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Twyla
Reading about my diagnosis from a research paper was difficult to say the least.
I’d taken a break numerous times to inhale large, calming breaths, but the facts stared back at me on the e-reader: my body was reacting to Cedra’s pheromones. Her Fanger biology was calling to a Mate who was compatible with her on a genetic level, and if this research paper was to be believed, then I was one in millions that fit the bill.
Genetic compatibility explained a lot, especially the inexplicable pull I felt whenever we were in the same room together. It wasn’t logical. The desire to press myself against her scented skin every waking moment was certainly not a part of the rational mind.
Each time we were together, impulse and reckless desire seemed to crowd my thoughts, leaving my brain behind in the dust.
But wanting and needing someone were two very different things.
I relished my longing for Cedra, yearning for her touch when she wasn’t around. My chest tightened at the mere thought of her—the blond braid that felt like silk under my fingers, the lean muscles that bunched so beautifully when she worked with her shirt off. But there was also a hesitation about her that called to me. She treated me so gently, as though she believed I might break. Or perhaps she feared I would pull away at any moment.
A little puff of air left my lips in a scoff. As though I could ever pull away from those hypnotizing eyes and knowing fingers.
I sighed, grappling with the words on the little screen in front of me. There was no doubt in my mind that I wanted Cedra, but I couldn’t come to terms with needing her. The word alone made me shift uncomfortably on the thin mattress by the window.
It was too...helpless. Vulnerable. Needing someone to ease my ache—the thought sat uncomfortably in my chest.
I’d promised myself I’d never be at the mercy of another soul again, and yet here I was, swollen and achy, waiting around for help.
I cursed aloud as I flipped through numerous scientific studies on the “Blood Call”—a mutation in Cedra’s blood that called to mine. She’d only explained what happened to her body during the process but she’d neglected to say what would happen to the recipient of said pheromones.
The answer was: a swollen, aching and unsatisfied core. And a mind that was constantly focused on my object of desire.
The text that had shed the most light on my current predicament was written by a human woman from Old Earth almost half a century ago. She’d documented the process of a Blood Call with a Fanger Mate, her writing effusive and, in a way, thrilling.
Although her timeline was drawn out—she’d only felt the Blood Call about a month into meeting her Mate—the symptoms she’d experienced were remarkably similar to mine.
The paper was almost like a romance novel, and I had to stop reading multiple times to check the credibility of the author. Sure enough, she was a documentarian and not a fiction writer. The only paper she’d produced tracked the growing relationship between herself and her Mate.
I found it particularly odd when she admitted that she hadn’t found her Blood Mate attractive at first. In fact, she’d dismissed him upon first sight as just another colleague on board a vessel they both worked on. She also stated that despite his Fanger heritage, her Mate hadn’t known his blood could call to a human, as it hadn’t happened to anyone he knew before.
While the book provided a lot of information on what changes to expect in one’s body and the beauty of the bond that might grow between two people, it didn’t state how I could back away from it.
Not that I wanted to back away from it. Or maybe I did. It was getting harder and harder to differentiate the needs of my body and rational thought.
The fact was that Cedra Holloway was a very attractive woman. She had her own land, her own farm and ran a pretty successful business on her own. What could she possibly want with me, a runaway with little to nothing to my name? It was stupid to even think she would be remotely interested if the Call wasn’t pulling us together.
My fingers paused their scrolling on the research paper when I came across a familiar word. The one Cedra had called me in a little breathless whisper. ’Mara.
Blood of my blood.
A beautiful Fanger endearment.
My eyes continued to read as my lips melted into a smile.
Before, I’d wanted to hurl the e-reader across the room out of sheer frustration. But as the endearment looped through my head again, I set the device down slowly on the thin mattress, wondering how things had escalated so quickly between us in just a few short days.
With a sigh, I leaned against the cool window, noticing the stillness of Cedra’s land. At this time of the day, her cows had been milked and inspected, and they rested in the pasture until it was time for the evening milking. Cedra had corralled the cows just a few minutes ago, and the land was now absolutely still.
I pressed my fingers against the glass, wondering if I could capture such stillness for my mind. Never in my life had I seen a place with such a simple appearance but incredibly rich history. Cedra’s family was everywhere in this house, this land. Every addition to this farmhouse had been handmade in some way, the soul of the person who’d made it intertwining with wood, cloth and fibers.
It was like stepping into a warm hug.
I couldn’t remember ever feeling this way about a place before. My parents had ensured that I was well-traveled; we’d visited all the open Stars before I was ten. But none of them had ever been so still, so peaceful. It was as though the quiet was seeping into my soul.
As the sky darkened outside, my reflection on the window shifted, and I realized I was smiling, tracing the outline of the barn in the distance, wishing Cedra would come home.
