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"The Kaul half of me is a stubborn fool, yet he knotted you. Spilled his mating seed inside your womb. Still, he resists because of a betrayal from long ago." I chuckle when my Kaul half stirs with irritation. I revealed his secret. "But you are not her, starfire."
"Her?"
The darkness pulls at me, tugging me under. My already blurry eyes begin to dim as pitch black creeps around the edges of my vision.
"The one that broke our heart..."
* * *
CORA
I must have stood here for an hour absorbing the sivot's words and watching Navik's chest in his beastly form, rising and falling with each labored breath. My heart aches for them both, and I can't help but feel responsible for their injuries.
The sivot had explained they were one and the same, sharing a mind and heart. And both felt something for me. Though I wasn’t entirely sure how the morphing worked, his explanation made since. They were the same person only in different forms. One a beast and the other a humanoid.
Both had knotted me, releasing into me in hot splashes of what I thought was simply semen. Navik's sivot had called it mating seed. Could Navik get me pregnant? I hadn't thought it likely given our different species.
I swallow hard, not knowing what to do with that.
I lean in closer, studying his monstrous face. My fingers itch to touch him, to offer him comfort, but he's burned everywhere, and I don't want to do anything to hurt him further.
My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of the door sliding open. Qhix enters, his eyes scanning over the sivot's body. "I'm glad to see he slumbers. The cuff will work faster to heal him if he's asleep."
"Thanks, Qhix, for all you did to help him."
"Leave no Maverick behind." Qhix wearily falls into an empty seat. "And as Navik's mate, you qualify as a Maverick. I've set a course for Neptus, where Navik left his ship. We should arrive there within a few days."
I want to shake my head and deny the status as Navik's mate, but how can I when I told Navik I was his? When both had knotted me. I opt to say nothing, dropping my gaze to focus on Navik in his badly injured sivot form.
"Is it my imagination or are his burns already healing?" I lean in closer to examine his forearm. Where his glossy blue skin was seared away leaving raw meat exposed, healing flesh now shows.
"The cuff is doing its job." Qhix bobs his chin at me. "With that Ziarian piece of technology around his arm, he will recover quickly, likely before we reach Neptus."
I release a long sigh and settle back into my seat. "That's a relief."
Despite how quickly Qhix claims his injuries will heal, he’s still in pain. The sivot had braved the inhospitable environment on Yeet to protect me from the Yulineon, and now I couldn’t shake the guilt of that.
His injuries are all my fault, and I want to know why the sivot was so adamant about attacking the Yulineon. "What would the Yulineon have done to me had Navik's sivot not killed him?" I ask in a thin voice.
"He would have killed you."
"Why?" I recoil. "I thought a patroller was like law enforcement. I've broken no laws. I'm the victim."
"Not in the eyes of Universeval Rule."
"Uni-what?"
"Universeval Rule is an assembly of cosmic entities comprised of three of the oldest galaxies in existence. This covenant seeks to safeguard nascent galaxies like your Milky Way from exposure to more powerful entities who might threaten them. Conversely, if any human ventures outside their world, they are to be terminated immediately."
"That's the craziest thing I've ever heard." A hard mix of outrage and fear streaks through me. Not only had I nearly run out into the toxic environment on Yeet that would have melted the flesh from my bones, but the patroller I thought was my salvation would have been my murderer.
"Not to them." Qhix leans back and loosely crosses his arms across a broad chest. "They think that humans are not prepared to accept the truth of what exists outside their known Universe. As a primitive species, your lifestyles and views on the world would be shattered if you learned the truth. Global panic could have horrific consequences that would extend beyond planet Earth."
Even if I don't like it, I can't disagree with the reasoning. Humans are reactionary, and I could only imagine the mass hysteria if the general populace was to see half of what I had.
"It surprises me that Navik is willing to let you go." The warmth in Qhix's glacial blue gaze burns with curiosity. "Even more surprised that Navik would risk flying into Yulineon territory to return you to Earth. The Lunarick Sector is swarming with patrollers ever since the Gretolics went rogue from their makers and increased their rate of human abductions. Your chances of making it past their patrollers and to Earth's ground and Navik making it out of that sector alive are slim to none."
My gaze flicks to Navik's sivot. Blistered and scorched from protecting me from an enemy I had contemplated running to for help. He was willing to die to keep me safe. I can't let that happen. Not again. I can't let Navik die because of me.
