Chapter 25
SEREYA
The return flight crossed the terminator while Dhomhes argued with a diplomat.
Sereya watched the refinery lights fall behind them. Ahead, the black curve of the world brightened. The jungle came into view in layers of green, and the great platforms caught the light above it.
For a moment she remembered the approach to Kantenan. Roemary talking beside her, her own hands folded, all her attention on behaving well enough to get through the next hour.
Dhomhes ended the call.
“Where did you go?”
“The last time I saw this view.”
His hand found hers between the seats.
“Would you like to tell me about it?”
She considered that.
“Later. Right now I'd rather look.”
He turned his hand beneath hers and laced their fingers together.
They watched the green rise toward them.
The volunteers were returning in small groups. Before she chose, Sereya had sat with Dhomhes and his lead while they went through the assessment. Roemary and the extraction crew were in custody; the contractor access they had used was closed. The bounties were still a threat.
Each residence had been searched, its service entrances brought under guard and its entry list checked against the people actually working there. Guests would keep escorts. Some preferred the refinery while they waited for passage off-world. Sereya had chosen to return.
Sereya had asked for a room near Dhomhes.
Saying it aloud had been harder than taking off his shirt the previous evening. She had begun with a practical explanation about security, heard herself, and stopped.
“I want to be near you,” she had said instead.
He had smiled without trying to hide it.
Now her bag stood inside a guest suite adjoining his residence floor. She had her own key, a door between the rooms that locked from either side, and a breakfast table visible through the open doorway.
Dhomhes set a bowl of fruit on it.
“I can have that door closed if you'd rather.”
Sereya put her bag down and crossed to him.
“Leave it open.”
After breakfast he took her to the gardens.
He wore a shirt that left his shoulders more room. Sereya noticed and looked at him until he caught her doing it.
“A precaution,” he said.
“An optimistic one.”
“I've had reason.”
She put her hand in his.
The leaves shifted overhead as the gardeners adjusted the shade screens. Water ran through a narrow channel beside the path. A pair of workers stopped talking when Dhomhes approached, then became intensely interested in a plant that appeared to require both of them.
“Does everyone know?” Sereya asked.
“I haven't made an announcement.”
“That wasn't my question.”
He looked toward the gardeners.
“Apparently.”
Tivek appeared at the fountain court with a training sling over his shoulder. He saw them and stopped so abruptly that gravel skittered over his boots.
“You're back.”
“Briefly,” Dhomhes said. “We were hoping to get through the gardens before being discovered.”
Tivek ignored him and looked at Sereya.
“Are you all right?”
“Sore. Much better.”
His gaze went to the dressing near her hairline. The grin disappeared.
“I would have come. Sheira said you needed rest.”
“She was right. But I'm glad to see you now.”
He nodded, relieved enough that she could watch him remember the other thing he'd meant to say.
“They accepted it.”
Dhomhes's hand tightened around hers.
“The attestation?”
“All of it. Father took the union record in himself. Havent's office withdrew the additional requirement.” Tivek straightened. “The rite goes ahead on the ordinary terms.”
“Good,” Dhomhes said.
“Father said if anyone tries to make it extraordinary again, I should send them to him.”
“Do.”
Tivek's eyes dropped to their joined hands. His grin returned, slowly and wickedly.
“Also, Kessin owes me a knife-belt.”
“I beg your pardon?” Dhomhes said.
“We disagreed about how long you'd take to admit the obvious.”
“You wagered on me?”
“It seemed irresponsible not to.”
Sereya laughed. Tivek beamed at her.
“I knew you'd understand.”
“I understand that you should collect before your brother changes the terms.”
“Excellent advice.” Tivek stepped backward. “I'm telling Sheira you're here. She wanted to know. And I'm telling Kessin to pay up.”
He turned and nearly collided with a gardener.
Dhomhes watched him go with such open affection that Sereya stopped laughing.
“You're proud of him.”
“Frequently against my judgment.”
“Tell him the first part sometimes.”
He looked down at her. “I will.”
He took her to the bench she knew.
She sat, but he remained standing for a moment, looking at the water beyond her shoulder. She had seen him speak to officials who disliked him, frightened workers, his own formidable father. She had never seen him quite this uncertain of how to begin.
She held out her hand.
“You can sit down for a briefing.”
He took it and sat beside her.
“The armor is a response,” he said. “To danger, or to arousal. Last night you saw the second one without quite so much clothing in the way.”
“I remember.”
He glanced at her smile and briefly lost his place.
She was going to enjoy that for years if he let her.
“That was how I recognized you. I couldn't choose who called it out of me. But I can wait until we're both ready to act on it.”
“Good.”
“When we mate, there may be knotting. You read about it in the program briefings?”
“The part about being unable to separate for a while was memorable.”
“We would wait for it to ease. No pulling away. I'll stay with you through it.”
“And the claim we made?”
“Still stands. I declared myself, and you accepted. We've been in Courtship since that afternoon by the pool. Sharing a bed doesn't begin my promise or finish the part where I learn you.”
“You're doing reasonably well already.”
“I intend to improve.”
She looked at their hands.
“Everyone says it's forever.”
“That's what I am offering.”
“And one mate. But your father—”
“Loved my mother. Lost her. Loves Sheira.” Dhomhes's voice grew firmer. “There are people who turn the promise into a rule for judging someone else's grief. You have seen what that costs my brother. I won't explain us by pretending my father's life didn't happen.”
She looked back at him.
“I am offering you my life as it is now, and my intention to share the rest of it with you. I can't promise we will never be frightened or angry or make mistakes. I can promise I want to stay and love you deeper than the mines.”
Her eyes began to sting.
“That sounds like something I could believe.”
He turned her hand and laid it against his chest.
“You keep your room and your protection whatever you say. The help with your identity, your family, your estate—none of that depends on whether we share a bed.”
“I know.”
He searched her face.
“Do you?”
“You showed me the notice. You stopped when I said I wasn't ready to send the request.” She moved her palm over his heart. “I'm still angry that you kept it from me. But I can tell you that, and you listen.”
He let out a breath.
She liked being able to do that for him.
“Sereya,” he said. “Are you ready?”
She caught his collar and drew him toward her.
“I chose you at this very bench. Yes, I'm ready. Do try to keep up, Gol-Vett.”
He laughed against her mouth.
Then he kissed her, and the next thing she knew she was half out of her seat, holding his shoulders while he stood and brought her with him.
“I had more prepared,” he murmured.
“Save it for tomorrow. You still have to court me.”
They reached his rooms without encountering Tivek. Sereya considered that a kindness from the universe.
The door closed behind them.
Dhomhes touched the fastening at her shoulder, then looked at her face. She nodded, and he began to undress her.
Slowly. He took care around the bruise from the wall, easing the cloth away rather than pulling. When the dress slipped to the floor, she stood before him in the filtered light and resisted the urge to fold her arms across herself.
He noticed. Of course he noticed.
“There you are,” he said softly.
He looked at her as though he had wanted this all day. All the days. She could see it in the darkening of his eyes, in the way his chest rose when she stepped out of the fallen dress.
“You're going to have to touch me eventually, Gol-Vett.”
“I'm memorizing.”
“You can do both.”
He smiled and drew her closer. His palm slid along her ribs, then cupped her breast. When his thumb brushed her nipple, she caught the front of his shirt.
“Like that?”
“You know perfectly well.”
“I enjoy hearing it.”
She tipped her head back when he kissed beneath her jaw. His hand moved down her belly, and her breath caught as he touched between her thighs.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Like that.”
He slid a finger inside her. She pressed her forehead against his chest, gripping his shirt while he moved slowly, giving her time to feel every deliberate stroke.
Then she pulled at the shirt.
“Off.”
He helped her, and she put both hands on his bare shoulders.
His armor was warm. She had known that already, but the feel of it under her palms still surprised her. She traced a ridge from his spine toward his upper arm. It rose beneath her touch, and he lowered his head against her throat.
“That,” he managed, “is a very direct communication channel.”
“Good.”
She did it again.
His hips pressed toward hers. She worked his trousers open and took him in her hand, learning again the weight of him, the heat. His fingers closed gently around her wrist.
“Bed,” he said. “Now. Before I embarrass myself standing up.”
She laughed, then gasped as he lifted her.
He laid her down carefully and finished undressing. For a moment she simply looked. His reddish bronze skin, the rising ridges along his shoulders, the dark hair between the narrow peaks of his horns. He was watching her watch him, and when her gaze lowered, his breath changed.
She reached for him.
He knelt between her thighs instead.
The first touch of his mouth startled a cry from her. She caught his hair, then loosened her grip because she didn't want to hurt him. He lifted his head just long enough to kiss the inside of her thigh.
“You can hold on.”
Then his mouth was on her again, and she did.
He was patient in a way that became almost unbearable. Each time she thought he would hurry, he slowed, drawing pleasure out until her thighs trembled and she could hear herself asking for more.
His hands supported her hips. A horn brushed her skin as he changed the angle, and she arched toward him.
“Dhomhes.”
He answered with his mouth.
She came with one hand tangled between his horns and the other fisted in the cover. He stayed with her through every shudder, easing his touch only when she began to pull away from the intensity.
When he looked up, his eyes were dark and his mouth was wet.
“There,” he said. “That's one.”
“You are going to be insufferable.”
“I've been told.”
He moved over her. She drew him down for a kiss, tasting herself on his mouth, and opened her legs around him.
He paused at the entrance to her body.
“Still yes?”
She stroked his cheek.
“Still yes.”
He entered slowly. The stretch made her catch her breath, and he stopped until she moved her hips toward him. She watched his face as he sank deeper, watched the effort it took to be careful with her.
When he was fully inside, they stayed still.
His shoulders trembled beneath her hands.
“All right?”
She nodded, then found her voice.
“Move. Please. Dhomhes. Move.”
He moved.
She had thought she understood wanting him after the window seat. This was different. The slow drag of him, the fullness when he came back into her, the way he watched her until she pulled his face down to hers because she needed his mouth too.
“Sereya.”
She heard her name against her ear and tightened her arms around him.
He knew the other name now. Knew the house, the roof, the years in hiding. And he still said this one as though it was a person he wanted, a person whose life mattered.
She wrapped her legs around him and moved to meet him.
His rhythm broke for a moment. He kissed her hard, then shifted her hips beneath his hands. The new angle drew a cry from her.
“There?”
“Yes.”
He stayed with it. She could feel the pleasure gathering again, stronger each time he moved. Her nails pressed into the warm armor at his shoulders. He groaned against her neck, and she came with his name breaking from her mouth.
He held her through it, his own movements growing less measured. She felt his control slip in the harder thrusts, the ragged breaths, the hand that tightened beneath her hip.
“Sereya.”
She kissed him as he drove deep and held.
Then she felt the swelling pressure where they joined.
Her breath caught. He lifted his head at once, eyes searching hers, and kept his body still while the knot formed and held them together.
“I'm here,” he said. “Stay with me.”
She nodded. It was so much sensation at once: the stretch, the heat, the steady pressure against the place he'd found inside her. His armor rose along his shoulders and arms, warm beneath her hands, and his forehead came down to hers as they both began to shake.
Pleasure took her again before she could find words for it. He shuddered with her, holding her close while she clung to him.
For a long time she could hear only their breathing.
Then his thumb moved over her cheek.
“My mate.”
She smiled before she could answer.
“Mine too.”
He kissed her, gently now.
“Keep courting me,” she reminded him when he lifted his head. “You promised.”
“Years of it. Decades.” His mouth brushed hers again. “You'll be sick of flowers.”
“I won't.”
Her voice caught, and she let it.
“I'm going to notice everything.”
They stayed joined while the knot slowly eased. He told her when it was safe to move, helped her find a more comfortable position, and kissed her whenever she looked at him for long enough.
She looked often.
The room dimmed as the household shade screens closed for rest. Beyond the window, the jungle continued its bright, noisy life.
Sereya lay with her head on Dhomhes's chest. His fingers moved slowly through her hair, avoiding the dressing without having to look.
“Tomorrow I have to go back to the search,” he said.
“Then let me help where I can.”
He watched her.
“I remember things about Roemary. People she spoke to. Places she asked about. Some of it might mean something to your investigators.”
“It might.”
“I want to give it to them because I choose to. I don't want to spend the rest of my life being afraid of being useful.”
His hand settled against her back.
“We'll arrange it.”
She laid her head down again, listening to his heart.
After a while she said, “And you'll still owe me the stars.”
His chest moved beneath her cheek with a quiet laugh.
“I haven't forgotten.”
She believed him.