Chapter Thirteen

Graven

I storm up to the house, arena, glass mansion, whatever. It’s a brooding, childish move, especially when she’s just trying to help me, but that’s the problem.

That’s all I am to her—a charity case.

She brought me here to heal me. She doesn’t actually want me. She’s a doctor, and I’m just another patient.

I’m ravenously hungry.

Sex is all well and good. Niva fed my desidre for the day, but I’m human. I need food, too. And after that eight-mile swim, all this…healing or whatever it is she’s doing to me with her powers…has me starved for actual food.

I go inside the enormous building she led me into before and wander around until I find the Fellamana version of a kitchen. I’ve used them every day since I arrived in the Fellamana city in their public communal spaces where anyone can get food. I figure out the functions on this meal maker and get my usual—the only dish I’ve learned to translate on the computer.

It spits out a noodle dish of some sort full of heaping vegetables native to their local jungle. I have yet to see any Fellamana eat meat, and I’ve deduced they’re a vegetarian society. It makes no difference to me. Food is food.

I gulp it down from the glass plate using a glass fork, drinking water from a clear glass.

Food calms my frustration and brings back my rational thinking.

What am I doing?

Being pissed at Niva just for wanting to heal me is like shooting myself. I’m here for whatever she wants to give me. I should care less about her motivations. I should just be grateful.

It hurts, this conclusion, in that new place inside my chest where she’s made me feel both good and painful emotions. I want her to want me for me, not just see me as charity. But I can’t change it—either the hurt it fills me with or her motivations.

I can just choose to enjoy her, as bittersweet and fleeting as this all is.

Her optimism about being able to heal me is painful to watch. She’s going to be disappointed. She can’t fix me. No one can. Maybe I should just leave now and save her the effort of trying.

I hear a crash in the entryway, so I gulp down the rest of my food and go see what’s happening.

Niva is by the front door, ripping apart a panel by the door. She got a big heavy wrench of some sort and is pounding through wires until sparks fly.

“What are you doing?” I call over the noise she’s making.

“Destroying the security camera system. I forgot about it.” She wrenches a few more wires and a whirring sound echoes through the whole arena, as though dozens of electronic devices have shut down at once.

“There are cameras in here?”

“Everywhere.” She drops her wrench and wipes the sweat from her face. “The Fellamana love videoing themselves. It’s the voyeur thing. But also for security. Keeping everyone safe is important.”

“Why destroy it then?”

She lifts her brows at me. “Because you’re not supposed to be here. I should’ve done this as soon as we got here. If anyone checks the video and sees you…well.” She shrugs and walks past me to the kitchen. “I’m hungry, too.”

“Wait.” I follow her. “What happens if anyone knows I’m here with you?” I know I’m not supposed to be here, but I never thought to ask her about the consequences.

She taps on the food machine thing and muses over what she wants. “I get strikes against me. And you would definitely get questioned or something. I don’t know. Probably expelled from the city.”

I don’t really give a shit about what they do to me. It’ll be no more than I deserve. “What do you mean strikes against you?”

“It’s a disciplinary action.”

“What kind of discipline do you get if you get too many strikes?”

She shakes her head. “You don’t want to know.”

“But I do.”

“I’m not telling you.” She waits as the machine spits out whatever she’s picked to eat. Whatever it is, it smells a lot more delectable than mine.

I don’t want to press her to talk about what she doesn’t want to tell me. She takes her food from the dispenser and goes to sit at the table. She picks at her food in silence, and I stare at my empty plate.

I remember something else I need to ask her, something I should’ve asked in the speeder on the way here, the first time she suggested sex. “So, um, just to cover things…you know, so I know…in case we…” Gods, my face goes flaming hot.

“What?”

I take a deep breath. “Not that we necessarily are going to have sex, but if we did, should I be wearing some sort of protection?”

The curious look she gives me morphs from utter confusion to tender amusement. “It’s taken care of, human. That’s sweet of you to ask, though.”

“Oh, okay.”

She points to her plate. “It’s in every Fellamana’s food, every day. Extra vitamins to ensure we’re not fertile and to keep us free from infections. You’ve got it in there, too.”

“I do?”

“Mmm-hmm. You have to choose a special setting in order for it to not be in there, if you want to make babies.” She smiles and adds, “Plus I’ve got extra benefits from the Exstare. I menstruate only when I decide I want to.”

I stare at her. “That’s possible?”

“Yup. For me it’s a voluntary physical process or whatever.”

“Holy shit.”

“It’s awesome.”

This power of hers is intense and has so many more layers than I thought. I can’t stand not knowing the full truth. I put down my utensils. “Niva, what happens if you get the strikes and the council turns against you?”

She stares at her food and doesn’t look at me.

I push back my chair. “Maybe this is a terrible idea. The last thing I want is for you to get in trouble.”

“It’s irrelevant. You’re here.” She takes a bite and chews. “Although, if you’d rather not stay, I can take you home tonight.”

Panic stiffens my limbs.

She doesn’t look at me. She hasn’t looked at me at all. She’s mad. Or upset. I’ve made her mad or upset.

“Do you want me to go?” I ask, my voice shaking even though I don’t mean it to. I don’t want to leave. I should want to leave, but I never want to leave. I can’t imagine leaving her. But if it’s what she wants…

“It doesn’t matter what I want. You’re the one who needs healing—”

“You can’t heal me, Niva. No one can.”

“You decide how this goes, not me.”

“That doesn’t seem fair.” I have the same visceral reaction every time she’s tried to put what I want before her own desires. “What you want is important, too. It can’t just be about me.”

She drops her fork with a loud clang against her plate. “You don’t understand Fellamana ways. This is my job. What you want comes first.”

“But what if that’s not what I want? What if what I want is for you to come first?” I don’t miss the double meaning. In fact, I intend it.

She sighs and stares at the ceiling. “I do not understand humans.”

“What is so hard to understand about you coming first?”

“You want me to come first, but you don’t trust me with anything. Why?” She stares at me, and I see that it’s neither anger nor upset. It’s hurt. I’ve hurt her.

Shit.

“Trust you?” I ask. I don’t even know what that is. Honestly. I’ve never had anyone I could depend on in my life. Anyone could become my enemy at any time. She could decide I’m not worth it at any moment.

She turns to me. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d never done any of this before? I specialize in virgins, you know. It’s a major part of my job, to coach people who are brand-new to the desidre.”

My face heats, and I can’t stop myself from flushing in embarrassment. “It is?”

“Yes. It hits most Fellamana about age eighteen. Most of them have experimented freely and safely with sex before that, but some of them haven’t, and it’s my job to help them. Why won’t you let me help you?”

It stabs me right in the chest to have her comparing me to some inexperienced eighteen-year-old, even though that’s accurate. “Maybe I didn’t want you to help me,” I snap.

She jerks back, and her mouth twists in disgust. “Your pride is really annoying.”

“It’s not pride. It’s…” Oh wait, maybe it is. I scratch a hand through my hair and collapse into the chair beside her. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what these emotions are.”

“It’s all right.” She gentles her voice, and the look of disgust on her face fades to compassion. “You’ve been suppressing your emotions for so long, you don’t even know what it means to feel them. You’re very new to this emotional awareness stuff. It takes time.”

I take a deep breath. She’s right. I’ve been in survival mode all my life with no time to ever notice my emotions. I nod at her in gratitude for understanding. “Yeah. That sounds right.”

Her expression softens, and her eyes hold more patience than I ever deserve. “What you’re actually experiencing is called shame. And it’s real, and I recognize that. But there’s no need to feel shame. In fact, I wish you’d feel excitement.” She preens, and her chest widens, her breasts looking glorious. I can’t decide if her being naked all the time is a gods-send or a torture.

“I’m also terrified,” I confess.

“Why?”

“What you want isn’t possible. I’m not healable. No matter what you do, no matter how good you are at this, I’m not going to feel it.”

“Bullshit.” She crosses her arms. “Having your first sexual experiences with me means you’re guaranteed to enjoy them. I can’t say that for anyone else you have sex with.”

I can’t help smiling, and her words do provoke excitement in me, bright and hot in my chest. “I’d say I’m more than enjoying it so far.”

“Then what has you so worried?”

I’m wordless. I don’t know how to confess my other fears to her. The ones about my inadequacy and how much I’m afraid at any moment she’ll decide I’m a waste of her time and leave me.

She puts her hand on my arm, attempting to comfort me, but when I don’t react, she remembers I can’t feel her touch and leans forward to kiss me. Her lips are warm and enticing.

She whispers against my mouth, “You can trust me. I’m here only to help.”

“But what if that’s my worst fear?” I blurt. “I don’t want you to be here just to help me. I want you to be here because you want me.” I hold my breath. This is it. I’ve opened myself up to it.

It’s her turn to pinch her lips and swallow with nervousness. She sits back and stares at her food. “I’m not supposed to do that,” she confesses. “To want one person.”

There it is. I stare at my hands, wishing I could hide the hurt she makes me feel. I don’t want her to feel guilty. “Please don’t take me back.”

“Graven…” She takes a deep breath and looks at me, her eyes so different this time, perhaps the most honest I’ve ever seen them. “I’m not supposed to, but I do.”

“You do?”

She nods. “It’s exactly what my father warned me about; it’s exactly what the council is afraid of and the reason why I’m not supposed to be with humans, but you aren’t just a patient to me. I want you.”

A lightness, a bright, unabashed joy fills my chest. It’s an exhilarating feeling. “You want me?”

She smiles, a bright luminous light in her green eyes. “I do.”

A thrill washes over me, one I don’t know how to contain. So I don’t. I spring to my feet and lift her from the chair and hug her. “Niva, you don’t know how I’ve wanted to hear you say that.”

She wraps her arms around my neck and whispers it in my ear again. “I want you.”

I laugh and whirl her in a delirious circle. She squeals in delight, and I kiss her. She wraps her legs around me, and I hold her ass in my hands, and she is everywhere and she is all there is.

“I can’t promise for how long,” she cautions. “I’ve never felt this before, and it will change in two days. It has to. I have a duty to my people. They’re more important to me than anything.”

“I understand.”

“I’m not sure you do. I have a divine calling. A religious ordination to be their goddess representative on this plane. They say I was touched by the gods themselves before birth.”

“Were you?” I wonder, even more in awe that I’m here with her.

“I don’t remember. But it’s possible. I certainly feel all-powerful when filled with the Exstare.” She sighs. “So as much as I want only you right now, these three days are all there is. And all we have.”

“Now is all I care about.” It has to be. It’s all she can give me.

“Can you trust me now? Is there anything else I should know about that you’ve been keeping from me?”

I stall in my steps and hold my breath. Now’s the time. Now’s when I should admit that I’m a traitor, that I’m not a member of the rebellion but a Ten Systems soldier hiding away from my father like the coward I am. That as soon as they find out who I am, which will inevitably happen sometime, I’m as good as dead.

But I can’t. She’d reject me for sure if she knew I was a part of the Ten Systems, the empire that would destroy or enslave every person on this planet if given the chance.

I shake my head, and she looks at me from the corner of her eye as though she knows I’m hiding something, but she doesn’t press me.

She leans her mouth by my ear. “You want me to tell you what I want?”

“Yes. Anything. I’ll give it to you.”

She wraps herself tighter around me and breathes, “I want you to fuck me with your fingers, Graven.”

“It’s not going to work, Niva. How you’ve healed me so far is as much as you can do.”

There’s a shadow of concern that crosses her forehead. “Maybe.”

“You’re going to be disappointed. Prepare yourself for that.”

She presses her lips to mine and whispers, “Let’s try. You’re going to enjoy it.”