Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 68478 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68478 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
“Mating with someone is nothing,” Her tail flicks on the blankets, and I wonder if she’s growing frustrated with me. “People take pleasure-mates all the time. It is like…scratching an itch. But you only resonate to your true mate.” Her fingers touch my chin again, as if she is trying to force me to concentrate. “Like I said, the khui chooses. It selects the male and the female that will be best together so it can bring about the strongest kits.”
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Everything inside me screeches to a halt. I swallow hard. “Kits?”
“Yes. The khui chooses the perfect person to father my young. It always chooses, and it chooses well.” I can practically hear her smiling in the dark. All the while, her chest is doing that thrumming, purring thing. “I have waited for resonance, because I have waited for my mate. I have had offers to share my furs, but it has never interested me…until now.”
Because she wants to make babies? Somehow, I don’t think that’s it. She really believes that if she purrs to me that we’re somehow destined to be together and I’m going to make her pregnant? That’s the craziest thing. I don’t know what to make of it.
I also don’t know what to make of the jealous surge that rises in me at the thought of her getting all kinds of offers to ‘share her furs.’ I shouldn’t be this possessive of her, this fast. Maybe she’s right about the ‘resonance’ thing, but I’m not sure I’m grasping all of it. “But I’m not resonating, Farli.”
“Not yet.” She pats my chest as if to soothe me. “You do not have a khui yet.”
Her parasite? “I don’t think I want one.”
“But…you have to.” A note of panic enters her voice. “You cannot live if you do not have a khui. Those without one will sicken and die. You cannot stay here with me without one.”
I remain silent. Stay…here?
On this iceball of a planet? The familiar terror lodges in my chest.
Left behind.
It won’t happen. Ever. I pat Farli’s shoulder awkwardly in the dark, not wanting to tell her my thoughts. I don’t want to hurt her feelings. “You should get some sleep.”
She doesn’t fall for it. Her arms go around my neck and she presses quick, frantic kisses to my face, as if terrified. “Mardok,” she breathes. “Tell me you will stay here with me. Please. I just found you. I cannot bear to have you leave me.”
I stroke her back, and lust rises inside me again. She’s naked and pressing herself against me, I tell myself. Any man would feel hunger in this situation. But it feels different with Farli. In the past, when I was freshly discharged from the military, I’d get approached by women in spaceport bars looking for a quick, rough hookup. Some of them were far more forward than Farli is, and yet I felt…nothing for them.
I’m afraid I’m feeling too much for Farli.
At the same time, I can’t imagine living in this frigid, desolate place. Being stranded here, forever. I close my eyes, pushing past the memories that threaten to rise. “I haven’t seen much of your planet,” I hedge. “You could come with me.”
“No, I cannot. You cannot remove a khui once it has become part of you. The humans say that there is no leaving once you are here.”
That sounds like even more of a death sentence. “We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
I expect her to protest again, but she only presses another kiss to my mouth. “Yes, in the morning I will show you my world. You will love it.”
Somehow I doubt that. But I hold her close and stroke her as she settles in to sleep. I tell myself that a planet with someone like Farli on it can’t be that bad…but then I keep thinking of the bitter blast of the wind striking my face the moment I opened the door. The desolate, white landscape that seemed to be nothing but shrubs and rocks and snow.
A planet I can never leave again. And I’ve been restless ever since I left the military. Traveling to new worlds and systems sometimes quiets my head. Sometimes. With a job as a mechanic on a long-haul space-freighter, I’ve seen a lot of places. Nothing has felt even close to home…not even the ship I’m on now. Sometimes I don’t feel as if I have a place anywhere.
One thing’s for sure, though—if I had to pick a new homeworld, this sure as shit wouldn’t be it.
Farli snuggles closer to me, tucking her head against my neck and sighing happily. And I feel like an ass for my dark thoughts.
“You need to get this thing out of my med bay,” Niri says, her voice pleasant despite her words. “It shit all over the floor twice this morning.” She’s speaking our native language so Farli can’t understand her, pretending to be busy on her med pad. “Not sure why you tried to save it anyhow. Do you know how much I spent on clinic supplies for this thing overnight?”