Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Dangerous cargo
Shohari
I STARED at the galley walls for an hour. When I remembered the half finished chrya in my hands, it was already cold.
Why was this so skykking hard? We were supposed to have a perfect plan, execute it, and win. Not race halfway across the quadrant with argumentative, unasked-for companions and a beautiful, maddeningly sweet distraction.
Skykking ydouir. Who did she think she was?
I could hear her loitering in the corridor leading to the cargo bay, waiting to sleep on my sofa, no doubt.
But mostly I thought about Garrison and how his future rode on this just as much as mine.
Coerril’s stark observation hit home for me what the stakes were.
I’d been focused on the threat of Rokharu, but my companions?
They were risking their lives, and they wouldn’t do that if they didn’t think we could win.
Or if they didn’t care about me.
I wasn’t used to it. To people caring about me. I’d been trained as a trader, used as a pawn, obeyed as a captain, but this? This was… something.
A puff of vented air tickled my headspines, and I pushed up off the sofa, needing the cold metal of the Dorimisa under my feet.
I couldn’t ask Coerril to do it. I’d drop her on a pod orbiting Orkri. I’d tell Anandri there’d been a hitch, in case I couldn’t come back and get her.
Decision made, I went to the storage locker and found one more blanket hiding at the back of the empty shelves, tossing it on the sofa before returning to my quarters.
I found Garrison as I usually did these days, in bed, facing the wall. I rubbed my chest, knowing I owed him an apology for kicking him out with everyone else when all he’d done was try to look after me.
Maddening male.
Once I’d finished in the convi, I slid under the sheets and lay on my back, staring at the dim light in the ceiling. “Thank you for the chrya.”
He shifted slightly. “You’re welcome. Did it help?”
“A little.”
I wished he’d roll over and rest his head on my chest, or roll me over and make me the small spoon, but he didn’t move, didn’t put anything into the silence and space between us.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s fine.”
It didn’t sound fine. He sounded sad. And cross. And I hated even more that I was the cause.
As my hand connected with his shoulder, it was as though I’d pushed words out of him.
“It’s torture, being here with you like this, but not being able to be with you.”
My ribcage felt too tight around my lungs, but I concentrated on his warm body next to mine, his skin under my fingers. “And you think I don’t feel that way too?” I trailed a hand over his stomach. “We can fuck, if you like.”
I told myself I could do with the release, and that was why I was offering. Not that my body wasn’t skittering with awareness and arousal every time I was near him. Not that I’d rolled over to hold him without even thinking about it. Not that I wanted him to hold me.
His muscles tensed, his body shifting almost imperceptibly away from me. “I’m not talking about sex, Sho.”
Then what are you talking about? The words tarried in my mouth, but I bit them back. I didn’t want to have this conversation, not when I couldn’t give an answer, not when I wasn’t allowed to have an answer to the question he wanted to ask.
My ragged breath brushed his neck, and he shivered. Gods, I wanted him so much it hurt.
He didn’t speak, and I had to fill the silence with something. “I’m trying.” Please be patient.
“I know.” The resignation in his voice cut through me. “You’ve been very clear.”
“Have I?” I was clear before everything had changed. “We’ve not spoken since before Vadias.”
Since he’d stayed in my life. Since we’d had a fragile hope.
“We’re speaking now, Sho.” He didn’t sound like himself. Or rather, not the version of him he used to be with me. This was the voice he used with Tokki or Daiytak when he was training. Focused. Business-like. No nonsense.
Stern.
Detached.
Gods, I wanted to attach myself to him and never let him go.
“There’s something I haven’t told you, Garrison.
And I should have.” I didn’t dare look at him.
“It is rare for Orithians because most enter arranged marriages, but kri’ith do not merely fall in love.
If we do, when we fall in love so deeply that someone gets under our spines and into our bones, it creates a soulbond that can only be severed by death.
” No use going into the rumours the fates were involved.
I believed in that ulthshit as much as I did the gods.
I ignored his low gasp, the tension of his muscles under my hand, and continued in a whisper. “To be bonded to one and mated to another would be soul-rending agony.”
A tiny insect skittered across a light panel, and I watched its path, seemingly random yet serving a purpose. “I thought I was safe with you, that such a bond couldn’t form with a human, but you’re the most dangerous cargo I’ve ever carried. You bring my bones to life, and I’m terrified.”
When he finally spoke, his voice was hard. “I wish you’d trusted me enough to tell me.”
Shame sank into my chest. “I’m sorry. Do you understand now? Why I can’t let you in until it’s safe?”
His muscles tensed. “I do. More than you think. Humans might not bond like that, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.
There’s only so long I can hold on, Shohari.
The longer we spend like this, holding each other like this?
Even if we fall asleep back-to-back, you know how we wake up.
Like this.” He shifted, propping himself up on one arm to look at me.
“I thought I could hold on, thought I could wait. I’m realising I’m not as strong as I thought I was, not when it comes to you. ”
Cold dread gripped my gut. I needed him to hold on. He was the one keeping things alive for us.
Realisation, a sick wrongness at my selfishness, sat uneasily in my chest, fusing with the terror of bonding with him, the terror of losing him. “What are you saying?”
The pause before he answered was a lifetime.
“That maybe I need to protect myself the same way you are,” he said, his words measured, sad, yet still laden with care.
I tried to find something inside me, but all I found was numb. “There’s nowhere else to sleep,” I said, as though that was an answer.
Coerril was in the galley, on my sofa—under my last blanket, for skyk’s sake.
“I could go back to the cargo bay. Or the training room.” His voice was gruff, the tone sour with resentment.
“But?”
“I don’t want to have to.”
Hope burst into a flame, a tiny warmth that could keep me alive. “You don’t want to sleep there when you could be here with me?”
“I don’t.” His sigh was visceral. I felt it in the rise of my hand on his chest, the press of my breasts on his back, and against my heart, where it wished it could beat alongside his.
When he spoke again, his tone held a rough edge. “But I want to be here with you. Not just here.”
And we were back to the beginning.
I stroked his arm. Felt the strong muscle, his warmth, tracing the vein there, as I’d traced it dozens of times before. It would be so easy to give in. Too easy.
Yes, my bones said. Let him in. Make him yours. Keep him.
“It’s a week till we get there,” I said. Then, softer. “Can you give me one more week?”
He was tense in my arms for a long while until he huffed and went lax. “It seems I’ll do anything you ask.” It was the sweetest thing, but there was a warning in his voice.
I squeezed him tight. “I’m here. You’re here. Let’s sleep.” I allowed myself one kiss on his neck. “Go to sleep, little spoon.”
But before I drifted off, yet another unsettling thought took shape, a seed of nausea turning in my stomach and blooming outwards. What if the price of protecting my soul was breaking his heart?
What was the price of protecting his heart?
What if one more week was all we had, and I was wasting it?