Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
VENNOX
Quin landed sideways across my thighs, her hips angled so her flank was flush against my chest as if she belonged there. For a heartbeat, the world tilted, and I forgot how to breathe.
My arms tightened around her instinctively, holding her steady as the ship shuddered.
I should have released her. I didn't. She shifted, finding her balance, and turned back to her device like my entire body wasn't on fire.
Every point of contact burned, and her every breath sharpened the awareness riding beneath my scales.
I loosened my grip by degrees, forcing my hands into a touch that didn't look like claiming, even as every instinct within me screamed to do exactly that.
"Sorry," she murmured, eyes never lifting from the screen. "That tremor really rocked us."
I made a sound that wasn't quite a word. My tongue felt thick, my mind too scattered to form coherent speech. Having her weight against me was exquisite torture. With each inhale, her scent flooded my senses, shattering any remnant of calm.
"The tremors are subsiding," she said, the analyzer's glow washing her features in pale light. "The centipede creature is moving away."
I nodded, though she didn't notice. My hands hovered at her waist, fingertips grazing her hip. Neither claiming nor retreating.
"Good," I rasped.
She turned her head and peered up at me. "You okay?"
"Fine." I was anything but. My body burned with need, my mind clouded with desire so intense it bordered on pain. My ancillary heart hammered against my ribs, demanding I claim what was mine.
"Your scales are shifting color."
I glanced down. Silver-blue patterns rippled across my scales in waves of heat.
The sight only intensified my discomfort.
I couldn't control my body's reaction to her.
Not when every instinct screamed at me to pull her closer, to give her what my body was already demanding, to release my essence and bind it with hers in a way that would leave no doubt she belonged with me. "It's nothing," I lied.
She didn't believe me. I could see it in the slight narrowing of her eyes, the way her lips pressed together. But she didn't press further, turning back to her device instead.
The ship creaked around us, metal groaning as it settled into its new position. The massive creature had shifted our vessel several feet, tilting it on a slight angle.
"Everyone alright?" Vala called from across the ship.
A chorus of affirmatives answered him. I remained silent, too focused on the female in my lap to form words. Her hair brushed against my jaw as she shifted again, the dark strands carrying her scent, sweet and earthy that made my head swim.
Darkness crept across the alien landscape as the twin suns sank below the horizon, their combined light fading until shadows stretched long across the clearing.
The crystalline formations that had glittered with such brilliance now caught only the faintest starlight, their surfaces dull and lifeless.
Still, I did not move. Could not move. Not with Quin settled so comfortably against me, her body warm and trusting in my lap.
Her attention remained fixed on the analyzer, her brow furrowed in concentration as if the readings displayed there were more important than her position against my chest. Her fingers traced patterns across the screen, cataloging, analyzing, studying.
My ears swiveled and cupped, mapping the world outside in sound while my eyes stayed fixed on the female settled on my lap.
The subtle shift of soil as the creature moved deeper underground.
The distant call of something alive out in the dark hurs, a haunting melody that rose and fell, strange and sourceless, unlike anything I had heard on Valose.
The whisper of wind through the strange foliage on the ridge above our crash site.
Yet my focus kept returning to her. To the steady rhythm of her breathing. To the warmth of her body against mine. To the way her dark hair fell across her shoulders, catching what little light remained in the ship's interior.
The faint rumble of her hunger reached my ears.
Barely more than a whisper within her body, it might as well have been a shout in the dark.
Her need hit me harder than any threat I had experienced so far.
Every protective instinct I possessed tightened hard and immediate.
Protection surged, sharp and undeniable, startling in its intensity.
I had been taught by my sire what it meant to find a spirit mate. Nothing had prepared me for this. For the wild instinct to provide. To ensure she had what she needed before I even considered myself.
I rose to my feet in one fluid motion, lifting her with me as I stood. She gasped, her body tensing in surprise before her arms flew around my neck, clutching at me for balance.
"You might be injured, but you certainly haven't lost your strength," she said, her voice breathless against my ear, sending a heated shiver down my spine.
I held her for a moment longer than necessary, savoring the slight weight of her in my arms, the way her body fit against mine.
"I'll return with food," I said, carefully setting her on her feet. Her hands lingered at my shoulders for a heartbeat before dropping away.
“You heard that?” Quin's eyes widened as her feet touched the floor. A faint flush crept across her cheeks, though whether from surprise or something else, I could not tell.
“Loud and clear.” I wiggled my left ear at her.
Brief and unguarded, a throaty chuckle escaped her. “Nothing gets past you.”
Her smile hit me like the first heat of a suns-rise, and I was wholly unprepared for it. I had faced void weavers and Gorken guards and Uri's cruelty, and none of it had undone me the way that single unguarded smile did. My ancillary heart slammed against my ribs like it had somewhere urgent to be.
“I'm not going to turn down food,” she admitted shyly, smoothing a hand over the front of her loose shirt as if needing something to do.
Quin settled onto the floor with the bio-spectral analyzer balanced across her thigh, her pale eyes lifting to find mine with the quiet certainty of someone who had learned to read danger before it moved, and I understood then why my spirit's call had gone unanswered.
She saw through the warrior's bearing to the male still haunted by his cage.
I crossed to where Tyrk sat on the floor, bent over the broken console.
Its casing had split open, spilling the ship's innards of coiled lengths of tubing that glowed faintly where they had snapped apart, and small dense components scattered across the floor like cracked vertebrae.
The Nomadican's claw-tipped fingers moved with surprising dexterity as he worked through the tangle, his brow furrowed in concentration beneath his curved horns.
I crouched beside him. "My spirit mate is hungry," I said, the words feeling strange yet so right on my tongue. "Do you think the food replicator is operational?"
Tyrk's head whipped up, those slitted pupils widening with shock. "Spirit mate?" His hands stilled among the glowing tubing.
I nodded, unable to keep the pride from my voice. "The human female, Quin."
"Does she know what that means?" he asked, keeping his deep voice barely above a whisper.
Heat flushed across my scales. "Her spirit has not answered the call to mine.”
"Humans know nothing of Valosian ways. You will need to explain to her what it means," Tyrk replied, returning to his work with renewed focus.
"The galley took heavy damage. I'm working to reroute power to the replicator without leaving us in complete darkness.
Here." He gestured to a cluster of conduit.
"You can help me. Hold these steady while I splice the connection. "
I moved closer and followed his instructions, holding the delicate tubing in place, careful not to damage it further.
"Spirit mate," Tyrk repeated softly, as if tasting the words. "I've seen the shawras on the bonded couples on Valose. The sharing of essence is a most sacred exchange."
"It is," I confirmed, my voice dropping lower. "My sire spoke of it often, though he never found his own before the females perished."
"So your mother was not his fated mate?"
"No. But he didn't love her any less. Up until the suns-rise she went to the Spirits while birthing me; she was everything to him."
Tyrk's hands moved with practiced precision, splicing two hoses together with a tool that sparked briefly.
"Nomadicans don't know our mates at first," he said.
"Not the way you do." He flicked me a glance.
"We breathe her in. And something in us starts to answer.
Her scent stays with us longer than it should.
" A faint huff of amusement left him. "That's how it begins for us.
Not instant. Not certain. But it grows." His expression sobered.
"When it does, we court her. If she accepts us, she becomes ours. "
"I did not choose this," I confessed. "My spirit chose for me.”
"As a human, she may not have the same visceral reaction toward you as a Valosian female would," Tyrk warned.
"I will let her choose me," I stated, glancing at where Quin sat cross-legged in the spot I once occupied. "That is, if she finds me worthy of her."
"I pray to your Spirits that she does." Tyrk rose and clapped me on the shoulder. "Let's go see if the replicator is working. Otherwise, we will be eating dried rations."