Gillian
“You can take them down to a quarter power,” Dalox says.
I do as he asks, and we’re coasting above the water far below, the three moons, one a huge ghostly glow high above the others, illuminate both the sea and our ship.
“You’d better go see if your friend made it,” I say as he unfolds himself from his console.
“Deus can wait,” Dalox growls. “I need you, little mate. I need you more than anything in the entire universe.”
Strong arms wrap around me, and I’m lifted up against his hard, muscular chest. Dalox consumes me in a kiss of epic proportions, quite simply stealing away every thought I’ve ever had in my head.
Was I ever apart from him? It’s as if I have always been in his arms, always been in his embrace, always had his lips on mine.
Dalox is entirely something else, so much more than a vast scaled dragon man.
So much more than the creature I allowed to pleasure me, than the person who crossed continents to a place the Sarkarnii knew little about, in order to make sure I could go home.
Home.
I know what my mum would be saying. She’d be telling me not to be so damn stupid. To grasp what I have with both hands and never let go.
She would say I have already done enough.
As Dalox releases me, I catch sight of Dyoti, who is watching me.
And it’s like a sledgehammer slams into my side, pulling the breath from my body, sending all my neurons firing at once.
Sometimes protecting isn’t about fighting. Sometimes it’s about nurturing. Sometimes saving is not about fighting. Sometimes it’s about showing the way.
My new friends have a chance they didn’t have before. They can be reunited with the rest of the Sarkarnii. Not some crackpot scheme to do without the males of their species, but instead a real connection between all of them.
A future and a way forward.
You need to look ahead, Gilly. You need to be the person I know you can be.
Mum’s last words. The last thing she said to me before her eyes closed and she drifted away. I thought it meant I was to carry on her work, to be her.
But I think I was wrong. I was so concentrated on being her daughter, I forgot to be myself.
Dalox strokes his clawed finger over my cheek. “Are you hurt, my mate?”
“No.” I shake my head.
“If any of these females hurt you, I will deal with them accordingly.” He lifts his head and glares at the assembled Sarkarnii.
“They haven’t hurt me,” I say. “They helped me.”
“Then why does the water come from your eyes?” Dalox asks, his eyes studying mine, his burning with intensity.
“Because I’ve realized something.” I put my hand on his hand, curling my fingers around the huge bulge of his thumb.
“And what would that be? That Sarkarnii are more trouble than we’re worth?” he says, flashing a fang.
“I realized that long ago, when I first met you.” I laugh soggily.
“I should be hurt,” Dalox rumbles. “But then trouble knows trouble.”
Warmth blooms in my heart, filling my chest until I think it’s going to burst.
“I think I know why I’m here,” I say. “I think I was always meant to be here.”
“It is fate, my spark,” Dalox says. “All the stars and the ancestors combined to send you to me.”
I find myself smiling even as more tears spill from me.
More tears than I shed the night my mum died.
More tears than I shed at her funeral and in the days after when the house was permanently quiet, when I could cry but nothing would come.
Or the night I went out walking and the light caught me.
The next thing I knew, I was in a cage, in a dank hold, with strange, terrible creatures making noises I couldn’t decipher.
I wasn’t on Earth. I had nothing left. Not even my tears.
Was it fate? Is it?
“Fate is what binds the universe, Gillian,” Dalox says. “It is what we need, even if it isn’t what we think we want.”
“Don’t you want me?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“I wanted nothing more from the moment I saw you, maybe even before. But now I know, my heart needed you, I needed you. I needed you in my life more than I’ve ever needed anything. You are my star, my heart, my shift and my whole. Without you, I am wanting. With you, I am everything.”
I didn’t think it was possible for a heart to break in two and still be together, to still beat, to still be full of…love.
“Thank you for waiting,” I whisper.
“I’d wait until the end of time itself, my mate, as long as you consented to being mine,” Dalox rasps, his lips hitting mine, meaning I cannot reply.
I don’t want to reply. I want to be here in the moment, with him.
“I think I’ve got ice in my pouch.” A voice booms out across the ship, and there’s a significant chorus of growls which breaks the spell between Dalox and me.
A quick glance confirms that Deus did indeed survive, although he’s even more windswept and possibly dirtier than ever, if that was even possible. His long hair is matted and sticking out at all angles. The Sarkarnii around him snarl.
“No one wants to know what you have in your pouch,” Dalox growls. “Stop talking about it.”
Dalox flashes fangs, white through the dirt streaking his face.
“And put some pants on. There are females present.”
“We don’t mind,” Dyoti says, gazing at Deus.
“I mind,” Dalox booms. “And use the aquium while you’re at it.”
“This ship has an aquium?” I query.
“It does not,” Dalox replies to me in a quieter voice. “It has sonic cleaners, but unless I tell him, I expect he’ll cover the entire place with exhaust soot.”
Given the entire place is filled almost to bursting with Sarkarnii, I agree with Dalox.
It would appear all my new friends are in agreement with Dalox, however. And before he can utter another word, Deus is swept away on a tide of females shoving him to the rear of the ship.
“He’s such a nevver,” Dalox growls.
“But, apparently, he’s your problem now.”
“I don’t know what Darax is going to say.” Dalox stares in the direction Deus was taken. “He thought his brother was gone forever, after he tried to kill both him and his mate.”
“It’ll take his mind off the fact you stole his ship and crashed it,” I suggest.
I get the full force of a megawatt Dalox grin.
“Yes, it will, won’t it?”