Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

Anna

I went to the compartment where Lashe had stored my Christmas gifts. I opened it up and took out a bottle of tagma wine that I’d intended for Wyn and Scaron, one of the humans and her mate on the Solas, and a selection of viot’na meats and cheeses that was held in suspension for Jetta and Savair, a different couple. If we got to the Destran planet, they’d be out of a gift, but Lashe and I needed a break from the subsistence menu. Badly .

Lashe looked dubiously at the tray and the bottle I placed on the table. “We may get out of here,” he said. “Will be a shame to not have those gifts to give your friends.”

“I can resend them,” I said. “Tonight, we’re celebrating. Just us.”

He spread his hands. “As you wish.”

“Are you always going to be like that?” I asked. “So doting?”

“When I can be.” He flashed a grin, which sent a shot of heat straight to my groin. “I’d like to make you happy.”

I groaned and covered my face with my hands. “How dare you be so perfect.”

“Oh, I am not perfect,” he said with a snort. “I’m stubborn, for one thing. And I think we’ve established that I have difficulty expressing my feelings.”

I grinned. “I can work with those things.” I had the replicator make me two glasses and two plates with nothing on them. I poured the wine and handed him one glass. “Merry Christmas, Lashe,” I said. “And a joyous Mer-liss Noc.” That was a holiday celebrated around this time by the Destran people; it denoted the celebration of the merging of the Destrans and their Solas, millennia ago.

He raised his glass and smiled at me. His beautiful green eyes twinkled. “Merry Christmas and a joyous Mer-liss Noc.”

We sipped, and I sighed contentedly at the delicious tastes sliding over my tongue. “Oh god, after eating all of those nutritional supplements, having actual flavor is such a luxury.”

Lashe smiled contentedly. “I can’t argue. I am almost out of lami and this is quite delicious.”

“That reminds me.” I reached behind my chair and pulled out one other thing I’d packed in the container. “This is for you.”

I handed him the gift wrapped in bright paper and he took it as if it were something delicate, about to shatter in his hands. “This is for me?”

“Yes,” I said with a smile. “I think you’ll like it. I hope you do.”

He looked up at me. “I will treasure anything you give me.” His fingers worked at the paper and he slid it off to hold a sealed silver canister. He turned it in his hands.

“It’s a supply of pure lami from your Sola,” I explained. “But it’s sealed in a tagirs vial, so it is as fresh and untouched as it was when it was extracted from the Sola’s pool.”

He looked up in awe. “ Tagirs vials are unbelievably rare,” he said in woderment. “And wildly expensive.”

“I wanted to give you this years ago, but it took me this long to track one down.” I shrugged, feeling a little shy, suddenly, from the expression on his face. “I thought, it must be lonely to be so far from home. Now you can fill it up when we visit the Destran planet and this will always keep your lami perfectly fresh.”

“Thank you.” His skin was a riot of color, and I saw a little more of it now, as his suit was undone at the top. His throat and collarbone peeked through the opening. “I do get lonely,” he said. “And there is nothing like lami fresh from the source. I will treasure this tagirs vial.”

He leaned over and pressed a hard kiss to my mouth. He tasted of wine and desire and a heady mix of need, comfort, and, oddly, home . Yes, Lashe could be the person who always made me feel like home, no matter where we were.

“I’m glad you like it,” I said when he eased away.

“I didn’t get you anything,” he said, frowning to himself.

I chuckled. “You’re getting us out of here— both of us. That’s a great gift.”

“Three of us,” Stelis put in. “I, also, prefer to remain in existence.”

“Right.” I rolled my eyes. “Three of us.”

We spent the next several hours eating and laughing and talking and touching. All the while, forgetting—or rather, temporarily, purposefully ignoring—that tonight could be our last night together. I was well aware of it. Surely he was too. With each bite we took and sip we drank, we shifted slightly closer together.

We wound up sitting on the floor beside each other, using the table, but not the chairs, as they weren’t close enough. The carpet was soft. Soon, we were shoulder to shoulder. Thigh to thigh. Touching, unable or unwilling to break the contact.

The bottle emptied. Our plates, bared. I licked my lips and looked up at him. “This might sound crazy,” I said. “But I’m ready.”

He blinked, and his brows rose. “For what?”

“For you,” I said. “For us . I think the mate marks are the real thing for both of us. I want you, Lashe.”

He closed his eyes. “Don’t say that to me unless you mean it.”

“I mean it. I wouldn’t have said it otherwise.”

“Don’t say it because you think I’m going to die tomorrow.” His gaze sharpened on me. “Because I won’t. And if we do this, you’ll be mine. Completely.”

A feeling of pure happiness washed over me at his words. It was as if pieces of a puzzle slipped into place, finally giving me a full picture. Completing something that had been nothing but scattered pieces for a long time. “I welcome that. I’m meant to be with you, Lashe.”

“Are you saying that you want me as your mate? Because there’s no taking it back,” he said sternly. “There’s no, ‘for the time being.’ The mate marks don’t expire.”

“Thank goodness for that,” I murmured, running a finger over the opening of his suit. “I want you as my life partner.” I tipped my head back and closed my eyes. “I’ve had terrible luck in love,” I admitted. “Relationships that I thought were pretty good would fall apart in front of me and I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t even know why, sometimes.”

His mouth was suddenly on my cheek, his lips grazing my ear. “Perhaps you weren’t with the right male.”

“I wasn’t.” I turned and my lips brushed against his. “But with you, everything makes sense. It’s like something in my heart tells me that you and I are meant to be. That you won’t leave and I won’t want to.”

He raised one eyebrow. “I will never leave you. You’re my mate. I wish to make a life with you, Anna. The only thing standing in the way of that is this creature that our ship is trapped on.”

In that moment, it all made sense. It all became crystal clear. The men I had chosen in the past were never right for me. The right one had been with me for five years. I gazed into his eyes and everything stopped. Time, thoughts, worries. “I want you, Lashe. Now. However many days we have left. Whether it’s one or thousands.”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Oh, I’m sure,” I said, and I crushed my lips onto his.