Citrine (Deliverance #3)

49. Eli

49

Eli

I stop thrashing and whipping Wroahk with my hair tentacles when I hear someone speaking in a gravely voice. A frisson of excitement threads through my chest when I can understand them.

"I know I heard someone speaking, my Ree."

I wriggle around toward where the voice is coming from and see a distorted image of what looks like a black figure riding a giant orange cat. There's no time to puzzle that out before I'm spinning through the water.

He let me go, which means he's about to attack.

Fuck.

It takes me a moment to get oriented and then I swim quickly to the surface. I hear a gasp from behind me, realize I'm facing the wrong way, and use my newly webbed hands to reorient myself.

I only catch a glimpse of what is clearly another woman, though an odd one, before Wroahk shoots up onto the shore, his green tentacles writhing. He snatches the woman off her cat mount. The cat roars in outrage, but she screams at him in the same gravelly language I heard before as Wroahk drags her into the water.

"Wait!" she yells out.

The mount's roar transitions to speech in response. "No."

My mind stutters for a precious moment and then I'm screaming, too. But at Wroahk. "Stop! I'll never touch you with kind hands ever again if you don't stop."

The effect is instantaneous, and he releases the woman in the shallows. The cat had already been diving in for her and it only takes it a moment to pull her back up onto the shore and a short few moments after that for it to have her halfway up a tree.

Wroahk's tentacles are around me and I'm right back to yelling at him in my whale voice as he drags back, the water coming up in waves around me and muffling every few words. "Let me go, you bloodthirsty idiot of a man."

He doesn't let go. "? Basta ! ? Diablos ! Just let me talk to them!"

He finally stops, but I can tell by his grip on me he is angry. I can't see his face or I might be punching it right now, so that makes two of us.

"Do. Not. Take me away," I tell him in a voice that brooks no argument.

From the way his grip ever so slightly loosens, I can tell he has conceded. "Good. Now I won't have to beat at your stupid skull with my 'endless words' until it rattles."

The shiver that passes through him at the threat makes me grin. I turn back to the woman and cat person in the tree, sloughing off my anger so I can embrace the veritable geyser of excitement wanting to pour out of me.

I can barely see her. I can only make out hints of her black suit. She's clinging to the cat person. Mostly I just see a giant amount of fur, most of it orange, but some light green swirling through it. It is puffed out like an electrocuted lion, except it's far too large and alien to be one.

Not to mention the colors are wrong. And, you know, it speaks.

I push the thought aside. I am far more interested in the woman.

I hear her speak again, her voice muffled. "It's alright, Thivoll. I'm alright. Can you take us down again so I can talk?"

"You can talk from here," comes the hissing reply.

The woman grunts in annoyance. I'm pretty sure her cat friend is male, judging by the depth of his voice.

My throat hurts and then I'm no longer making whale calls, but instead sound like I've been smoking for a few decades.

"Hello! Are you human? Sorry, that sounds rude. I don't exactly look human anymore either. Ack! I'm sorry. Let me start over. I'm so excited to see another person! I'm Eli, who are you?"

"Seriously, Fluff Brain. I want to at least see her. Move."

I can already tell I'm going to like this woman. The cat man… Thivoll doesn't come down from the tree, but he does reposition them on the trunk so she can peek out from over his fluffy shoulder.

Her eyes don't have any white left, just like mine, except hers are a beautiful blue. She's crying, clearly excited.

"Hello, Eli. I only knew you as Citrine, and it is so good to see you again."

"Again?

She shakes her head, like she's trying to clear her thoughts. "Yes, sorry, I'm not making much sense. I'm just as excited as you are."

My smile is hurting my face by this point. "That's alright."

"My name's Ree. You were with me on a spaceship, but you were in a cryogenic chamber that kept you in stasis. We were abducted by the genali, pretty much gray blobs with elephant legs. There are other hunters here, too, lots of them, despite our efforts to kill them, like the little green men from movies."

"Oh, I just saw one of those."

Ree looks alarmed and her giant cat pulls in a deep, whistling breath.

"I don't hear or smell anything, sweet one."

I shouldn't be shocked he's speaking. He already has a few times, but I've only just gotten used to the idea of having my own alien.

"Uh. Hi! I'm Eli. It was dead. Sorry, I should have said that, too."

"Greetings Eli, my name is Thivoll. I am very glad to meet you."

I whip my head over to Ree. "Your alien is so polite! Mine just wants to kill everything."

"Oh, well, mine does too," she quips back.

When we both start cracking up, I know I've officially lost my mind on this insane planet.

Ree gets herself under control before I do. "Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes. Abducted by aliens. This is their hunting ground. They bring sapient species like these two and dump them here for trophy hunting."

I'm confused. "I can't believe anyone would pick humans for trophy hunting. As Wroahk likes to point out to me, I am pretty much defenseless."

Ree shakes her head. "No, they didn't. We were on our way to be sold as sex slaves when we crash landed here."

Well, that explains my suddenly larger breasts and flat stomach. " Qué asco. Really?"

"You're right. It's disgusting."

I blink, surprised. I didn't expect she would know Spanish.

She grimaces and continues. "There were ten of us. I know one died for certain. I found one, Silver, just to have her stolen by another of the prey. Hopefully she's okay. Thivoll thinks he was obsessed with her and that he'll treat her well. Kira and Drasuk are back at our cave. I have another woman, Amethyst, still in her cryo chamber tucked away with them. We met a prey alien who knew where another woman was, but he hasn't returned yet. Another is out searching for others."

That all sounds crazy, but I guess it's high time for me to adapt to this being our new normal. "Why is Amethyst still frozen?"

Her eyes roam over me. "I'm sure by now you've noticed that the more contact you have with… Wroahk was it?" I nod. "Right. It starts changes in us. Just a bit of contact with Silver to treat her wounds—the woman who was stolen I mean—and she started to change. I want Amethyst to be able to decide. It's from nanites, but I don't really understand it. We have translators, too, and heal faster, stay clean, plus other things."

I let that sink in for a moment, and then latch on to the least mind-boggling revelation. She clearly likes precious stones.

"So you named me Citrine?" I ask her with a smile.

"I did, sorry. I called myself Indigo to make up for how rude it was. I'm so happy to replace it in my mind with Eli." She starts crying again and Thivoll pulls her close to him and rearranges them again so he can start patting her butt.

I raise my eyebrow at her and she gives me a smirk that lets me know he doesn't realize ass grabbing isn't something you do in public.

My throat hurts again as I turn to where I think Wroahk's head likely is down in the water. "I want to go to shore so I can hug her."

His response is muted, but still forceful. "No. No one else touches you."

Ree makes a pained sound then starts speaking in the whale voice. "Greetings, Wroahk. I would never harm your Eli."

That brings him up out of the water, ripples of it splashing gently against my neck.

He is wearing his angry face, which is no surprise. "Why must everyone steal my voice? No."

I roll my eyes at him and Ree catches me doing it. She gives me a small smile, then she looks thoughtful.

She lets out a small hum like she just realized something. "We thought something was watching us from the water a while back. Was that you, Wroahk?

"Yes."

I whip my head over to him. "You seriously saw someone like me and you didn't tell me? I still can't believe it."

"You never asked."

" Uy, qué care-chimba. I specifically asked you multiple times! "

Now that I think about it, I didn't until just a few moments ago, but I'm too pissed off to admit it. He knew what I wanted.

I can't believe it's a coincidence that I haven't seen anyone else in days and suddenly they are falling from the fucking sky.

They've always been here around us, just a short swim away. He just hasn't been telling me about it. I really might strangle him, but before I get a chance, our company reminds me of their existence.

Ree starts laughing and I can tell her translator let her know I just called him a dickface. I'm too enraged to join in.

"I tell you everything! We've talked about community over and over again. Why would you not tell me?"

He is back to wearing his impenetrable mask. "No. You talked about community. I was trapped with your ceaseless words."

I might actually punch him. "You—"

"I hate to interrupt, especially since I have no idea what you are saying, but it isn't safe to keep talking out in the open like this," Thivoll rumbles at us. "There are hunters in the region now."

I keep talking in Wroahk's language. "Could you please interpret, Ree? I want to make sure Wroahk hears this and knows that if he doesn't agree to it, I will go to the bottom of the lake and waste away in misery."

I can tell by the way she raises her eyebrows that she thinks I'm being overly dramatic, but she'll figure out why I have to be like this. Or I will tell her later. Actually, there is no time like the present.

"Wroahk doesn't think in shades of gray, Ree."

From the way she raises her chin with a knowing expression and a hum, I see that she gets it. I give myself a moment to think over how to best present this to him.

"Wroahk knows how important a community is for me and my continual health."

I give her a moment to catch up with her interpretation, then speak again. "Although he has been characteristically stubborn about actually agreeing to anything, I know that once he tells me he will or will not do something he keeps his word."

He squeezes me a bit harder to let me know he doesn't like where this is headed, but I keep going. "Our island is a very nice location for a community. It is completely surrounded by water with Many Teeth creatures in it that will kill anyone else, but who are no match for Wroahk's strength and cunning."

He loosens his grip at the compliment, but I know he won't like the next thing I am going to say. "Wroahk will keep the Many Teeth away from you. Tell me you will help keep anyone I say is part of my community safe, Wroahk."

He squeezes me tight again and just stares at me. "Say. It," I bite out. "Now."

"I will help keep anyone you say is part of your community safe."

I let out a breath, relieved. "You will protect anyone in my community like they were me."

"No."

I see where I went wrong there. "You will prioritize protecting me, but will also assist our community when you can, which will include protecting our island."

He repeats it.

"Good. You will help people I have identified as being in the community cross to our island."

He agrees to that, too.

I'm surprised, but I just keep going. "Ree and Thivoll—the ones clinging to that tree right there—are part of our community. So are any and all women like me that we find. And Kira and…

"Drasuk," Ree reminds me.

"Kira and Drasuk. I will keep adding people as long as they are actually allies. Say it."

He does, but adds a caveat. "If they ever try to harm you, they are no longer community."

I nod. "Fair enough."