His hair just barely brushes the tips of his ears before curling upward and this closely I can see that the hair is actually gold at the root, only turning green after about an inch of growth. It’s not a dye job. Not even the strongest dye would be able to cover that metallic gold color, so his hair must grow like that. Gold blending into green like his eyes… and the scales on his back.

I push myself up on one elbow and lean forward. Without the high collared jacket he was wearing before, the scales are clearly visible. I was too busy studying the ones on his back before to notice that the scales also flare out at the top and edge into his hairline and behind his ears. They’re fainter the farther up they go and almost entirely gold by the time they disappear under his hair. Could it be this gold…base… that gives him that subtle glow? Would all of them look a little shiny up close or just the ones with the metallic colors?

Lying back down on my side, I move closer and examine his forehead. His skin does have a very faint gold sheen to it. So it was probably this that reflected the fire light last night and made him appear to be illuminated. Good to know I’m not entirely crazy.

When I bring my eyes back down, Lir’s awake, his eyes little more than an inch away from mine. He blinks slowly once and my body startles into action, pulling my face back. I scramble out of the sleeping bag and turn away without a word, a hot flush of embarrassment building a fire behind my cheeks.

“Jax?”

I don’t turn around. “I was just, uh, checking your injuries. Looks like they’re healing nicely. We should probably still try to find someplace to clean your arm today though.” Holding my breath, I set my shoulders. Please don’t say anything. Please don’t say anything.

“Sounds like a plan,” he says slowly. Rustling signals his exit from his sleeping bag. “Should we pack up or eat first?”

“Pack,” I reply immediately. It’s as if he knows I needed something to do with my hands to distract me from what just happened.

By the time we both have our stuff folded or rolled neatly into our packs, I’m calm enough to meet his eyes without getting flustered. I pull out the map and estimate our location before we set off.

The hike today is a little more difficult, the trees closer together and the incline steeper. What the route lacks in ease, it makes up for with isolation. We’re quite a ways from any large settlements and those humans that chose to live on their own normally stick to the abandoned towns rather than deal with the wilderness. At least I hope so. After Lir’s reception in Bridgelake, I’d prefer not to run into anyone else, human or alien.

Despite the rough terrain, I set a fast pace and Lir lags behind early on. I make sure to keep him within sight, but I’m well in the lead. It’s midday before I slow my steps and sit down up against a tree. Lir joins me a few minutes later.

“Perhaps after our rest you could slow down a bit so I am not constantly in fear of losing you?” A bead of sweat trails down his neck and he’s slightly out of breath. He must have sped up when he saw me stop. “All either of us needs is to get injured because we’re rushing.”

He’s right. I’ve been punishing myself for my fascination with his touch and his skin this morning and I didn’t even take into account that it made Lir suffer too. It’s not his fault that I wish I’d gotten a chance to run my finger along his cheek to see if his skin felt any different.

I close my eyes and bite my lip. “Sorry. I didn’t really think about it.”

“I realize that this is…uncomfortable for you, but you are going to have to trust me and—”

“Just like you trust me? What happened to the guy who thought I was going to seduce information out of him?”

He cringes. “That was… a mistake and one that I’ve already apologized for. Today you have pushed yourself to the brink of collapse just to get out of speaking to me. I am not someone you need to fear. If I desired to harm you, haven’t I had plenty of opportunity?” One finger under my chin, he pushes my face up. Instinctively I close my eyes and prepare for the creeping chill of fear…but there’s nothing but a warm calm flowing through my limbs. I slowly open my eyes and he smiles. “I will not hurt you. If you’re curious, please just ask. I much preferred our conversations from yesterday to the drudging silence this morning.”

“Okay.”

Lir stands and reaches a hand out to me. I eye it for a moment before accepting it and allowing him to pull me to my feet. Trust has to start somewhere I guess.

* * * * * * *

It’s still cold once the sun goes down, but our campsite doesn’t feel quite as dreary. We had stumbled across a stream and, although the water was a bit chilly, I’d certainly underestimated the effect feeling clean could have on morale. Even better, the stream fed into a small pond that had a bunch of watercress growing in it and my snares had managed to snag three rabbits. Dinner is actually going to fill our stomachs and there will even be leftovers for tomorrow.

I teach Lir about the different sizes of firewood, show him how to build the fire and even let him start it. When I offer to show him how to clean a rabbit though, he declines, saying, “I do not believe that is a skill I will ever need.”

“What do you guys normally eat? Obviously not fresh game, but what else is there?”

He lets the silence draw out for a while before answering. “As you know, we stay within the city and are restricted by that...limitation. We primarily eat vegetable matter that is grown hydroponically. Meat isn’t something we cultivate so much as synthesize. We require very little of the synthesized compound as it is highly concentrated.”

“I bet it tastes like crap too.”

A laugh bursts from him mouth and he nods. “Very true.”

“So, if you have everything you need in the city, what were you doing out here?” He opens his mouth, shuts it again and presses his lips together, obviously uncomfortable. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“It’s not that I do not want to, more that it is complicated and there are things… that have changed and—”

He hasn’t pressed me on my issues, I won’t press him on his. “Don’t worry about it.” I take a bite of a rabbit leg. “So tell me about the scales.”

His brow furrows. “What about them?”

“Like do they mean you’re reptilian or something? Cold-blooded?”

“Reptilian?” Another laugh escapes from him. “The scales are more ornamental than anything. The colors are determined by our family line, so anyone can tell just by looking at me that I’m of Vestra and Linaud descent. Well, any E’rikon could tell at least.”

“Does that mean everyone with the same color is related?”

“To a point, yes.” A wrinkle forms between his brows and he thinks for moment before continuing. “But there are degrees of color and even differences in the shades that we would recognize that a human would not. For example, one of the males from the clearing whose coloring you probably saw as silver, actually has a distant relation to the Linaud line.”

“His hair did have a gold tint to it,” I say.

Lir eyes widen in surprise. “Interesting. I was always told most of the more subtle color variations were not visible on the human spectrum.”

I shrug. “I just have good eyes. Jace does too. He’s the best hunter in Bridgelake because he’s fast and has near perfect aim.”

“Impressive.”

“My dad always called me his little redtail.” He looks at me blankly. “It’s a type of hawk. Hawks have great vision…”

One of his hands comes up and rubs a strand of my hair between two fingers. “And you are red.”

My eyes are so transfixed by his hand in my hair that I miss what he says next. “What?”

“I said, it’s a beautiful color. If you were E’rikon, you would be of the Reva line.”