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)
And these are the people I am bringing Farli to live with. Gods help us both. They are cold and unfeeling down to a man, and Farli’s warmth will be lost on them. Am I dooming her to unhappiness?
She takes my hand as we move toward the Lady, and her fingers are cold against mine. Her hand is trembling, and it is the first time I have ever felt Farli be afraid. I hate this. I hate everything about it. It feels wrong. Just flat-out wrong.
Farli and I are the last ones in the ship. She watches as the door closes slowly, her last glimpse of her icy home falling away to metal. Then the doors are closed and there’s nothing more to see. Farli turns to me, and she tries to smile brightly, but I can tell she’s hurting. I cup her face and kiss it gently. “I love you.”
“Enough of that,” Niri says, heading toward med bay. “I’ll warm up the machines. Send her my way and I’ll get that parasite out of her in no time.”
Farli flinches. I do, too. A parasite. That’s all it is to everyone else. To them, the khui isn’t a helpful thing or something that chooses a mate. There’s no reason to think there’s a connection between two people other than biological. And yet…everyone in the village is happy with their khui-chosen mate. And Farli’s khui has chosen me, and I’ve fallen in love with her in an incredibly short amount of time. It’s like the thing wants what is truly best for her.
And she’s giving everything up to be with me.
The thought of being left behind fills me with a sick terror, but the thought of letting the warmth and light inside of Farli be destroyed by taking her away? That decides it.
The engines start to power up. Trakan has to be starting the ship. There’s no reason to delay, not any longer. I need to act now. I move to the wall and grab the emergency alert handle and twist it. A klaxon sounds through the ship, alerting the bridge to abort the take-off. Farli looks at me in surprise, rubbing her ear at all the noise. “What is it, Mardok?”
I turn back to her, grabbing her by the shoulders. “Do you want to stay, Farli?”
Panic crosses her face. “I do not want to leave you—”
I correct her quickly. “That’s not what I’m asking. Do you want to stay? Because if you want to stay, I’ll stay with you.”
She sucks in a breath, her eyes wide. “But that is your greatest fear, Mardok. Being left behind. I would not do that to you.”
I take her hands in mine and bring them to my mouth, kissing her knuckles. “I think it would be worse to take you away and watch you be forced to change. I love who you are, Farli. I love that naked, wild girl that I met a few days ago. The one that put my hand on her breast and kissed me. The one that’s carefree and unbroken by society’s rules. And I think…I think leaving would be a mistake. I think it would crush who you are, and I love you too much for that to happen.”
Tears shimmer in her glowing blue eyes. “But…what about you?”
I try to laugh, even though I’m choking with panic. “I’m gonna need my hand held for a few days, I think, until I get used to the concept of being left behind. But I think I can handle it, as long as I’m with you.”
She flings her arms around my neck and kisses my face, over and over again. “Oh, Mardok! You would stay? Truly?”
“For you, I’ll do anything—”
“What’s going on?” Niri comes racing into the corridor, followed by Trakan and Chatav. She’s got a fierce frown on her face. “What the kef, Vendasi?”
“I’m staying,” I tell her bluntly. “I’m not taking Farli away from her world.”
Niri gives me an incredulous look. “You can’t be serious.”
“I gotta second that, Vendasi,” Trakan says. “You’d be crazy to stay. It’s nothing but ice and snow. No cities, no nothing. There’s nothing here.”
That’s where they’re wrong. Farli’s here. Her warm, loving people are here. There’s a life for us together here, and a child. That’s enough for me. I turn to Farli and smile, decided. “Shall we rejoin the others and give them the news?”
She hugs me again, her eyes brimming with joy instead of tears. “The tribe will celebrate! There will be a feast tonight in your honor.”
All I really want to do is go back to her house and curl up with her, but I nod. “Feast sounds good. As long as I’m with you, everything’s good.”
Her hand clutches mine tightly, and she’s radiant in her happiness. This is the right thing, I know it is.