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His hand covers mine, and then he glides our fingers through the mess he’s made between my legs and coats my folds with it. I squirm against his touch, because I’m a little too sensitive at the moment. “My R’slind,” he murmurs. “My mate.”
“Boy, you move fast.” I pat his shoulder. “While I appreciate the sentiment and it’s sexy in the moment…let’s cross that bridge in a few weeks, hmm? Or even months. Give a girl time to figure out what the hell is going on, first.”
And how I’m going to get home.
R’jaal is silent, and I bet I’ve hurt his feelings.
I run my fingers down his arm, because I can’t seem to stop touching him. It’s like an obsessive need with me. “It’s not that I don’t like you, R’jaal. I do. I like you so much. But there’s a lot going on right now and I can’t make a commitment without knowing what the future is going to look like.” I manage a frustrated smile. “I can’t even tell you where I am, honestly, or what my last name is.”
He studies my face. “I do not wish to upset you, R’slind, but it has already been decided.”
“Who decided? Because no one has asked me.” I sit up on my elbows, frowning at him. I don’t want to start a fight. Not when my only piece of clothing is shoved up around my waist and my sprawled legs are currently covered with his jizz. “Why do I feel like there’s something going on that you’re not telling me?”
He holds out his hand so he can help me sit up, but I ignore it. R’jaal sits up, too, his expression troubled. “It is not that I did not wish to tell you. There were already so many troubles heaped upon your shoulders. To know that you would die with no khui in sight—”
“Wait, what? I’m dying?” My hand goes to my throat, my eyes wide with horror.
“No! Not any longer,” he says, as if that’s supposed to make me feel better. “Now it is assured you will live, so that is why I am telling you everything.”
I shake my head, confused. “What do you mean, now you know I’m going to live? What’s changed?”
“It is the khui,” he says, his tone patient. The look he gives me says it should be obvious to me, but I’m drawing a blank. Is this another one of those memories I’m supposed to have but I don’t?
The thought makes me break out in a cold sweat. “Can you explain to me really slow what a khui is? Because I have no idea what you’re talking about and I’m getting scared.”
“I do not wish to scare you.” His tone is gentle, and he takes my hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. For some reason, that does make me feel better, and I leave my hand in his. “Remember you asked about the blue worm? When you said I had cut you? You did not dream that. I did cut you. The khui needed a new home, so it burrowed inside you.”
Burrowed inside me? I clutch my throat again, terrified. “If you cut me, then where did it go? I don’t have a scratch.”
“The khui healed it. Yours is strong and healthy.” He beams at me, obviously pleased at this, that the burrower inside me is powerful.
I’m feeling faint. I grip his hand tightly, the other one on my throat because if I had pearls, they’d be clutched right now. “What exactly burrowed inside me?”
“It is a khui.” The look on his face grows puzzled again, as if it’s difficult for him to explain. “It is a…khui. It exists inside everything that lives on this planet.”
My brain is desperately trying to fill in the blanks. Carbon is inside everything living on Earth. Water, too. Maybe it’s carbon-based? But I keep seeing mental images of that glowing, wriggling thing in my head. “Is it…alive?”
“Oh yes.”
Oh, gross.
“It lives inside you, together in harmony.”
I’m going to vomit. The gorge is rising, and I manage a choked, horrified, “Like a parasite?”
His eyes brighten with excitement. “Yes, that is the perfect word!” Oblivious to my gagging, he continues. “It makes your body strong and powerful. It makes you feel warm even when it is not warm outside. It gives your eyes the bright blue life that shines out of them even now. And…” His voice drops to a grave note. “It chooses your mate for you. We have been chosen for each other.”
Wait, what? Parasitic soulmates? I would never read a fanfic with that sort of storyline.
The look on R’jaal’s face is full of yearning, and he gently touches my face again, looking at me as if I’m the most precious thing in the world. “I thought I would always be alone, my R’slind. Season after season has passed with no resonance, and I worried it would never happen for me. Now that you are here, I see that I was simply waiting for the perfect female. And now you are here.”
