Bartholomew grunted. He did that quite frequently. “We need to figure out what to do. I assume that drakcol you spoke to will come for us.”
“Dontilvynsan, and yes.”
“We have a decent amount of rations and water.”
“But it will not last long, depending where we landed,” I remarked.
“Do you know where we are?”
“We were attacked before I had a chance to study the star coordinates. I will have to try and get the computer working.”
“Can you?”
I honestly had no idea. NAID wasn’t something I frequently worked with. I maintained my ship, but I wasn’t an engineer who knew the intricacies. “I will try.”
He started to sit up, and I instinctively pulled him closer before relinquishing my grasp. I had no right to hold him. We hadn’t discussed permissions. Bartholomew didn’t have to accept my touch, even though I wanted to keep touching him. He was soft; it was nice. It was quite normal to like touching soft things. That was all. But we needed to talk, and soon, because it wasn’t right for me to keep forcing my touch on him, though he didn’t act upset.
“I have no idea where we landed,” he said, “but now that you’re awake, I’m going to check it out.”
“No.” I grabbed his hand to drag him closer to me, where it was safe. Animals or dangerous creatures might be outside. I didn’t know what planet we’d crashed on. It was possibly inhabited. The local residents might not be friendly. They might take Bartholomew or hurt him, and I would be unable to protect him. Or he might leave me and never come back, and I would never know what happened to him.
Bartholomew shook me off. “I wasn’t asking permission. You stole me when I didn’t ask to be saved, then crashed. We need to know where we are. For all we know, we’ll be stuck here for months and we’re going to need food.”
“You’re right,” I said, thoughts whirling. I had to keep him here. “We’ll wait until I’m able to move, then we’ll go together. It’s safer.”
He frowned at me, making that divot appear between his black eyebrows. Stars, it was cute.
“Let me get you some food.” He slid over me with ease, and I struggled not to catch and snuggle him.
What was happening? I didn’t understand. Never, not ever, had I felt this possessive of someone, certainly not someone I’d recently met. I desperately wished my brothers were here to talk to. They would help me work through whatever was going on, well after several rounds of well-meaning teasing, but they would let me talk it out or ask the right questions or blatantly tell me what was happening.
Perhaps humans had some sort of pheromone that made drakcol protective of them. That had to be it. I was reacting to him because of that. No other reason… Though Kalvoxrencol had never mentioned such pheromones, and he told us everything about humans. He was obsessed with researching human care; he didhavea human mate to protect.
It must be because Bartholomew was small and helpless. Like a lost animal. I had to keep him safe and hold him close. He did fit beside me. Maybe we were meant to become great friends. That thought made me frown, and I didn’t know why.
When Bartholomew slipped back in, he sat cross-legged beside me and handed me a simple nutrition bar. I accepted, my fingers brushing his. He was freezing, more than normal. He was too thin to be out in the cold for long. Watching him closely, I nibbled on the tasteless bar. It met our needs, but it was dusty on my tongue.
“I must say sorry about the food,” I said. Bartholomew deserved the best, and this was hardly it, nor would this help him gain weight. How was I going to fatten him without supplies?
He lifted and lowered his shoulders, and my brain struggled to recall what it meant. I was so tired that my eyes started to close as I chewed. I fought it, needing to keep talking to him. We were going to be friends after all.
“It’s fine,” Bartholomew replied. “Better than what I normally get.”
That simple comment sent a wave of anger crashing through me, waking me up. “That should not be true.”
Bartholomew grunted and finished eating the bar, then popped a couple of hydration cubes in his mouth. The water would vanish long before the food, especially because humans required more than us drakcol. Humans were always dehydrated, from Kalvoxrencol’s research. It was quite a problem. He had to constantly make sure Seth consumed enough water. Though I’d heard Seth blaming Kalvoxrencol for having to pee too often.
“Did you get enough water?” I asked, tail twitching. “You should drink another.”
“I’m fine.”
“You need more.”
“We’ll run out.”
“Not a problem,” I said. “When I have healed, I can melt some snow.”
He wrapped his bony arms around his knees. “You know how to start a fire?”
