by Zoey Draven
And now, I understand why Eve got pregnant during Khiva’s Rut, Stella couldn’t help but think, her breath hitching at the thought.
She couldn’t count the number of times that Tavak had come inside her.
Crawling back in bed, she turned into Tavak once more, leaning up to brush her lips across his, taking comfort from the small act.
She hadn’t meant to wake him but he stirred, a deep rumbling purr falling from his throat as his eyes flicked open. No longer black, she noted. They were back to their usual silver and gold color, swirling gently.
“Good evening,” she whispered, reaching up to stroke his jaw.
“Mmm,” was the sound that came out of him, his arm tightening around her, dragging her closer.
Stella almost sighed in contentment. That was another thing during his Rut. He couldn’t seem to keep his hands off her. He was proprietorial—bordering on possessive—with his touch, his kiss. She didn’t think she’d been touched so much in her entire life.
This was the male who got all squirrelly when she asked him to cuddle her after sex. Now, it was strange if he wasn’t touching her.
“Are you hungry?” he murmured, his voice gruff and husky from sleep.
Stella grinned. Last night, her stomach had growled loudly during sex and Tavak had been so angry with himself, for forgetting that she needed food every day, unlike him. He’d fed her until she was stuffed and now asked her every couple hours if she was hungry.
She thought it was sweet. His concern.
“No,” she whispered, her hand sliding across his chest to wrap around his bare hip. A cord of muscle that humans didn’t even possess flexed underneath her grip. “Go back to sleep, darling.”
He grunted. But eventually, he did just that.
Stella followed a moment later, lulled by the steady thump of his hearts.
“Vellia,” came a voice, soft and gentle.
Stella felt a warm hand on her arm and then she blinked rapidly, wondering for a brief moment why her vision was blurry, only to realize she’d been crying.
A cold breeze made her shiver. She blinked, confused, staring straight into a dark jivera forest, the moon hanging overhead. And she was cold because she was naked.
“Come away from the edge, mellkia,” he murmured, his voice firm but still soft, though a little hoarse. Scared?
Stella gasped when she looked down, realizing that her toes were at the very edge of Tavak’s terrace. The bit he was repairing and thus the area that wasn’t enclosed. She was outside, the front door wide open behind her. And she’d been a step away from…
“Oh God,” she gasped, turning into him, the remnants of the dream making her throat tighten.
Tavak let out a deep breath but she had the feeling it was in pure relief. His arms wrapped around her tight. He was solid strength, keeping her anchored, and his nose dug into her hair as she pressed her tear-stained cheek to his wide, naked chest.
Without a word, he led her back inside and then sat her down in the sitting room, in his armchair. He snagged a fur blanket that was strung across the back of it and wrapped it tight around her shoulders.
“Tea?” he murmured, peering into her eyes, his hand reaching out to wipe away the tears that continued to slide down her cheeks. He nodded to himself. “Tea.”
She’d made herself some last night after dinner. He’d wrinkled his nose at the taste but she’d told him how it relaxed her.
Stella sighed, trying to stop crying, wiping at her cheeks when Tavak rose to rummage around in his kitchen, where he started to boil the water and fished out a jar of old tea leaves she’d found in his drawers.
She curled in on herself, drawing her knees up, huddling deeper into the blanket, thinking of her dream—a terrible memory really—still fresh in her mind. Not that she would ever forget it. Could ever forget it.
Still, she couldn’t believe that she’d been sleepwalking along Tavak’s terrace. She could’ve hurt herself. Or worse.
Stella shivered at the realization though she tried to put it from her mind. It couldn’t be helped now. She’d already done it, and luckily, Tavak had found her in time.
Her gaze went to him in the kitchen, letting the sounds of water and heat and cups clicking together and the crunch of old tea leaves fill her ears. She focused on those sounds, letting them calm her down. And then she focused on Tavak, seeing the tense set of his shoulders.
When he turned, her breath left her.
The scars that ran down his back were just as jarring as the first time she’d glimpsed them. Deep and long. The flesh had been ravaged once. By who? And why?
Last night, she’d wondered the same things. She’d been lying in bed, catching her breath after he’d cleaned his teela from her and he’d turned towards the washroom. The glow light had cast shadows over those scars.
“Tavak,” she’d breathed in her shock. “Your back. What happened?”
He’d only grunted, turning towards her quickly to break her gaze. She’d remembered the first time they’d had sex, how he hadn’t let her touch beyond the tops of his shoulders. Was this why? Because he hadn’t wanted her to feel the scars?
“It was a lifetime ago,” was the only thing he’d said. He didn’t want to speak of the scars, that much was obvious, and so Stella hadn’t pried though her belly had burned with anger. Anger that he’d been hurt. And hurt badly.
Now, she was huddled in his armchair, seeing moonlight from the windows illuminate those scars as he made her a cup of tea.
So much still hidden between them.
When Tavak was done in the kitchen, he brought her the cup, a deep green color that reminded her of the jivera trees.
“Up,” he murmured and Stella rose. Tavak settled down into the armchair, handing her the tea, before pulling her gently into his lap. He tucked the furs around her tighter, smoothing his fingers across the back of her neck.
Stella sighed, clasping the cup in both hands and taking a small sip of the burning liquid, feeling it sear a path of heat down her tight throat.
Then she leaned into him. She was placed sideways across his lap, her feet perched against the cushioned arm of the chair. Tavak stroked her exposed toes with his other hand, making them twitch, and then his hand ran up her leg, as if he needed to touch her all over, to make sure she was all right.
She’d…scared him. He might not say so but Stella knew that she had.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, pressing her cheek into his chest, cradling her tea. “I should’ve told you that it happens sometimes.” She gave a small smile, one he couldn’t see. “Though I thought that you’d exhausted me enough that it wouldn’t happen here.”
“What did happen?” he asked quietly after a brief moment of quiet.
She sighed. “I sleepwalk sometimes. I’m dreaming but sometimes I’ll wake up standing at a window, or…” Standing naked in Haase’s navigation room with her Luxirian lover shaking her awake roughly, annoyed with her. “Elsewhere.”
Tonight, she’d been an inch away from tumbling off the high terrace.
Tavak grunted, his body shifting, as if he was thinking the same thing. Discomforted?
“I’ve done it all my life. My mother always told me that it was because I was too curious and restless for my own good, that I wanted to explore even when I was asleep.”
Tavak’s hand slid down her calf, his touch warm and certain.
Stella wiped at the drying tears on her cheek, drawing in a deep, long breath.
“You called out for her,” Tavak said. “Your mother.”
Stella took another sip of her tea, her hand trembling slightly.
“Is that what woke you?” she asked, not surprised she’d been talking in her sleep. Her mother had told her once she’d had an entire conversation with her.
“Pax,” he murmured, though his voice sounded far away. “Then I heard you crying. I saw you on the terrace and I thought…vauk.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn�
�t mean to scare you.”
Tavak seemed to shake himself, rubbing a hand down his face.
Then he said something that she hadn’t expected.
“I know what happened to your mother, vellia.”
Her gaze slid past him, to the front door, her fingers clutching her cup tighter.
“I should’ve told you when I learned of it,” he murmured gently.
“Ravu,” she guessed, tilting her head back to look up at him. “I’m not surprised. The crew are worse gossips than a pack of Hniun ladies.”
Tavak frowned, studying her. “Are you upset that I know?”
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. She shrugged her shoulder underneath the furs. “It’s not a secret.”
“It’s still a part of you though,” he said. “Even if it’s not a secret, you’re under no obligation to share it with anyone.”
But that was Tavak. He had secrets all his own. Stella was different. She was comforted that the crew still talked about her mother. In some ways, it kept her alive.
Haase was different, however. He still mourned her mother’s death as if it had just happened. And he hadn’t spoken of it. At all. The Killup male held his pain close when Stella had wanted to talk with him about it. Instead, she’d found comfort among the crew.
“I don’t mind if you know my secrets,” she told him. “I like talking about my mother.”
Even if the memory of her sudden death often crept into her dreams.
Tavak cupped her cheek, lifting her face. “Then tell me about her.”
Stella’s throat went tight as she held his eyes. She craned her neck up a little and Tavak took the hint, giving her a soft kiss that felt comforting and wonderful.
“Haase always called her iwwen. In the Killup language, it means ‘storm,’” she murmured softly, catching his eyes. She smiled. “Because that’s what she was. A force of a woman. Sometimes chaotic. Sometimes calm. Her laugh was the loudest on the entire vessel and her cursing could even make the crew blush.”
Tavak’s full lips curved. Stella took a sip of her tea to clear the sudden lump in her throat.
“We lived on Genesis for a time until I was ten. My mother worked hard but we were poor by New Earth standards and she was a talented engineer. She’d grown up on vessels because her father was a merchant, though not a very good one. She thought she was being a good mother, keeping me grounded on Genesis. But eventually, she realized that she could give me a better life in space than she could there. And so we left and never looked back.”
“You said you didn’t live on Haase’s ship until you were fourteen,” he murmured.
“That’s right,” Stella said, nodding. “We did about a year each on four different ships but none of them felt…right. Mom didn’t trust the crews, especially around me.” Tavak stiffened underneath her. “She didn’t trust the captains. She almost gave up to return to Genesis, thinking it was safer. But then Haase found us. He was in desperate need of another engineer at that point and he practically begged my mother to join him for a few lunar rotations, if you can imagine that.”
“Then you never left him,” Tavak said.
She nodded, smiling. “When my mother met Haase, I could sense something was different. I could almost feel something happening. They loved each other at first sight. That’s what she told me.”
Tavak’s arm shifted around her back. Stella had sometimes felt that way about Tavak. That she’d begun to fall for him that day she’d stumbled into him at port, though he certainly hadn’t felt the same.
Maybe it was in her genes. Falling in love too quickly. Her mother had certainly been victim to it a time or two, though with Haase it had felt…
“Fated,” Stella whispered. “Like it was meant to be.”
She sighed.
“By all accounts, they never should’ve fallen in love. They were complete opposites in every way,” she said. “She was impulsive. He was logical. She displayed her emotions for everyone to see. Sometimes, he could seem like a statue in comparison, lifeless and cold. But they worked. And it was wonderful to see. I’m…I’m glad she had him before her death. I’m glad that she was so happy.”
“She had you too,” Tavak reminded her. “Not just Haase.”
“Of course,” Stella said, tilting her face up again. “She told me all the time that I was her reason for breathing. I know that I always came first in her eyes. But I love Haase too and it made me happy to see them love each other in a way that I think few experience.”
Tavak’s gaze flickered and his hand slid down her jaw, to stroke a line down the column of her neck.
Stella licked her lips and then took another swig of her tea, which was cooling rapidly.
“I don’t like to remember how she died. That ugly grief and shock bundled into panic,” Stella murmured quietly. “But I was glad that it was quick. A mercy. That she was laughing. None the wiser a moment later.”
“Vellia,” he rasped.
“Haase was scared for me after that. Humans are weaker than other species, as I’m sure you know. But what happened to her…it truly was a tragedy. It’s not like I was going to suffer the same fate though he wouldn’t go into hyperdrive for months afterwards. He stopped taking work from the outer Quadrants. He couldn’t keep the entire crew with the decreased work either.”
“He was right to be safe,” Tavak grunted. She peered up at him, hearing his begrudging respect for the captain.
“Still, I eventually convinced him to stop treating me like I would die any moment,” she said firmly. A long sigh escaped her. “It was suffocating. And I didn’t want him to give up his success, which had taken him so long to build, for me. And eventually, life returned to the way it was…but I could never shake the feeling that I wasn’t meant to be there. My mother loved that life and I loved being with my mother. But I also craved other things too.”
Things which she’d already mentioned to him once. A home. One that didn’t move around all the time. A family.
She drained the last of her tea, feeling much better now.
Quietly, she admitted, “But I still dream of her death. I see it in sleep all the time. Like I’m experiencing it all over again.”
“I’m sorry for that, vellia,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her temple, his hand wrapping around her ankle, securing her to him.
“If I ever do it again,” she whispered, “just take me back to bed. Sometimes I don’t wake up during it.”
“I will. You don’t have to worry, pax?”
She gave him a soft smile, her heart thudding hard at the words.
“Thank you for the tea,” she said.
His sudden kiss made her head spin and she breathed into it, the back of her neck tingling with his touch.
When the kiss deepened, when his touch wandered, when their breaths came a little faster and her heart began to beat a little harder, she pleaded in his ear, “Take me back to bed now.”
With a growl, he had her up in his arms and she smiled into his kiss as he walked back down the hallway.
And that night, he made love to her, soft and slow and thorough.
Sometimes she wished Tavak would be cold to her again. Surly and grumpy. Sometimes she wished he wouldn’t touch her like she was delicate and beautiful. Sometimes she wished his voice wouldn’t soften ever so slightly whenever he called her vellia.
Because then it wouldn’t be so easy to fall in love with him.
Because right now? She found that easier than breathing.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Over a week later, Stella was standing barefoot in Tavak’s ‘kitchen,’ waiting for the water to boil for morning tea. The rhythmic hammering from outside on the terrace brought an anticipatory smile across her features.
Once the water was finished boiling, she poured it over the fresh dried tea leaves—the ones from the market that were always way over her tea budget—that had magically appeared in Tavak’s drawers.
Every time she poured hersel
f some tea, every time she saw the fresh stock of food for her in his ice box, warmth filled her until she was brimming. Because Tavak was buying those things for her. Keeping them at his home, where she’d spent every morning and night since his Rut.
Stella wandered over to the open door, breathing in the crisp morning air, still marveling at how it was so much colder in the jivera forest than it was in town. A little microclimate of heaven. Her hands were wrapped around two warming cups and though she strongly suspected that Tavak disliked the taste of the tea—though he insisted he did like it—he still drank it whenever she brought it out for him.
He was finishing up the terrace railing today. Though it was cool, he’d started work early and sweat gleamed over his bare chest. A delicious sight that had him growling at her in warning when he no doubt scented her interest.
“I’ll be good, I swear,” Stella told him, her voice still scratchy from sleep. She leaned down where he was crouched by the section of railing he was working on and smiled when his lips met hers hungrily.
Her body was still pleasantly sore from the night before. Tavak had been in a mood. A mood that involved chaining her to the bed and slowly torturing her with his tongue, keeping her hovering on the edge for what felt like hours. She’d been a thrashing, mindless mess by the time he’d finally thrust into her.
Her wrists were a little tender from all the tugging at the shackled cuffs but she didn’t mind. She hoped they wouldn’t bruise, however, because if Tavak saw them, he might never chain her up again. With the exception of the bite marks he always left on her neck, he didn’t like to see his marks on her.
“Good morning,” she whispered when they pulled away and she set the cup of tea down beside him. For a moment, he scowled at it before she raised her brow knowingly. And then Tavak smoothed his expression, lifted the cup to his lips, and drained the contents of it in one go.