His words make me pause. I have to admit that I haven’t done more than glance at him since we arrived, because I’ve been lost in my own headspace, fretting over my lack of memories. Maybe studying him will show me what this khui of mine finds so appealing. Even now, just standing close to him, it’s revving like an engine, purring up a storm and making my entire body quiver. He rubs his chest and it’s only through the greatest of efforts that I don’t mimic the action automatically. “Fine. Look at me, but that’s all.”

He grins, showing a flash of pointed teeth that curve slightly inward. “Unless you wanted to mount me, that is.”

“I can assure you, nothing is further from my mind.”

He looks abashed at my heated retort. “Just looking, then,” he finally says, and then spreads his arms. “You can look at me as well.”

“Quit posturing and just let me look,” I tell him, impatient. Good lord, he poses more than a wrestler trying to excite the crowd.

“I posture because I am excited,” he says, all grinning. “I knew I was the best and this just proves it, our resonance.”

“Are you going to keep talking or will you be quiet so I can look at you?”

“I will be quiet.” He puts his hands up and then pauses. “Can you not look and talk at the same time?”

Oh, I can, but he’s annoying me with his incessant questions and I’m too busy trying to be angry and frustrated at the world. “Does it matter? I’ve asked you nicely. Or do my feelings not matter at all?”

I know I’m being a little nasty to him. I’m just so damn frustrated and he’s so darn unlikeable. I want to sink down into the snow and weep that this guy and this icy snowball of a planet are somehow my future. Which deity in the heavens did I piss off for this to happen?

“I am Skarr.” He eyes me. “What did you say your name was again?”

“I didn’t say, and you didn’t ask.” I don’t point out that I don’t know my real name. That my mind is a blank. It feels like a dirty shameful secret that I need to keep hidden. Like I’m flawed or unworthy.

He doesn’t look abashed this time, just shrugs at me. “I am asking now.”

“Vivi,” I say resentfully. “Everyone’s calling me Vivi.”

His mouth presses, his jaw flexing as if he’s tasting the word silently. “Vivi. I like it.”

As if he gets an opinion. As if I’d change it if he didn’t. “Can I look now?”

“I am not stopping you.” He raises his arms again, in a wide, expansive gesture, and then remembers that I didn’t like him posing. He lowers them again, hesitating, and then raises them once more as if deciding that he doesn’t care. It makes him flap his arms back and forth like a bird, and I snort with amusement at the sight.

His name is Skarr. It sounds very pro-wrestler-y but where those guys seemed like all glitz and theater and kayfabe (seriously how is it I know so much about pro-wrestling and not my own name? My head sucks), there’s a hint of menace to Skarr. Like he’d bodyslam you and then bite your face off just because.

Maybe it’s the posture. His build. Because he’s smiling, but there’s still an air of menace to him. It’s in the way he holds himself, like even now he can’t relax. Like a coiled serpent, waiting to strike. He stands at least a foot taller than me, making me feel uncomfortably fragile near him, and I get the vague impression that this doesn’t happen. That I’m a tall woman and used to looming over men.

Maybe it’s the scales. He’s covered in green scales all over…at least I assume they’re scales. Everywhere I can see a bit of exposed skin, he’s a pale jade, with a striated scale pattern not unlike a snake. He’s wearing super heavy layers of furs, but his tail is exposed to the cold, and it reminds me of nothing so much as an alligator’s tail. It’s thick and heavy and tapers to a point that brushes against the snow. Even now, it twitches, as if he wants to lash it back and forth in agitation.

Maybe it’s his face. He’s handsome enough, I suppose. His bone structure is prominent, his features regular. His jaw is square, his nose prominent and scaled heavily like his brow, his eyes deeply set. As if to offset all this hardness and the harsh angularity of his face, his hair is downy, almost baby-soft in its fineness. It hangs close to his jaw like some sort of fairy tale prince, all rippling, shining tousled waves. That’s not the problem, though. It’s his gaze. His eyes are blue like everyone else, but his pupils—a slightly darker shade of blue than the rest of his eye—are vertical. They’re a slit of darkness amongst the sea of blue and give off a menacing vibe. I don’t like it.

I don’t like him, either.

All of this adds up to a “no thank you” from me.

“Well?” he says, and he smiles again, as if he expects me to suddenly shower him with compliments.

“Well what?”

“You like what you see, yes?”

“No.”

His expression falls. “Bah. You do. You are just uneasy because I am the only ssethri splice upon this planet full of mesakkah.”

“Mesakkah?”

“The blue ones. Did you not hear Flor say that there are many of them here?” He shakes his head. “They are terrible gladiators. Some armor, but not much in the brains department. I can easily take them.” He pauses and then adds, “At least, the splice I come from can easily take them.”

Skarr looks momentarily troubled and I feel a flash of kinship, that we’re both struggling with this cloning thing. That we both don’t know who we are. “They seem nice.”

“Nice does not win battles.”

“No one said there are battles here.”

The look he gives me is condescending and pitying. “Of course they say that. Mark me now, though, there is always a fight to be won.”

I roll my eyes.

Skarr rubs his chest again, and his song grows stronger. He smiles at me, the expression crawling over his face slowly, as if it’s taking him a little time to realize that looking at me makes him happy.

“What?” I ask defensively.

“I am looking at you, just as you looked at me.” He continues to rub his chest in a way that makes me feel awkward, especially with heat pulsing between my thighs. “Is that not allowed?”

Giving a little shrug, I remain still so he can look all he wants, because he allowed me to gawk at him, right? As long as it’s just looking, it can’t hurt. A small part of me is curious what he thinks, too.

Skarr circles around me, rubbing his chest as if rewarding his khui. “Mmm.”

“What’s that mean? That ‘mmm’?”

“Just that I approve.” He reappears in front of me, the smirk on his face again. “Your appearance is a little quiet, but I imagine it is because you are stealthy and clever, yes? So I approve. My khui would only pick the best to mate with me. You do not mate a zelft to a thrombox, after all.”

I blink at him, utterly repulsed. If he asked to check my teeth next, I wouldn’t be surprised. I’m not a person to him. I’m some sort of sexual accessory to make him look good to others. He doesn’t care about me, just appeasing his own ego.

It’s rather gross.

I turn and start walking away again.

“Wait, where are you going?” Skarr chases after me, his heavy leather cloak flapping. “Female, I said wait!”

“I just told you my name!”

I wait for him to say it. To be a normal person and apologize. Vivi, I’m sorry. It’s short. Simple. Easy.

Instead, he jogs next to me. “Remind me of it again?”

Ugh. This is the worst. The worst of the worst. I keep storming away, speeding my steps up. I don’t know where I’m going. Just…away.

He grabs me. Snags me by the arm and tries to stop me.

And I lose it. I halt abruptly, plant both hands on his chest, and shove. I might even let out a feral little scream of rage.

Skarr tumbles onto his back in the snow. Instead of looking furious, though, his eyes light up with enthusiasm, as if the thought of me fighting him excites him. “That is more like it, my mate.”