Kira bats at my chest in mock annoyance, but I can tell she’s pleased by my words. She’s softening against me, and the tears are drying. “I just…I never said anything. Your people were so excited about the fact that we could resonate and have children. I never wanted to admit that I was flawed. I didn’t know what would happen if I was. Would I be welcome any longer?”
“Of course you would be welcome. We would not cast you out simply because you cannot bear kits. Do we cast out Farli?”
She snorts. “Farli is too young to have children. That’s not even a fair comparison.”
“Then Asha? Whose kit died too young? Or my mother, Sevvah, who is now too old to have more kits?” I touch her cheek. “You bring more to the tribe than just your body.”
“I’m not so sure,” she says softly. “The only thing I was good at was translating, and I just had that removed.”
“Then you will bring new skills and joy to the tribe. We just have not seen them yet.”
Kira gives me an exasperated look. “Do you have an optimistic answer for everything?”
“Yes.” I grin at her. “That is what I bring to the tribe. Well, that and my carving skills.”
Another small giggle escapes her, muffled under the falling of the bathing waters. “Yes, I still have the present you made for me.”
“Ah. Because it is such an impressive likeness?”
Her giggle turns into a snort and she buries her face against my wet chest, her arms going around me. “Because I wanted to compare the sizes. I figured it was exaggerated.”
“Shall I show you just how accurate my carvings are?” I slide my fingers down her wet back, and then take her hand and place it on my aching cock. I hear her suck in a breath, but she doesn’t pull away. Instead, she caresses me and explores. “Be my mate, Kira.”
She looks up at me, hope in her eyes. “But the aliens—“
More excuses? “Let them do their best to separate us. They will fail.” I touch her cheek again. “And let us not predict doom for our future. Let us live for today, yes?”
I have always been a practical male. I have seen too much sorrow to let it guide my life, like Haeden does. If it means I must smile one day and weep the next, then I shall enjoy the day of smiles all that much more. I want Kira to realize this – that life is sweetest when we take what it offers with no worries.
She squeezes her fingers around the base of my cock and then gently glides her hand up, stroking me. “Today,” she says in a low voice, “Is a really, really nice day to be with my mate.”
My heart swells with affection. “Yes, it is.”
The water changes temperature from a delicious heat to an ice cold, and Kira yelps at the same time I do. She rinses the berries from her hair and then quickly jumps out of the water, and I follow a moment later.
“I guess we ran out of hot water,” she says, her arms pressed against her chest as she shivers and gives a little hop.
“Was that not supposed to happen?”
“No!” She laughs. “No one can bathe in that cold of water.”
I shrug. I don’t understand anything about the elders. But as I watch Kira delicately pick up her leathers from the floor, quivering with cold, I decide there are other ways I can warm her. Ways that are as old as time. I scoop her up in my arms and ignore her startled squeal. “You are entirely too cold, my lovely mate. Let your male warm you up.”
Instead of the shy protests I expect, she wraps her arms around my neck and clings to me. My cock feels like aching stone. I’ve wanted this since I saw her. I carry her into the other room and gently lay her down on the bed. Kira looks up at me with trusting eyes, and my heart swells again with affection.
This is my mate.
It doesn’t matter that our khuis haven’t chosen or that she cannot bear kits. She is mine to claim. Mine to pleasure.
“You are beautiful,” I tell her. She is. Her human limbs are dewy with water, her skin gleaming with smoothness. Her eyes – blue with khui – seem big and bright in her face, and her hair is slicked back against her skull, making her seem even more fragile than usual. Her chest heaves with nervousness, and each short breath makes her breasts jiggle enticingly. Her legs are curled together, but soon I shall lick her between them and taste her honey.
Kira smiles up at me and reaches out for my hand. I lace my fingers with her smaller ones, noting again our differences. She has four small fingers and a thumb, where I have three and a thumb. Her toes are the same – four small toes next to a large one on a slender foot. My own foot is more than twice as large as hers, and my toes – one less than her – are more spread to balance my larger form. There are no plated ridges on her body to protect it, only softness everywhere.