CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE | Fiona
The first week without Dalk in the Deep Sky was fucking misery. I moped around like a loser, depressed and listless and generally just driving myself mad with thoughts of how he might be doing out there without me. And then I’d chastised myself, because his uncle had just died so obviously he wasn’t going to be all hunky dory, now was he? Not to mention the state I’d put him in before he’d left here.
But if I thought the first week was bad, the second week was even worse. By the second week we were back in Gahn Errok’s territory, and we had confirmed news that, at the very least, Dalk had left Gahn Fallo’s lands and was journeying back to meet us here. But that just led to a whole new host of worries. What if a zeelk nabbed him or a krixel chomped him? What if he pissed off a braxilk and couldn’t fight it off as easily as he’d once told me he could? What about those nasty ablokoi things that lived in the Death Plains, like the one that maimed Varrow and made him lose an arm?
Oh, God. What if he came back missing an arm?
What if he came back missing both arms?
What if he never came back at all?
That was always the most terrible thought. The thought that something might happen to him, that I might never see him again, and I’d never even told him that I loved him. I oscillated viciously back and forth, at times sticking by my guns and thinking it was good I hadn’t told him right before he left, and at other times wanting to tear out my own hair with regret.
And the worst part of it all?
I still didn’t know how to resolve the original problem. I still didn’t know what to do about the fact that he — or I — could end up bonded to someone else at any time.
Nope, when it came to that lovely little problem, I’d made absolutely zero headway towards any kind of reasonable solution. There were still only two possibilities I could see. One would be to essentially break up and just be miserable about it until one or both of us got bonded to someone else and hopefully moved on. Or, we could be together, fall even deeper in love, start to make a home, a family, a life for ourselves, only to have it all upended when the Vrika or Lavrika decided that they didn’t like us playing house without their input.
And then Dalk would probably kill somebody.
Honestly? Both options sounded depressing as fuck.
And I knew Dalk wouldn’t want to hear about either of them when he got back. He’d probably just say something about not caring how things turned out as long as I was with him. Which was a beautiful sentiment, don’t get me wrong. But it wasn’t a realistic one. Not on this planet, anyway.
Or, maybe even worse than that, maybe he’d decide that he didn’t want me anymore. Late at night, when I was feeling at my lowest, I liked to torture myself with the idea that maybe while he was back in the Sea Sands, the Lavrika had summoned him. He’d been bonded to another woman and he’d discovered that he was capable of feeling a mate bond for someone else after all. Maybe he’d even realize that what he’d felt for me wasn’t anything close to a real mate bond, and he’d drop me faster than a hot human potato.
Sometimes I even dreamed about it. And I woke up wiping tears from my cheeks, feeling heartily sorry for myself even while I knew I shouldn’t, because I knew Dalk was going through way worse shit than me.
Yeah. Miserable. I wandered around Gahn Errok’s like some pathetic spectre until it was once again time for us human girls to head on back to Gahn Thaleo’s mountain for another week.
The morning to go to the other mountain came, and I didn’t want to leave. I was scared that Dalk would lose track of the days and wouldn’t know where we’d gone. Or that he’d try to come into Gahn Thaleo’s territory and wouldn’t be granted entrance. And then he’d try to fight his way in, because he was Dalk, and he’d probably end up with a belly full of arrows before I even got to say two words to him.
So I took my sweet-ass time getting dressed, I dawdled at breakfast, and I dragged my feet all the way out to Valeria’s shuttle on the morning we were meant to leave. And it was pointless, really. Childish. As childish as sticking out your tongue at a handsome, frowning warrior on the other side of a fire. Because it was a solid two-week journey from the Sea Sands to the Deep Sky, and no matter how slowly I walked to the shuttle, Dalk wasn’t going to suddenly show up days early right before we happened to shut the doors and ascend.
It didn’t stop me from looking for him anyway.
But of course, he wasn’t there. He was probably in the Death Plains now, based on what I knew of geography and the journey’s path. Three or four more days to get here, at minimum.
And I’d be in Gahn Thaleo’s mountain.
I sighed and buckled myself into my seat, resigned to waiting a few more days. I’d told him I’d wait for him, after all. Tilly and Nasrin buckled themselves in as well while Oxriel and Zoren got comfy on the floor. Engines whirred with power as Valeria tapped switches and buttons in the pilot’s area of the shuttle, Grim at her side. The shuttle heaved off of the ground, pulling up into the air smoothly. Calmly. Everything running exactly to plan.
Until Valeria suddenly gasped, “What is he doing here?” Then she gave a tight yelp when something hit her viewscreen with a furious thunk!
“Hold on, everybody,” she snapped, viciously banging on buttons and dials. “Unexpected landing taking place.”
Nasrin, Tilly, and I looked at each other with fearful eyes. I didn’t think it had been a bird hitting Valeria’s viewscreen. If it had been a bird, while unfortunate for our feathered friend, Valeria would have just continued up on her assent. No, this had been something else. And, judging by her obvious anger, something intentional.
“Was it an arrow?” Tilly asked, craning her neck to see what was happening. Oxriel and Zoren were on their feet the moment the shuttle touched back down, weapons ready in their hands.
“No,” Valeria huffed, snapping off her harness and leaping out of her seat. “It was his fucking spear.”
A spear.
Hisspear.
It couldn’t be. He was still days away...
But there was only one man I could think of who’d hurl his spear like a madman at a moving fucking shuttle. The same man who’d snap a bow in half, tie it back together, and hurl it at its target with truer aim than an arrow could ever hope to achieve.
“Dalk,” I whispered as Valeria stomped over to the shuttle’s doors and opened them.
“Yup,” she muttered as she jumped out. “Motherfucking Dalk.”
I tried to follow immediately behind her, my heart hammering at the inside of my throat, but Oxriel stopped me.
“Wait a moment, Fiona,” he said, his expression strangely sober. “Wait until we make sure he is alright. Throwing spears at the shuttle does not imply that he is of sound mind.”
“Ox,” I said, “I appreciate your concern. But I have just about gone out of my mind waiting to see that man and I’m not about to let you stand in my way now.”
“I will not move until I know he is of sound mind.”
“How about I just give you permission to hit him if he does something stupid?” I asked, hoping that would be enough. Dalk was somewhere out there and I couldn’t stand to stay here jabbering about whether he was in a right state of mind or not. I needed to see it for myself.
“I suppose that could work...” Oxriel murmured thoughtfully.
“Great!” I cried. I shouldered past him and ran right out the doors.
Only to find Dalk and Valeria facing off against each other.
“You do not ever throw a weapon at my ship!” Valeria was fuming, pointing accusatorily at the shuttle’s viewscreen. “You could have damaged it. You could have killed someone!”
“I was not about to let you take her back to Gahn Thaleo’s now,” Dalk snapped.
“You already told me that!” Valeria shouted. “And as I already told you, whether you have a mate or not, you do not get to throw a temper tantrum and compromise my ship and crew!”
It had been less than two weeks since I’d seen him. And yet... Something about him seemed different. For one thing, Dalk looked absolutely exhausted, his sight stars pulsing and spinning with delayed reactions, which I’d learned was basically the alien version of dark circles under your eyes. But despite his tiredness, he seemed fiercer than I’d ever seen him. Furious with some sort of unknown purpose. Nearly feral with it.
“Dalk!”
That feral gaze snapped to me, metal to a magnet. It nearly swallowed me whole.
“Oh for fuck’s sake... Fine,” Valeria cried, throwing up her hands. “I am not finished with you, Dalk. But I also need to get this flight underway. So you two sort out your shit, would you? We’ll be at Gahn Thaleo’s.”
I looked on with confusion as Valeria ordered Nasrin, Tilly, Oxriel, and Zoren back into the shuttle.
Everyone except for me.
“I don’t have to go?” I asked her, shading my eyes against the sun. I wanted more than anything to be left alone with Dalk right now. But I also didn’t want to cause any friction with Gahn Thaleo. Surely, despite Valeria’s anger over what Dalk had just done, he’d still be allowed to chaperone me into the other Gahn’s territory, like he’d done before.
But Valeria just blew out a harsh breath and said, “Nope!” Then, cryptically, “No more trips to Gahn Thaleo’s for you. You’re off the hook.”
Before I could ask her what she meant by that, she swung herself back up into the shuttle. Grim followed, the doors closed, and the engines started up. I might have stood there staring like a dumbass until they completely lifted off if Dalk hadn’t suddenly seized my hand.
“You are too close to it,” he shouted over the din of the engines. I nodded mutely and let him drag me out from the shuttle’s lift-off area. He pulled me into the shaded opening of a cave at the base of the Vrika’s peak.
“Dalk...” I said. “Why... What... How the hell are you here? Doesn’t it take thirteen or fourteen days to travel here without the shuttle?”
“Maybe for a weak man,” he scoffed. “The sort of man who needs a lot of sleep.”
“And that’s not you?’ I probed, concerned by the drawn look to his face, the intense but slow bursting of his sight stars. “You look so tired.”
“Much has happened,” he said tensely, the muscles bunching beneath his blades.
“Including you throwing a spear at the shuttle?” I asked dryly.
His lip pulled back in a snarl.
“I rushed back here to get to you before the next turn at Gahn Thaleo’s came. But when I saw that shuttle lifting off, when I knew you were on it and that I had come too late...” He growled, running his claws through his hair. I blinked, noticing it was ever-so-slightly shorter than before, the cut much more even than it had been after getting bitten off.
“Your hair!” I gasped, reaching out to brush my fingers along the blunt, shoulder-length ends. “Did you cut it?”
“Not me. The new woman Zuh-Loane at the settlement. She has some experience with it.”
“Oh! You mean Sloane? Yeah, she used to cut hair as a part-time job back on Earth.”
“Yes. She has skills in such a thing and I wanted to look presentable and... Bah!” He sliced his hand aggressively through the air. “This does not matter! I am making a mess of things.” He fixed me with those tired, piercing sight stars and then, as if scared I was about to run away, enclosed my shoulders with his hard grip. “When I was in the Sea Sands, the Lavrika came to me.”
There was some way I should have felt. Something I should have said. But for the life of me, I couldn’t determine what it was supposed to be. Everything was muted, held behind a vibrating curtain. In a moment, that curtain would be pulled back. The emotions would rush in. And I’d either be left elated or devastated.
Depending on whatever else Dalk had to say.
“Congratulations,” I said numbly. “Who...” My voice caught. I swallowed and tried again. “Who’s the lucky lady?”
One of his hands moved inward from my shoulder, over the crinkly surface of my jacket to the exposed side of my neck. He palmed me there, cupping my pulse like he was cradling my very heartbeat.
“I just hurled my spear at Valeria’s shuttle to keep her from taking you away from me. Do you really need to ask that question?”
“You didn’t... You didn’t just... want to talk to me? To tell me that you had some new mate?”
His eyes flashed, sight stars glancing off of each other like light off water.
“No,” he hissed, his grip on both my shoulder and my neck tightening. “I had to stop that shuttle because only unmated women are required to go into Gahn Thaleo’s territory under the new deal.” His gaze grew fervent, heated. “And you are no longer an unmated woman.”
“Am I dreaming?” I stammered, slapping my palms against my cheeks until the skin stung. “I feel like I’m dreaming. Or...” Suspicion suddenly reared its ugly head. “Are you lying to me?”
“Lying to you?” he echoed in affronted disbelief. “You think that I would lie to you about this?”
“Well, I don’t know! Last time we talked you were willing to risk all sorts of punishment or manners of exile, even going as far as murdering a man, just to be with me! A little lie doesn’t seem so bad compared to all of that.”
“Name one other time that I have ever lied to you!” he exclaimed, his tail snapping back and forth with agitation.
“That time I scraped my knee and you said you were just cleaning my wound when you licked me,” I replied.
He froze and then frowned.
“Name another time I lied,” he finally said, some of his righteous indignation fading.
“Well, hopefully this isn’t one of them,” I said. “Dalk... I want to believe you. You have no idea how much. I’ve basically thought of nothing but you this entire time. I missed you so much. And I was hurting for you, too, for the loss of your uncle. I love you-”
Dalk reared back.
“-and I want to be with you, and I just need to know if we’re really going to have a chance or if things are going to fall apart someday, and maybe even someday soon. I don’t want to sink into this happiness with you, to think that we’re safe, only to have everything get ruined when I least expect it.”
“You... You love me?”
“That’s... What? Yes! That wasn’t what I was asking though!”
“No,” he growled, stepping closer, backing me up against the cave’s wall, “that is what I am asking.”
“I love you, Dalk,” I admitted, staring up into the astonished whir of his sight stars. “I knew it that night before you left. I’ve known it every day since then.”
“This day and all days,” he murmured quietly. He said it oddly, like it was a line from a poem or a prayer. Something he had heard before and was repeating now.
“I love you,” I confirmed. “I love you and I’ll say it as many times as you want to hear it. After you answer my question! Did you really, truly get summoned by the Lavrika? And was it... Was it really me you saw?”
“Yes,” he growled. “I have four witnesses who saw the Lavrika come for me, and one of them was a new woman, the Gahnala Chapman, in case you were about to question the credibility of my fellow Sea Sand men. I have no witnesses for what I saw in the pools,” he said, more softly now, toying with a stray strand of my hair, rubbing it reverently between his fingers and his thumb. “No witnesses besides the Lavrika itself. There is no proof beyond the way I love you, Fiona. And I hope that can be enough.”
I gave a strangled, sobbing gasp. I’d told him I loved him, and some small part of me had still been terrified that he wasn’t going to say it back.
“You love me,” I whispered. “You love me... And have the mate bond... Does it feel very different from before?”
“Not so very different,” he said huskily. “I already loved you then. Before the Lavrika came, I thought that you were mine. Now I know you are.”
I nodded, airway constricting, and Dalk groaned.
“You are doing your human tears again! Is the idea of being mated to me really so hideous? I thought that this would solve our problems! I thought-”
“You don’t do tears. You cry them or shed them. And they’re happy tears!” I corrected him, sniffing and laughing, wiping at my cheeks. “Definitely happy tears. You have no idea how miserable I was without you, Dalk. Wondering what was going on. Wondering if you were alright. Ugh. Look at me talking about myself and my feelings when you lost your uncle!” I swiped at my tears more angrily this time. “How was it, Dalk? How are you?”
“It is as Gahnala Chapman said after his funeral pyre. Losing someone is always difficult,” he said, allowing weariness to creep into his voice for the first time.
“Here. Sit down with me,” I said. I was worried he’d try to claim he didn’t want to, that he wasn’t tired, and hoped that if I was sitting down too then he’d just come along with me. Luckily this proved to be true, and we both got down to sit facing each other.
Except that didn’t last long. As soon as Dalk realized where I had seated myself – on the stone floor of the cave instead of in his lap – he rectified it at once. He rested his chin on the top of my head, his chest to my back, his voice rumbling comfortingly into me as he spoke.
“I was glad to see Taraken in time. We had a.. good talk.”
I wondered what the hell would constitute a “good talk” for this man.
“And it was good to see my Gahn again,” Dalk added.
“Good old Fallo,” I said with a somewhat reticent smile. “Hey, I meant to ask you. Why is it that you’re so devoted to him? Is it just because he’s your Gahn? It seems like it takes so much to earn your respect.”
“It is not just because he is Gahn,” Dalk said, sounding surprised. “Do you not know the story of how he got his title?”
“I know he killed his own father. That’s about it.”
“His father was Gahn before him. Like Gahn Fallo he was always an... explosive sort of man. And when his Gahnala died, the last restraints on his reason fell away.” His voice grew harder. “He lost his senses. He believed that he could call her back by some sort of blood sacrifice. He wanted to kill every last man, woman, and cub. He would have done it, or at least gotten a very good start, if Fallo had not confronted him.”
“Oh. Wow. So it was to protect everyone?”
“Yes.”
“How come there wasn’t a baklok?”
Dalk snorted softly.
“There is no one who would have dared challenge Gahn Fallo or call for a baklok after he seized the title of Gahn. He killed his own father and Gahn for the good of the tribe. I’d actually never liked Fallo as a boy. Never liked him until that day. That sort of sacrifice... It is worth more respect than a thousand small pleasantries.”
“Thanks for explaining it,” I murmured, running my fingers up and down his forearms, tracing the thick veins and musculature. “I want to know so much about you. And that was something I’ve been wondering for a while now.”
“It is not so unusual for a man to revere his Gahn.”
“But it’s unusual for you.”
He was silent for a moment, then suddenly said, “He wanted me to stay, you know. He asked me to remain in the Sea Sands. Just as you once told me to.”
“Oh, God, thank you for not listening to me,” I moaned, imagining what would have happened if he’d gone away then. I supposed the Lavrika could have summoned him a little earlier... But then we wouldn’t have had the same experiences together, the same time to start to build up our budding feelings on our own.
“It is the first time I have ever refused him something. You seem to have turned me into a very odd version of myself.”
“Hopefully a version that you like?” I said cautiously, spinning around until I was facing him on his lap, my legs spread across him.
His gaze was a knife. His words just as sharp.
“The only man I’d ever want to be is the man who can be with you.”
I was pretty sure that the appropriate reaction to that, or at least the reaction that Dalk would appreciate, was not more tears. I could feel that hiccupping pressure building in my eyes, my throat. But I didn’t want Dalk to feel like he had to comfort me now. Not after everything he’d been through.
So I didn’t cry.
I kissed him.
My kiss was like an adrenaline injection, straight to the heart. His body, previously gone slack apart from where his arms held me, snapped to extraordinary attention, muscles winding, fingers leaping up to possessively cup my face.
For a moment of shattered passion, Dalk forgot everything I’d taught him about kissing, roving over my mouth like a starving man, stabbing his tongues into me with obsessive abandon. I withstood it for as long as I could, wanting to give him what he needed, wanting to give him everything.
He released a rasping growl and withdrew a shuddering moment later, only to drag his mouth in hot, claiming kisses along my cheek, my jaw.
“You do not know,” he groaned against my neck as I hurried to remove my jacket, “how your skin has haunted me. Imagining touching you again, kissing every flower and dark shape upon you. It drove me forward. I dreamed of you so many times. Dreamed of hearing your voice. Smelling your scent. Tasting ink.”
I whimpered at his words, imagining him dreaming of me alone out there when I’d been dreaming of him too. Once unzipped, Dalk ripped off my jacket and tossed it away. I hurried out of my tank top and bra, abandoning them, my nipples hardening.
“I want to learn the names for these,” he whispered fervently, running his thumbs across the native Irish flowers bunched along my left arm, the eyebright and wild clary and the sheep’s-bit. “And I want to learn to read all these words.”
I had several bits of writing intertwined with my various tattoos, including the dates of my Nan’s birth and death, but he was focused on something else, a curling line of cursive text on my inner wrist.
“It’s an Oscar Wilde quote,” I told him. “He was an Irish writer. One of my favourites. It’s a line from a play that actually has a fairly specific context, but I’ve always loved this line just on its own.”
“What does it say?”
“It says, ‘We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.’ A gutter is like a trough for dirty rain water. Not a very nice place to be. Like I said, it has a specific context within the original work but... I don’t know. It’s always meant something to me in a broader sense. To think that no matter how terrible the circumstances, there’s always something beautiful to be found if you know where to look.”
Dalk’s gaze pulsed, copper points of light fanning out and drawing tight.
“‘Some of us are looking at the stars...’” I said again, whispering.
I didn’t even need to look up to see the stars.
I only needed to look at him.
I kept my eyes open when I kissed him again, watching those sight stars flicker and dance, a whole universe of expression in the face of an often-unreadable man. His gaze flared and spasmed, drew tight with ardent devotion when I got the rest of my clothes off and peeled away his loincloth.
I wanted to make this moment last. I wanted to feel him on every part of me, feel him everywhere before I took him inside my body. I wanted to touch him, tease him, suck him again.
But we were both too desperate, too needy. There would be time for all of that. Later.
I was already wet when I drew up on my knees above him. Dalk gripped my hips, his chest heaving, his fangs glinting in the shadowy light of the cave. I rubbed my clit, and he watched my hand move with lascivious fascination, the tip of his cock nudging against my slick entrance.
My legs shook, and I moaned, rubbing my pussy against him. He was big. It was going to take some work to get myself down onto him, especially with the hurried lack of foreplay.
But I’d never been afraid of a fucking challenge. And if Dalk could be the champion of the toughest combat round of the vaklok, if he could go nights without sleeping just to get back to me, then I could sure as shit do this for him. Ease myself onto him and let him feel me from the inside.
And I wanted it too. Maybe more than anything I’d ever wanted in my life. I was nearly crying again with need for him as I trembled in his lap, rocking myself across his impossibly smooth tip while Dalk panted and groaned.
I guessed I was taking too long for him, though. He didn’t rush me, but at one point, his voice ragged and strained, he locked eyes and asked me, “Is this how humans mate? Is this... Is this all there is?”
If I hadn’t been so fucking worked up with emotion I would have burst out laughing.
“No, Dalk,” I said tremulously, bending to kiss his jaw, dragging my tongue along his hide. “This isn’t all there is.”
I relaxed my legs, holding my breath as I began to let him sink into me. Dalk hissed so loudly it was as if my pussy had burned him. His fingers clenched then spastically released on my hips, like he was worried he would bruise me.
The stretch of him inside me was unbelievable, but not painful. I was going too slowly for there to be pain, and Dalk was holding himself back with a warrior’s will, every muscle vibrating with tension, his cock pulsing rhythmically with need. I pushed myself to go a little further, a little faster, rocking onto him, letting my wetness soak him and ease the way.
Oh, God. I was already close. I stopped rubbing myself, putting both my hands on Dalk’s shoulders for stability. Biting my lip, I moved my hips more easily now, giving in to the sensations of pleasure that built behind the feeling of being so overwhelmingly full. I gasped and spasmed when Dalk’s cock spears shifted under my weight and became slightly bent, their flexible points coming into blissfully shivery contact with my swollen clit.
“Oh,” I moaned, “oh, that is...”
I started really riding him now, starving for more of that feeling, more of those delicious swipes of his cock spears against my clit. I ground myself onto his cock helplessly, hopelessly, losing myself in the wondrous sensation of having him here, having him inside me, and knowing that I’d have him forever.
“See?” I panted, rocking downwards, letting him get even deeper than before. “Not all there is. How is it for you?”
Dalk, who’d held himself in incredible stillness up until this point, unleashed a savage sound from his throat and began to thrust into me. My breath stuttered, and I stopped moving, collapsing forwards onto his chest and holding myself up on my knees, my hips in position for him to work his thick cock in and out.
“More than I could have imagined,” he growled hotly against my ear, stirring strands of hair, his fingers kneading the flesh of my ass as he pumped. “Fiona, little mate...” His voice broke off in a moan, and it took him three slowing thrusts and a lot of harsh breathing to be able to speak again. But he did. And it was so fucking worth it.
“Fiona... I am seeing stars with you.”
I answered him both with words and with my body, brokenly moaning, “I’m seeing stars with you too,” the second before I came.
There was only sensation after that. My knees on the hard, cool stone; Dalk’s hot, tense body beneath me and inside me; the answering pulse in his cock as I convulsed rhythmically around him.
He didn’t pull out as much on his following thrusts – maybe he couldn’t, not with my body literally trying to pull him back into me. Instead, he ground himself deep inside, so perfectly nestled inside me that I felt him begin to come, the swelling throb and the explosive jets of desire that followed, coating my insides. Claiming me.
His words claimed me, too. The gloriously gruff sound of his voice echoed off the walls of the cave, multiplying the sentiments tenfold.
“Mine,” he snarled, “Only mine. For this day and all days.”
I nodded breathlessly, unable to speak. Unable to do anything but feel him and see him and love him.
Love him...
And lose myself in stars.