly set the food aside and willed himself to hold down the piece he’d taken of it.
It didn’t taste bad or anything, and normally, he might even have enjoyed it. But right then, what he needed more than food was to lay down and rest. He’d just been stubbornly refusing to do so up until that point.
Rachel cast him a look of concern, and when his hand flew to the back of his head once again, this time she brushed it away so she could have a look. She prodded at the sore spot, and once she was finished, she immediately pressed him down onto the cushions and spread the blanket over top of him.
She said something to him in a gentle voice, and although he didn’t know what exactly she was telling him, he was pretty sure he could guess. Rest, she must be saying. And for the first time since he’d been pressed down into his bed by his mother so many years ago, he willingly complied.
He glanced across the room for one last time, and saw that she had finished decorating her tree. It now had not only the colorful decorations all over it, but some twinkling lights as well. And as he laid there, dozing lightly, he began to understand what the tree was for. The lights mesmerized him, and he allowed his mind to wander.
He wondered, just as he was falling asleep, if this tree was something like a sunrise flower? Something to look at just for the sake of looking, and to remember when you wished to be at peace?