“I don’t understand. I’m sorry, Leeenuh…”
She coughs again, color flooding her once-pale face.
She grips my biceps with her hands, her nails digging into my flesh, and she pulls herself to sit. I can feel her lips move next to the sensitive lobe of my ear. I wrap my arms around her torso to support her weak attempt.
“Kitaico…” she whimpers before slumping, her back arching over my arms.
Something stirs inside my chest—breathing in her scent and holding her tiny frame against my body causes something to snap into place. That small twinge multiplies quickly, turning into one all-consuming thought.
Protect.
I have to get Leeenuh back to the nearby nest. I have to keep her safe…
She’s still drifting in and out when she coughs again.
I’ll have to breathe for her to get her to the nest. If she is mated, touching her so intimately would be unforgivable.
I hitch her up against me, her head falling into the hollow of my neck. Joined together as one, we slide back into the sea.
I shake her roughly enough to get her attention, even though it pains me to handle her so. She has a translator chip, so I tell her my plans.
“We’re going somewhere safe. It’s not far, but we must swim.” She stares at me, her eyes open but lids heavy. “I will breathe for you. Do you trust me?”
She cocks her head, furrowing her brows. A silence passes between us, one that feels much longer than it likely is.
She nods, setting her jaw. More strange words fall from her lips, and she wraps her legs around the small of my back. Our hips are pressing tightly against each other. For the first time since I began the Great Proving, I am self-conscious of my nakedness. Clothing, much like tech, is unnecessary during my trials. I make a conscious effort to control my mating crest. The feelers ache to explore whatever lays beneath her thin body suit. To open her sex as if she was my own kind, to mate her, to rut her, to—I stop myself, curling the tips of my tentacles back toward my hardening cock.
Miming a deep breath for Leeenuh to follow, I switch to aquatic breathing. I grimace as my gills fill again. They stretch and ache with the rush of water. The waves lick at our heads as we dip beneath its surface.
My feet press off the sharp side of the island. Leeenuh’s cheeks puff outward as she holds her breath. I scan the watery expanse, looking for challengers to my…no, she’s not mine. I shake my head in an attempt to clear it.
I haven’t proven myself—I am undeserving.
She blows fat bubbles from her nose, and I quickly place my mouth over hers and breathe. She parts her pillowy pink lips and accepts the air I give her.
I linger over her mouth longer than I need to. My entire body tingles in anticipation of something I cannot ask Leeenuh to give me. As I pull away, I see the entrance to my nest.
The perimeter of the cave's opening is decorated with the scales of the scripiat—the blue glinting against the iridescent purple of the island formation.
Pulling her tightly against me, I embark on the winding and narrow tunnel toward the nest’s opening.
Cresting into the air pocket, Leeenuh gasps.
At first, it’s for air, but as her eyes adjust, her mouth gapes at her surroundings.
Worog worms hang from the cavern’s high ceiling, their purple glow illuminating the space. Their light reflects off Leeenuh’s wide green eyes, the white portion of them now an angry red. Maybe her camouflage is eye based.
Only a few months are left of my proving, and my nest is nearly complete. Jewel-toned tapestries woven from dried miyhu weeds decorate the walls. They’re patterns similar to the skin I was born in—a nest is not a place you should have to hide or camouflage.
I gently set her on the pool’s lip, even though something inside me screams to show her more.
I want to lift the tapestry behind me and show her the dried dredlin and nuite fruit stores. Tell her I’ve tapped the spring from above, so fresh water will run when the cap is removed. I want her to approve of it all.
I ignore every instinct except one.
Pulling my body onto the stone floor, I lift Leeenuh and carry her to the sleeping nook. The rocks form a natural pocket, big enough for two Andjin. The bedding is fresh, as I just completed it yesterday morning. I lay her down, pulling the woven miyhu blanket over her body.
“Rest,” I tell her, tucking the edge of the blanket under her chin.
For a moment, she looks like she might fight me, but I think she’s too exhausted. Leeenuh sighs and wiggles her body deeper into the bedding, her scent filling the space.
As I move to the other side of the cavern, near a secondary seawater pool, she begins whispering things I can’t understand.
“Sleep, Leeenuh. We can figure all of this out once you’re rested.”
She nods, closing her eyes. I can hear her breathing slow as she succumbs to sleep. My muscles ache from the exertion of her rescue. I pretend to inspect the pool, but instead, I run through a mental list of everything I would ask for her approval on.
Those thoughts are nothing more than folly.
We are different, she is not mine. She could even be mated to another. I am not yet even worthy of a mate.
Mate—the word feels bitter on my tongue.
“Leeenuh,” I whisper as I dip my hands into the underwater garden that, just yesterday, I hoped my future mate would use as our nursery.
Leeenuh.
3
