Chapter 47 #2
“Excellent. Glad we have that settled. But you never answered my question.”
Scarlet frowned, looking away. He followed her eyes, waiting. When she didn’t reply, he started speaking again.
“It was brought to my attention that I may have already inadvertently insulted you and the other human females.”
“No,” she replied quickly, whipping her head back around to face him. “That’s not-”
He held up a hand, stopping her reply. “You can’t lie. Havali has already told me. You do not like how much emphasis I placed on your ability to mate and reproduce as a species. You felt that this reduced your value somewhat. May I ask why?”
“It’s nothing, Haviss. You didn’t mean it to be insulting or demeaning, and I’m coming to understand that no one else took it that way.”
“Ah, this is the same reaction you had just now to my smiling comment. Is this something else males on your planet do to patronize you?”
Scarlet opened her mouth, but a dozen answers and justifications and defenses battled on her tongue, it took a few seconds for one to successfully emerge. “The… It’s just a holdover from a different time. Something my foremothers had to fight against.”
“Why do you want to fight against your ability to reproduce? Why is it a bad thing?”
“It’s not. Not inherently. It’s only bad when that’s considered the only thing you can do. The only thing anyone will let you do. When you stop being a person and just become a thing that can make babies, it’s no longer a privilege, it’s a burden.”
“And with the pain you suffer bearing this burden, it becomes a trial. A torment.” His calming, raspy voice finished for her.
“I understand. And I apologize. I should have let you know the argument I was making sooner. You deserved some say in how your species was represented to the Coalition, not having me paint you in a specific way.”
“No, it’s fine.” She smiled at him. “We’re being accepted as a protectorate for that very thing, so I can’t really complain. We got what we wanted.”
“And the damage has already been done. Because this argument was presented, Earth will have no choice but to agree to this if they want to become a protectorate. How likely are your people to accept or reject it?”
Scarlet frowned, thinking it over for a moment before answering.
“Hard to say. Some might think that it’s too close to selling our people for gain and that kind of thing would be unacceptable.
And their thoughts probably cross with people who won’t want interspecies relationships to become a thing at all.
And there will be those. But then again, those at the top who have to weigh the cost of lives every day might see it as an acceptable price.
Especially since it will be voluntary only and, on the whole, Earth won’t be losing very much but gaining a great deal in return. ”
He made a sound that did not sound encouraging.
“What’s wrong?”
“It is just… when you phrase it like that, I understand why you did not want to present this argument. It does sound like we are trading the lives of humans for the advancement of the species. And we, as the Coalition, would gain the most if it turns out that humans truly are compatible with more than just the domini.”
“We’ll find out soon enough, I guess.”
“Do you plan on having many younglings with your male?”
Scarlet made a face. They were back to this.
He saw her expression and chuckled, the sibilant sound somehow creepy and charming at the same time. “You are so resistant to this conversation. Can I ask why?”
“I like my privacy,” she mumbled. It wasn’t exactly untrue. But it definitely wasn’t the reason. She could just tell him things were going well.
Except they weren’t going well. She was plagued with doubts, and she wanted to talk to him but there hadn’t been a good time yet.
He was so busy, taking on Atem’s duties as well as his own, and she had her hands full tracking Viktor’s growth and health.
She spent most of her day conversing with Donivi about the infant and comparing him to the daughter Holly carried.
They were trying to pinpoint the differences between the two and a normal domini newborn.
It was going to take time and a lot of investigation.
And since the two of them were so busy, they really hadn’t had the time to be together since before voting began. Even at the closing ceremonies, they had been mostly apart. She almost wished she had taken that night to talk to him instead of thinking by herself.
Only almost, though. She had needed that time to think.
Just like now, when they needed time to talk.
“Such a serious face you wear,” Haviss said softly, pulling her attention back to him. “Are you unhappy with your ‘casual’ relationship?”
Once again, Scarlet opened her mouth to answer, only to find different answers battling for the right to emerge.
Because no, of course she wasn’t unhappy. She loved Havali. So much so, the very thought of him not loving her back – or loving her to a dangerous degree – made her nauseated.
But also yes, she was unhappy. Because she didn’t want a casual relationship. She wanted him to claim her. To respond to Atem’s growls. To fight her, drag her back to his room so she could make a nest on his bed, and then fuck him on it so they knew she was his.
The desire was so strong, Scarlet might be afraid she was pregnant if she didn’t have a recent scan already proving that she wasn’t.
That wasn’t how a human would claim someone, but she was already so invested in mating a domini, she was craving his way of claiming.
The permanent way that would lock his mind and body to her forever.
Unless he was a creepy stalker that hadn’t yet broken free of his inhibitions.
“Scarlet.” Haviss put his hand on her hand, rubbing her hair gently. Patting her. The smooth scales of his palm caught on the strands but didn’t pull. “You listen to your elder, huh?”
“What?” She mumbled, focusing back on him.
“I’ve been alive for a long time. Been mated almost just as long.
I’m fortunate. I found my mate when we were still hatchlings.
My dam used to like to say that I crawled right from the nest and into her arms. And it’s a story I happily tell my hatchlings and grandhatchlings to this day. Though, it is not exactly true.
“In truth, it took me years to gather the courage to claim her. My people, we recognize our mates by their scent. But I knew hers all my life. It made it hard to realize what I was smelling. Even after I came into my hormones. It took me so long to convince myself that what I was smelling was real. But she knew immediately. Always smarter than me, she was. But she said nothing. Just patiently waited for me. And you know what?”
He actually waited for her to whisper, “What?”
Leaning in, he spoke like the words were a secret, “I regret it. Even after over a Standard century at her side, I regret the loss of those twelve and a half years I spent dithering like a fool.”
She awed at the adorable statement. “That’s so cute.”
He chuckled, relaxing back against the sofa. “My younglings love the story too. But there’s a lesson here.”
“About speaking up before twelve years pass?”
“Yes, and about speaking up when your male is being dense.”
Scarlet frowned, looking at her lap. “I can’t…”
“Why not? He is being dense. If he’s not claiming you, demand to know why. You are owed that, at the very least.”
“But humans aren’t like domini. We can’t tell our mates on sight. Or scent for that matter.”
“Then, how do you know?”
She shook her head. “We don’t. We just kind of have to figure it out.”
Haviss made a face. “That seems rather perilous. What if you don’t figure it out in time? What if you miss your mate entirely?”
She shrugged. “It happens. You just have to hope.”
“Then, perhaps this is a lesson that is doubly relevant to you. You are analogous to both my mate and me in my story. You must speak to your dense mate before he wastes too much time, and you must figure out your own mind before you do.”
“I… I already…”
He grinned, fangs shining in the light. “Then, what are you waiting for?”
“The proper time?”
“There is time now.”
“But he’s so busy.”
“No male is too busy to hear from his mate.”
“That’s a lie and you know it.”
“Maybe on Earth.” He made that same face that the guys made whenever human males were brought up. Part disgust, part disbelief.
Scarlet was starting to get really worried about the impression they were leaving. She didn’t want to turn the universe against fully half the human race. She especially didn’t want to bias them before they even met.
But she already knew from trying to defend human males before that anything she said would be taken the wrong way. She would just have to make sure they met good examples of human masculinity while the delegation was on her planet.
For now, she shook her head and focused back on topic. “But what if I’m wrong? I can’t sense my mate like you guys can. What if I’m just a loviri to him?”
“Has he made that distinction?”
“No. He hasn’t said anything about it.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “He would tell me if I was his mate, right?”
“Mine didn’t,” Haviss reminded her simply, making her heart stutter.
“She thought she was giving me space. She thought she was doing the right thing by letting me come to the realization naturally. But I wish she had confronted me. I wish she had given me that choice instead of just doing something on her own without consulting me.”
Scarlet once again found her mouth opening without making a sound, but this time, it was because she had no answer ready.
Because that made a lot of sense. Havali had already proven that he would make those decisions in their relationship.
She could all too easily imagine him telling himself that he wouldn’t claim her until he decided she was ready and not just telling her what he felt from the beginning and letting her come to terms with it and accept him in her own time.