[sylvanSpider]

The twins were slow on the draw if only because Roek was set on ensuring his brother's safety, upset that even a drop of blood leaked out. Damon, on the other hand, insisted that he was fine, he felt fine, and they had more pressing matters at hand like the escape of their hostage and the escape of the man that put the goddamn mark on his goddamn face in the first place.

“Ah'm tellin' ya, ah'm fine! The bastard's getting' away an' we're lettin' 'em! D'ye really want the newbie t'be stealin' all our thunder?!” Damon said, exasperated, gesturing in an exaggerated motion in the direction that not only the knife throwing man had run down but the direction that their newest willing recruit was running too. They'd have to toast to her tonight. Eventually, Roek was convinced (after too long, Damon would for sure argue with him later), and the pair caught up Tennan and the man.

They were too late, however, and the man seemed to be dead, the only movement his body made were those done by Tennan as she tore into his flesh. No poison necessary. She stabbed him enough to kill him several times over and Roek cleared his throat, “Ah...Tennan? Ah think 'e's dead. Ye can stop now. Won't stop ye from keepin' goin' though. Ah'd be lyin' if ah said et wasn't t'least a li'l entertainin'.” Roek was wearing a grin as if to confirm this and placed his hand on her shoulder, “My one regret es not 'elpin' ye with et.”

Marco screamed, dropping to his knees, hands instantly up at his eyes trying to wipe away any venom that wasn't already in his eyes. None seemed to be dripping into his mouth, luckily, but the venom was burning his skin, and if none were in his actual eye (one of his eyes was certainly protected by the eyepatch, to say the very least), it certainly felt like it. Hunching over, the most he could do was cry and pray the tears would flush out any venom that might have gotten into his eye.

/////

The drugs didn't help Qi to forget the horrors she'd seen on her planet. They didn't help her forget the faces of her siblings, trapped under debris before the Yingya came to finish the job, the look in their eyes, pleading her to gain the strength to free them so they could flee. That the strength, no matter how hard she tried to summon it, would never enter into her arms. That that strength wouldn't be enough to claim the life of even one Yingya. It did, however, numb the pain. It forced the memories, those unpleasant nightmares, to the back of her mind and Ilan was to take his place in the forefront, his touch sending chills down her spine.

She made no effort to stop him. Hell, she didn't want him to stop. She wanted it all, so she took the remainder of the rich herbs he'd laid out for her, gasping as they hit her system, as Ilan moved in as a tiger hunting his prey. Qi was a mouse hypnotized by the swaying of the cobra, hood extended, movements fluid. Her eyes found his as her hand went to touch his face. His skin, regardless of racial differences, felt like hers.

You smell like seawater...

His voice was gentle, comforting in the strangest and most unexpected of ways. Of course she smelled like seawater, her entire village smelled of seawater, living in the delta where the river's tide would shift from salt to fresh and back again based on the time of day. The smell of salt always permeated through the seams, into their clothes, latching onto their skin, embedding itself into their psych and in their biology. The villagers were never able to tell whether the salt they smelled on themselves was the seawater itself or the sweat from their own bodies and it was their belief that that self same sweat was their link to the sea that all would eventually return to.

Qi had no answer for the man. How did Ilan smell? He smelled of the soft whispers of a lover in the middle of the night, of a caress here, a nibble there, of the trembling of anticipation. He smelled of subdued joy, of unrequited love that had the potential to overpower and overtake everything that Qi was. She could feel his breath hot on her cheek, his hands silk sliding seamlessly through her hair.

He smelled of hope.