I’m just about to close my eyes and resign myself to my fate when I catch a glimpse of movement out of the corner of my eye. Not Rok’s movement—something else. Something under the sand.
I jerk upright, suddenly alert. “Did you see that?”
Rok keeps walking, but his stride changes slightly, becomes more measured, more cautious. So he saw it too.
There it is again—a ripple beneath the surface of the sand, like something large moving just below. Like a shark, but without the fin.
“What the fuck is that?” I whisper, my fingers digging into Rok’s arm without me even realizing it.
Another ripple appears, closer this time, and suddenly I’m very, very glad I’m not the one walking on the sand.
“Okay, so maybe you had a point about not wandering around out here alone,” I admit. “But you still didn’t have to kidnap me. Again.”
He doesn’t respond, of course, but something in his posture relaxes slightly. It’s as if he can sense when I’ve conceded a point, even if he can’t understand my words.
With nothing else to do, I find myself studying him more closely. The way he moves across the sand is almost graceful—each step sure but light, barely leaving an impression. Unlike me, who would be sinking ankle-deep with every step.
His skin is fascinating up close. The subtle glow seems to come from within, and the markings across his chest were definitely carved there. I wince, just thinking about it. Almost without thinking, I flatten my palm against the raised bumps, feeling the texture of those markings.
He stiffens slightly at my touch, golden eyes darting down to meet mine.
“Sorry,” I say, not removing my hand. “Just…curious.”
What strikes me most, though, is that despite the heat—and it’s getting hotter by the minute—there’s not a drop of sweat on him. The sun isn’t at its peak yet, but it’s still hot enough that I can feel sweat beading at my hairline, trickling down my back.
“You’re not sweating,” I say, as if he can understand. “How are you not sweating? Are you even warm-blooded? Or is this some kind of…I don’t know…alien temperature regulation thing?”
His chest rumbles beneath my palm, and I realize I’m still touching him. I should probably move my hand, but…I don’t. The feel of his skin under my fingers is…not unpleasant.
Actually, it’s kind of nice. Cool. Soothing. Firm but with a strange, smooth texture that reminds me a little of polished stone. Rok. Rock. I almost laugh at the aptness of it.
“Your skin feels like stone,” I tell him. “Rok. Rock. Get it? Actually, that’s probably why you’re called that, isn’t it? You’re literally rock-solid.”
I’m rambling now, but it’s better than thinking about the fact that I’m lost, being carried God knows where by an alien who may or may not understand a word I’m saying, while strange creatures swim through the sand around us.
Speaking of which…
His eyes are constantly moving, scanning the horizon, the dunes, the ripples in the sand. He seems to catch every movement, no matter how small. When something that looks like a beetle crawls across our path, he tracks it with those golden eyes before it even fully emerges from hiding.
This ‘desert’ is a lot more alive than I first thought. It’s taken me too long to notice these things. Even about him.
My gaze drifts up to his ears—longer and more pointed than human ears, almost elf-like—and I notice they’re actually moving slightly, twitching and turning as if catching sounds I can’t hear.
“That’s why you were wincing when I was yelling, isn’t it?” I say with a sudden realization. “Those ears of yours—they’re like satellite dishes. You can probably hear a pin drop from a mile away.”
He glances down at me, his expression unreadable, but there’s something in his eyes that makes me think I might be right.
“Great. So I’ve been basically screaming into megaphones the whole time. No wonder you looked like you wanted to drown me in sand half the time.” I sigh. Oddly, I’m embarrassed. “Sorry about that. I’ll try to keep it down.”
Another thought occurs to me—if his hearing is that sensitive, maybe that’s how he found me in the first place. Maybe he heard me talking, or screaming, or just generally making a human-sized racket out there in the desert.
Or maybe he saw me from miles away with those golden eyes. Either way, it raises another question.
“Are there more of you?” I ask, then realize how that sounds. “I mean, you can’t be the only one of your kind out here, right? You must have…I don’t know…a family? A tribe or something?”
The moment the words leave my mouth, I remember how he reacted the last time I tried to ask about other people like him. His entire demeanor had changed. He’d nearly bit my head off. It wasn’t an invitation to keep asking questions.
“Never mind,” I say quickly. “We don’t have to talk about that. It’s just…it must get lonely out here, that’s all.”
Rok suddenly slows his pace, his entire body tensing around me. His ears twitch forward, and his gaze fixes on something in the distance that I can’t see.
“What is it?” I ask, my voice dropping to a whisper without me even thinking about it. “What’s wrong?”
He doesn’t answer, but he stops completely, his head tilting slightly as he scents the air. It’s such an animalistic gesture that it sends a shiver down my spine.
Then he’s backing up, slowly, deliberately, each step careful and quiet.
I squint against the harsh sunlight, trying to see what he’s seeing. There’s nothing but more sand, more rocks, more of the same endless desert.
But then, my gaze snags on something.
At first, I think they’re shadows in the distance. And then, almost immediately, I realize I’m wrong. Shadows don’t move. Not like that.
They’re moving like liquid across the sand, dark shapes that seem to flow rather than run. Five of them, spread out in what can only be described as a hunting formation.
“What the fuck are those?” I whisper, my voice catching in my throat.
And then I hear it—that same screeching sound I’d heard the night before. The sound that had preceded our mad dash through the desert, the sound that had sent us fleeing up the cliff to safety.
“Oh fuck,” I breathe, my fingers digging into Rok’s arm. “It’s them. The things from last night.”
Rok’s entire body has gone rigid, and when I glance up at his face, what I see sends ice through my veins. His brow is furrowed, his eyes narrowed to slits of molten gold, and there’s something like confusion—or maybe even surprise—in his expression.
Like he didn’t expect to find them here. Like they shouldn’t be here.
“We should turn back,” I whisper, as if they might hear us. “Rok, we need to go back.”
But it’s too late. One of the creatures stops, its head—if you can call it that—swiveling in our direction. The others follow suit, and suddenly all five of those shadowy forms are facing us.
Rok snarls, a sound so feral and alien it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Gone is the almost gentle giant who carried me down the cliff, who helped me search for my earring, who bared his teeth in an attempt to smile at me.
In his place is something wild, something dangerous, something that reminds me very sharply that he is not human.
And I realize with a jolt that the soft glow that seems to emanate from beneath his skin has dimmed, almost extinguished. He looks…darker. Harder. Like his name. Like stone. The opposite of the strange being I was starting to like.
Wait.
I am so not beginning to like him. That would be ridiculous. Stockholm syndrome takes longer than a day to kick in, right? Even if he did save my life. Even if he is breathtakingly beautiful in an alien, predatory way. Even if something about the way he says my name makes my stomach do backflips.