Chapter Thirty-One – Taran
Chapter Thirty-One
Taran
I’d never talked about it. With anyone. After it happened, I’d left my community, isolated here, and built this oasis in her honor.
Rune.
“We were together,” I told Thea. “We were supposed to be mated.”
“Rune is your ex?!”
I nodded. It was hard to talk about her. What had happened to her was horrible, and I still believed it was half my fault. I should’ve protected her. I should’ve never left her side.
“We had an argument. It happened sometimes. We argued over small things but made up within minutes. Rune was feisty. Stubborn. She always wanted things to go her way, and most of the time, I complied. I would’ve done anything to see her happy. But there was one thing I couldn’t do, because it wasn’t within my power. It wasn’t something I could control. We fought about it, and she left.”
“What was the fight about?”
“The seed.”
“The... what?”
“It’s complicated. Leshy anatomy is so different from human anatomy. The way we mate and procreate is different, too.”
“Explain it to me.”
“Okay. When a leshy male finds his mate, he produces a seed that starts growing at the base of his reproductive organ. When the seed is ready, he plants it inside the female leshy, and within weeks, the female leshy starts growing a sprout.”
Thea’s eyes widened. “Where?”
“What do you mean?”
“Where does she grow this sprout? I mean, where on her body?”
“Oh.” I reached out and touched her perfect, flat stomach. “Around here.”
Thea nodded. Given how shocked she was, she was dealing well, keeping her emotions in check.
“And it just grows out of her,” she said. “On the outside.”
“Yes.”
“I see. Go on.”
“The problem was that Rune and I had been together for a year, and I had yet to produce a seed for her. We decided that maybe it wasn’t happening because we weren’t officially mated. Like humans, leshy can be together without saying any vows, but we can also mate officially, if we want to. There’s no pressure from our families, though. An official ceremony is optional. So, Rune and I were supposed to be mated before our friends and family, but we had this huge fight a week before the ceremony was scheduled. She felt like she wasn’t enough because I couldn’t grow a seed for her. She started questioning our bond. She said that maybe we weren’t true mates, and we were making a mistake by insisting on being together. She wanted a sprout, and I couldn’t blame her. She was afraid that if we got mated officially and I still couldn’t give her a seed, she would never have a chance at being a mother.”
“That is rough,” Thea whispered.
“Yes. What happened after was my fault.”
“How so?”
“She left, as I said. She said she needed a break.”
“And you didn’t go after her?”
“Of course I did! I found her here.” I made a wide gesture with my human arm.
“Here?”
“Yes. Five years ago, this wasteland was a forest. She retreated here, and when I came to bring her back, she said she needed to think about it, and asked me to give her some time. She buried her roots in the ground and asked me to come back in three months, when she would wake up from her slumber. She hoped that if she slumbered for a while, it would be revealed to her if we were mates indeed, or if we were making a mistake. What could I do? I had to respect her wish. So, I waited until she grounded herself and became completely still, no different than the trees surrounding her. And I left. Three months weren’t the end of the world. Leshy perceive the passage of time differently.”
I paused, unsure of how to continue. What followed was the hardest part. It was painful to think about it, let alone relive it by talking about it out loud.
Thea sensed my distress and moved closer. She took my hands into hers – a very human gesture that I found comforting.
“It’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
“I want to. You’re important to me, and I think it’s only fair for you to know about my past.”
“Okay. But just so you know, I’m here for you. This will change nothing.”
I gave her a bitter smile. On the contrary, it was going to change everything.
“When I returned, after three months, there was nothing left of the forest. All the trees had been cut down.”
“Oh my God...”
“I looked for her. All I found was a stump.”
Thea’s mouth opened, but no words came out. She was stunned, and I felt exhausted. The pain of having lost Rune five years ago felt once again fresh, raw, and crippling. I didn’t know if we’d been mates. Maybe she’d been right, and we were about to make a mistake. Maybe if Everhart Furniture hadn’t sent its logging branch to cut down the forest, Rune would’ve woken up after three months, and we would’ve parted ways amicably. Deep in slumber, rooted into the ground, she hadn’t stood a chance. I wondered if she’d felt it when they’d cut her down.
“Where is she?” Thea finally asked, her voice barely a whisper.
“Upstream,” I said. “I made an altar for her. Do you want to see it?”
She shook her head gently, averting her gaze. Of course she didn’t want to see it. We were talking about my ex. I’d built more than an altar around what was left of her; I’d built an entire oasis in her honor, named it after her, and now I’d brought Thea here and built her a nest. What had I been thinking? How delusional could I be? It was as if I’d brought my new girlfriend into the house I’d built for my ex, granted Rune and I had never lived here together.
“I’m so sorry,” Thea said, still avoiding my gaze. “My father did this. I can’t believe it. You say it was your fault, but it wasn’t. I’ve never known the extent of the family company’s destruction. It’s like I’ve lived all my life in a curated bubble, and to know the reality of the world is... crushing. You’ve lived here, on the outside, dealing with so much destruction all these years, so much pain, and here I am... entitled and useless.”
“Don’t talk about yourself like that. You never had anything to do with your father’s company.”
“I’ve lived an easy life thanks to the money it’s made us.”
I cupped her cheek with my hand and forced her to look at me.
“My flower, you did nothing wrong.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong, either,” she said. “Yet you suffered so much. I’m sorry about Rune. I have no words.”
“It’s okay. It was a long time ago.”
We stared into each other’s eyes for a long, charged moment. One of us leaned in, I wasn’t sure who. Maybe we leaned in at the same time. Our lips met, and I closed my eyes, enjoying the taste of her.
The seed grew a little more in my loins. My cock thickened, craving to be inside my beautiful flower. It wasn’t possible, I kept telling myself. The fact that I was able to produce a seed for the first time indicated that Thea was my mate. But our union was impossible. Too much stood in our way. Things we couldn’t control, aspects of our bodies that we couldn’t change. Because how would Thea grow a sprout when she was human?
The kiss grew deep and intense. She climbed on top of me and ground her hips on my cock, and my thoughts turned to butterflies that just flew away. In this moment in time, it was just the two of us, and nothing mattered. I could allow myself this moment of luxury, even if it made what was to come more painful.
I was used to pain. I could take it, if I was given the chance to explore her body one last time.