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“Okay,” I nod. “We can do this. Slow is fine, right? No rush. I’ll wait.”
He frowns and nods. His hands are still on my thighs and he massages them. It’s distracting and damn I really want him to do so much more. I don’t stop him because it looks like it’s helping him to relax and work out what he wants to say.
He lifts one hand to his chest, placing it over the middle, more or less.
“Hearts,” he says.
“Your hearts?” I ask and he nods then places his hand on my chest. I love and hate the coolness of his scales over my breast. The way my skin flushes hot and desire rushes in unbidden. “My heart?”
“Yes!” he says excitedly. “Hearts. Ours. Tajss provide.”
I blink and frown not sure I’m really getting what he means.
“Are you saying Tajss made our hearts?” He moves his head back and forth in a rocking motion and makes a low hum. “Sort of?”
“Yes,” he says. “Sort of.”
I’d heard the rumors that the Zmaj mated for life. That they believed they would know their mate the moment they laid eyes on them. That it was ‘fate’ or whatever their version of that was, which was apparently that Tajss provides. I don’t know that I understand that in the slightest. Tajss is the planet, how could a planet do anything besides be a planet?
But he believes it. They all seem to. And the humans who’ve joined them, they seem to believe in something like it too, or so they claim.
“I don’t know…” I say.
“Matter not,” he says with an air of finality. “Is. Know. Know not. Is.”
I arch an eyebrow at him, but there is a kind of logic to what he’s saying. At least as far as it goes.
“But Mohlad, none of this changes,” I shake my head not wanting to reiterate it but needing to at the same time. “You have a lot of years.”
“You do,” he says pressing his hand to my chest again.
I can’t deny that my breath catches in my chest when he touches me and my skin flushes.
“No,” I say.
“Epis,” he says, his tail slapping the ground and his wings rustling to accent the word. “Life. Gives.”
I stare at him feeling oddly blank and slow. Is he saying that epis will make me live longer? How could a plant, any plant, do that? Warmth suffuses me as I think about it. Could I live long enough to love? There is no doubting his certainty, but his certainty doesn’t make it real.
Does it?
I’ve heard rumors. Stories. Of course I have. The ship has been buzzing with them. Everyone who’s taken the epis talks about how different they feel. Mostly the heat bothers them less and they seem less likely to have a heat stroke but there have been other stories too. Old injuries bothering them less. Wounds healing faster. Things like that. Could this plant somehow speed up the body's healing? If it could do that, I mean what is aging but the decay of the body's cells….
“You’re sure?” I ask, my throat tight.
He nods as he places one hand over his chest and presses his other to mine.
“Hearts,” he says emphatically. “One. Belong.” He pauses, staring into my eyes for one long, breathless moment. “Treasure. Mine.”
Treasure. There it is. The word that everyone says the Zmaj use. The claiming.
My heart leaps into a gallop as it tries to race its way up my throat and I don’t know, I guess out into the world. Into him. I want to meld with him. Be one with him and not just physically. I want his arms around me, his body, but also his soul.
My head is giddy with excitement. Tears of joy fill my eyes and I do the only thing I can. I give myself over to the joy that swells in every fiber of my soul and body. Rising onto my knees I move closer, wrapping my arms around his neck and staring into his eyes.
“No doubts?” I ask, choking on the words.
He smiles and all my doubts and fears wash away in the brilliance of it. He nods and his tail slaps the ground. I smile, shaking my head.
