“No single person’s freedom is worth the future of our entire tribe,” I said. “It is difficult, if not impossible, to produce children outside of a mate bond. My people know this.”
“And what about us?” Nazreen asked. “What if one of us human women chose to be with someone that the Vrika didn’t choose?”
“You mean Fiona,” I gritted out. “And Dalk.”
“Sure,” she said, raising one shoulder in a gesture I did not recognize. “Or me. Any of us. You’ve obviously seen Warrek flirting with Tilly.”
I barely heard the bit about Warrek and Tilly. A bizarre buzzing seemed to have taken up residence in my ears.
“Have you already chosen someone else?” My voice sounded hoarse and far away.
Finally, one of my questions had her off-balance, just like all of hers did to me.
“What?” Her eyes widened, showing white all around the sight stars. “No, nothing like that! We’re just talking hypotheticals, here. But even if there wasn’t anyone else involved. Say someone in your tribe got a mate vision with me in it, and I didn’t want him, or I said no…What would you do?”
The answer that rose up inside me shocked me. Because my first instinct was not to do everything in my power to make her accept the mate bond, as I had always been trained. As I had always thought I would.
No, my first instinct was to honour her.
And…
And to keep her for myself.
A hateful thought, entirely unworthy of a Gahn. I recoiled from it immediately.
“Would I be the one exiled, then?” she asked softly.
“No,” I answered at once, a vehement growl. The very notion made something twist torturously inside me. A bleak andhopeless sort of certainty pressed down on me then. Certainty that if I did exile her, I would simply end up going with her. That I’d renounce the title of Gahn and follow her into the endless Deep Sky. Abandon my own people.
But then, she had her own people. An exile for her simply meant a return to the Sea Sands. It would not be punishment for her as it would be for me.
“I do not know what I would do, Nazreen,” I told her honestly, hating the fact. “Perhaps I’d be forced to try to barter with you, to beg you to give that man every chance to win you.”
Perhaps I’d wrap you in the softest furs, chain you to a bed, and never let you leave…
Already, the days were counting down. She would return to Gahn Errok’s mountain soon.
“I appreciate that you don’t know,” she said with a sigh. “And I do recognize your side of things. I do. It’s not an easy position for any of us to be in.” She resumed stroking the brolka, still strewn obliviously over her lap. “Personal choice is something that’s very important to me. My parents chose to leave their homeland and start a whole new life somewhere else before I was born. They chose each other, and their future. I just always wanted something similar for myself. But then I was taken to this world against my will and…and the idea of the mate bond…it scares me, because it feels like it’s taking the last of my choices away.”
She was frightened of the very central tenet of our existence.
I had nothing to say to comfort her. Though a part of me ached to.
“Well, I am going to make at least one small choice for myself today.” She gently nudged the brolka, who finally roused itself and worked its round body off her lap with a clumsy flop, returning to its mother. “I’m going to go swim with my friends.” She stood. “Care to join me?”
She did not wait for my answer. She walked to the shore where the others were wading. Zaria and Arton had exited the water, but Fiona and Tilly remained, their leg coverings rolled up to their knees.
Nazreen did not roll her leg coverings up to her knees. After removing her foot coverings, she simply stripped them off entirely.
I stood rooted to the spot, unable to tear my gaze away from her for all the glory of the Deep Sky. My sight stars licked desperately up the curving lines of her legs to the tight loincloth she was wearing. With something close to feverishness, I realized the garment was made of Deep Sky spinner silk. The very same spinners I’d promised to take her to see. The silk hugged the tailless curves of her backside and hips. Nazreen similarly abandoned her sleeved cloak, until she wore only her tight, sleeveless tunic and the loincloth.
She hurried to the water’s edge while her friends squealed at her boldness. “Are you going to dive all the way in?” Fiona asked.
“I think so.”
Despite the lack of certainty in her words, there was no such lack of certainty in her movements. She strode purposely forward, the water swallowing her calves, then rising up to the supple line of her hips. When she was up to her waist, she let out a delighted yelp. “It’s cold!”
But she kept going. I jerked, my tail tightening, when she dove beneath the surface.
