Chapter Fourteen

*Ragnar*

Something is wrong. Regreee is panting, her breathing shallow as she slides from my back and stumbles through the doors of a mostly intact house. Its front door was still on the hinges, and I gave a sigh of relief when it swung inward. Beyond the door is cast in shadows. Fear for my mate pushes me to shift so that I can follow her.

My shoulders barely clear the door frame while the ceiling feels like it is closing in upon me, but my comfort doesn’t matter. Regreee’s does. While keeping her in my sight, I scent the home. To my relief the only other alien I can smell is Floofy. The damned nuisance is hot on my mate’s heels, rubbing his fur along her legs. Aggression swells in me that he is scenting her, my inner beast rearing its head. With a soft growl I shut him back into the recesses of my mind. Floofy is doing nothing more than offering comfort to my mate, something I should be doing.

Eating up the distance between us, I push through the weird layout just as my mate is entering another room. This room isn’t like the others, this one has a nest in the center. It is dusty from disuse, but Regreee ignores it, plopping onto the soft surface with another gasping breath.

Forcing my way through the door once more, I barely register the cracking of the wooden frame or the crash of the door as it falls. My focus is solely on her. Bending down, I crouch to make myself as small as possible and force my way into her line of sight. Panic seizes me when I realize she isn’t truly seeing me. Her eyes are glassy, and her hand is pressed tight to her sternum.

“Regreee? Are you alright?” I ask, thankful my voice isn’t as harsh as it is in my other form. I do not wish to scare her, especially not in this state. Frustration builds, the need to fight her unseen foes is like a pain inside of me.

Her hand shoots out, gripping my shoulder tight as she breathes. She doesn’t answer in words, her glassy stare unfocused upon the dirty wall behind me. Gently I shake her, unsure what to do. Unsure how to help, it makes my skin itch and crawl to be unable to do anything. To be rendered useless.

Moving closer, I shove her legs apart until I can get close to her. Slowly, so as not to scare her, I wrap my arms around her. She feels slight in my embrace, her trembling terribly harsh for her small body. She remains stiff for a moment, until I am afraid she will refuse my comfort. Like a dam breaking, she gives a small cry and launches against my chest.

Wrapping her up tight, I turn us so that I can sit back on the comfortable bed, the human word for a nest. She curls tighter into me, her head shoved beneath my chin. I am careful to keep my spikes and sails from her delicate flesh while squeezing her as close as I can. Words threaten to tumble from my throat, but I am not confident I can convey what I am feeling or what I want to know.

My own aches and pains are forgotten in the face of this unknown battle that she is waging. Her breathing hasn’t slowed, and her trembling is only getting worse. Floofy gives a whining huff before joining us on the bed. I want to slap him into the floor, but I fight the reaction, letting him snuggle close to her thigh where it drapes over my own.

Silence stretches between us and soon I feel my own breathing threaten to match her frantic pace. It feels like forever before I notice a subtle change in her. Long agonizing minutes of holding her in my arms, keeping her pieces from falling apart. The first sign of improvement is imperceptible at first. Her trembling lessens little by little, the warmth seeping from my scales to her pinkening flesh.

As her trembling subsides, her breathing slowly follows suit. I hardly breath myself, afraid that the changes will revert, and she will be back to the silent battle. A battle I cannot fight for her. The feeling of helplessness leaves my chest burning, a yawning chasm of unspoken need, yet it means nothing at all in the face of her pain.

“Ragnar!” She gasps, tightening her grasp on my neck, returning the ferocity of my embrace.

“I am here. I am here.” I chant, hoping it conveys what I want to say. I am here. Till the breath leaves our lungs and doesn’t return. Even then, I will follow her into the afterlife. Where she goes, I go. Her battles are my own. Her pain is my own. She defines me and for the first time the weight of that feeling is crippling.

“I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry.” She whispers now that her shaking and gasping has ceased. The sound of defeat in her voice is like a spike to my hearts as the tang of salt hits my nose. Curious, I lean back until I can see her face. Tears track down her cheeks and her eyes are puffy as she cries. She is the most beautiful creature I have ever laid eyes upon.

“How to fix?” I ask, frustrated at the lack of inflection in my words. To combat that, I raise one clawed finger, catching a single tear upon it. She gives a watery laugh, the first sign of my Regreee that I have seen in hours.

“You can’t fix it, Ragnar. I am sorry. I had a panic attack; humans get those when their emotions and anxiety take control. It is hard to get out of one.” Shame heats her cheeks until they are pink. Anger makes me want to growl. She doesn’t need to feel shame for being human. We are different, but our differences make our pairing beautiful.

“No sorry. Emotions are…hard.” The sentence is broken but I am pleased with it all the same. When she gives a watery laugh once more, I can’t help but smile. “Anxiety for Regreee all the time.” I add, hoping to make her feel better. We all have weaknesses. Confronting them makes us stronger. This time her laughter is pure and light.

“I’m sure I give you fits. It must be hard being the size of a house and having to worry about something as small and useless as me.” Her joke feels wrong, as if she is insulting herself. I do not like the double meaning she has hidden in her words.

“Not useless. Strong. Beautiful. Brave.” I force all of my love into those words, trailing a claw down her cheek in a caress. She squirms in my lap, her cheeks heating once more.

It makes her look adorable. Her words from earlier are shoved into my brain, my beast rising to the surface to demand I claim Regreee in all ways, as my mate. Now that her sadness has passed, my beast wants to mark what is his.

Fighting against the surge of arousal that threatens to have my cocks hardening, I clear my mind. No. I may not be human, but these thoughts are intrusive and unwanted. It feels like a betrayal of my mate to even have these thoughts while she is vulnerable. With a savage burst of energy, I lock my beast back in the depths of my mind where he belongs.

“Thank you, Ragnar. You are…you are special to me. That's why I had a panic attack. I was so worried in the store that those men would hurt you. They are monsters and I know what they are capable of. I couldn’t stand the thought of them getting their hands on you.” She shudders as if imagining it. My hearts surge at her words but then ice-cold dread leaks into my veins.

“You...know them?” I ask her, my mind turning over her words and the double meanings that they could have. My own species isn’t prone to duplicity, so it is an adjustment trying to figure out hers. When she hesitates, biting her plump limp between her blunt teeth, I know I have guessed correctly. There is something my little mate doesn’t wish to tell me. It makes me even more determined to know.

A growl rumbles in my throat when she climbs off my lap and moves further up the bed, resting upon dusty, plump mounds beneath the covering. She crosses her legs and her arms, something she only does when she is uncomfortable. Hurt fills me, my mind flashing back to our first night together, when she treated me as if I was something disgusting and unworthy.

Something on my face must have given away my feelings because she immediately adjusts her position before patting the bed beside her. It is a small amount of space, barely big enough for two people her size. Despite the lack of space, I squeeze my massive bulk below her legs, curling up as best I can. The hurt eases the moment we make contact, her skin flush against me from hip to heel.

We sit in silence for a little while, each of us consumed with our thoughts. As much as I want to know the situation with those nasty humans, I also do not want to create distance between us. We have made progress over the last few days.

Two desires war within me. The desire for any knowledge of my mate and her life before me and the desire to keep building upon our relationship. She has accepted me, and my hearts can’t take it if she reverts to disgust.

“Ragnar…” She begins, clearing her throat before continuing. “Ragnar, those men are people I used to know. The story is painful and long and it is difficult for me to speak of. That's partly why I had a panic attack. The need to keep you safe mixed with remembered pain. It was too much.” Her breath hitches at the end and I smell the salt of her tears once more.

My beast rises from the depths of my mind, his focus changed. Rage fills every inch of my body until I am practically vibrating with it. Someone hurt my mate. Not just one, but many and they were within my grasp, and I didn’t even know it. The need to rend, tear and destroy is like a living, breathing thing.

“They hurt you. They die.” The words escape between my gritted teeth, torn from my very soul. I mean every single one of them. The sadness falls from her face for a moment, smiling down at me. It feels like being hit with a sunbeam after a storm.

“I agree. Next time we see them I’ll even point out which ones need to die but tonight? Tonight, I want to escape the demons that haunt me. Can you just hold me?” She holds her arms out and my need for answers is forgotten in the moment. I can deny her nothing, especially when she asks for my touch.

As gently as I can, I climb up her body until I can take her within my arms. She practically disappears as she curls up beneath my chin, holding me just as tightly as I hold her. It feels like a form of heaven I can hardly put words to. We may be adrift in a sea of the unknown but here in this moment, I have an anchor. My mate.

From a young age, I have been deprived of physical touch. Once I reached fifteen human years, my dam kicked me from our den along with all of the other unmated males. They are too unpredictable to be around the younglings if they are unmated, their beast too close to the surface. I understand the why of it as an adult, but I didn’t quite realize how starved of touch I was until the silken texture of her skin met my hardened scales.

She could have been a three headed, giant, clawed Bleargon from my world and I wouldn’t have complained so long as she loved me. It is just an extra benefit that she is so beautiful, soft and pliable.

We are two halves of the same whole. I am all hard angles, spikes and scales. She is soft, plush and sweet. I am dark and she is light. Obsession swarms me, an obsession with her design. Lying with her feels like a religious experience, getting to hold her and absorb her scent.

Earlier she told me she cared about me. My translator tells me this is the human equivalent to a blooming bond. It gives me hope that she might one day return the depth of feeling I have for her. As deep as the universe is wide. It feels like she has changed the chemical composition of me, I am altered. I am changed.

My DNA, the very code for my being has been rewritten to reflect her name. My hearts cease to beat for anything but her pleasure, her continuance. The human word, love, cannot contain what I am feeling. My world begins and ends with her.