Chapter 18 Nasrin
NASRIN
The week in Gahn Errok’s mountain was one of the longest of my life. It terrified me how much I missed Thaleo. I’d told him that it would be good to have this time apart. That we should get used to it.
But apparently, I was the one who really needed to get used to it. Because I was miserable, and I didn’t know how to deal with it. At all.
At least you’ll get lots of practice. I’d be spending as much time away from Thaleo as I was with him. Alternating weeks here and there for the foreseeable future. Until something for one – or both of us – changed. And then I might not be spending any time with him at all.
The thought was so damn depressing that it forced me to come to terms with just how deep my feelings for Thaleo had already grown. I had told him that I couldn’t fall for him if I wouldn’t be able to stay with him.
I was falling for him anyway.
Which told me I probably needed to end this thing between us. As soon as I got back. Before I had the chance to fall any deeper into this hole that seemed to have no real way out.
Thaleo would never choose me without the Vrika.
And I could never be with someone who didn’t choose me.
At least, I didn’t think I could. But there had been desperate little moments, here and there, where I got pouty and just wished that the Vrika would come to him and show him my stupid face.
At least it would give Thaleo some relief.
Because he’d no longer be fighting a desire for me and a desire to adhere to the Vrika’s will.
There was so much trauma and blood and identity bound up for him that I couldn’t even blame him for his rigid thinking on this subject anymore.
If the Vrika came for him, bonded him to me, then maybe, in a way, he’d be finally free. To simply want something for himself.
And more than anything, I wanted that sort of freedom for him.
I wanted it so badly that I even realized I’d be happy for him if he did get a mate vision of someone else.
I mean, I’d also probably feel like my heart just got stomped on if that actually happened.
But I wanted to see him be able to take solace in another person – in love.
Because what I had with him wasn’t solace.
I knew it wasn’t. It was raw and urgent and left both of us feeling more than a little torn up inside.
Aware of all of this, aware that we really needed to stop before somebody got hurt, it wasn’t with excitement that I boarded Valeria’s shuttle to return to Thaleo’s mountain after a week had passed.
Fiona and I were truly quite a pair – dour and quiet.
I felt bad for Tilly, who tried to keep the energy of our little group going with dogged determination.
She chattered away as we all buckled ourselves in to our seats.
Oxriel and Zoren sat down on the floor. Valeria and Grim were up front in the cockpit.
The engines started up, and my stomach did a nervous flip-flop as we began to ascend. I’d be seeing Thaleo soon. Today.
Suddenly, Valeria’s voice drew our attention to the front of the shuttle.
“What is he doing here?” Then, she flinched and made a sound of surprise when something big and hard clattered violently against her viewscreen. Fiona, Tilly, and I all looked at each other in alarm. An arrow? Was someone launching an attack?
Who would do such a thing? Surely not Thaleo…
What is he doing here? It had been someone Valeria hadn’t expected to see in Gahn Errok’s territory. Someone she recognized…
“Hold on, everybody,” she said, viciously banging on buttons and dials. “Unexpected landing taking place.”
“Was it an arrow?” Tilly asked, giving voice to the question inside my own head. Oxriel and Zoren were on their feet the moment the shuttle touched back down, weapons ready in their hands.
“No,” Valeria snapped, getting out of her seat. “It was his fucking spear.”
“Dalk,” Fiona whispered as Valeria stomped over to the shuttle’s doors and opened them.
“Yup,” she muttered as she jumped out. “Motherfucking Dalk.”
Fiona fumbled with her harness, then practically leaped out of her seat, following Valeria to exit the shuttle. Oxriel blocked her. “Wait a moment, Fiona,” he said. “Wait until we make sure he is alright. Throwing spears at the shuttle does not imply that he is of sound mind.”
They argued for a moment, until Fiona finally seemed to convince him enough that he didn’t stop her from vaulting out the shuttle’s doors. Voices from outside drifted in, raised in anger.
“You do not ever throw a weapon at my ship!” Valeria was shouting. “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,” came Dalk’s growling reply.
“You already told me that!” Valeria cried. “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!”
“Dalk!” That was Fiona’s voice now.
“Oh for fuck’s sake…Fine,” said Valeria. “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 don’t have to go?” Fiona asked. Tilly and I raised our eyebrows at each other.
“Nope!” Valeria replied. “No more trips to Gahn Thaleo’s for you. You’re off the hook.”
A second later, she was swinging her tall body back into the shuttle, closing the door and directing Oxriel to sit back down.
“Fiona isn’t coming with us?” Tilly asked as Valeria returned to the pilot’s chair.
“No,” Valeria said, jabbing at buttons and levers. “Fiona is no longer a single lady. Dalk got his mate vision of her while he was in the Sea Sands.”
There it was again. Jealousy. Ashamed of myself, I mentally kicked it away. Fiona loved Dalk so much. She’d been so down these past two weeks without him. Now, he was back. And they could be together. I was truly glad for her that she was getting her happily ever after.
So was Tilly, her reaction unblemished with any of the same complexity surrounding my own. “Oh, that is wonderful!” she cried, clasping her hands together with delight. “I wish I could talk to her about it right now!”
“I don’t think you’d get much of a chance even if we weren’t about to take off,” Valeria observed with a slight snort as the shuttle lifted off once more. “Those two look like they’re going to be spending a lot of alone time together, if you catch my drift.”
We most definitely did catch her drift. Well, all of us but Oxriel, who immediately piped up asking for clarification.
“They will be busy mating, Oxriel!” Zoren told him, sending him a look that was about the equivalent of smacking him upside the head. Oxriel’s mouth dropped into an O of surprise, which he quickly closed with an awkward, growly little cough.
I didn’t pay attention to any other conversations happening on the ride. I was too distracted, my mind already with Gahn Thaleo and what would happen when we met once more.
He told me he’d be waiting for me. It shouldn’t have caused me such a flush of pleasure.
Especially since I knew I had to end this thing with him.
Or at least find a way to slow it down. Protect my rapidly growing, squishy human feelings.
I’d never been in love before. I had no skills to survive the loss of it.
I’ll talk to him today. Maybe I could just be his first friend, instead of his first not-quite-friend-with-benefits.
That idea left me feeling deflated instead of relieved. Everywhere I looked, I didn’t like the possibilities that awaited us.
I still had some time to think about it before I saw him, though.
When we landed in the bright aguir circle outside the mountain, he wasn’t there to greet us.
I pretended not to be disappointed by this, instead smiling at Zaria and Arton as I hopped out of the shuttle.
They’d just exited the main entrance into the mountain.
It was probably just my imagination, but after a week away, Zaria’s pregnant belly already looked a little bigger.
At her side, Arton was carrying a small basket.
“Hello!” Zaria said as all six of us from the shuttle approached the mated pair. “We were just heading to the brolka pastures to bring Linnet some moonbark and newly woven spinner silk.”
“The brolka? I haven’t gotten a chance to see them yet,” Valeria said. “What do you guys think? Wanna head inside or have a little walk?”
“I vote walk,” Tilly said, which didn’t surprise me, considering her enthusiasm for fresh air.
“Sounds good to me,” I said. A visit with grouchy Linnet was definitely a decent way to pass the time.
Especially if I got to pet a baby brolka again.
It would keep me from spiralling about seeing Gahn Thaleo later today.
Which I was fairly certain I was already spiralling about anyway. “Is… Er… Is Thaleo here?”
Everyone stared at me. Shit. I’d called him Thaleo in front of everyone. Just Thaleo, not Gahn.
“Gahn Thaleo,” I corrected hastily.
“He was on a flight with Warrek and has not yet returned,” Arton replied. “We are still diligently tracking the borog’s burrowing progress.”
“How’s that going?” Valeria asked, and I noted the tension that entered Arton’s jaw, and the area around his mouth.
“We have not yet glimpsed the actual creature. Or creatures.”
“Creatures, plural?” Valeria asked. “There could be more than one?”
“Perhaps,” Arton said noncommittally. “We are having trouble making sense of the burrowing patterns. The entrances and exits of its burrows seem random and unpredictable, and they are very far apart. And there is little evidence of its heavy body walking between them. We have begun to wonder if two are making tunnels at the same time. Or if this particular one has become capable of burrowing extremely long distances without surfacing.”
“Well, that’s not good,” Tilly said under her breath.