Three Months Later… #5
He forced himself to breathe through his nose—as Aelior had taught him. He pushed his thoughts away from where she was at that moment. She was strong. A general. Once a morazir. She was alive, even if imprisoned. She had to be.
After a moment, once he was sure it was nothing but a falling star or his imagination, Airik settled. He wiped his brow, stepping back from the window.
“They’re waiting—the mythical warriors are in the myth,” he continued. “Beasts, gods, and humans clash.” He paused, shifting the weight of his sword so it didn’t pull so heavily at his hip. “I don’t know who these humans think is coming for them…but for us—you and me—I think someone will be.”
Airik returned home and quietly shut the door.
One by one, he secured each of the five locks he had installed—two of which required the Veynari common tongue to activate.
He had loved teaching Nora the command—ahqulv—so she wouldn’t have to wait for him if training the soldiers ran late.
A common occurrence because humans were weak and could barely manage the triggers on the plasma guns he had been firing since he was a child.
The same type of gun that Nora had fired in a bid to save him.
He had gently corrected her by kissing her neck until she articulated the gh sound, but deeper in her throat.
Once the lock had finally accepted her voice, he’d kissed her more and told her that she was his good girl.
A praise he’d learned would unfailingly lead to her lips around his cock, licking and sucking until he was sure he’d seen the face of gods—human, Voraki, and whoever else.
Though tired, he prepared for the next morning so he could have more time in bed with her.
He poured water into a glass flask, which would heat on a timer to make coffee, the bitter black drink Nora had given him on the striker.
He liked this drink. It reminded him of the first moments he’d realized he was going to be Nora’s and she would be his.
He’d fallen in love with her so much sooner than she thought.
He cut up fruit—rehydrated raspberries that cost a small fortune but were Nora’s favorite. One of his new favorites, too—they tasted remarkably similar to iilas fruit. He mixed them with vanilla yogurt for their morning meal and set out two bowls, two spoons, and two mugs for the next day.
One more thing left to do.
Airik went to the shelf beside their window in the living space.
It wasn’t too cluttered, with only a few items—the forsaken Valhalla manual, a plasma gun in case Nora needed it and he couldn’t reach her, the remains of Nora’s braid that Airik refused to let her throw away, a cat statue Nora had bought in the small shop that carried a variety of useless things, and a new collar for Lucky, whenever he’d be ready to come home to them.
At the very end of the shelf, angled to face the Martian landscape, was a picture of a little boy. His yellow hair was curly and messy. He had a charming, crooked smile—the same as Nora’s.
Nora had found his picture in old messages on the exo-net.
She had gripped Airik’s hand tightly as she’d tapped the small icon, which enlarged to reveal Theo for the first time in years.
Large hands—Nora’s father, though the rest of him wasn’t in the photo—held him up against a blue sky filled with fluffy clouds.
Theo smiled widely, his small, square, white teeth unevenly spaced but no less precious.
Airik gently touched the rori flower in front of the frame and said the same thing he told the boy every night: “Thank you.” Grateful with his entire being and soul that when Nora had almost been lost, Theo and her father hadn’t gone to her in that moment of eternity he knew she had seen.
Because if either of them had—and Airik knew they would have wanted to, judging by how she described Theo chasing her in life—she might have never come back to Airik.
She would have stayed in that forever, another person he loved, leaving him behind.
“Thank you for letting me keep her for a little while longer,” he whispered, pushing the dried rori flower—somehow one had found its way in his bag on Ed’un—closer to the frame. “I took care of her well today for you. Tomorrow will be better.”
Nora had already fallen asleep, still lying on her side the way he had left her.
His beautiful human slept more deeply now, her body fighting daily to grow stronger.
He kicked off his boots, neatening hers and then his own next to them, then slipped under the sheets beside her.
In the quiet of this room, listening to her breath, there could not have existed more peace.
Letting out a long sigh, he combed through her hair, which was still too short to braid, but feeling the curls wrap around his fingers was the single greatest pleasure of his life.
His entire world. His beloved. His cheranna.
Nora said that he had saved her life.
But she didn’t know that it was she, with her kindness and bravery and softness, who had broken his rage and had saved him.