Chapter 29
“I-” I resisted the urge to cower under the combined weight of their stares. The light hearted banter had vanished and Hope and Taz were eyeing me with equal levels of suspicion and sympathy.
“He claimed you,” Hope prompted. “Did he explain what that means?”
“Yes, kind of, I don’t know.” I stroked Sal’s bony little head, and he let out a happy honk that soothed my panic. “He said it means no other turoch will claim me, that I’m his mate.”
Taz gave Hope a sideways look. “Are you going to give her all the dirty details or should I?”
The blonde rolled her eyes and moved toward me, reaching out to touch Sal’s back. The baby percer eyed her for a moment before leaning into the attention.
“First of all, I want to make it very clear that you don’t have to do anything,” she said gently. “But the world is very different now and there are certain rules and expectations you should be aware of.”
“Like don’t lick it if you don’t plan on keeping it,” Taz said bluntly. My eyes bulged at the crass but very clear statement.
“I haven’t licked anything,” I rushed to say. The moment the words left my mouth I remembered the hot and heavy kiss I’d shared with Tovis last night and I blushed so hot my eyes watered.
“Mostly,” I corrected meekly.
Taz let out an inelegant snort. “We don’t need details, but we won’t pass on any juicy sex stories, either.”
“No sex,” I mumbled. “Just kissing and trying not to die.”
“Yeah, there’s a lot of that going around,” she shrugged.
Hope shook her head. “Ulto, the claiming? It’s like a proposal and protection all in one.
He declared you his mate, once that happens you’re like, halfway mated.
Any turoch will refer to you as his mate, they’ll treat you like his mate and no other male will approach you.
Even flirting with a claimed female is grounds for a duel, they take it very seriously. ”
“It's the ultimate disrespect,” Taz cut in. “A big no no. If they try and claim a female after dibs have been called, it can be considered a ‘to the death’ situation.”
“Okay,” I said, absorbing the weight of the information. “But Tovis barely knew me when he claimed me, what if he realized he didn’t like me after that?”
Taz shrugged. “Honestly? I don’t think any turoch would take it back, it's a matter of honor, ulto is a promise to protect a female, too. Taking it back would be like-” she rolled her eyes consideringly. “Like shoving someone outside and shutting the door when there are wolves around.”
“A dick move,” Hope translated. “It would be a sign of a dishonorable male. They’d probably get banished from the band.”
“But I can say no?” I didn’t really want to, I wasn’t sure what I wanted, but knowing what I was getting into was a good start.
“You can say no, you can ignore him. But if you really don’t want him you have to be one hundred percent about it.
The female side of things is all about how you receive the claim.
Penny said Adak claimed a female on Oska, she’d ignore him for a few days and then accept his gifts, and then treat him like shit and then sneak out to kiss him.
It was a huge mess and really traumatized him. ”
My head was spinning. I’d never travelled, I had no experience navigating a different culture and the turochs were actual aliens, you couldn’t get more foreign than that. Not to mention, I really liked Tovis. The last thing I wanted to do was traumatize him.
“But taking things slow is okay?”
“That’s the second half of mating,” Hope said.
Taz smirked. “The gentling.”
“The sex ritual?” I blurted out.
Both women stared at me and then burst out laughing. They laughed so hard I started to giggle, my embarrassment fading the more they struggled to breathe.
“It is a sex ritual!” Hope cackled, tears streaming down her face. “I never realized that.”
Taz was laughing so hard she had to lean on the trailer, and she scraped a hand over her forehead so forcefully it looked like she was trying to peel her skin off.
“Wow” she grinned. “That’s fucking great, I’m using that for the next welcoming committee I get roped into.”
I smiled, feeling a knot of tension in my chest dissolve as I took in their sparkling eyes and red faces. It had been so long since I'd been around humans I’d worried I didn’t know how to do this anymore.
“So, sex is the second half?” I asked
“Sex seals the deal,” Hope confirmed, sobering slightly as she met my eyes. “Don’t sleep with him unless you’re sure you’re in it for good. Turochs don’t do situationships, they don’t do casual, and they don’t do divorce.”
“They do fuck like gods though, so it's a good deal,” Taz chortled.
Hope pressed her lips together, fighting a smile. “They take female pleasure very seriously. The first time you have sex is like an omen of your future, the more you come, the better the relationship.”
“No divorce at all?” I questioned, feeling like that was a pretty short sighted and optimistic look at two people trying to spend a lifetime together.
“No divorce,” Taz confirmed, finally dropping her smile. “If he cheats, the other males would probably beat him to death, if he hits you, same thing. Aside from that? They expect you two to put your big girl and boy pants on and be a team.”
“Come hell or high water,” Hope agreed.
“Shit or get off the pot,” Taz declared.
Hope waved a hand at her friend. “Now you’re just saying things.” She turned back to me. “But seriously, don’t have sex with a turoch unless you’re fully fucking committed. If you’re not the monogamous sort just accept it and let him go. A broken mating would probably kill one of these guys.”
I looked between the two women. “That’s a lot of pressure.”
Taz shrugged. “It’s the end of the world, babe. Do you want to spend it with a guy who’s just there for the good times? Or a guy who’ll walk through hell to make sure you get fed? That kind of love comes at a cost.”
She had a point.
“Tovis is a great guy, one of the best,” Hope said, eyeing me. “I know it’s a lot and none of us pictured our futures like this, but he’s not a mistake if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“It just doesn’t feel real,” I admitted. “The world ends and an alien shows up, claims me and we ride off into the sunset? How’s that something I’m supposed to process?”
“You don't ride off into the sunset,” Taz said. “You fight every day, to survive, to take care of each other, to make it work. It’s hard and its scary and its heavy. But it’s great, too. If you want it, take it. Don’t get in your own way.”
I tried to picture a future with Tovis. Years down the road, a life with an alien mate. But it was hard to do when I couldn’t even picture a future without him. I’d had vague plans before everything. Eventually I’d find a guy, fall in love. Eventually, I’d have a family.
But those hazy fantasies had been blown to shreds when the world ended and now the future was just a blank yawning void in my mind. Maybe that was the problem, I’d been in survival mode and completely blocked out everything but the present.
But the future was coming, and if I didn’t make plans, make decisions, it would just happen to me. If I wanted a say in how my life went, I had to actually accept that the world hadn't ended, it just looked different now.
Maybe that faceless online profile I’d expected to become my husband was gone, the visions of a wedding and a honeymoon in Hawaii weren’t possible. But I could still have a life.
I just had to decide if this was the one I wanted.
As if summoned by my spiraling thoughts, Tovis charged out of nowhere and slid to a stop beside me.
“Amy’s water broke,” he announced, panting. “Where’s Kes?”