Chapter 14
My heart is pounding in my chest as we make our way through the thick forest that covers most of the island. It's like setting foot on a planet I barely remember. Except, the first breath of heady air brings back every memory of my youth and stirs up swarms of nerves deep in my belly.
It's been so long since I've been home. I'm surprised Ojal remembered me. Or that he is still here. If I remember correctly, he was even more restless than I was. It feels like a lifetime since I left, and in a way, it has been. I'm no longer the young male, filled with purpose and ideations, who left all those revs ago. In his place is a hardened male who never expected to return.
My, how the fates work in unexpected ways.
I glance down at where Nita is plastered to my side as I lead us down a narrow path through the dense woodlands that—if memory serves me correctly—should lead to the small cottage I grew up in. Her soft warmth against me is comforting, until I notice how her head swivels from side to side as we walk, and how she jumps and starts at every buzz and animal call. More than once, I catch her muttering "creepy" under her breath.
My heart stutters against my breastbone, this time with worry that she may not like my planet. Where will we go then? I would never force her to stay somewhere she hated, but I honestly didn't consider or expect this kind of reaction from her.
My mind is spinning when she suddenly speaks up. The soft sound is startlingly loud in the quiet.
"Is it daytime or night? How can you even tell with the way the clouds cover the sky?" she asks before jumping at the loud call of a choo-bav, a small flightless bird with a big voice it uses to scare off predators, and apparently my mate.
Her arms wrap tighter around my arm she's already clutching, and I tuck her further into my side, bending down to press a kiss to her temple. It's probably better for her to find out on her own that when the sun sets, it takes all the light with it, leaving the forest blanketed in thick darkness. I don't want to needlessly worry her since we'll be safely inside long before that happens.
As if on cue, the trees open to another small clearing, and I come face to face with my childhood home. The structure hasn't changed a bit since I last saw it. It's built into the side of a steep hill and covered in my mother's favorite ivy and large purple and white blooms that span twice as big as my head. That's not what has me coming to an abrupt stop. Standing in the doorway, her hand clutching her chest, is my mother.
Unlike the house I spent my youth in, my mother looks very different. Her white hair has turned silver, and her light gray cheeks and mouth carry deep lines that weren't there when I saw her last. When she sees us, she calls inside for my father and then hurries down the walkway toward us. Despite the wide grin plastered across her face, age has caught up with her, and her steps aren't nearly as fluid as I remember them being.
"Ojal commed to tell us you landed. I didn't dare to chance believing him," she cries through the communicator strapped around her throat. The devices are common to my people when on land. Once we communicated with an intricate language of hand gestures, but technology has simplified many things for our people, like the communicators.
Being gone for so long, I have forgotten most of the hand language, even though I've never cared for communicators and choose to use a handheld version when the situation absolutely calls for my words. I'm akin to my father in this way.
My mother wraps her arms around me and tucks her head below my chin. Her hold on me is just as fierce as I remember, but I can't help wondering when she got to be so small. Hugging her, I can't help noticing she still smells the same, lightly scented with her favorite perfume she makes from the ivy blossoms that cover our home.
When she finally steps back, her eyes are shiny with unshed tears. Her hands tremble when she cups the sides of my face before turning her attention to Nita. "And who have you brought with you?" Her smile never falters.
"I'm Nita," my female speaks up for herself. Stepping back from my mother, I curl a possessive arm around my mate, showing her what Nita means to me.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Nita." My mother opens her arm, drawing both of us in for another fierce hug. "Thank you for bringing my boy back to me," she whispers through the communicator. "Even if it's only for a little while."
"Oh, this was all his idea. I really had nothing to do with it," Nita sputters.
My mother just shakes her head as she turns us toward the house. "That may be true, but believe me when I say, if it wasn't for you, he never would have come back here."
Nita glances up at me, and I shrug. She's not wrong. Long ago I accepted the choice I made knowing I would never see my family or home planet again. My female, my mate, is the only thing that could have changed that.
We follow my mother as she chatters happily up the walkway. Everything about the house is exactly as I remember it, right down to the silent hovering figure of my father in the doorway.
My steps slow. Not only do I take after him in looks, but in temperament as well.
My father watches us as we make our way to the house. His posture is rigid, and his lips are pressed into a thin line. His dark gray skin is also more deeply lined than I remember, and there is a stoop to his back that wasn't there before. He keeps his hair long, but it's thin now, grayer than my mother's silver, and falls haphazardly around his shockingly craggy face. His head tilts to follow our every move, but his face remains blank and completely void of emotion.
Nita follows my mother into the house, but I stop to acknowledge my sire. The silence between us is tense as we take each other in. But then, he opens his arms and embraces me for the first time since I was a pup.
"Missed you, son," he whispers huskily.
A lump forms in my throat as I return his unexpected embrace. My voice is just as thick when I whisper back, "Missed you too."
And I find that it's true. My father and I rarely agreed on things in my youth, but as I've gotten older, I find myself recalling the lessons he tried to instill in me. Lessons that were lost on me at the time, but that I understand and see with new understanding as a grown male.
He steps away and thumps me on the back before turning to head inside, to find where my mother has run off to with my mate.