Three
“Elizabeth. Hurry up,” Marin bellowed. I dashed away my tears. Anyways, it was time to eat, and figure out what Marin was planning. I took a breath and straightened my dress before heading downstairs. No Marin and no Stein, thank goodness, waited for me. I walked toward the dining room. When I entered, I spun around checking for Marin. He did like to sneak up on me, but I didn’t see him.
They’d changed the table out. Normally, it sat a family of ten, but this was a small, round table, much more intimate. A delicate lace tablecloth spread across its surface. Two candles flickered on either side of an extravagant flower arrangement in the middle, filled with a familiar apple-scented rose.
I walked over to my chair and spied a wrapped box by one of the plates.
My heart skipped a beat, then resumed once I realized how big the present was. Not a jewelry box, more like a shoe box. I peered around again, ready for Marin to pop up and scare me.
Nope, still alone. Hmm.
The present stared up at me, tempting me to open it. Should I be good or…well, I knew I should wait for Marin but I so wanted to see what he got me. His unusual reluctance for nookie and insistence on a formal dinner was much more understandable now. I toyed with the ribbon. To hell with it, I had to see what was inside. I grabbed the box right as the door squeaked open.
Of course, Marin strolled in before I managed to unwrap the damn thing. He held onto the doorway and posed a bit for me. He’d changed, as well, and wore dark brown leather and a forest green shirt. Yummy. His eyes made their own perusal of my form.
I smiled. “Hi.”
“Hello. You hungry?” He left the entrance and came up behind me. He pulled out my chair, seated me, and took the seat next to me. No cross table chatter for him.
“Yes. Famished.” I took my fork and pretended to eat the present. “What’s this?”
“That is for later. No peeking.” Well, now I deeply regretted not looking. He must have read my expression because his laughter rang out.
“I love you.”
And just like that he dropped it on me. I froze like a deer in headlights. My heart fluttered. I’d suspected for a while that he did. He’d told it to me in so many small ways since I moved in. I was the first and last thing he thought of every day, that last he had told me. But this was the first time he used the L word. How I felt was more complicated. I was human and he was Fost. And to be honest, I didn’t know what I was anymore, not after the E’mani because I wasn’t me.
He laughed even more at my expression. “It is all right, I do not expect a response, but I wanted you to know.” He glanced down and shifted in his seat.
I pretended it was fine like he said and cleared my throat. “So.”
The silence stretched for a few beats. But it wasn’t all right.
Oh, forget it. I was no good at lying to myself or anyone else. He needed something.
I stood up and wrangled his chair sideways then crawled onto his lap. “Hey.” I lifted his chin. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone before and it kind of scares me.”
Not that I had much experience, but he didn’t need to know that. This was all I could give him right now and I knew it wouldn’t be enough if he pushed, and he always pushed. It was his nature. But still, I couldn’t give him the words. I was unreasonably afraid that once I did, I wouldn’t get my revenge on the E’mani. That somehow loving him affected my ability to hate the E’mani. And I did so love to hate the E’mani.
He stared into my eyes looking for who knows what. The moment lingered and he remained stiff for another fraction of a second then relaxed and let his hands travel up my back. “It scares me too, how much I feel for you.”
Again my heart thumped and goose bumps broke out across my skin at the intent look in his eyes. This close, I saw the love shining in his gaze so I didn’t look. Instead, I twined my arms around his shoulders and kissed him. My chest brushed his and my nipples tightened. I rocked my pelvis against his and he groaned.
“Stop, we should eat.”
“I could eat,” I said and waggled my brows at him to which he scoffed.
“Food.” He pointed at the table. “Eat your dinner, and I will let you open the present.”
I scooted back to my chair, glancing at him over my shoulder. “What’s my present?”
“I am not telling. You will have to wait and see.” He crossed his arms then motioned to someone at the door.
They brought in something I likened to turkey and some sort of veggie dish next to it. Starrin. Bleah, reminded me of cabbage. If I smothered it in butter, it was edible. Marin carved the meat while I loaded my plate.
“I am worried about Zanth,” he said.
Always my favorite topic. “He will be fine.”
“He is not taking Lara’s death well.”
“No, he isn’t.” In fact, that was an understatement. Zanth had become a lean, mean, killing machine. His only thought was the death of the E’mani for taking his love—the traitorous Lara. As a consequence, he pushed everyone away. I was one of the few people left to whom he talked. Ironic given that when we first met, he punched me. That made quite the first impression, but so did his persistence in guarding me during the E’mani attack, even with Lara there and involved. He sensed what she was just as I did. He would not leave me to die.
Marin’s shoulders rose and fell with his sigh. “I do not know how to help him.”
“I don’t think we can help him until he’s ready to let us.”
“That is unacceptable.”
“You know you can’t make things better for someone you love just by saying ‘It will be so. Get over it.’ People work things out in their own way. He will come around. Maybe set him up with Hana?”
Marin’s jaw dropped. “That would be a horrible match.”
“I know. I don’t know what I was thinking. I couldn’t do that to her.”
He narrowed his eyes at me as I grinned, and cleared my throat. I used my fork to move the starrin around on my plate.
“Will we be going soon, do you think?” Marin knew to where I was referring.
He pushed his meat to the side of his plate. “We will head to Industry in early summertime.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
Each time he pledged that to me, I believed him less and less. Each time, the date got further and further away. First, we needed to gather supplies. Then winter came. We would have to wait until spring. Now summer. And I underestimated the length of their seasons. So far winter had lasted three months and seemed never-ending, something to do with the two suns affecting tidal changes, et cetera, et cetera.
He grabbed my hand and grazed his lips along my knuckles. My fingers tingled. I inclined my head to the present, willing to let the subject drop.
I pointed to the box. “What is it?”
“I am not telling. Eat your food, woman.”
“Is it an animal, mineral, or vegetable?”
“What?”
I studied my present. I was positive I’d placed it right next to my plate, but it appeared to wriggle, and was now next to my drink. Most peculiar. Conversation trailed off as the box moved farther and farther down the table. A faint scrambling reached my ears.
I glanced at Marin and I grabbed the box. I shook it hard as Marin protested with a laugh. “No. Not yet.”
The present hissed at me and I heard scrapping from inside. “No,” I said to Marin with glee. “You didn’t.”
Finn, the leader of Clan Orin, had found a few infant corecks outside the gate. Mere babies, they wouldn’t have been able to survive on their own. Nobody knew how they got there, but the little guys were friendly. I so wanted one. Finn tried to give me one as a gift, but that started a fight. Marin didn’t like the idea of me getting presents from Finn under any circumstances. Pretty sure that was Finn’s intent with offering it to me.
Marin smiled. “Stop shaking the box.”
Oh.
I shoveled in the rest of my meal.
We had this odd fruit for dessert, sweeter and thicker than a normal banana. It left a funny aftertaste in my mouth. That said, I barely tasted it. Good thing he didn’t request sex before the present opening, because he was shit out of luck until I saw what was in that box.
After we finished, I bounced in my chair.
Marin sipped his water as he contemplated me.
I bounced even more and added in some batting eyelashes. “So.”
He inclined his head to the present. “Fine, you can—”
He hadn’t finished before I had the ribbon off, and the box opened. A tiny Coreck peered up at me. It had big brown eyes and dark brown, green and black fur with a white spot around one eye. A few scraggly whiskers surrounded its maw. His paws were huge. I turned him over, and yes, it was most definitely a he, and no bigger than a tea cup. I couldn’t tell if he was friendly. He contemplated me like Marin tended to when I argued with him.
I picked him up and hugged him close to my chest, heart melting. “I will call him George and I will hug him and pet him and squeeze him.” The cat, or what passed for a cat here anyways, started humming at me. Its tongue flicked out and licked my neck.
“Oh gross.” Marin cracked up. I held George out in front of me. His tongue still reached my nose. Yuck. “Marin.”
“What? Do not look at me. You are the one who wanted one.”
“Is this normal?”
“How would I know?”
As food was somewhat scarce, the Fost didn’t keep a lot of pets. And as cute at this little guy was now, he would grow up to be about a hundred pounds and deadly. His teeth would be an inch long and sharp, with two prominent fangs in front almost like a saber tooth. I’d seen one in the maze in the garden behind the house once, freaked me right the hell out. And a pack of corecks killed Marin’s father. My enthusiasm waned and my stomach dropped. Oh, I’d forgotten.
I lowered the cat to the ground and watched him scamper on his hind legs under the table before I crawled into Marin’s lap. “I love it. Thank you.”
“I love you.”
My breath stuttered. How did he do that? Say it like that, heartfelt and earnest. I put my hand on his cheek trying to convey with one touch how I felt, like he did so well. I leaned forward an inch and let my lips slide along his.
His gaze met mine, his own eyes gleaming with little gold and jade flecks swirling in the light brown depths. His pupils constricted. With a growl, he grabbed me and slipped his tongue along my lower lip. Once, twice. His eyelids dropped. He moved forward and I retreated. Another growl vibrated through me in such an interesting way. Sparks danced along my skin in the wake of his touch. Literal sparks.
I grinned and nipped his lower lip, my breath mingling with his. Wind blew through the room as our magics reacted to each other. Heat curled in my gut and the breeze grew warm and rattled the table. George scrabbled below us. A high pitched whine filled the air.
“Are you still teasing me?” I asked.
“No.”
“Good.”
His smile widened. He grabbed my hands, pulled me in tight to his body and kissed me. As his mouth met mine, he slipped something into my hand. And not what I expected. It was a box, much smaller than the first one.
Oh, shit.
Four
I brought up the second present between us.
My hands shook when I opened the package. I stared at the twin bracelets before me. They were made of a multi-hued copper with etching, imbued with ferok no less given the golden shine. The smaller of the two had vines with a stylized rose in the middle. Next to it was a much thicker band etched with flowers dripping with tears or rain.
“What is this?” My eyes drifted upward.
“You know what this is.”
“Um, No, I don’t.” Please don’t let it be what I think it is.
“These are the Fost mating bands. See, they bear our marks.”
The rose for Marin, the tears for me. Jatua, tattoos not inked onto ours skins but growing as our connection with the land grew—the candrana.
Individual marks represented the person and were located along their upper body. Marin’s was a rose right below his left ear, mine drops along the base of my neck at my hairline. Aside from the personal marks there were family marks, power marks, and some “miscellaneous” marks the meanings unknown.
Most Fost didn’t bother to study their jatua, they took them for granted. They were born with them, a part of their life. But I found them fascinating. I’d spent a lot of my time the past few months trying to piece together my past and decipher my future from the marks on my skin. And here I was thinking about tattoos to avoid thinking about the real topic.
“Um…”
“Yes?” he whispered. His forehead brushed mine.
“This.” I gestured at the bracelets. Jewelry
“This what?”
“Is this what I think it is?” I was pretty sure Marin was asking me to mate him, the Fost version of marrying. Their population used to be much larger, before everything, before the war. Now they had a much more concentrated population, in a smaller area, with little diversity. Their fertility rate declined. Thus they encouraged sex, period, mating or not. They wanted pregnancies. More sex equaled more children. Mating meant monogamy. This was a big freaking deal.
Marin’s skin grew taut over his face. He breathed out. “I know we have not talked about this.”
“No, we haven’t.”
“You know I love you,” He kissed my chin as he said this.
“You just told me you loved me.” And I am still flipping out over that.
“You have known.”
My eyes dropped to his chest. “With everything with your mother I just thought…”
“You are not my mother.” Marin squeezed my shoulders for emphasis then stroked his hands up and down my arms.
I snorted. “Thank god, because that would make this awkward.” And I already felt uncomfortable enough. Why does he always have to push? We’d only been together four months.
Marin cupped my face, forcing my eyes upward. “My mother loved my father more than she loved us. That was a fact of my childhood. He was everything to her, but he didn’t love her back. He loved the fact that he knocked her up. And he broke her heart every day. I remember spending nights waiting up with my mother to celebrate a birthday or anniversary. My mother refused to start without my father. But when he walked in late, if at all, he stunk of other women. Then they would fight; the celebration forgotten. I saw it too many times to count. There was not much festivity in our lives.”
Marin paused and ran a thumb along my lower lip after I licked it nervously. “I tried to shelter Zanth as best I could, but it was more than obvious. I do not want that for our children.”
Good God, our children. My stomach flipped. This was going way too fast, marriage and children. What the hell was he thinking? I couldn’t even say the L word and he was proposing? “We are not your parents.”
“No, we are not.”
“Then why this? I don’t understand.”
“We had no joy in our house. But I always wanted something more than that for my life, my family,” Marin explained.
That I got, but why me, and why now, and why after only four months? My hands grew damp around the box I gripped. “I still don’t understand.”
He growled and shook me a little. “I want to mate with you. There is no one else for me. I want the happiness for us that my father denied my mother. I want those family dinners. And I am possessive. I get that from my mother, I guess. I have all this love I want to give to you. And I need you to want it just as much. Like my mother needed it, and never got. Like I needed, and never got from her.”
My stomach fell. Now I understood. Marin and Zanth resembled their father too much. Their mother loved them and hated them, almost as much as their father. Almost being the operative word. Too many nights spent waiting for a wandering male and neglecting her children.
“I can’t,” I forced myself to say the words.
Marin’s smile faded. “You can.”
“Marin, this is a big deal. I am not ready for this.” I stared at the bracelet’s shiny sheen, mesmerized.
“Elizabeth.”
“Please, Marin, I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“This is too much, too soon. I’m still dealing with everything, with being here. I don’t even remember most of what the E’mani did to me. Plus we have only known each other a short time. Isn’t this a little quick?”
“Why hesitate? If you love me, then we should be together. You already live with me—”
“I tried to move out. You wouldn’t let me.” I protested.
Marin flinched. “It wasn’t safe, then or now. And are you telling me you don’t want to be here? Is that it? You don’t want to be with me?”
“No, not that, but, marriage—”
“Mating.”
“Whatever. That is forever. I am not ready for that.” Not now, not until the E’mani were dead.
“So you want to be here with me? Truly? Because I hate that you have your own room. I hate that you cannot tell me you love me. That the thought of it makes you look like you are about to be ill.”
“I’m sorry, Marin. I haven’t had much experience with well…anything, and I feel like I am only now catching my breath here in this world. I care about you, but marriage…that is too much. Can’t we be together like we have been? Why do we need to mate if we’re dedicated to each other?”
My eyes fixed on his Adam’s apple. The silence grew brittle. Every breath a rock in my lungs.
He withdrew, his arms hung at his sides.
I peered up at him after a long minute, but before I could say anything, he pressed his fingertip to my lips.
“Elizabeth, I love you. I have waited my entire life to say that to someone, to be able to share my life and my future with someone.”
I opened my mouth to respond and he pressed harder, shaking his head.
“When I first saw you, my world stopped. The guards had come to tell me of the ‘E’mani Finn had brought home. Your hair was down and around your face, blazing orange in the sun and you were arguing with Finn about something. He shoved you and you turned and glared at him. You showed such fire, such life and even though you were in the E’mani shivat, I knew you were not one of them.
“The next time I saw you, you were sitting in the field and you had your head back. The wind was blowing through your hair. You looked relaxed, almost carefree, but I knew the circumstances surrounding your situation. I was struck by how in even the worst circumstances you appeared calm, centered. I wanted you and I have grown to need you just as much. You are the center of my universe. I cannot imagine a future without you in it.
“Please, do not say no. Think about it. This is what I want for us. I will not hide my intentions. I do not expect an answer tonight but I... I needed you to know how I felt.”
Again, what he said and how he appeared reflected two different things. His eyes pleaded with me for another answer, and for a minute, I was tempted. Hurting him was the last thing I wanted to do. But I couldn’t. Not now. So instead of answering, I kissed him and held the box close to my chest.
As our lips broke apart, he continued, “When you are ready, wear them. These are promise bands, once worn by both parties, they are never taken off.”
I nodded and put my head on his shoulder. Tension still rode me, but the hint of passion drowned it out. I could never get enough of him. Maybe I did love him. No, I am pretty sure I did love him, I just couldn’t commit. I’d already committed all of myself to the end of the E’mani. Marin had committed to me, but not to the same goal as me.
He wanted our future now, and I wanted our future in the future. The present was accounted for with my hate. He didn’t know the E’mani, not like I did. He knew the histories; I knew the people. They were a cancer. They needed to be ended.
He tipped my head up and made me look at him. Our glances met and we kissed. My lips brushed his. His eyes closed as he tilted his head so ours mouths fit together. Sparks danced in the air between us. I shook off my fear and let myself drown in the feel of his lips.
My skin prickled as heat pooled between my legs.
He grinned and kissed me again harder, sucking my tongue into his mouth. Our tongues caressed each other’s. He tasted like cherry, the taste forever tied to him in my mind. I don’t think I’d ever grow tired of that flavor. I shuddered hard and twined my arms around his neck; the bands pressed between us.
Marin’s nipped at the spot where my shoulder hit my neck, and my thinking flew out the door. My eyelids grew heavy.
His hands slid up my back and tangled in my hair. I arched my neck, sighing as he tugged at my tresses. God, his touch was magic. His mouth nibbled my ticklish spot right below my ear and I squealed, making a token attempt to get away. But he had too good a hold. And as his mouth continued to move downward, I shuddered. Sitting there on his lap, I wanted this moment to last forever. I moved my hips, wringing my own groan from him.
He stopped kissing me and muttered, face deep in my shoulder, “I lied earlier. I want to hear it. I need it. I need some reassurance.”
I closed my eyes, my head still tipped back. My heart gave a fierce thump and my gut clenched. This was all going too fast, but I couldn’t lose him. Not now. I knew that I might one day, but not now.
At this moment, he was mine.
I brought my gaze around to his with his hands still anchored in my hair, framing my face. I put my own hands on his cheeks, my touch light. His eyes no longer had those little flickers of light in them and lines bracketed his mouth. Okay, I could do this. He needed the words.
My fingers smoothed away those horrible lines as I whispered, “I do love you.”
His slit pupils dilated and the bruised expression in his eyes faded away. A smile spread across his face. His eyes grew languid, hot. “Do you mean that?”
“I wouldn’t say it otherwise, but—.”
“No buts. That is all I need to know for now.” His hands flexed and he yanked me close, sealing my lips with his.
There would be no more talking. Now it was all about showing.