It was one of these battles that had made them realize the desperate need to get outside of their compound and explore. In that battle, the final and brutal clash with their long-time enemies the KIimnu, they discovered that there was an entire realm right beneath their feet, a mirror of the land that existed above it, that had been home to a species that they had never even known was there. The idea that a species of creatures had lived right under their compound as long as they had been there without any of the Denynso, not even the king, even knowing that they were there was terrifying, and they realized that they would never be able to protect themselves or their families properly if they didn't know what was going on on the rest of the planet.
Now the warriors along with Ty, the nurturer and baker of the tribe, and Ciyrs, the healer, would be leaving the next morning on a quest that would take them into the furthest unknown regions of the planet so that they may make contact with other creatures and find out what else grew and existed on their planet. It was a frightening prospect, one that could be extremely beneficial to the Denynso and the humans that had come to live with them, or one that could put their entire clan, compound, and existence in danger.
Ty watched Samira draw a small paper-wrapped package out from under the counter and place it in front of her. His heart squeezed even harder as he looked at her, her shoulders trembling as she couldn't hold back the tears any longer. He knew that his mate, this beautiful human woman that had been the biggest surprise in his life and the greatest thing that ever happened to him when she appeared just weeks before, was worried about him and his safety as he embarked on this journey. If he gave himself the time to really think about it, he would probably be worried about it, too.
He needed to do this, though. It was only recently, and through the support and love that Samira poured out to him from the moment that she met him was the reason he had been able to fully embrace who he was and the power that he had within him. His entire life the large, imposing Denynso man had focused entirely on taking care of the clan. He was the one who made sure that they had the food that they needed and that they recovered after battles. He was not a warrior. He had not been born to be one. A treasured, unique power he had inherited from his father and that he had hidden deep within him from the time he was a child, had proven that he was more than just a nurturer. Through uncovering and embracing that power he was able to step into the role of a warrior and join the ranks of the others as they marched into the final showdown with the Klimnu. It was his ability to move and control objects with his thoughts that had enabled him to be a powerful and unexpected force against the slimy, disgusting creatures that had been the bane of the existence of his kind for generations.
Now he needed to offer that same support and help to the warriors as they went out into the world to try to understand it better, and find more ways that they could not only improve the life they had, but to also protect themselves into the future. Samira had completely changed everything for him, and he was unwilling to let her be in danger if there was anything he could do to change it. They already planned on going back to Earth after the quest to marry the way that humans did, further solidifying the bond that had connected them as lifelong mates within the Denynso tribe. He couldn't in good conscious let himself do that if he didn't know that he could bring his wife and the potential future mother of his children back to a place that was safe.
"What's that?" he asked softly, trying to calm her with his voice.
"I made it for you," she said, sliding the package closer to him, "I've been working on it since right after we bonded. I just finished it last night."
Ty released the twine she had tied into a bow on the top of the package and unwrapped the thick brown paper. Inside was a complex-looking box comprised of gears and metal components. A small dip in the top caught his attention. He ran his finger across it and looked up at Samira.
"What is it?" he asked.
Samira smiled now, the expression a welcome break from the tears that streamed down her face and made her large eyes look deep and sad. She reached into her pocket and withdrew something, clutching it tightly in her hand. Taking a deep breath, she turned her hand over and opened her palm, holding it out toward him. Nestled in the middle of her palm was a gold ring, the metal antiqued and the design complex and beautiful. A series of prongs in the center held a dark red gem.
"I know that you probably don't know this because there's no reason that you should, but on Earth when people get engaged the girl usually wears a ring. It is just part of the whole ritual. Then both of them wear bands when they actually get married. Well, this was my great-grandmother's engagement ring and it was passed down through the family to me. I thought that since we are doing things a little differently than other human women are, that maybe I could give you an engagement ring instead."
Feeling tears starting to prick painfully in his own eyes, Ty took the ring from her palm and looked at it closely. Even though Samira was taller and larger than all of the other human women except for Zuri, the ring was still too small even to fit on Ty's pinky. She giggled when he tried to push it down toward the first knuckle of his pinky.
"No. It's not for you to wear," she said, "Let me show you."
She took the ring from him and nestled it down into the dip on the top of the metal box she had given him. As soon as it settled into place, the gears started to turn and Ty heard her voice coming through to him, telling him that she loved him and missed him and couldn't wait to have him home.
"This is incredible," he said when her voice stopped.
He was in such awe of her. He knew that Samira was incredibly brilliant and that it was the reason she had come to Uoria in the first place, as a way to expand her knowledge and to help the Denynso healer Ciyrs create healing ointments for the warriors, but it still stunned him. She was so young, and yet her beautiful, graceful hands were able to create something like this.
"If you push the button on the bottom, there are a few more of the voice discs that you can play. Just take out the ring, twist this top panel counter clockwise until it releases, lift it up, remove the disc that is in there, put in a different one, twist the panel back into place, and then put the ring back in and it will play just like that."
"Oh, just like that, huh?" Ty asked.
Samira laughed and looked down shyly. She often forgot how smart she was and that other people weren't able to understand the things that she did with almost no effort.
"If I were you, I'd listen to those discs by yourself the first time. There are a couple of them that may not be… appropriate for the other warriors to hear."
"Oh, really?" Ty said, lowering the box back onto the surface of the counter and walking around to Samira.
He slipped his arms around her waist and started guiding her backwards toward the door to their house, taking off his bag and putting it on the counter as they went.
Chapter Two
"The way I see it, this trip can't be any more difficult than going all the way to Earth to find you and getting into it with Samira's stepfather," Ero said, cuddling closer to Zuri.
"At least when you went to Earth, you knew what you were getting yourself into," she said, wrapping an arm around his waist and tugging him closer.
"No, I didn't," Ero protested, "I didn't know anything about Earth other than that you were there. None of us had ever been there. In fact, none of us had ever been in a spaceship. I was so worried about not ever seeing you again that it didn't really matter to me that I was going to a completely different planet that I didn't know what it looked like or how I would make my way around. I hadn’t met too many humans in my life, and most of the ones that I had were not exactly pleasant."
"Were you scared?"
Ero thought about the question carefully. He didn't really know how to answer. He was being totally honest when he said that it didn't matter to him when he climbed on that ship that he was going all the way to Earth to find her, but when he thought back on it he knew
that it wasn't so much that it didn't frighten him, but that it didn't matter to him that he was frightened. It had been his fault that Zuri had left Uoria only twenty-four hours after she had arrived with the intention of being the first professor to come to the planet to be a part of the exchange program the king, Creia, had planned with the university on Earth. He had hurt her so badly with a comment that he made about her to the other warriors that she had left, even after they had bonded for the first time. It was his responsibility to go after her and convince her that he loved her and needed her to come back to Uoria with him to be his mate. It still seemed like an unimaginable gift that she actually had.
"I know that you don’t want me to go, but isn't this exactly what you wanted to do when you came here?" he asked.
Zuri gave a huff as if he had put voice to something that she had been trying to avoid.
"I don't think that's really applicable."
Ero laughed.
"Really?" he said, tickling her playfully, "You don't think it's the same thing that you wanted to know everything you could about the Denynso and to teach us about humans so you came to be a part of the exchange program? Actually, you know what? You're right. It's not the same. You came all the way from another planet to find out more about Uoria and the Denynso. I'm just leaving the compound."
"It's not the same thing. There have been scientists coming to Uoria to study for years. I at least had some kind of idea of what I was getting myself into when I came here. I knew I was coming to a specific compound to interact with a certain species. I definitely didn't have all of the information or know exactly what the Denynso were like, but at least I had a few reference points. You have absolutely no clue what you are walking into. You are literally just going out and wandering around on a planet that not a single member of your kind has ever walked around on, essentially just hoping that whatever you find is not going to kill you. I’m sorry if I don't find that terribly comforting."
Ero lifted up on his elbow and gazed down into Zuri's face. Her thick blond hair rippled around her lovely, round face, still flushed, and her bare shoulders. Large blue eyes gazed up at him and he had to take a moment just to look at her. His mate was truly the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and part of him still couldn't believe that she was really his.
"This is something that I have to do, my love."
"But why?"
"Well, not only is it my responsibility and my duty as a warrior of the Denynso, but I have been thinking a lot about the future and what it might hold for us. I don't want to get to that point knowing that I didn't do absolutely everything that I could to make sure that our future is safe and happy as possible."
"What point?" Zuri asked.
Her voice had become soft and when he looked into her eyes he knew that she knew what he was thinking about, but needed to hear him say it. Ero rested his hand on Zuri's stomach and rubbed it gently, looking down to watch his palm follow the curves of her belly and the swell of her hipbones.
"When we will have a little one of our own. Seeing Pyra and Eden get ready for their baby has made me think about how wonderful it would be to see you carrying our child, and to get to be a father. I didn’t have a chance to have a good relationship with my father growing up to really make any memories with him, and I know that I want to be able to do that for someone."
Even though his parents had died when Ero was very young, talking about them and the relationship with them that he had missed out on throughout his life brought the same deep sadness that it always had. He had always been the orphan of the Denynso, but also the smallest among the warriors. These factors had combined to give him a bitter, angry attitude and a propensity for distrust and violence as he got older. The other warriors had never missed the opportunity to tease and bully him about his size, and it was this bullying that had pushed him to the cruel comments he had made about Zuri. It had been the horrible moment when he realized what he did to her that it finally occurred to him truly how deeply the teasing had impacted him. When he saw the painful look in her eyes he saw all of the hurt that he had experienced and knew that he had just done the exact same thing to her that the warriors had done to him all those years.
Zuri let out a long breath and rested her hand over Ero's on her stomach.
"I've been thinking about that, too," she admitted.
Ero grinned and rolled over onto her, capturing her mouth with his and exploring her with his tongue. He pressed into her, hoping that he would be able to memorize the feeling of every inch of her body beneath him when he was away and lonely for her.
"Let's get started now," he growled into her ear and Zuri laughed.
Ero felt her hands pushing on his shoulders and he complied with the pressure, letting her ease her back onto his side on the bed.
"Hold on there," she said, rolling out from under the blankets, "Let me give you this first."
Ero groaned in protest as she got out of bed, but let himself enjoy watching her naked form wiggling its way across the room to the desk against the wall. He let out a grunt of appreciation when she bent over to look in the drawer and Zuri glanced over her shoulder at him. She smiled before straightening and making her way back over to the bed so that she could hand him what looked like a large book.
"What's this?"
"It's a field journal. I brought it with me from the university and I want you to bring it with you on your trip. I planned on recording all of my observations about the Denynso in it so that I could present them to the university board when I went back. "
"We're just like big giant specimens to you, aren't we?" Ero teased.
"Yes. You're my favorite, though."
Zuri leaned over and kissed him. Ero tossed the journal over to the bedside table. He was happy that he would have it with him when he left the compound and needed to feel her with him, but in that moment she was there, close enough for him to touch and kiss, and he was going to take absolute advantage of it.
Chapter Three
Eden ran her hand down the back of Pyra's head, stroking the long white hair that he usually wore in the customary Mohawk of the Denynso men but was now laying soft. His breath tickled on her bare skin as he whispered to her belly, but it was so sweet that she didn't want to giggle and stop him before he was finished. He was explaining to their baby why he had to leave and that he was going to get back as soon as he could.
"I just want you to be safe," he whispered, running his hand along the side of her belly as he spoke, "and that means I have to go out there and find out if there are any scary things that I will have to fight off for you. I don't want you to worry about me. You just stay in there and concentrate on getting all big and strong. I'll be just fine and when you're ready, you'll come out and we'll run and play and I'll teach you how to climb a tree."
Eden laughed then and her enormous mate looked up at her.
"What?"
"I don't think that climbing a tree is something that will happen directly after birth." She stopped, realizing that there were still many things that no one knew about her pregnancy or the baby that she was carrying, "Right? I mean, this will be a baby, right? Like a small baby. Not a toddler that will be able to get up and walk around right after birth?"
Pyra returned her laugh and stroked her belly again.
"I don't think so, Babe. I, for one, have never actually seen one, but I'm fairly certain that Denynso babies are small and baby-like. I don't think walking around is a thing for a couple of years, but that doesn’t mean that I can't start planning now."
He leaned down and kissed the swell of her belly, closing his eyes briefly. Eden could feel his hand pressing more firmly into her skin as if he were trying to get close enough to the baby to touch it even through her body.
"You can plan anything you want. He's going to be yours."
Pyra sat up sharply and looked directly into her face.
"He?" he asked.
Eden immediately regretted what she had said. She had been so c
areful not to say that, but now there was no way that she could just scoop the words out of the air and put them back into her mouth. He had already heard them.
"I don't know for sure," Eden said cautiously, drawing out each of her words as carefully as she could to make sure that Pyra heard her and understood what she was saying. She didn't want him to get his hopes up when she wasn't entirely sure that she believed it herself, "The midwives don't have any way of knowing what the baby is."
"Then why did you say 'he'?"
Eden sighed. She wasn't sure how her mate was going to respond to her little experiment with Loralia a few days before. It wasn't the custom of the Denynso to try to find out what a baby was before it was born, but when the strange and mysterious creature who had come from the mirrored realm beneath the compound told her that she could tell her what her baby was going to be, Eden's curiosity had simply been too much for her and she couldn't say no.
"When the girls and I went over to Bannack's house the other night to meet with Loralia, she was telling us about her kind. She was fascinated by my belly and she asked if I knew if the baby was a boy or a girl. I told her that the midwives didn't have any way of finding that out, but I mentioned that if I was going through my pregnancy on Earth, my doctors would be able to tell me what it was."
"They could?" he asked, seeming both fascinated and a bit upset that this was not something that was available on his planet.
"Yes. So she told me that she would be able to tell me."
Eden thought about the gorgeous and completely unexpected woman that was Loralia. The very last of her kind, she had been living in the hidden realm under the compound her entire life, but had been alone for many years. When the young, impulsive warrior Bannack brought her up into the compound it had been the first time that she had ever been above the surface of the ground. Though she hadn't had the opportunity to spend much time with her, Eden had felt a connection with this misunderstood creature, and was thrilled that she and Bannack were now mated.
The Alien's Mystery (Uoria Mates IV Book 7) Page 53