Epilogue
“Catherina?” Stevan called as he entered his quarters.
“In here, Stevan!” she called from the bedchamber.
Stevan smiled. “I just returned from a meeting. You’ve done it again! All five hundred of the Firaspatciti have been paired with an Aquallian!”
He paused as he entered the bedchamber. Catherina as lying in the bed, wearing nothing at all, with the look on her face that said great pleasures were in his future. He felt himself beginning to harden immediately.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” he asked as he disrobed. Starting this early, she would almost certainly want to mate twice, possibly three times, this evening.
“I’ve been thinking.”
“Uh-oh,” he said then smiled. “That usually means trouble.”
He smiled and joined her in the bed, rolling her to her back and settling into her arms as he kissed her softly.
“Do you remember last month, when we talked about the word love?”
She’d found out then that there was no single word for love on Firaspatciti. They had words that meant dedication, and duty, and willingness to give their life for another. But no word for love. Bonding, or being bonded, was as close as a single word came. It meant to spend their lives together.
He smiled. “I remember. It means to be dedicated to another and the willingness to sacrifice for them, correct?”
She nodded. They’d talked at length about the meaning of the word. He’d expressed confusion, and understandably so, when every definition she could give him seemed to end with, “But’s more than that.”
She’d given up trying to pronounce Firaspatciti words. Maybe an Icelandic male, whose voice was used to saying fifteen letter words full of Ks, hard Cs, Gs and Zs, but a five-foot five inch Scot woman simply couldn’t do it. So, by mutual agreement, when the nanite translator broke down and couldn’t find a matching word, they would find an English equivalent, or the nearest word to it. It had saved her a lot of sore throats.
She could feel her tears starting and smiled. “I’ve fallen in love with you, Stevan.”
He wiped at her tears. “I will be crushed with disappointment if these are tears of sorrow.”
She giggled wetly. “No. They are tears of happiness and joy.”
He kissed her tears away. In the past eight months, since she’d almost returned home, he had become much more adapt at reading her and knowing what to do.
“Can I tell you something?” he whispered.
She nodded.
“If I understand the meaning of the word, I fell in love with you a long time ago.”
She whimpered as tears leaked out of her eyes. “What does the word mean to you?” she asked softly.
“It means I want to bond with you, that I will fight the long darkness itself for you. I will follow in your path, where ever it leads, and carry you when you can no longer walk. I will take your burdens and give you my sword so you may defend yourself to the last.” He paused and held her gaze. “I want you, Catherina. I want you like no other woman in the galaxy.”
She sobbed and fell into his arms, holding him as she cried. The Firaspatciti were a ferocious people, but they could be surprisingly giving and poetic if you listened to the meaning behind their words.
She gathered herself. “I love you”—she tried, she really tried to say his name, but giggled at the utter failure of it—“even if I can’t say your name. You are my everything. You are the food I eat, the water I drink, and the air I breath. You keep me alive and sustain me. I will take your burdens and carry you when you become tired. I will give you my last breath so that you may live one more. Love you Stevan Gerrett,” she said, shorting his name to something she could pronounce. “I love you with all my heart.”
He smiled at her, touched by her words. “Will you bond with me?”
She sniffed and pulled her mating blade from under the Hath fur covering where she’d tucked in case he asked. He smiled and retrieved his own blade then returned to her side. She slowly pulled her blade as he did his. She couldn’t hope to compete against him, but it was ritualistic and perhaps he would let her touch him with her blade to claim him for herself.
He pulled her to her feet, then tipped his head back, his eyes closed with arms flung wide. He was giving himself to her, allowing himself to be vulnerable before her. She whimpered at what he was saying, though no words were spoken, and lightly drew her blade down his chest and across his heart.