22. Chapter 22
twenty-two
Hue
Another three limtics and I’m becoming something of a botanist myself.
Or at least a proper mate to one, as proper as I can be.
The only downside is that my back and knees hurt like fucking shit.
I roll over in our large bed, not surprised to find Sor’en’s side empty.
Nor am I surprised to find my favorite shadow hanging out by the end waiting for me to wake like he does most mornings.
“Morning, Melly,” I offer, groaning as I reach for the balm Sor’en made for me.
It’s a combination of his oil and the petals, which, if the data pad I’ve now become absolutely hooked on was correct, have similar properties at least medically to a flower that was once found on Old Earth called poppies.
Although the pretty glowing flowers of Silloria have far stronger properties.
The thick, round brush swipes wetly through the mixture as I swirl it, gathering a heaping load before knocking off anything that’s too chunky.
It’s the sound of heated, angry voices that makes me still, the mixture dripping onto my waiting knee.
Melion zips in front of me just as I stand, heading toward the sound. The tincture all but forgotten on the bed.
I frown at his large white orbs as he gives me another tendril in offering, that I now know is his constant and repeated attempt to bond with me. Although I have a sinking suspicion this one is more offered as a distraction than anything. “Melion, move.”
He doesn’t move, though, just warbles nervously.
“Melion, what is wrong?”
“….more than paid my fucking price.”
I gasp at the growl in Sor’en’s rising voice.
“Melion, something is wrong.” I don’t know how I know it, but it settles in my gut like a rock. The sound far different from Sor’en’s usual growling.
He doesn’t budge.
“You offered me—" Sor’en snarls before another male cuts him off. His voice rough and grating to my mate's lithe, eerie tone.
“I offered you a chance to stay out of a Kalzait death chamber. You will do as I say or I will hand you back to them. It is as simple as it always has been.”
“I am out. Or it will be you and yours that will meet my touch next.”
I shove myself through the Vena’lel, which he greatly dislikes but also greatly had coming.
The doors part almost violently. The holo projector fully displayed in the otherwise unremarkable living room.
My eyes connect with the vibrant electric red of a Riarthian male…
dressed in the stuffy dress garb of the Intergalactic Military.
Which isn’t too surprising in and of itself.
The Riarthians are known for their aerial fighting skills.
Hence why they make up most of the Intergalactic Military.
What is shocking is seeing one of them… here. Talking to Sor’en.
His eyes widen seconds before Sor’en all but roars, cutting the feed, but not before I catch the violent smirk that lights the male's face, sending a chill down my spine.
“Sor’en…” I whisper, staring at him with shocked, wide eyes of my own.
“Leave it, Hue.”
I scoff. “Leave it? What did he mean about the—"
“Draya’la, please.”
I stand there dumbly for a few very pregnant feeling domtics, my chest and stomach tied together and twisted into an unholy knot as he blips out of the sunken seating area to appear in front of me. “You have nothing to worry about.”
“That was the Alliance military!” I seethe. “What do you mean—"
Melion envelops me, knocking me off kilter and sending me halfway to the ground before a burst of hot wind rights me. This time in his tornado swirl, there are dozens of tiny tendrils, offerings. I skirt away from them, fear and anxiety worming into my chest like a thousand tiny maggots. “Stop!”
He doesn’t.
“Sor’en!” I call out.
I don’t hear what passes between them, rarely do, but Melion stops swirling around me, leaving me dizzy and off balance. Glaring at the male in front of me, his counterpart still offering his tendrils.
“He wants to bond,” Sor’en offers, like I didn’t just walk into him being threatened by a decorated Alliance military officer.
I open my mouth to scream at him, to yell or something, but he cuts me off with a kiss. “I’m late to the fields. Don’t worry yourself, soulveil, all is well. Jin’rayal has offered to show you some new tinctures.”
And like that, he’s gone.
My chest is heaving as I scratch at my itchy skin, turning my glare on Melion.
He gives a little warble that’s a mixture of things I can’t begin to decode before he dissipates, leaving me to glare at the white walls.
I am asleep before Sor’en comes to bed that night, despite my best efforts to keep my eyes open, but a belly full of warm food and the soft sheets get the better of me. Which was no doubt his intention.
As soon as I got back from the center to see Jin’rayal, Me’alma, and Lyr’ael, supper was hot and ready, and my mate was lost in his fields.
No amount of gentle prodding and probing questions got them to open up much about anything regarding any alliances they’d ever had with the, well, Alliance.
Not that they’d know anything about the male Sor’en was talking to.
No, that was obviously very under wraps, much like how Sor’en seems to have told everyone I crash-landed in a pod and he found me.
Like Sor’en was on Vortara Space Station for a reason he has never disclosed.
A space station so far from Silloria and the first quadrant, where any space travel is not only breaking intergalactic sanctions so heavy that he could be put to death, but his own people are vehemently against leaving the dome.
Any talk of it, as I found out earlier, is horribly unbalanced and sends everyone into an arm-sweeping frenzy.
Which I now know is them clearing their balance by signaling their goddesses.
It’s the death sight thing.
I’d nearly asked them if they could see mine, but when the thought made sick creep up in my throat, I decided against it.
I scratch my belly underneath my clothes, heaving a sigh that doesn’t even budge the jerkish male fast asleep beside me. I have half a mind to pinch him awake.
Maybe I could get a tincture for itching.
I’m always itchy lately.
I frown at the rounded ceiling a little longer before slipping out of bed.
Not too unusual for me, considering Xyreliths have terrible hearing, and it's nothing to slip out for a little while he rests.
Mostly thanks to the itching. Oh, and trying and failing over and over to balance my anger at whatever he's keeping from me with the lies and the pungently apparent fact that I have no foot to stand on when it comes to them.
My mother's tooth still hangs around my neck, waiting to be placed to rest. Her soul has lingered unsettled for too long already. That I’m almost out of time to make any of this right.
There’s a time limit on the suffering of a soul, and I think I can feel the barrel of that metaphorical blaster again.
The front door parts and each step feels heavier than it has in a while.
My chest is heavier, too, as I reach up and scratch it.
I’m walking numbly without any real purpose, and I’m not at all surprised when I reach the edge of the closet field, plopping myself down on my back in the long, soft grass to stare up at the odd greenish stars in the colorful sky.
I think that’s my favorite part of Silloria, the vibrant hues of twisting twilight overhead that decorate the sky at night when the atmosphere is just right.
My eyes catch on an odd, glimmering ripple in the dome.
A gigantic shadow obscures my sight less than a blink later, and I stare back at him. I mean to glare, but I don’t manage it.
“It’s weird that I spent my entire life fighting to get planetside, hating the stars, only for my favorite part of the planet I live on to be the sky.”
Melion warbles sympathetically. Quickly coming to hover longways in the grass beside me as if he just wants to kick back too.
A tear drips down my face before I realize I’m even crying.
“I promised my mom I’d get her to Lunareth, Melion.
I swore it to her. It's been the only reason I’ve woken up and bothered to stay alive since she died.
And now the last thing I want to see is fucking Lunareth.
” I sniffle, hoping Melion doesn’t count as telling someone, but knowing I breathe just a little easier after saying it out loud.
A warm brush of air slips over me like a hug as a dark tendril prods at my wet cheek in offering. I laugh, but it's mostly a sob. “I’m too scared, Melion. What if something goes wrong and I’m lost like her? What if I never find my way home?”
Melion shoots to his upright form, his purple cracks becoming violent. Angry. Possessive, as he blocks the soft scraping footsteps from my line of sight as I sit up in the grass. Fear strikes me for a mere second before I recognize the voice on the other side of my shadow guard.
“It is unwise, star child, to be out here alone on a night like tonight,” Jin’rayal offers smoothly, unbothered as usual.
“It’s okay, Melion,” I offer, lying back again as another ripple hits the dome.
I don’t see Melion move as much as I feel a warm brush over my stomach tickling me, making it itch more before he slips into the field where he’ll no doubt stay close. I wipe my eyes making the backs of my hands slick.
“You are sad tonight,” the older man offers, groaning as he comes to sit beside me.
“You are up past your bedtime.”
He scoffs at that.
Jin’rayal and I have gotten close, I suppose, well, as close as either of us is to anyone, that is.
I adore all my friends here, but perhaps this craggy old man the most of all.
He’s quiet, I mean, everyone here is but in a way that makes thoughts less loud.
He teaches me things too, and it's nice to have something to keep the thoughts away. Until recently, he was an alchemist. He’s worked closely with the botanists for longer than I can even conceptualize.