Khiva exhaled a breath, looking up from the work table for, perhaps, the first time in a few hours. He blinked, spotting Kavik, set up on a table in the corner, scribbling something onto parchment.

His vision blurred, his eyes tired, though he felt as awake as he’d been that morning.

Kavik looked up when he noticed Khiva pause in his work. “What do you need?”

“I do not know,” Khiva answered, looking down at the minerals he was heating with a torch. They were not compressing the way he’d hope and he needed to figure out why.

The lab felt scorching hot, but Khiva savored the heat. He’d missed that kind of heat.

“When will the forge arrive again?” Khiva asked, knowing they truly wouldn’t be able to produce firestones without a forge. He could only recreate the temperature with a torch to a certain degree.

“In a few days,” Kavik replied. “But we will have to build it into the wall and install the piping.”

“I will need different resources,” Khiva said, shaking his head, partly to himself. He needed the right combination of properties, coupled with tremendous heat and his blood to bind it all, to properly and successfully create firestones.

“Then I will acquire them,” Kavik said simply.

Khiva nodded, rolling his neck when he found it tense.

“Perhaps you should return to your female,” Kavik said. “I am finished for the day and I can order more resources in the morning.”

Khiva nodded. “Yes, I should.”

Kavik seemed to hesitate before asking, “The Ambassador from the United Worlds is coming soon, yes?”

Khiva sobered but nodded. The meeting would take place in two days. Khiva had told Kavik about his time on Everton, though he’d glossed over some of the grittier details. Even still, Kavik seemed to understand what he’d been implying, that Madame Allegria abused her Krave.

And in two days, they would finally be able to meet with Evelyn’s father’s contact at the United Worlds. A Gharatan named Phee’vee’ka.

“Evelyn has been cleaning our dwelling continuously,” Khiva found himself saying. She cleaned before going to the archives and immediately upon returning, she was back to cleaning, though their dwelling was already spotless.

It was nerves, he knew. His female was nervous about the meeting because she feared they didn’t have enough evidence to warrant an investigation into Madame Allegria’s business.

At Phee’vee’ka’s request, they’d written out a statement of Madame Allegria’s wrongdoings and Evelyn had also included the video recording from her Nu device, which she’d recorded on Everton when Madame Allegria had come to her front door. When she’d come to retrieve Khiva after she’d whipped his back off.

“Do you think the meeting will be successful?” Kavik asked.

“No,” Khiva said, truthfully.

Kavik’s brows rose. “Have you told your female this?”

“I have told her before. Madame Allegria is one of the most powerful humans in the Earth colonies. She has connections everywhere. Exposing her will take much more than a single meeting and a written statement.”

“Yet you will still meet with him?”

“We have to try,” Khiva said, shrugging a shoulder, powering down the torch he’d been using before wiping a hand over his face. “We promised them we would try everything we could. And we will.”

Kavik inclined his head. “I wish you the best then.”

Khiva smiled, gathering his satchel from the table. “Thank you, my friend.”

Khiva looked around the lab. It was small. Much smaller than the underground space he’d practically been raised in on Kerivu.

But it was theirs. And Khiva had a feeling that they would accomplish great things in that space.

He looked at Kavik before he left and hesitated on the threshold of the door. Then he said, softly, “Evelyn and I will be journeying to Opina once the child is born.”

Kavik’s head came up again to regard him, but he said nothing.

“We are going to visit with Dhrika and to visit my mother’s and Pevka’s burial site,” Khiva told him, looking at his brother’s closest friend. “I…I would like it if you came with us.”

Kavik blinked before his eyes trailed down to the parchment in front of him, processing his words.

“Will you?” Khiva asked.

Kavik was like a brother to Pevka, which had made Khiva jealous when they’d been younger. But Khiva understood why. Kavik was an honorable male, a loyal one, and he was a hard worker. Despite what he experienced on Jetu, he hadn’t let it break him.

“Yes,” Kavik said, lifting his head to meet his eyes. “I will.”

Khiva felt relief and he nodded. “I will see you in the morning.”

Then he left the labs and began his walk home, eager to see his female. The evening was still early and he knew that the transport vessels from the mines hadn’t been dropped off yet.

The labs were located near the port of Dumera and so he wound through the market on his way home.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a stand he’d never seen before and due to the position of the sun, the cart’s contents glistened in the light.

Khiva approached, nodding at the Laoti female behind it, who was busy crafting, before inspecting the wares.

It was jewelry and baubles, from wristlets of mesh that wound up the arm—a popular Laoti fashion, he knew—to simple pendants of moonstones.

“For a lover?” the Laoti asked, a knowing glint in her eye.

Khiva perused the offerings. “Veki, for my mate.”

“Species?” the female asked.

“Human,” Khiva responded.

“Ah,” the female said, shifting, her arms jingling with the sound of the wristlets up her forearms. “Are you bonded? Or…what is that human word…married?”

Khiva frowned because he realized they…weren’t.

“Veki,” he said softly. “We are not.”

Keriv’i bonded themselves to a partner in a private ceremony. It was simple, but intimate, of whispered words and light touches.

But humans…he had never asked. Most of his clients on Everton had been ‘married,’ though at the rate they visited him, he knew they were broken marriages. Since then, he’d never given much thought to human bondings.

Evelyn had never brought it up, however.

“Do you know about human bondings?” Khiva asked.

“I am fascinated by adornments,” the female replied. “Not bondings themselves. I do know that humans have bonding marks once they marry.” She procured a ring from its place on a stand. “Like this.”

Khiva inspected it, but thought the stone the female had used was too dark, too rough for his leeldra.

Would his female want a bonding mark? A ring?

Khiva knew that they were bonded to one another already. They didn’t need a ceremony or a mark of it. They felt it within their very souls.

But perhaps…it would be nice to make it official. To give his female something that would show his commitment to her, his love.

Khiva’s eyes caught on a ring that the female had been shaping. She hadn’t placed the stone yet, but there were slots in place for one. The band of the ring was a shimmering, bright silver.

“How many credits for that?” Khiva asked, gesturing to the unfinished ring.

The female looked down at what she’d been working on. “This? There is no stone yet. You do not want this.”

“I have a stone,” he found himself saying.

Or, at least, he would have one. Perhaps within the moon cycle, if all went well at the labs.

The female cocked her head at him. “You really want this?”

Khiva nodded.

“Let me adjust it then,” the female said. “Human fingers are very, very small.”

And so she did, taking off a large section at the bottom before welding it back. She handed it over for him to inspect and he nodded, pleased.

“If if does not fit, I will adjust it for her,” the female said.

“Thank you,” Khiva said. “How much?”

“I will give this to you for 80 credits,” she said.

Khiva nodded, transferring the credits. At one time, 80 credits was more than he made in a year, working at Madame Allegria’s. Now, on Dumera, he’d been saving his credits from the mines and 80 credits only made a small dent.

He would have paid much, much more for his leeldra, however.

Khiva pocketed the unfinished ring, hoping that his female would like it once he presented it to her.

The Laoti female smiled, inclining her head, and Khiva thanked her before going on his way.

It didn’t take him long to reach their dwelling from the market and Evelyn opened the door when she heard him on the landing.

Khiva kissed her in greeting, inhaling her scent, which was like a drug to him. Underneath her scent, he smelled her arousal and he felt his cock harden in response.

“No time for that,” she said, pushing at his hands when he moved to undress her, though he knew her body ached with need. “I still have to scrub out our washroom.”

He grumbled, coming inside, noticing that everything was even cleaner than it had been when he left that morning.

“Female,” he said, “you cleaned the washroom two days ago and no doubt you will clean it the morning before Phee’vee’ka arrives. Do I need to remind you that he is only staying for a single meeting and does not intend to bathe here?”

She slapped his arm lightly, running a hand through her somewhat messy strands. “I know, I know. It just makes me feel better.”

Khiva smiled, affection running through him, and he circled her in his arms, dropping a kiss over the sensitive flesh of her neck.

“Do you think he would prefer the tea I give Gorkan? Or the one I prefer? The one that tastes more like peppermint?” she asked, distracted, though he was busy untying the back of her dress.

He kissed her bare shoulder, dropping his satchel to the floor, but mindful that he still had the ring in his pocket. He needed to remember to retrieve it later so he would not lose it.

“I do not know what Gharatans’ tea preferences are,” he answered, undoing the last ties on her dress.

She gasped when he pushed it off her body and it pooled to the floor.

“You…you are…” she sputtered, looking surprised to be standing there naked when she’d been thinking about tea.

Khiva wondered if he should be insulted about that, but grinned instead.

“I,” he growled, “am a male in need of my female.”

Evelyn paused, her cheeks warming, a smile touching her lips. Then she shook her head and protested with, “The washroom…”

“Is clean,” he finished for her. “I will clean it myself in the morning if it means I can mate you right now.”

Her voice was a little breathless this time when she asked, “Really?”

“Pax, leeldra,” he murmured, leaning down to suckle on her peaked nipple, making her gasp. “I will clean every inch.”

“Hmmm,” she moaned. Her eyes fluttered open when he lifted his mouth from her breast. “I find that deal…very appealing.”

Khiva grinned, taking that as her answer, before lifting her in his arms, her legs wrapping around his hips.

Carrying her to their sleeping quarters, he rasped in her ear, “I will demonstrate how appealing I can be, leeldra.”