13. Holoth

thirteen

Holoth

" S ome of my friends were hoping to stop by this morning," Helna says as she eyes my disheveled appearance and tired eyes.

I never made it to the great hall last night. In fact, K'Vella and I fell asleep in the entertainment room after I tried to distract all of her fears with how wonderfully our bodies fit one another.

I'd be lying if I didn't also do it to help ease some of my worries, too. All of K'Vella's fears are warranted. If this blocker malfunctions for any reason, and I scent a female here, there's a good chance my body will respond. I don't want it to. I won't want to follow the smell, and the entire time I'm tracking the female down, I'll think of K'Vella. But I'll still respond, and it will break us.

"I'm a happily mated male," I tell my sister, shooing her away from the food synthesizer.

Phial came back early last night. He sent a message to my comm telling me to dress K'Vella if we left the entertainment room so I wouldn't have to kill him if he saw her. He's probably the one to let Helna in the ship this morning, or he was so out of it worrying for Avery that he forgot to lock up.

Either way, Helna was in the kitchen when I stumbled in, and I'd much prefer to get food and go back to K'Vella.

"No, you're not," Helna snorts.

My growl is immediate and deadly, and it has my sister turning her eyes to the floor. I gnash my teeth once to make my point stick and then silence the growl.

"I'm here until Avery's heat is over, and then we're leaving," I tell Helna, not turning to look at her to see if she's sorry for what she said.

I know how Rytharian females can be. My sister is no different. She'll want me mated to one of her friends or to one of our kind so I can help to repopulate the clan. I love my sister, and I love the traditions of my culture, but I'm only ever going to be with K'Vella.

"Why?" Helna asks.

"Why what?"

"Why her? Why'd you leave? Why didn't you ever contact us?" Helna gets more and more fired up as she speaks. "No one here thought you did anything wrong. You protected a female who was being attacked. No one wanted you to leave."

"I wanted to leave," I snap, hating that this is how my sister and I are communicating after not seeing each other for so long. "I saved her, sure, but I killed three males. Three, Helna. With my hands and my teeth. I thought I was a monster. I still think I'm a monster sometimes. And you ask why her? Because she's the first one, male or female, to make me purr in so long. She brings me joy, and she brings me comfort. And you should see her nest building skills. She's a master at it."

"I didn't know her kind made nests." Helna toes the grounds. She sounds at least somewhat more understanding of my relationship with K'Vella, but she'll be easy to convince.

It'll be the other females in the tribe who see the blocker and know I haven't scent matched K'Vella. If it's not a scent match, then I'm still fair game as far as our culture dictates. It's one of the main reasons I didn't want to take K'Vella to the great hall yesterday. I'd prefer not to at all, but we'll need to get it done with. I just need to warn her before it happens.

"Still, you were missed last night," she says, giving me a pointed look that tells me she knows I had no intentions of joining them in the great hall even though I said I would. "Your friends were fun, though. I think the human, Sloane, about gave her mates a heart attack when she started dancing with some of the unmated females."

"I'm assuming everyone knew not to touch her," I say, giving my sister a look that I hope says that Jovi and Alik will not hesitate to kill anyone who tries to touch their mate.

"Alik beat the shit out of Yorenth," Helna laughs right as the food synthesizer dings. "Don't worry, everyone loved it, and he made it perfectly clear that the human was off limits. She smells sweet. Did you know that?"

"I've smelled her before." I grab the food from the synthesizer, a couple of forks, and a canister of water. "I didn't put the blocker in until Avery joined the crew. Never needed one until then."

"So you don't know what K'Vella smells like, then?" Helna asks, a genuine curiosity in her voice that has me recalling our conversation last night, during which K'Vella opened up about her fear of losing me.

"I don't, no," I say, frowning as my sister follows me out of the kitchen and down the hall.

"Do you want to know?" Helna asks, batting her lashes at me like she did when we were children, and she was trying to get away with something.

"No," I say, opening the door to the entertainment room. I hope it closes on my sister, and she takes the hint to get off the ship and leave me with K'Vella. Unfortunately, my sister is persistent.

"If you wake her, I will not forgive you," I whisper to Helna when she follows behind me.

K'Vella is still curled up on the carpet, sleeping soundly just as I left her. I didn't tear apart her clothes or strip her last night, so she's still wearing her dress. I covered her with a blanket and my fur when I left this morning. She has two of her arms wrapped around her abdomen, protecting the life that could appear there any day now.

"Why do you care for her so much if you've never smelled her?" Helna asks with a whisper.

I know she doesn't mean for her question to come across as rude, but it does. I want to snarl and snap my teeth at her and ask her how she couldn't see how I might fall in love with such a wonderful creature. Love. Yes, that's the perfect word for how I feel about K'Vella.

"I love her," I tell my sister, letting the words fill my soul and my body. I like how they sound and will like them even more when I say them to K'Vella. "She truly is a wonderful female, and I hope you'll give her a chance to get to know you."

"Of course I will." Helna frowns at me. "You care for her, so I care for her. How could you think I wouldn't?"

"You were just asking me to meet up with your friends," I remind her. "What was their plan? Remove my blocker and hope I scent matched one of them?"

Helna flushes at the thought. "Not exactly." I roll my eyes, and it makes her feel more like she needs to defend herself. "They just wanted to see if you liked how any of them smelled."

"I'm sure they all smell great," I deadpan. "But I have a female, as you can see."

"But do you really know she's yours?" Helna asks.

I know it is just her sisterly instinct to protect me and wish the best for me. She wants me to be with someone who makes my soul complete, who's the perfect genetic match for me. She won't believe it's K'Vella unless I scent match her. It's what we're all taught to believe. That our only true match will be our scent match. Then again, no one's ever tried to scent match another species, at least not that I've ever met.

"I'm not trying to upset you," Helna continues, even though it's clear she's upsetting me.

It's the way K'Vella's arms look tenser now, how the lines of her mouth seem harder, that makes me want to get my sister as far from her as possible. I don't have time to register that K'Vella's awake to stop my sister from saying what she does next.

"I just want you to be realistic. You might like her, but there's someone here who's perfect for you."

"Get out!" I snarl at my sister, my growl even louder than before. I can't stop the command in my voice.

Helna glares daggers at me before she lowers her gaze and takes small steps back toward the doors. She can hate me all she wants for using my commands on her. I couldn't care less right now when the female I care about most is listening to her nonsense and probably making more of it than she needs to in her mind.

"I didn't mean to—"

"Out!"

I don't look at my sister to know she followed my command. I can hear the door open and, seconds later, click shut. I stand above K'Vella, my heart beating fast and my chest rising and falling in harsh breaths. She continues to feign her sleep.

"K'Vella, I know you are awake."

"I'm not," she says. She's trying to add humor to her voice, but I can hear the telltale signs of her emotions starting to seep into her words. "I didn't hear any of it, and it didn't confirm my worst fears. Not at all."

"Fuck," I mutter under my breath.

There's no hesitation as I fall to my knees and kneel next to her. I set the food near her and the water canister as well, and then I haul her into my arms and wrap her in my hold.

"Don't listen to her," I say against her hair. "She's an overeager little sister who wants me to mate and have babies."

"So why don't you?" K'Vella sniffles and brushes away her tears before giving me the chance to.

I chuckle at her question. "I'm trying. I just happen to have the most stubborn female that I'm trying to court, and as far as the babies part, well, we're both working on that, aren't we?"

K'Vella stiffens in my arms a bit more, but I chalk it up to her being uncomfortable with what my sister said. I grab the plate of food and set it in her lap, knowing she's not going to say no to her favorite food.

"We need to go to the great hall today," I tell her, wanting to get this conversation over with. It's not like this conversation can get even worse, not when Helna already made it awful. "We just need to go once to appease the clan. I'll introduce you as my mate, and it should be enough to keep the others from bothering us."

"Is anyone going to be accepting of your choosing me?" K'Vella asks between bites.

Her voice is stronger than I expect it to be, and it makes me wonder just how much she's forcing herself to be strong right now. I already know she's a tough female, but she shouldn't have to be this strong. Not in my arms, not when I'm here to carry some of the burden for her.

"My mother will love you. My sister will as well once she's done scheming." I brush K'Vella's hair behind her back and run my hands over her shoulders. "No one else matters. It's not like we'll be here long enough for their opinions to mean anything."

"Okay, so how do I need to prepare myself for going to the great hall?" K'Vella asks. "How many females are going to try to steal you away from me?"

I growl low in my chest at the idea of any female coming over to me when I have this perfect female in my arms. Thankfully, I already have a plan that should keep most females from bothering us. There will still be some who will push harder than others, but they'll be easy to scare off.

"There will be females who attempt to sway me into being with them," I say, keeping my arms locked tight around K'Vella. I don't think she'd run from me, but I don't want to take the chance. If I go out without her by my side, it'll be even harder to convince the others that I want nothing to do with them. "They don't do it to be disrespectful. With my kind, females can pursue anyone except a scent matched male, and the same goes for my males, but most of them let the females lead since they're so straightforward."

"So you're going to have beautiful women coming up to you all day offering to sleep with you?" K'Vella asks with a pathetic laugh. "Right in front of me, no less."

"They might, but I'll deny each and every one," I tell her, pressing a soft kiss to a bite on her shoulder. "I'm perfectly content with you. I've already told you this."

"I don't want to witness females throwing themselves at you," K'Vella says. "Not when I know one of them could be perfect for you. Even your sister thinks so. They're all going to think so. It's going to be humiliating for me. All those people out there know that I'm not your scent match, that I'm not your mate, that we're just playing some game here."

I snap my teeth against her fresh bite until she whimpers. The sound is music to my ears as I drag her onto her hands and knees. I let my body fall over her, setting the small remainder of her food aside. I hike her dress up above her hips, my palm cupping her sex and rubbing gently to get her warm for me.

"Are we playing a game, K'Vella?" I ask in a low growl. When she whimpers in response, I pull my cock from my pants and slide into her as brutally as I did during my ruts. "Are you saying this is a game? This isn't real?" I thrust into her hard, sucking on her neck as she bucks underneath me.

"Answer me," I growl with command, but it doesn't work on K'Vella. She's not Rytharian, so I can only hope she'll do as I command, even though she has no biological desire to do so.

"It's not," she cries out as I pull out to bottom out inside her again. "It's not real because you're not my mate, and we're not supposed to be like this, and it was never supposed to be this real."

K'Vella cries out the last of her words, her tears falling onto the carpet and her eyes squeezing shut like she can't even look at me right now. I bare my teeth at her but bite my tongue to stop myself from telling her I'm almost certainly her mate, even if she might not be mine. It will only make her feel worse, and I won't have that.

I slow my thrusts, taking her more gently and waiting for my knot to grow before purring up against her back. "I'm so happy that we're together, K'Vella. I'm so happy to share a nest with you, to wake up every morning with you, to live a life with you by my side. It's enough for me. It will always be enough for me. I don't need scents telling me who I should be with. I choose to be with you. No matter what, I choose you."

K'Vella sobs harder as she rubs at her wrists. It's my turn to whimper softly because I want so much for her markings to show. I want to take the pain from her, to give her some physical proof that she's mine and I'm hers.

Nothing I do has made them show up, so I wrap my arms around her, hold her tight to me, and lock us together. I whisper against her pelt how much I love her, how much I care for her, and I don't stop until her tears have dried and my knot is softening.