It hit me a second later that it felt almost like desire.
As in maybe even something sexual.
I found myself staring up at him, startled by the realization, even as that expression in his eyes deepened, growing more obvious as he looked down at me. The difference made my cheeks warm, but I didn’t let my gaze waver.
“You want me to learn, right?” I said, more gently. “How to open the lock?”
"Yes," he said at once. “Very much. I want this very much, Dakota...” His eyes gradually lost their charge, turning brown as I watched, until they were nearly the same color as mine. "But Yaffa will not like it,” he added. “I will have to try and teach you how to communicate with me, first. He might try to find some legal way to prevent us, otherwise.”
At what must have been a puzzled look form me, he waved off my expression.
“We will be cautious,” he assured me. “Yaffa feels cheated right now, and angry. They think I chose this. They think I talked you into this somehow... that it is a trick. They will likely try to force me to give you up as a lock mate."
“How would they do that?” I said warily. “Force you?”
“They will beat me,” he said, indifferent. “Likely withhold food. Attempt to deprive me of sleep. They will probably separate us... call them interrogations for the safety of the republic, or something to that effect. I will do what I can to prevent this.”
I felt my fingers tighten on his arm where he held me against him. He must have felt it, because he looked down. After he spent a few minutes studying my expression, I saw his lips curl into a vague puzzlement.
"It is not your fault,” he assured me.
“They’re going to starve you?” I said. “Beat you?”
Again, he seemed to miss the point of my words.
“Do not worry. It will not work,” he said, shrugging. “They employ morph, but they do not understand us. These things do not always happen the way they think." Shrugging again, he met my gaze. “There is human law. Then there is morph law. They are not the same.”
Forcing out an exhale, I combed my fingers through my wet, tangled hair, shaking my head to clear it.
"Okay,” I said. “So how do we get out of here, Nihkil? Can we do that, you and me, if I manage to open your lock? Can you help me get back home?"
"We will find a way.” He glanced down at my face, startling me by caressing the hair off one cheek with a careful hand. “...You should teach me, too. About your world," he added, as if preempting a question he saw on my face. "I will need to know more, before we go back. A lot more. It is one thing to scout. Another to live in a foreign place, with different rules. Especially if it is unsafe for me to unlock where it might be seen."
I gave him a faintly amused look. Puzzlement curled my lips. "You want to go with me? Back to Earth? Why?"
At that, he looked openly surprised.
There was another awkward silence.
Finally, I broke it, exhaling in a kind of frustrated defeat. “Okay, so what about me?” I said. “Are they going to beat on me, too?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Human law,” he said simply. “I own you. They own me, but I still have rights over you. I can prevent it. They cannot touch you.” He gave me a promise with his eyes. “They will not break this law. They will try to take you from me legally, first.”
I frowned, thinking about his words.
“What about the doctors?” I pressed. “Those creepy guys in the blue smocks?”
His eyes hardened more. He made a different sound. "No."
“And I don’t need to worry about you, right? I’m safe here with you?”
Nihkil glanced down at me again, his eyes showing a faint surprise. Plastered to his skull, his now-black hair contrasted the color of his skin even more, making the bruises stand out further against his white complexion.
For a long moment, he just looked at me.
Then he averted his eyes, which had shifted back to a light blue color. I watched him sit up, forcing me to do the same. Seconds later, he’d reached behind his neck and was fumbling with something that hung there.
Removing a necklace I hadn’t noticed until then, he showed it to me, along with the small, dark-gold stone that hung on its pendant. Taking my hand and tilting it up, he coiled the metallic cord and pendant carefully into my palm. The cord itself shone strangely bright in the dim room, a smooth, metallic-looking vine that felt cold on my skin.
“What is this?” I said, puzzled.
“Morph law,” he said simply.
“Meaning what?” I said, looking up at him.
He shrugged, but I caught a kind of tension in his face, what might have been caution, or perhaps even nerves. “Meaning,” he said after a pause. “...To the humans, I own you. To the humans, they own me.” He shrugged again, but his eyes never left mine. “To the morph, it is different,” he added simply. “To the morph, you own me. This is not a legal thing... but it is more true for that, not less, Dakota.”
I swallowed, unsure what to say to that.
Looking between his eyes, I studied the serious expression there, without really understanding it. Despite what he’d said, I didn’t see any resentment in his face, or hear it in his words, like when he spoke about Yaffa owning him earlier. If anything, I saw gratitude shimmering in the background... perhaps more than gratitude. That desire edged into his expression again, too, and even around how he held his body.
I felt some part of me responding to it, in spite of myself. I shifted my seat on the wet tile, wincing a little at my own reaction.
“What does that actually mean, Nik?” I said finally, my voice careful.
Nihkil closed my fingers around the cord, his movements dexterous, strangely gentle.
"I will not ask," he said. "But it is yours, Dakota. I give it willingly."
I stared down at the pendant. Looking up again, baffled, I studied the seriousness of his eyes a second time. Did he mean the pendant? Or something else?
He returned my gaze as if to accommodate me.
Then he seemed to think it was enough.
Sliding out from under me, he removed himself entirely then, rising to his feet. I stared after him as he limped, hunch-backed, to the cubicle door.
I didn’t move from my place on the wet tile, but just watched him go.
11
LEARNING THE LOCK
I FIGURED OUT pretty quick what Nik meant about us learning to communicate.
That didn’t make it any less strange, though.
We started working on it, pretty much from the moment I woke up the next morning. In fact, I wasn’t even really awake yet, when he started. I opened my eyes to find Nik hanging over me, his angular face serious as he studied mine. At first, I thought he was doing the stalker thing and watching me sleep, but then...
“Ow!” I said, gripping the front of my shirt. I stared up at him, then looked for his hands. Both lay innocuously on his lap. Even so, I knew he’d done that to me, somehow, even if I wasn’t sure what it had been.
“What the hell, Nik?” I said finally.
“You felt that?” he said.
“The ‘ow’ part didn’t tip you off?” I said. “Jeez, what the hell is wrong with you...” I trailed, seeing the intensity of relief in his expression. “What?” I said. “What did you do?”
“You can feel the lock,” he said, his voice reflecting that same relief.
I pulled myself up to a sitting position, resting my weight briefly on my elbows before wincing and transferring the bulk of it to my palms.
Rubbing my face with one hand, I blinked around at the egg-shaped room, taking in more details than I had in the semi-dark of the night before... or whatever time of day it had been. Glancing at the egg-worm sack lights that I remembered, then at the round, hatch-like door that lived at the top of a ladder that led to the curved ceiling, I looked back at Nik.
“Is that unusual?” I said finally. “To feel t
he lock?”
“It is not a given,” he replied cryptically.
Again, I noticed that his lips didn’t follow the course of his speech exactly. So he was using the translation thing.
“How does that work?” I said, motioning towards his mouth. “How can I understand you, Nik?”
“That is less important,” he said, waving off my words. “It will be faster soon, anyway... I will have them set us up a channel via the implant.”
At what must have been increased confusion in my expression, he patted the bed sharply, more to get my attention, I think.
“Concentrate on this, Dakota,” he said, his voice close to a reprimand. “I need you to concentrate on feeling the lock... on feeling me through the lock.”
I considered grumbling something about coffee, then decided he was right. This was more important. From what he said yesterday, this might be my only way out of here. If Nik couldn’t open his lock, he couldn’t take me back through any quasi-mystical space-time portals to get me back to Seattle and my real life.
“Okay,” I said, sighing. Dragging my legs up to copy his cross-legged position, I exhaled again, focusing on my chest. “What do I do?”
He didn’t answer. I could feel something in my chest again, though, and rubbed the spot absently until Nik took hold of my wrist, pulling my hand off the middle of my own chest.
“No,” he said softly. “Try to listen.”
“Listen?” I said, giving him a baffled look.
“Yes,” he said.
I did as he said, cocking my head as I tried to listen to whatever he was talking about. I had no idea what I was supposed to be listening for, though... or what that had to do with a pain in the middle of my chest.
I heard a faint hum come from the glow-worm sacks. I heard Nik’s breathing, and what might have been a lower hum beneath all that, maybe from some mechanics powering the room. I heard my own heartbeat. My own breathing.
I couldn’t hear anything beyond those things, though.
After a moment, Nik exhaled shortly, his expression changing to one of frustration.
“Perhaps I should just teach you the lock,” he said.
I gave him a dubious look. “Isn’t that what you are doing?” I said.
“No.” Thinking, he amended his words. “Well... yes. Partly. I was trying to teach you to hear me through the connection we share, so I could use that connection to teach you the lock.” At my frown, he tugged on my wrist, his expression taut. “It is all right. It was an experiment. I do not think this form of communication is self-evident to you, Dakota. Perhaps it would be better if we worked directly on the lock.”
“But you said that might get you in trouble?”
“It might, yes.”
I hesitated, then looked around the room again.
I realized only then that he still held my wrist lightly in his fingers. I didn’t mind, although I didn’t really think too closely about that, either.
“Were you... saying something?” I said finally. “Just now, I mean?”
His expression didn’t change.
“Yes,” he said.
“You were.” I didn’t really pose it as a question. I looked around the room again, straining for sound, for anything I could hear. “Nik, I was really listening. I didn’t hear anything.”
That time, something seemed to click for him. His expression altered, holding a deeper understanding, maybe from something he saw in me.
“No,” he said, sighing again. “No, Dakota... it is not like that. You listen here...” Leaning closer, he startled me, gently tapping that spot in the middle of my chest. “Not words. Not sounds. There is meaning. Your mind takes that meaning, interprets it. It does this with words, pictures... even sounds. Everyone is different, in terms of actual translation...”
“You’re saying my mind can translate?” I said, baffled. “Through the lock itself?”
“Yes,” he said, sounding relieved at my comprehension. “Yes, exactly this.”
“Okay,” I said, shrugging. “Then let’s try again.”
I still wanted coffee. I was pretty danged hungry, too. But I was determined enough to shunt both complaints aside to try and figure this out.
No way was I getting stuck here forever.
No way was I letting Nik get stuck here forever, either, where he was some kind of pet.
At the thought, I glanced up at him, and saw him staring at me again, his eyes that dark brown, almost chocolate color, even as his fingers tightened around my wrist. I felt whispers of that desire again, tangibly enough that I flinched a little, feeling my cheeks flush. In that same moment, I realized the desire I felt on him was something that started in my chest.
I could actually feel it there, now that I was looking at him.
At my understanding, I saw him smile.
“Yes,” he said. “Exactly that.”
“That was me hearing you?” I said, pushing past my embarrassment around the content of what I’d heard. I held his gaze. “...Through the lock, I mean?”
“Yes,” he said. Without so much as a shred of embarrassment in his expression, he tugged on my hand again, as if to get my attention. “Try again, Dakota. Try to feel me now, when I am sending something on purpose.”
I heard the implication there, too, but didn’t let my mind go there.
Within a few seconds, I found myself seeing something behind my eyes. I couldn’t trace it at first back to Nik, or to my chest, not specifically... still, something about it felt almost like a foreign intrusion, like the thought didn’t entirely belong to me.
My mind turned it into pictures again... vivid enough that they pretty much blocked out the rest of the room briefly, since I couldn’t superimpose them directly on Nik’s facial expression that time, the way I had with the desire.
I saw what looked like a cord of light between Nik and I, and a structure on either end. The structure on Nik’s side was significantly more elaborate than the one on mine.
“That’s it?” I muttered, still fighting to concentrate on that structure of light. “That’s the lock?”
“Yes,” he said, after a too-long pause. “Yes, that is it. I can see it through you better now.” He paused, then stroked my arm softly, making me jump. “You are picking this up extremely quickly, Dakota,” he said. “Quicker than most non-morph.”
Something in the compliment made my heart leap in my chest, and brought on a rash of nerves that briefly made it difficult to control my facial expression.
I clenched my jaw, but didn’t move my arm away from his fingers.
“...It is good,” he murmured, softer, stroking my arm again. “It will make things much easier...”
Feeling that desire worsen on him, I did move my arm that time, swallowing. Some part of me closed up a bit, too, enough that the desire I’d felt abruptly dimmed.
When I looked up at him next, I saw disappointment etched into his features, along with what might have been impatience. Neither one felt aimed precisely at me, though.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I meant what I said before. You are safe with me, Dakota. But you must open more, like before... or we cannot understand one another.” Still studying my eyes carefully, he added, “Can we try again? I will behave appropriately this time. I promise.”
Without quite meeting his gaze, or pursuing the other thing he’d implied without saying it outright, I only nodded. Forcing my mind off him, and the way he was looking at me, I fought to “listen” instead, focusing on that spot in the center of my chest.
After another few minutes, I could see the thread between us again. I could also see the structures on both sides. I focused more on my end first, but the mechanism looked relatively simple. Kind of like a cord with roots that sunk into my chest.
I probably should have been totally freaked out by it, given that it looked like a parasite, or really, more like a tree growing out of my chest. But for some reason, I didn’t freak out.
Instead, I found mysel
f looking at it with interest, almost like an extra limb.
After a few more seconds, I shifted my attention to that more complex structure on Nik’s chest. I could feel that sense of it being closed. I knew that closure came from the lock, just like Nik told me. I could tell he didn’t like it being closed, either.
Presumably I felt all of that through Nik himself, though... I couldn’t see the closed part, not in terms of the actual structure. Maybe I needed an open version to compare it to?
Either way, just by looking at it, I couldn’t tell what I should be trying to change.
I felt Nik trying to show me the open version, almost as if he heard me, too. I couldn’t really grasp the next set of images, though. I saw a wider hole there, briefly, and the sense of motion increased in the thread linking the two of us, almost as if more of me was going into more of him, and vice-versa.
I couldn’t really wrap my head around the significance of the different states, though, or how I would effect a change.
“So,” I said. “How do I open it?”
Glancing up at him, I clicked my fingers in front of his face, catching him staring down at me, his expression faintly puzzled.
“The lock, Nik,” I reminded him. “How does it work? Can you show me that part?”
He nodded, his eyes still faintly distracted, at least until he closed them.
After another pause, I felt that sense of him increase markedly. With that came a flood of feeling, including more of that desire. It was enough to take my breath.
“Jesus, Nik!” I shoved him backwards with the palm of my hand. “Cut it out!”
When I looked up, panting and rubbing the center of my chest, he’d blanched.
“I am sorry.”
“You said you’d behave,” I snapped. “‘Act appropriate’... whatever.”
“I am sorry,” he repeated.
“Is this some pick up thing for you?” I said, irritated, still rubbing my chest. “Or does it make all morph horny, to have some girl messing with your locks?”
He didn’t answer that time. When I glanced back at him, I saw an uncomfortable look on his face. His jaw had clenched, too, and his hands where they lay in his lap. He wouldn’t meet my gaze, though, and his expression seemed to be almost deliberately opaque.
The Morph (Gate Shifter Book One) Page 12