A future and a way forward.
You need to look ahead, Gilly. You need to be the person I know you can be.
Mum’s last words. The last thing she said to me before her eyes closed and she drifted away. I thought it meant I was to carry on her work, to be her.
But I think I was wrong. I was so concentrated on being her daughter, I forgot to be myself.
Dalox strokes his clawed finger over my cheek. “Are you hurt, my mate?”
“No.” I shake my head.
“If any of thesefemaleshurt you, I will deal with them accordingly.” He lifts his head and glares at the assembled Sarkarnii.
“They haven’t hurt me,” I say. “They helped me.”
“Then why does the water come from your eyes?” Dalox asks, his eyes studying mine, his burning with intensity.
“Because I’ve realized something.” I put my hand on his hand, curling my fingers around the huge bulge of his thumb.
“And what would that be? That Sarkarnii are more trouble than we’re worth?” he says, flashing a fang.
“I realized that long ago, when I first met you.” I laugh soggily.
“I should be hurt,” Dalox rumbles. “But then trouble knows trouble.”
Warmth blooms in my heart, filling my chest until I think it’s going to burst.
“I think I know why I’m here,” I say. “I think I was always meant to be here.”
“It is fate, my spark,” Dalox says. “All the stars and the ancestors combined to send you to me.”
I find myself smiling even as more tears spill from me. More tears than I shed the night my mum died. More tears than I shed at her funeral and in the days after when the house was permanently quiet, when I could cry but nothing would come. Or the night I went out walking and the light caught me. The next thing I knew, I was in a cage, in a dank hold, with strange, terrible creatures making noises I couldn’t decipher. I wasn’t on Earth. I had nothing left. Not even my tears.
Was it fate? Is it?
“Fate is what binds the universe, Gillian,” Dalox says. “It is what we need, even if it isn’t what we think we want.”
“Don’t you want me?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“I wanted nothing more from the moment I saw you, maybe even before. But now I know, my heart needed you, I needed you. I needed you in my life more than I’ve ever needed anything. You are my star, my heart, my shift and my whole. Without you, I am wanting. With you, I am everything.”
I didn’t think it was possible for a heart to break in two and still be together, to still beat, to still be full of…love.
“Thank you for waiting,” I whisper.
“I’d wait until the end of time itself, my mate, as long as you consented to being mine,” Dalox rasps, his lips hitting mine, meaning I cannot reply.
I don’t want to reply. I want to be here in the moment, with him.
“I think I’ve got ice in my pouch.” A voice booms out across the ship, and there’s a significant chorus of growls which breaks the spell between Dalox and me.
A quick glance confirms that Deus did indeed survive, although he’s even more windswept and possibly dirtier than ever, if that was even possible. His long hair is matted and sticking out at all angles. The Sarkarnii around him snarl.
“No one wants to know what you have in your pouch,” Dalox growls. “Stop talking about it.”
Dalox flashes fangs, white through the dirt streaking his face.
“And put some pants on. There are females present.”
