Chapter 9 #2
Following the wall in the dark with my hands, I located the first door we’d entered through.
It was still open a crack and I tried my best to shove it closed.
No matter how hard I pushed, it wouldn’t budge.
My booted feet slid across the smooth rock floor, my arms burned and then I nearly wrenched my shoulder from the effort.
Changing tactics, I dropped to my knees near the bottom and risked my fingers to check along the narrow crack.
There! A rock had ended up wedged in the opening and I needed both hands to pull it free.
Tumbling ass-over-teakettle with the rock in my hands, I landed awkwardly on my hip and the sheath of arrows belted there.
At the same time, light flickered to life from the crystal above my head.
A bright, blue-white glow that was very similar to the fluorescent type of lights any cheap office building on Earth was kitted out with.
I pushed myself up to a sitting position just in time to see the door I’d struggled with gently thud into its lock.
I wasn’t sure, but I thought I heard tumblers click and slide in place inside the vault-like door.
Had it locked up tight? Blocking the way back?
Did it work? Maybe it had to run through some kind of scanning or decontamination cycle now…
The light flickered a few times and I scrambled to my feet and faced the door that separated me from Iave.
Biting into my bottom lip I anxiously contemplated the closed hatch.
There was a little access pad next to the door, the sliver of a screen above it unlit.
I rushed for it as I ran through my options in my head.
Did I try to find the right code somehow?
Or should I just immediately go nuclear and bash the thing?
How much air did I have now that both doors were completely shut?
I was saved from making a choice when the thick airlock door started to open with a bad groaning noise.
No, that wasn’t the door groaning, it was Iave that made that deep, primal sound.
He was calling out my name as he pried the vault-like door open with sheer strength.
I waited only long enough for the crack to widen to a semi-acceptable distance, enough for me to slide through if I really squeezed.
Then I was through the door, my chest and hip aching from scraping along the metal door frame and thick door.
Those aches meant nothing to me at that moment.
I threw myself in Iave’s arms as relief flooded me at being back at his side.
It was a shock to realize just how happy I was to be back with him, where it felt a little too much like I belonged.
For a chick with only temporary families that was one hell of a drug.
The meaning of the words he was saying to me took a while to penetrate my mind.
Especially because he was extremely distracting with his own response to having me back.
He was frantically checking me over, touching me everywhere he could with his large hands and his agile tail.
Nobody had ever been this concerned for my well-being before.
Then the word ‘mate’ filtered through and I froze. Did he really say that or had I heard it wrong? I knew that word had a loaded meaning for many alien species. Even the Dragnell used that word to indicate their spouse, and they were part of the UAR and had been close allies to Earth for centuries.
There was a strange look on his face when I asked him and in the strong artificial light here it looked like he started to blush.
The dark blue scales along his cheekbones were turning so dark that they appeared almost black.
On top of that, I was pretty certain that the look in his eyes could only be interpreted as guilty.
My mind flashed back to that incident in the Shaman’s medical bay.
“She’s mine” he’d yelled with such fierceness.
Another detail that had been niggling at my mind jumped out too, finally coming into focus so that I could pull it apart.
Each time Iave and I touched savage stripes and swirls lit up along his front with a soft kind of glow.
On his dark midnight scales the glow was only faint, not enough to see by, but very visible up close.
It reminded me a bit of the glow of a black light.
During that possessive incident in Artek’s medical bay, I’d touched the pale scales of the Shaman’s body with both hands.
I’d definitely made full contact with his exposed chest and I was certain that no lights had lit up along his body.
I had assumed that glow was just a normal thing his species did to help facilitate communications.
A side effect all of his kind had when using this ability.
Now I realized that was a thing specific to him and me, not to his entire species.
We could communicate through touch only because his biology had decided that I was a good mate, that we were meant to be.
It messed with my head, that knowledge. How could I know that he wanted to be with me for me, not because his glowing marks said so?
How could I know if any of the passion brewing between us was real?