Chapter 11

Ashley

I thought about what Axon had said as we walked back to the main cave. It was nice, validating even, that he got so angry on my behalf. I'd love to be mated to someone with his mindset, but that wasn't a guarantee.

What he said about me lying naked in the furs took me by surprise. I didn't realize he found me so attractive. I understood now that he liked my touch, but I thought it ended there. It seemed he might like me as much as I like him, but that didn't change the fact that I still wanted to wait for luminescence.

I wouldn't over complicate things by having an ex-boyfriend in our very small community. If Axon and I got together and he liked me for me, and was fully content with my ace sexuality, I would not be able to handle luminesing to someone else who might feel differently. I would undoubtedly lay awake every night wishing I was lying in bed next to Axon instead. A pit settled in the bottom of my stomach at that thought.

My stomach rumbled as soon as we got to the main cavern. It was a long walk to the crystal cave and if it weren't so cloudy, I'm sure the sun would be high in the sky.

"I'll make us lunch," Axon offered.

"I can help. What were you planning to make?"

"I thought we could have some meat and vegetable soup. I have some tubers I gathered a few days ago in that basket. You want to cut those while I cut the meat?"

"Sure. That sounds like a good plan," I agreed and grabbed a bone knife.

Axon handed me some tubers and a variety of other vegetables to chop while he cut the meat into cubes.

"Do you have a favorite food that Orsu and Julie make?" I asked in way of conversation.

Axon nodded his head. "I like Julie's tacos. The texture of the soft flat bread along with the spiced meat is very satisfying."

There was a beat of silence before I teased, "Aren't you going to ask what my favorite food is?"

"I already know what your favorite food is," he said without a hint of inflection in his voice, as if it were a well-known fact that he knew what my favorite food was.

"How? I've never told you?"

"Your favorite dinner is Orsu's ribs recipe. Your favorite lunch is the stuffed bread that you all call hot pockets, and your favorite breakfast is pancakes with iced black tea and cream. You close your eyes as you take your first sip and moan after you swallow."

My jaw hung open as I took in Axon's very thorough and descriptive recollection of my eating habits.

Realizing he may have said too much, he tried to play it off by shrugging his shoulders and saying, "it's just something I've noticed."

He'd guessed right. Those were all my favorite foods. How much had he been paying attention to me? I liked this feeling of being so well known by someone else. Not just anyone, though, Axon.

I needed to change the subject. We were on a very slippery slope to heartbreak. I couldn't like Axon like that, not unless we luminesed.

"You know Lumod is a pretty chill guy. I wonder if he'd be okay with not having sex very often."

Axon's shoulders tensed up and he started cutting the meat more aggressively.

"Do you wish to be mated to Lumod?" He emphasized the word wish and bit out Lumod's name as if it were a sour fruit that had gone bad.

"Not really," I admitted. "It's scary not having a choice, though."

"Luminescence has never made an unhappy pairing," he commented.

"Really? Everyone in your old dekes was happily mated?" Axon paused and thought for a moment.

"Everyone starts off happy. It's up to the couple to maintain their relationship."

"Who ended up unhappy?" Now I was curious.

"The Savrix," Axon began, and I wasn't at all surprised. Everything I'd heard about the Savrix was awful. "His mate saw who he really was, and she tried to distance herself from him, but the more she pulled away, the more restrictions he put on her."

"Dameron is a real jackass. Did they have any kids?"

Axon's expression turned grim. "They had one child. He brought much joy to his mother's life."

"But not Dameron?"

He shook his head. "Layla, Dameron's mate, kept their sietling from him as much as she could, and Dameron didn't fight her on it."

"Did she die in the stiffness?"

"Yes," his answer was short and full of pain. Even though his mother was still alive, it must be hard to remember all the other women from his dekes who were not.

"What happened to their son after that?"

Axon shook his head. "His story is not mine to tell."

That was fair. This conversation reminded me of how Axon doesn't carry himself like the rest of the guys. Most of them still bear a lot of shame over what happened despite the fact that we humans have told them they most likely were not the cause of the stiffness.

"You aren't like the rest of the guys."

The corners of Axon's mouth turned up in a teasing smile. "Well, thank you."

"No, not like that," I laughed. "I mean they carry a lot of shame over what happened. You don't."

Axon shrugged his shoulders. "My mother is still alive. That is not true for most of them. I blamed myself in the beginning, like the rest of them, but after many moons of my parents assuring me that I was not to blame for the death of so many, I started to believe them."

I could see that. Drondia and Karo were very kind and patient parents. They treated Axon like the grown male that he was, but also made it clear that they were there for him if he ever needed them. It was nice.

They were both very kind to all of us humans as well. Karo still held knitting lessons in the evenings for anyone who wanted guidance and Drondia was a very sweet soul who made you feel loved every time you spoke with her.

"You have good parents," I agreed.

"Did you have good parents?" Axon asked.

A twinge of sadness hit my soul. I did have good parents. My mom was an executive assistant and my dad was an accountant. We lived a simple but happy life in the suburbs. I tried not to think about them. All it did was bring me pain.

"Yeah, they were good people." I didn't really want to talk about that right now .

"The vegetables are done. How's the meat looking?" I looked over at the fire to see beautifully browned meat.

"It's done too."

We ate lunch near the entrance to the cave and watched the rain fall. It was nice. I loved watching it rain from our covered porch back home, and this was very similar.

I looked over at Axon, who wore a serene expression. It struck me as unfair that he was helping me, but he had his own struggles too. He might lumines one day. Maybe I could help him too.

"I know touching me sends you into a bit of a sensory overload, and you said it wasn't like that with the others, but I've never seen you touch anyone else before. When you bump into the other women, does their touch affect you?"

"A little. I don't like being touched. When you touch me, it feels like too much of a good thing. When anyone else touches me, it feels abrasive and irritating."

"Maybe I could help you like you're helping me. You might lumines one day too, right? Maybe if I can desensitize you to my touch, you'll be able to touch anyone without any issues."

Axon swallowed hard and nervously ran his hand through his short hair. "Okay, that sounds good to me."

I scooted a bit closer to him and strategized how to go about this .

"I can imagine your mate might want to hold your hand. Maybe we can start with that."

Axon nodded his head in agreement.

"Okay, why don't you hold up your hand like this?"

I held out my hand palm up.

"We can start by putting our fingers together and go from there."

"Okay," Axon obediently held out his hand just like I showed him.

Little by little, I slowly inched my hand closer to his until our fingertips were touching.

Axon winced and pressed his other hand firmly into the moss-covered floor.

"Are you okay?" I didn't want to continue if he wasn't comfortable with it.

"Yes, please keep going," he said through gritted teeth.

I pressed in further until all of our fingers were touching, but not our palms. Axon's tail thumped the floor furiously as if it were an uncontrollable reaction. His wincing had not stopped, and now his eyes were shut tight as if he were fighting against pain.

I pulled back and Axon nearly fell to the ground as he took multiple deep breaths one after the other.

"That wasn't very pleasant for you, was it?"

"I just need to get used to it." He commented as he rubbed his hand as if soothing a burn.

I looked outside at the rain and remembered how Axon had mentioned that the sound of the rain bothered him at first, but he got desensitized to it after a while. Maybe having a second sensory input would lessen the impact of my touch.

"You should sit in the rain," I blurted out.

"I should what?" He eyed me speculatively.

"Maybe if you sit in the rain, the feeling of the water falling on you will detract from my touch," I explained. "You sit outside the cave and I'll sit inside."

Axon looked outside as he thought about my idea. He had taken his webbing down from the entrance to give us a better view during lunch. The rain made the fall leaves look even darker. The hues of purple almost looked black, but when the sun peeked through the clouds it cast light on the beautiful forest right outside our doorstep.

"I'll give it a try." Axon stood with a determined look on his face and, to my surprise, he started to strip off his clothes.

He pulled his shirt off over his head, exposing a torso filled with toned muscle. His biceps looked well defined outside of the confines of his clothes.

I guess it did make sense for him to not want to get his clothes wet while we tried out my idea. I swallowed hard as I wondered how much of his clothing he was going to take off.

Now that his shirt and shoes were gone, all that was left were his pants and, if I remembered correctly, these guys didn't wear underwear.

My mouth went dry as he undid the laces. He was just about to pull them down when he caught sight of my expression.

"Oh, I'll grab some shorts." The tips of his elf ears turned a dark blue as he walked to the back of the cave toward the storage baskets.

He looked back in my direction as he pulled his pants down and I quickly looked away. I could feel my cheeks heat and I was sure my face was as red as his ears were blue.

He came back in his shorts and nothing else, and god was he a sight to behold. He was on the shorter and leaner side than the rest of the guys, but I didn't mind that. His lean build made all of his muscles pop in a way that made my mouth water.

"Let's do this," he said, and then he walked into the rain.

His shorts quickly became irrelevant as soon as they got wet. The imprint of his package was as obvious as if he'd been naked. He was rather large...and ridged.

I usually didn't spend much time thinking about sex, but I was sure thinking about it now. Whoever Axon ended up with, would be a very lucky lady, and I secretly hoped that lady would be me.