Chapter 6 #2
“Everything,” he said roughly. “I feel everything. My tail responds to her presence. My body responds to her scent. When I kissed her—”
“You kissed her?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And it was… intense. More intense than anything I have felt since…” He trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.
“Since Kessa,” Tarak said gently.
“Yes.” Perhaps even more so. “But it should not be possible. She is human. I am Cire. There can be no true bond between us.”
“Can’t there?” Tarak’s expression turned thoughtful. “There have been rumors of other warriors finding their mates in unlikely places.”
“Rumors. Not facts.”
“Or perhaps facts that have been suppressed.” Tarak leaned against the wall, his tail flicking back and forth. “The Council sees only one possibility. Perhaps there are others. Or perhaps your body is just smarter than your brain.”
Despite everything, his mouth twitched with amusement. “You think my body knows something I do not?”
“I think you’ve been dead inside for twenty years, and this female made you feel alive again. That is worth exploring.”
“Even if it is impossible?”
“Especially if it is impossible.” Tarak’s expression turned serious. “You deserve happiness, Selik. Kessa would want that for you.”
The words echoed his earlier thoughts so precisely that he had to look away.
“She would have loved Mikoz,” he said quietly. “She would have taken him in without question.”
“So why are you questioning it?”
“Because I failed her. Failed Lira. I was not there when they needed me most.”
“You were following orders and doing your duty.” Tarak’s voice hardened. “The Red Death killed them, not you.”
“I should have been there.”
“To die with them? Would that have been better?”
The blunt question made him flinch. He’d asked himself the same thing countless times over the years. Would it have been better to burn alongside his family rather than survive alone?
“No,” he finally admitted. “But I should have done something. Anything.”
“You are doing something.” Tarak pushed off the wall. “You are considering giving an orphaned infant a home. Giving him a chance at the life Lira never got to have. If that is not honoring her memory, I do not know what is.”
The words settled into his chest, heavy and true. He’d been so focused on his failure that he hadn’t considered this might be a way to honor his daughter’s memory. To take the love he would have given Lira and channel it toward another child who needed it just as desperately.
“What if I fail again?” he asked softly.
“Then you fail. But at least you tried.” Tarak gripped his shoulder. “Living half a life is not living at all.”
“I want them to stay,” he heard himself say. “All three of them. I want Corinne and Mikoz and Anya. I want to build something with them. A family.”
“Then tell her that.”
“She wants to return the young female to Earth. To give her a chance at a normal life.”
“Then show her what life could be like with you instead. Give her a reason to choose you.”
“I do not know how to court a human.”
“I do not think it is that different from courting a Cire. Protect her. Provide for her. Show her she is valued.” Tarak’s mouth curved. “And judging by your reaction to her, the physical compatibility is not in question.”
Heat flooded through him at the memory of how she’d felt pressed against him. How she’d tasted. How much he wanted to explore every soft curve of her body and learn exactly how to make her come apart in his arms.
“The physical attraction is… significant,” he said carefully.
“Apparently.” Despite the grin on Tarak’s face, there was a wistful note in his voice. “It sounds as if you are responding to her as if she were your mate.”
My mate.
The words whispered through his thoughts, terrifying and exhilarating in equal measure. Could she be his mate? Could a human and a Cire form that kind of bond? Everything he’d been taught said no, but his body was screaming yes.
“So what are you going to do?” Tarak asked.
He looked down at his hands, remembering how right it had felt to comfort the infant, to soothe him back to sleep. How desperately he wanted to do it again.
“I am going to raise that child,” he said slowly. “Whether Corinne stays or not. He deserves a home, and I can give him that.”
“And Corinne?”
“I am going to show her what we could have together.” He met Tarak’s gaze. “And then I am going to hope she chooses to stay.”
“And if she does not?”
He winced, but he forced himself to consider it. What if Corinne took Anya back to Earth and left Mikoz with him? What if she walked away and he never saw her again? The thought made his chest ache with a pain he hadn’t felt since standing over Kessa’s funeral pyre.
“Then I will respect her choice,” he said quietly. “And I will raise Mikoz to know that his first protector loved him enough to find him the best life possible.”
“Even if it breaks you?”
“Even then.”
Tarak studied him for a long moment, then nodded with satisfaction.
“Good.” He picked up his staff again. “Now stop brooding and fight me properly. I did not come here to watch you pine.”
Despite everything, he felt a smile tug at his mouth. This was why Tarak was his second. The male knew when to push and when to simply stand beside him. He knew when he needed words and when he needed action.
They fell into combat again, faster this time, more intense. He poured his confusion and desire and desperate hope into every strike, every block, every controlled movement. His body remembered this rhythm, the dance of violence that was as close as he’d come to meditation in years.
But underneath it all, his thoughts kept circling back to the same place.
To soft hazel eyes and dark hair.
To a small body pressed against his and the taste of her kiss.
To the terrifying, exhilarating possibility that he could have something worth living for again.
“You’re thinking too much again,” Tarak observed, blocking a strike with ease.
“I am considering strategy.”
“You are panicking.”
His tail lashed with irritation because Tarak was right. He was panicking. He’d faced down raiders and pirates and hostile aliens without breaking a sweat, but the thought of courting one small human female left him feeling completely out of his depth.
“I do not know what she needs,” he admitted, lowering his staff.
“So ask her.”
“It is not that simple.”
“Is it not?” Tarak set his own staff aside and moved towards the door, then paused. “Trust the connection, Selik. Trust that if it is meant to be, she will figure it out.”
Then he was gone, leaving him alone in the training room with nothing but his thoughts and the lingering ache of unfinished combat.
He stripped off his clothing and cleansed himself, but he couldn’t wash away the restless energy humming under his skin, the bone-deep need to return to his quarters and make sure Corinne was still there.
Still safe.
Still his, even if she didn’t know it yet.
Once he was dressed, he told himself that he should return to his ready room and get what rest he could so he could approach tomorrow with a clear head. Instead, he found his feet carrying him back toward his quarters.
He told himself he just wanted to check on them, and make sure they had everything they needed.
He would verify that the environmental controls were properly adjusted for human comfort.
All reasonable, commander-like concerns that had nothing to do with the desperate need to see Corinne’s face again.
He stood outside his door for a long moment, his hand hovering over the access panel.
What was he doing? She didn’t need him hovering like an overprotective fool.
She needed rest. But he pressed the panel anyway, and the door slid open on silent hinges, revealing the darkened interior of his quarters.
He stepped inside carefully, letting his eyes adjust to the low light filtering in from the corridor. The main room was empty, but he could hear soft breathing coming from the sleeping chamber. He shouldn’t go in there. He shouldn’t intrude on her rest.
His feet carried him to the doorway anyway.
The scene that greeted him made something in his chest constrict painfully. Corinne lay on her side, one arm curled protectively around Mikoz while Anya slept on her other side. The girl had shifted closer in sleep, a gesture of trust that she’d never shown while awake.
They looked like a family.
My family, something inside him whispered.
Corinne stirred, her eyes fluttering open to find him standing in the doorway.
She should have been startled. She should have demanded to know what he was doing creeping into the sleeping chamber like a thief.
Instead, she just looked at him with those hazel eyes, and whispered, “Can’t sleep either? ”
“I needed to make sure you were safe.”
“We are.” She shifted slightly, careful not to disturb the children. “Thanks to you.”
He should leave. Should retreat to his temporary quarters and let her rest.
Instead, he heard himself ask, “May I stay?”
She bit her lip, considering. Then she nodded and shifted back slightly, making room beside her on the large bed.
He laid down next to her, careful to keep an appropriate distance between them, but she immediately rolled closer, tucking Mikoz in between them.
His tail wrapped around her waist automatically, and she sighed and relaxed into him, her soft body fitting against his harder one like she’d been designed for exactly this.
“This probably isn’t smart,” she murmured, already half-asleep again.
“Probably not.”
“I don’t care.”
Neither did he. For the first time in twenty years, he felt like he’d come home. Tomorrow would bring difficult decisions and hard conversations. Tonight, he’d hold his future in his arms and dare to hope it might actually stay.