Chapter 47

chapter 47

ELLE

I woke up sleeping on Cepharius.

Naked.

We were touching—and everything that'd gotten us to this point had not been the world's most amazing dream.

It'd been real, and I was sore to prove it.

"Cepharius," I thought out, while shifting one of his arms. He was asleep, horizontally, for my sake, because he wanted me to be comfortable.

I thought I should wake him up, but decided instead to relish the moment between us here. There would be time to worry about the fact we were in a spaceship and my suit was broken later—but for right now?—

"Little pearl?" I heard him ask on the 'qa, at the same time as I felt his mind brush mine.

I stretched against him with my body and wrapped myself around his thoughts. "I love you."

"I love you, too," he said, but it had a tinge of concern. "I wasn't supposed to fall asleep, Elle. I was supposed to be guarding you."

"Does it matter? I was safe," I said, gently pushing off of him .

"It does. There was something—I want to remember it." I felt him sorting through his memories in a rush—but before he could figure out what it was, there was an intrusion on our 'qa.

"Have you rested adequately?"

I screamed—both with surprise, and because the new voice on our 'qa was so loud. Ceph wound around me on instinct, but there was no way he could protect me—the sound was coming from within.

"Please do not panic . I will not harm you."

"My mate," Ceph said, taking my head in his hands, before casting out. "Stop that! Be quiet! You are hurting her!"

I saw myself in his eyes as he did—a blood vessel in my eye had burst—and I felt him enveloped by fear and anger.

"I have been waiting for our minds to meet ."

I curled up into Ceph's chest, knowing he was seeking exits from the room, but even if one appeared, I was out of my suit—there was no place safe that he could take me.

The voice in our heads sounded like if someone ran one voice through an entire choir and then played it back over an organ with a ton of reverb. I had more imagination than Ceph did though—I could just feel him thinking whatever-the-fuck was happening right now was bad.

And that he would give his life for me.

I put a hand on his arm and squeezed it. "Don't do anything stupid," I thought at him.

"Please, do not," the ambient voice agreed. "I need your help ."

But it wasn't just the word help, it was the sensation of helplessness, frustration, anything that was related to it in my mind—like the voice could only play chords instead of notes.

"Can you be quieter?" I begged.

"I will try . But I do not have much time ."

And when it said "time," I was smacked with the feeling of infinity. It sent me reeling, the thought that I was nothing and that time would continue on without me.

"Elle," Ceph said, calling me back. His hands stroked all over my body. "Stop talking to her! Just talk to me!" he demanded.

"I cannot ," the voice apologized. "Your mind is big enough to hold us. But she is the only one who can understand ."

I put a hand out, breathing hard. "Just—give me a second, all right?"

"My pearl," Ceph whispered on our ‘qa. "Are you okay?"

"I don't know." I was seeing kaleidoscopes in my mind every time the voice talked to us, fractals of synesthetic knowledge, thoughts, feelings that weren't mine, that I could only barely comprehend. "What are you?" I sent out, and I could feel Ceph shielding me from the answer.

"I am the ship you are in."

And the word ship came with the experience of being one, of traversing through cold, dark, space, a long journey planned, cut short—and then fear...of being lost?

No.

A fear of loss.

"Your mind is becoming accommodating ."

I didn't think that was it; I thought it was the fact that Ceph's presence was inside me, everywhere I turned, putting me back together just as fast as acknowledging that there was an alien presence trying to communicate with me was pulling me apart.

" Yes. This is why I facilitated your mating. Can you help ?"

"What can you possibly need from us?" Ceph shouted.

" Energy. "

The way it said it caught me off guard—it was with such unexpected passion and longing.

"Why?" I asked—and I was rocked by visions from a distant past.

There was a war going on, and an intelligent race was trapped between two different fighting species, neither of which it was even a part of. And when they realized their planet was going to be swept up in the conflict no matter what they did, they created spaceships to propagate their future.

Several hundred of these flew off into space, to meet at a distant destination, but this one was hit by debris.

The safety of its cargo was paramount, so it fixed itself, but in doing so used too much of its power to continue, which is why it hid itself here.

And what followed was three thousand impossibly frightened years of sending off beacons, asking for help before its power ran out.

Help that had never arrived—until now.