10. The Distress Call I Hoped Would Fail
THE DISTRESS CALL I HOPED WOULD FAIL
I'd been responding to his moods through scent for six minutes before I noticed I was doing it.
He was in the workshop, working on something that needed concentration – I could tell from the careful, focused note underneath his usual warmth.
I was in the main room, sorting through a pile of fabrics he'd brought home for me to use as extra bedding, and I'd been adjusting my movements to match his focus without realising.
Moving quietly. Keeping my presence small and unobtrusive. Giving him space to work.
I stopped mid-motion, a length of soft grey cloth in my hands.
When had I started doing that? Reading him through scent instead of looking at him, instead of asking? When had his emotional state become something I tracked automatically, like temperature or air pressure?
I set the fabric down and pressed my palms flat against my thighs.
This was the problem with settling into a rhythm. You stopped noticing where the rhythm came from.
I'd been here for – I counted – eleven days.
Eleven days of heat cycles and milking schedules and meals he prepared for me, sized for my hands.
Eleven days of sleeping in my nest, of waking with his scent already wrapped around me, of falling asleep to the sound of his hooves moving through the dwelling.
Last night, I'd dreamed in Khorreth. Broken fragments of his language, words I'd absorbed without meaning to, threaded through a dream I couldn't quite remember.
I'd woken with one of them still in my mouth – tevarra, which meant something like home-place or dwelling-heart, the untranslatable centre of a Khorreth living space.
I was learning his language in my sleep. I was reading his moods through his scent. I was settling into his life like water into a hollow in the ground.
And I kept catching myself not minding.
The communications terminal was in the room I'd first mistaken for a storage space.
I found it by accident, looking for something else – more of the soft fabric, I thought, or maybe just something to do that wasn't sitting in my nest and thinking about how comfortable I'd become.
The terminal was built into the wall at Khorreth height, but there was a small maintenance panel at the base that I could reach if I crouched.
I stared at it for a long time.
It was clearly a communications system. The interface was different from human technology, but the basic components were recognisable – input mechanisms, display screens, what looked like frequency selectors.
I'd spent nine years working with relay systems. I knew how to read infrastructure, even unfamiliar infrastructure.
This could send a signal.
The thought arrived fully formed, as if it had been waiting. A distress signal. A beacon. Something that would tell Earth – tell anyone – where I was.
My hands moved before I'd consciously decided. Old reflex, muscle memory from years of running maintenance checks and emergency protocols. I crouched by the panel, found the manual override, started working through the interface.
The system powered up with a low hum. The display flickered, showing coordinates I couldn't read, frequency ranges I didn't recognise. But there – a familiar notation system. Earth-standard wavelengths. Someone had programmed in the frequencies used by human vessels.
Of course they had. The Khorreth had been surveying Earth for rotations. They'd know how to contact human ships.
I started composing a signal. Distress beacon, standard format. My identification codes, my last known location, a request for assistance. My fingers moved automatically, following protocols I'd drilled hundreds of times.
Relay 11-Bravo operator Mara Vance, abducted from station, current location unknown, requesting immediate assistance –
"It won't reach."
I spun around.
Keth stood in the doorway, filling it completely, his horns brushing the frame. His tail was still – that absolute stillness I'd learned to read as careful control.
"The signal," he said. "Earth doesn't have the range to receive it. Your vessels don't travel this far. Your communications systems aren't built for these distances."
I looked at the terminal. At the signal I'd been composing. At my hands, still hovering over the controls.
"You're not stopping me," I said.
"No."
"You could. You could shut down the system, lock me out–"
"I could." He stepped into the room, moving slowly, giving me space. "But I won't. If you want to send a signal, send it. I won't take that from you."
"Even though it won't work."
"Even though it won't work."
I stared at the display. The coordinates I couldn't read, the frequencies Earth would never receive. All those familiar protocols, suddenly meaningless.
"Any Earth vessel approaching Khorreth territory would be destroyed before it reached the planet," he said quietly. "Not by me. By the perimeter defences. We are protective of our space. Your people don't have the technology to come here safely, even if they received your signal."
"So I'm not findable."
"No."
I'd known that. I'd known it for weeks – since the first day on his ship, since he told me we were past the point where return was possible. I'd known I would never go back to Earth, never return to my relay station, never see another human face.
But I hadn't felt it. Not really. Not until now, crouched in front of a communications terminal that might as well have been decoration, my distress signal fading into the void.
I couldn't be found. I couldn't be rescued. Even if I wanted to go back – even if I wanted my old life, my cold quarters and recycled air and the endless solitary shifts – there was no path home.
There never had been.
I pressed my palms flat against my thighs and tried to breathe.
I cried.
Not the graceful tears of someone overcome by emotion. The ugly kind – gasping, choking sobs that came from somewhere deep in my chest and refused to stop. I sat on the floor of the storage room with my back against the wall and my knees pulled up to my chest and I cried until my ribs ached.
The worst part was understanding why.
I wasn't crying because I was more trapped than I'd thought. I'd always known how trapped I was. The maths hadn't changed – I was still the same distance from Earth, still the same distance from rescue, still the same distance from anything that looked like my old life.
I was crying because I'd been composing that signal and part of me – a small, quiet, treacherous part – had hoped it wouldn't work.
Because if it worked, I would have to decide. I would have to choose between this life and that one, between Keth and everything I'd left behind. And I wasn't sure anymore which choice I would make.
That was the part that frightened me. That was the part that made the sobs come harder.
I wasn't sure I wanted to be found.
I'd been settling in. I'd been comfortable. Comfortable in my nest, comfortable with his hands on my body, comfortable being tended and provided for and kept. I'd been dreaming in his language and reading his moods through his scent and building a life here without ever consciously deciding to.
And now I was crying on the floor of a storage room because the choice had been taken from me before I'd realised I might have made it willingly.
The door creaked.
Keth crouched beside me. He didn't touch – just settled his bulk down, bringing himself to my level, his dark eyes steady on my face.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"For what?" The words came out ragged. "You didn't trap me here. The universe did that. Physics did that. You just – took advantage."
"I took advantage." He didn't flinch from it. "Yes. I took you from your life and brought you to mine. The reasons matter less than the action. You are here because I put you here."
"I know." I wiped my face with the back of my hand. "I know that. I'm not… I'm not crying because of you."
"Then why?"
I laughed. It sounded terrible.
"Because I think I might have chosen this anyway. Eventually. If you'd given me time. If you'd asked instead of taken." Another sob broke free. "And I've no idea how to live with that."
His scent shifted. Warmed. Underneath the concern, something else bloomed – comfort, I thought. Reassurance. His body producing pheromones meant to soothe mine.
Part of me wanted to resent it – the biological manipulation, the chemistry I couldn't control. But I was so tired, and I'd been crying so hard, and the warmth of his scent was settling over me, unasked-for but desperately needed.
"You can grieve what you lost," he said quietly. "I won't rush you."
I looked at him. At those dark eyes, patient and steady. At the careful distance he kept, close enough to be present but not so close as to crowd.
"I don't know what I lost," I said. "That's the problem. I thought I had a life, but – did I? I was alone. I was always cold. I was always hungry. I was running on fumes and stubbornness and the conviction that needing anyone was weakness."
"That sounds like loss."
"It was survival." My voice cracked. "It was all I had, and it was mine, and I was… I was good at it. I knew who I was. Now I don't know anything."
He reached out. His hand hovered near my shoulder, asking.
I nodded.
His arm wrapped around me, pulling me against his chest. The fur was soft against my cheek, warm and dense, and underneath it his heartbeat was slow and steady. His scent enveloped me completely – that comfort-note, rich and deep, smoothing out the ragged edges of my crying.
I should have fought it. Should have pulled away, insisted on feeling the grief without chemical assistance.
I didn't.
I pressed my face into his fur and let the pheromones do their work and stopped fighting for the first time in years.
"I don't know who I am here," I said, muffled against his chest.
"You will." His hand stroked down my back, warm and gentle. "There is time. There is no rush."
"What if I never figure it out?"
"Then you will be figuring it out. That is enough." His tail wrapped around my hip, anchoring me against him. "For now, you are safe. You are warm. You are held. The rest can wait."
I closed my eyes.
The crying had worn me out. My body was heavy, exhausted, wrung out from the emotion. His heartbeat was steady under my ear, his breath warm against my hair, his scent settled over me, steady and close.
I fell asleep against his chest.
It wasn't peace, exactly. Not yet. But it wasn't fighting either. Somewhere between the two – a pause. A rest.
And when I woke later, still cradled in his arms, the grief was still there but quieter. Easier to carry.
The terminal was still there too, waiting for signals it would never send.
But I didn't look at it again.