Chapter Twenty-Six

Oten

Gahnin, my second-in-command, answers with as much enthusiasm as I thought he would. He had assumed me dead, and he apologizes for not sending a search party to Fyrian for me.

There’s nothing to forgive, given our assumptions that the planet’s atmosphere would have killed anyone who entered it.

They will send a landing ship to the coordinates I give them for the Fellamana’s landing pad tomorrow.

I do not mention Nemona or the humans. It’ll be much easier to explain everything face-to-face.

I finish the communication and expect Nemona to be excited. Help for her ship is arriving tomorrow. Instead, her expression is like I just told her someone died.

“What’s wrong?” I ask her.

She chews her jaw then says, “Tomorrow is very soon.”

“The sooner they’re here, the sooner we can see what supplies we have that can help repair the Origin.”

“You’re delusional.” She walks away from me, before I can explain she is wrong. That I am the commander of the Ssedez warriors. My authority has been untested for a century.

They follow my orders without question. Their trust in me is absolute. And once they see the truth of the mistake we made in attacking the Origin and their true mission, they will be as driven to make amends as I am.

We share a meal with the Fellamana in a grand hall. The ceiling is a myriad of extravagant colors, and the walls are made of their kind of glass. It has cooling qualities each time I get near a wall, which, given they are surrounded by hot jungle, is good.

They flood us with questions about the Ten Systems. Nemona’s melancholy seems to lift, or at least she hides it, and is generous with her inside information about the Ten Systems’ military. Which is as invaluable to me as it is to the Fellamana.

That and I am riveted watching her talk tactics and hearing her divulge her impressive range of experience. What she had to go through to achieve the status of general in the Ten Systems’ ranks, and so young—she is one of the bravest people I have ever encountered.

The twin suns descend over the horizon, and Koviye excuses us on account of our lack of sleep.

He leads us down a peaceful street, dim in the twilight, toward our private resting quarters. A few Fellamana mill around, and an occasional transport floats softly by. I have never seen a private vehicle move with such quiet. I will be studying their engines and how they are fueled before we leave here.

“This is it.” Koviye stops in front of an empty glass building. The lights are on, but no one is inside.

A scream shatters the quiet, then a loud pop sounds, like an explosion.

I look up and see one of the Fellamana transports smoking and out of control—speeding like a bullet—toward Nemona.

It is a surreal experience. But one that activates pure instinct.

No thought enters my head except save her.

It comes from a primal place inside me that is incapable of making judgment or decision. Only action.

“Run!” Koviye shouts.

But I go in the opposite direction. I jump in front of Nemona and take the full impact of the vehicle to the center of my back. It crushes instantly, as it would against a cement wall. Also by instinct, my natural armor sprouts in time so that the vehicle gives me no physical harm. But I do not expect the fire that erupts from the vehicle next. My armor is impervious to a lot of things, but fire is not one of them.

I leap back from the flames just before the vehicle implodes on itself.

It sits in a pile of black ash on the pavement.

That is a serious design flaw in whatever is powering those vehicles. Luckily it appears no one was inside.

“What was that?” Nemona shouts and shoves me from the side.

I stumble backward. “Excuse me?”

“Who the hell do you think you are? Jumping in front of me like some overgrown hero.” Her eyes are alight with fury, and she shakes her head. “You’re a goddamn fool.”

I glance back at the pile of smoking black ash and realize, she is right.

“That thing could’ve burned you alive!” she cries with such force I cringe. “Why didn’t you get out of the way like the rest of us?”

“Because…” It was heading straight toward her.

“Did you think I wouldn’t move?” she says, baffled at my stupidity.

It is laughable.

Of course, she was going to get out of the way. Of course, there was no way it would have hit her. She is fast. She is strong. I know this. She needed no assistance from me.

Why did I do that?

I feel it then.

For the first time in my life.

It is like every puzzle piece inside me slipping into its rightful place. Every vacancy in me filling with a wholeness, and there is a burn in my chest. Not like the desidre, not the painful kind of burn.

This is a heat, the kind that creates life and stops time and can remake the world.

It floods me, and I feel a wash of strength I have never felt before. Like my whole body has solidified into a weapon.

“You’re shining,” Nemona mutters, and I find her staring at me.

I look down and the brightness of my armor is—glittering. Sparkling like it’s been implanted with a thousand diamonds.

I have to close my eyes and clench my jaw to keep from screaming.

The Attachment. The final step—the willingness to sacrifice my life for hers.

It is complete.

I can feel it like an invisible cord that’s implanted in my gut as though it runs from me and wraps around her. Except, even though I can’t see it, I feel it as though it is as real as the stars in the sky: my connection to her.

It is irrevocable.

It is done.

She owns me now. Heart, soul, and body.

For the rest of my life, I will be unable to procreate with any other. I will physiologically be incapable of taking any other lover.

And she does not want me.

She will never return the Attachment. My people will never accept her, a human, as my mate.

Koviye is talking, saying something about apologies and explanations for the vehicle malfunction. Other Fellamana come, emergency responders, to clean up the mess.

My brain is in a haze, and I am incapable of thinking anything other than—

I must have her.

If the desidre made my desire for her intolerably intense, this—the Attachment—is like my carnal self needs to be one with her. Not just physically. But in spirit, too.

The need for her to accept me feels like the only thing I have ever wanted or will ever want again. My ability to fight it or be in denial about it is at an end.

It is over. My life no longer belongs to me. It is hers.

And there is nothing I can do but pray she will not destroy me for it.

Eventually, Koviye leads us inside to our apartment. I follow him, numb, unable to speak much.

Inside, the center room that’s most visible has a bed and various odd-shaped pieces of furniture—which I imagine work well for various sex positions.

“Anyone and everyone can see us here,” Nemona says.

Koviye gestures toward the enclosed walls in the center. “There are inner rooms for privacy. Though it would win you better favor with the Fellamana if you respect the custom. It shows trust to allow others to watch you in your intimate moments.

“And it’s part of how we judge character. How one makes love reveals a lot about who you are.”

“Who says there’ll be any lovemaking going on?” Nemona snaps, and I cringe.

Her denial, it physically hurts me now. Like a blow to the chest.

“I’ll leave you to work that out.” Koviye laughs and closes the door behind him.

Nemona and I are completely alone for the first time since the cave.

“So, what’s with you?” she asks cautiously. But the way she keeps her distance from me. I think she knows.

I clear my throat, and I am unable to speak above a whisper, “It is finished. I—” I swallow and force the words out. “I am complete.”

“What does that mean?” Her voice shakes with nerves.

I turn away from her and stare out the window. “Do not ask about things you do not want to hear.” She loathes the mere mention of the Attachment.

She is silent long enough that I look over to be sure she is still there.

She is staring at me. And the sight of her—she is beauty and strength personified. I cannot feel remorse for my Attachment being for her. There is no one I have met who I hold with such value. I have only remorse for the hard truth that this can never be.

“I’m going to go sleep,” she says and moves toward the inner rooms, hidden from the windows.

It’s reasonable considering we got none last night.

“I’m tired, too.” I follow her. Not following her for me, in the state I am in, is impossible.

She stops but doesn’t look at me. “Alone.”

It cinches my lungs. She’s entitled to her space, but she says it with such severity, it sounds like more than temporary. I do not know how I will survive it—being separated from her.

Normally, among the Ssedez, when the Attachment completes itself, the lovers are given quarantine and not disturbed or separated for days, weeks. They are allowed to satisfy the frenzy that begins without interruption.

But that only works when the other returns the Attachment.

Which she never will.

I stroke a hand over her back. “I’ll be here when you want company.”

She squares her shoulders and faces me. “We should end this now. It’ll be easier than doing it tomorrow when your crew is here.”

I force myself to breathe through the panic her words cause me. “You cannot mean that.” Not after what happened in the jungle. Not after she showed me what she feels for me, after how much she knows I feel for her. She cannot possibly just…end this.

“It’s pointless. You’ll be going home with your warriors. I’ll go back to the Origin.”

I do not care about logistics. All I know is separation is not an option. “I am not leaving you.”

Her look is all doubt. She doesn’t believe a word I say. “You have to.”

“Nemona.” The pleasure I get in saying her name sends ripples down my spine. “You do not understand. I am incapable of leaving you.”

“Bullshit!” she snaps.

My heart races. Her words inflict pain on me like knife wounds. “I assure you, it is not bullshit. It is very real.”

“But I don’t love you!” she all but screams.

It sends a shock of hope through me.

The intensity she says it with means her feelings for me run deeper than she knows. “You can’t hide from me, Nemona. I saw inside your heart. I know what’s in here.” I press my palm to the center of her chest.

She pushes my hand away. “It doesn’t matter what’s in there. I’m incapable of feeling those things. For anyone. I’m a military woman. That’s what I do. Relationships don’t work for me. I don’t have a family. I don’t have friends.”

“That is bullshit. You love your crew. They are your family.”

“No.” She shakes her head; she will not look at me. “That’s not how this works. We are military. We are—”

“You’re not in the military anymore!”

“I am!” Fury—or panic—pours from her eyes. “I will never be anything else. Don’t you understand? Pieces of me died with them. And those pieces are never coming back.”

I squint at her, confused. “Them? As in your parents? You think your ability to form relationships died with them?”

“I know it did!”

How do I convince her her heart was never broken? Only wounded. She still thinks it’s in pieces. “You were left alone. With no one.”

“I’m still alone. And I will die alone. That’s how this works.”

“It does not have to be this way.” I try to reach for her, but she pushes my hand out of the way.

“Stop it.” She dances away from me and rubs the bridge of her nose. “These conversations are meaningless. In fifty years, I’ll be too old to do battle while you’ll still be waging war against the Ten Systems.”

My heart stops. I had not allowed myself to think about it. To watch her grow old and die, then to go on living without her… It is like sliding a blade between my ribs and twisting it all around my heart.

My second-in-command, Gahnin, lost his mate in the war against the Ten Systems. The torture he went through is not something I wish on anyone. Least of all myself.

Her eyes close, and she takes a deep breath. “You don’t want to watch me die. So even if I could return your feelings, which I can’t, this can never work.” She reopens her eyes and looks away.

But I force myself to breathe and my heart to restart. “It can,” I whisper, unable to process the possibility that we cannot work. We have to. It is not only the Attachment that makes me need her anymore. From the depths of my soul, I want to be with her.

“I can’t grow old and fade and watch you never change.”

I drop my gaze to the floor. She is right. I could never ask her to do that.

She steps closer, and her voice softens further. “Your people will never allow you to be with a human.”

I have to say it. I cannot hold it in. “You do not have to be mortal if you do not want to be.”

Her eyes widen, but I cannot watch the disgust that will come over her after that. I cannot begrudge her her desire to remain human, but it doesn’t mean I have to witness her revulsion at becoming like me.

I retreat from her and go to one of the inner rooms—and close the door.

I am too much of a coward to watch her leave me. It would rip me in two.