Chapter 11
Gavin
The next day, I received my discharge from the hospital. Considering the poor state I remained in, I wouldn’t be resuming my training for at least another week. Then again, my suspension wouldn’t allow me back to the barracks with the others.
When two sharp knocks resonated on the door, I bid the visitor come in. To my surprise, instead of military police coming to escort me to the brig or whatever other detention facility I would serve my suspension in, Zhara walked in.
Ancestors, she was breathtaking! Once again, she let her ankle-length hair cascade freely down her back.
My fingers itched to bury themselves in the silky strands.
As was common with Veredians, my mate wore a colorful, formfitting, sleeveless short dress.
Despite stopping mid-thigh, they still had a small slit on each side that further exposed the beautiful spots adorning the side of her legs, arms, and neck.
The neckline hung low enough to give just a hint of the round curves of her breasts, but high enough to be deemed demure.
Even though it was normal for me to be physically attracted to my woman, the naughty thoughts fleeting through my mind and the fire lighting in the pit of my stomach shamed me. I didn’t want her to think I was solely after one thing.
She strutted gracefully towards me, her hips swaying in an almost hypnotic fashion. It dawned on me that she was deliberately taunting me. That did not help the improper desires rearing their heads.
“Your personal chauffeur is here,” she said in a purring voice before wrapping her arms around my neck.
I closed my arms around her waist with a very pleased smile, repressing a moan at the wondrous feeling of her body against mine.
“Wow! Had I known sooner that getting myself suspended would have earned me such a blessing, I would have gotten in trouble much sooner,” I grumbled with false dismay, making her chuckle.
She lifted her face towards mine, and I leaned forward to capture her lips.
Blood instantly rushed to my groin, and my arms tightened around her.
My mate melted against me, and to my utter shock, the discreet scent of her blossoming arousal tickled my nose.
An inferno immediately ignited inside me, making me dizzy.
I broke the kiss and invoked all my willpower to keep control of my emotions.
Beyond the fact that this was neither the time nor place to get frisky with my soulmate, in my current condition, I would make a pathetic spectacle of myself.
Despite improvement thanks to the additional healing over the past 24 hours, any strenuous activity still had me wheezing and coughing.
I would be damned before I would allow my mate to find my performance lacking our first time together.
“Come, let’s get you out of here,” she said softly, her eyes still locked on my lips.
Fuck me! Her obvious desire to kiss me again was messing with my head. Even with my body burnt and rather scrawny from muscle and fat loss, this insanely gorgeous female genuinely wanted me. To think I had spent the past sixteen years fearing she would be disappointed by my appearance.
“Lead the way, my love,” I said.
Zhara smiled, grabbed my hand, and walked out of the room.
On our way out, I thanked the medical staff we met. It still boggled my mind how insanely beautiful the Veredians were, both males and females. My fellow Braxians would be going bonkers to be surrounded by such perfection.
We hopped into her personal shuttle, and I bit the inside of my cheek not to smile when she glanced at me in both a wary and assessing fashion.
I instantly guessed she wondered if I was going to throw a fit about having a female chauffeur me around.
Xelixians and Braxians still had very strong patriarchal leanings.
But I was raised with far more liberal values, especially growing up on the top pleasure barge in all the known galaxy.
“So do I get to enjoy a bit of sightseeing before your father tosses me into the brig?” I asked teasingly.
She snorted before nodding.
“Yessss,” she replied enthusiastically.
I scrunched my face.
“Yes to which part? Sightseeing or getting locked up in the brig?”
“A bit of both?” she said tauntingly.
“For real?” I asked, crestfallen.
Uncle Ghan could be a real stickler for rules. While I believed the General would cut me some slack, his First Officer was pretty adamant about never allowing people to think anyone got preferential treatment. According to the rules, I should indeed be jailed for a bit.
She nodded again with a shit-eating grin.
“You are getting some sightseeing, and then you will be incarcerated, but not in an actual cell. You are under house arrest.”
“House arrest?” I asked, confused.
“Mm-hmm. You’re coming to our home and will stay in the guest suite until you’re fully recovered,” Zhara replied smugly.
My jaw dropped. “Your parents are letting me stay at your house?!”
“Yep! Shocking right? But in truth, not at all. I made it clear that no one else but me would continue healing you. So if you were held at the base, I would want to stay there as well. And my father would prefer having us in range,” she explained with an amused expression.
I chuckled. “I can totally see that.”
“Also, he got royally chewed up by your parents, your Grappa Krygor, and Aunt Mercy for allowing their baby to get hurt right after he arrived,” she quipped teasingly.
A loud groan escaped me as I closed my eyes with a pained expression and pressed the back of my head against the headrest. Obviously, they would have been informed in extensive detail of what had befallen me. The ancestors knew I would never hear the end of it.
“Fuck me! So now they’re demanding that he babysits me?” I grumbled.
“Obviously! Your mother even talked about canceling her series of sold-out concerts so that she could come play nursemaid for you,” Zhara added with a snicker.
“Oh, hell no! Please tell me she didn’t do that?!” I exclaimed. “She’s going to smother me in layers upon layers of freaking bubble wrap! Once my mother goes into Mama Bear mode, it’s game over!”
Zhara laughed.
“If she’s anything like my mother, then I absolutely know what you mean. These women are hopeless!” she said, as we flew over the breathtaking landscape of Veredia. “But relax. Both my dad and yours talked her off a ledge.”
“Thank the Ancestors!” I said with a shudder.
“That said, you are suspended without pay,” she added with a commiserating look.
I huffed and shrugged. “Money isn’t an issue. I’ll survive just fine. Worst case, I’ll try to convince a certain gray-skinned Veredian to become my sugar mama.”
She laughed and took the scenic route to her parents’ estate so that she could show me the beauties of the planet that had become the new Veredia after the death of her people’s original homeworld.
Very few people got the privilege of traipsing around any area other than the spaceport, military grounds, and official gathering and meeting areas for visiting diplomats and merchants.
The Veredians were still extremely protective of their privacy and territory.
After the fallout of the solar flare that killed all their males, the females spent three generations being hunted and enslaved.
From their unlikely rebirth, they had become one of the most powerful militaries in the known galaxy.
While I understood their reluctance to open themselves to other worlds, it pleased me that—as their population steadily grew with more and more males born each year—they also gradually lowered their walls.
Veredia was breathtaking. With their amazing psionic powers, they had built the type of architecture that most species wouldn’t even think of attempting due to the technical challenges it would entail.
But their kinetics—like Lenora—could reshape any inert object at will, allowing them to give buildings the most extraordinary architecture.
Specialized kinetics also joined the party, mainly the biokinetics who altered the plants to make them grow along some surfaces of the buildings so that they would blend almost seamlessly with their environment.
Obviously, some buildings had a more traditional architecture, but everything still had a unique flavor with a major focus on Environmental Protection and sustainability that made the entire planet feel like a giant garden.
It surprised me to learn that, upon leaving Xelix Prime to settle on the new Veredia, her parents decided to recreate an almost identical replica of their old home.
Granted, it had been a superb three-story mansion.
However, they extended it to include two additional bedrooms so that each of the four children could have their own, on top of two guest rooms, and a guest suite.
The latter possessed two bedrooms—one of which was normally used as an office—a living room, a full kitchen with a dining area, and two bathrooms. They had decided to build a literal separate apartment to better receive guests such as Aunt Mercy and Uncle Ravik with their children whenever they made the long journey from Braxia to the Western Quadrant.
Outside, they had built a revamped version of the massive natural pond swimming pool from their previous estate, including its connecting jacuzzi heated by thermal stones.
They had also planted a small ryspak orchard—although small was a relative term—to provide them with a daily fresh supply of the fruit that was central to the Xelixian diet.
Back on Xelix Prime, the General’s family had built their fortune producing the sweet fruit.
The orchard on his homeland continued to operate, managed by a local administrator on their behalf, sustaining the family’s wealth and prosperity.
However, they hadn’t rebuilt a military compound on their property.
Instead, they had erected a cozy little house a short distance from the main residence for their housekeeper and groundskeeper to live in.