Chapter 30 #2
Myrum unwrapped the second scarf Amina had packed. He’d used it as a Ruby holder and secured her around his neck after they’d finished in the cleansing unit.
When he pulled Ruby free of his neck and the scarf, she jumped from his hand to the warming house before he fully extended his arm. It seemed she was as eager as Amina for her bed!
Tugging off his clothes, he joined Amina. She didn’t hesitate to snuggle up to him, pressing him onto his back so she could throw a leg over his thighs and drape her arm over his chest.
“This is better,” she murmured, her small, soft body relaxing against his.
“Yes,” he agreed, except he wasn’t sleepy. His body was exhausted, but his mind wouldn’t stop whirling.
Claws. Amina had claws. He was sure he’d seen them during the fight in the bay. But humans didn’t have claws, did they?
“You’re tense,” Amina said, going up on an elbow. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m picturing you with claws,” he blurted out. “But my mind must be making things up.”
Amina blinked, then a slow grin curved her lips. She lifted the arm on his chest and flexed. He watched Talin-like claws slide out from under her human-shaped fingernails.
He grabbed her hand with one of his and pulled it close to his face to examine them. They were real and organic. As far as he knew, there wasn’t any kind of tech that could do this.
“How?”
She chuckled and relaxed her hand, making the claws disappear.
“I’m not fully human,” she said.
“Your blue hair is the same shade as Desur’s fur,” he announced, feeling as if he’d figured out a deep mystery of the universe. “You have Ugarian in your ancestry!”
“I do,” she agreed. “That’s why my hair is this color, but that’s not why I have these.” she flexed again and ran her claws over his chest. “Ugarian’s don’t have these type of claws. Theirs are flatter and don’t extend out this much.”
He captured her hand again so he could take another look. “They look very similar to Talin claws,” he murmured, then jolted. “No, it can’t be. That’s impossible!”
“I assure you, it isn’t,” she said with another laugh. “I’ve got some Talin in my lineage."
“Who? When? How?”
Sitting up, she turned to face him. She crossed her legs and rested an elbow on one knee and propped her head on her palm. He sat up also, leaning against the bulkhead at the head of the bunk.
“I’ll take those in order,” she said with a grin. “Who was my great-great-grandparents, or maybe that’s four greats? I’m not sure. Anyway, she’s kinda famous in the family. Her name was Han and she was a bounty hunter and took an assignment to capture and turn in my great-great-grandfather.”
“She was a Talin?”
“Nope, she was human,” Amina said. “Mom and grandma always talked about her with a lot of respect. She was fast, smart, and tough. She collected bounties on all kinds of species. Anyway, she found Zeph, and they fell in love. Well, it wasn’t that simple because they ended up having to steal his sister’s kids from a cresh.
Then Han married Zeph so he could have Ilgorian citizenship. ”
He could tell where this story was going. “And then they adopted his sister’s family?”
“Yup, his sister, Sandar, and her husband, Rensom. But they didn’t stop there. They also adopted an Ugarian named Tumoro and another adultlette Talin named Malsum. Those two met a human named Layla, and all three of them ended up getting married. It was a sweet story I should tell you some time.”
“Was it Han and Zeph that founded TML Freight?"
She shook her head. “No, it was Tumoro and Malsum that started our company with one ship. Later, after they met and married Layla, the three of them expanded the company.”
“But where did the wealth come from? Even one ship is expensive.”
Her brows wrinkled. “There was something about Zeph stealing a ship or something. Han sold whatever it was and divided the proceeds equally between three parties: her and Zeph, Sandar and Rensom, and Tumoro and Malsum. Han and Zeph set up a Jinjoo rescue with their portion. Sandar and Rensom started a small research facility that studies the grasslands back home. The facility is amazing; they’ve figured out how to use the grass to make these wall decorations you see in almost every Ugarian home. Ineeko is a major exporter now.”
“That explains why so many members of your family work for TML Freight,” he said.
“And a lot of us work for the Jinjoo rescue, and there’s full tuition paid for anyone who wants to get a formal science degree.”
He focused on her hands again. “I’ve met human-Talin hybrids before, but they all had more than a single characteristic.”
“Like I said, I’m mostly human. One of Han and Zeph’s kids married a human with an Ugarian grandparent.
Then it was all humans from then on. My sister can purr, and my brother doesn't need much sleep. Genetics are fun because we all came out different.” She pointed at her head.
“A lot of other humans are super jealous of my hair.”
All these revelations made him feel foolish and very scared. “You knew. You knew all along.”
“Knew what?”
“What it meant to be with a Talin. The significance of rubbing my bonding oil on you,” he said.
She blinked and sat up. “What did you call it?”
Hope blossomed as he pointed to his cheek. “Bonding oil. Talins scent-bond with their partner, otherwise neither partner is fertile. Originally it was thought impossible to scent-bond with a human because you don’t have scent glands to produce oil, but now we know that it can happen.”
“Well obviously it’s possible; Han and Zeph did it,” she said with a laugh.
“You don’t understand," he said. “When a Talin is scent-bonded, they are addicted. If we’re separated from our partner for too long, we can die.”
“What?” Amina’s eyes went wide and her head fell off her hand. “You rub your oil over me all the time. Are you…uh…”
“Yes,” he said, answering her unfinished question. “I’m truly and completely addicted to you. I want nothing more than to spend the rest of my life with you, doing anything and everything that makes you happy.”
Amina blinked rapidly, as if trying to hold back tears. “All that talk about wanting to marry me, that was all real, wasn’t it?”
“Completely,” he said. “From the moment I met you on Polkor, I was infatuated. I’d never known a bright-haired human, undaunted by the smell or danger of a Hulg station.
Who wouldn’t want to know you better? When you were there to bring me back after I lost Ruby, I knew the ancestors had guided both of us to meet. ”
A memory from that time floated through his head. The prick of pain at his neck. Then he thought of the two Ossisos she’d managed to knock out by herself. He didn’t remember seeing any blood or gashes.
“How did you do it?” he asked, taking both her hands in his to examine them again.
“Huh?” she asked with a frown.
“How did you defeat two fully grown Ossisos? Even with claws, that would be a difficult feat,” he said.
Her expression smoothed out and she grinned. “Oh yeah, that’s my special little weapon.”
She flexed her right hand, and her claws extended, but the index finger claw didn’t match the rest.
“A few years ago, that claw got ripped out when I was using them to pry open a door. It’s a long story, but they were able to replace the claw with this nifty metal one.
The doctors back home were even able to give me a little reservoir of drugs in that claw so when I flex in a certain way, I can inject someone.
It’s fairly harmless in one dose. All that happens is you go to sleep and wake up with a headache and fuzzy memory. ”
She dropped her eyes and her amusement vanished. “Uh, but it’s not harmless if you use both doses at once. Then the person dies.”
That must’ve been how she killed the guard back on the outpost. He grabbed her and placed her on his lap.
“Good,” he grunted, holding her gently against his chest. “Death is what they deserved.”
“I know, but…”
“You know you’re the righteous one when the death of another bothers you, no matter if it was warranted," he murmured.
“You’re probably right,” she said. “But it’s going to take me a while to not be affected. Don’t let go, okay?”
“Never,” he agreed.