Page 57 of Dax: Gratefully Bonded
Goroz’s gaze swung across to stare at me. He was silent for such a long time that I wondered if he’d even heard me. Then, finally, he spoke. “That is actually a very good idea,” he said slowly. “Ranzor pairings are typically arranged when the pups are still young. Then, once both pups have grown up and proved their worth in battle, they are then allowed to mate. But… if a different female had also proven her worth, and been injured in the process, I don’t see that it would be a bad thing to let them mate with each other.”
I didn’t dare to comment any further. A culture of arranged marriages, rites of passage and needing societal permission to do the equivalent of getting married was foreign enough for me to be certain that I wasn’t qualified to give Goroz any further advice. But at least I’d planted the idea in his head.
“What of your own mating to the Vangravian?” Goroz asked me, and the question was so unexpected that I actually squeaked in surprise.
“My what? No, we’re not… We’re not married.”
Goroz made a low, rumbling noise in his chest, which my translator helpfully described as ‘sound of amusement’. “He watches over you like a mother watching her pups. He throws himself into danger to protect you. And you watch him just as fiercely,” he added. I flushed, realising that my gaze had, indeed, swung directly over to where Dax was delivering a new stack of wood to one of the fires. One of the young Halagal males came to offer his help, which Dax graciously accepted. “He touches you,” Goroz added. “Perhaps I am misreading your culture, but none of your other soldiers touch you like that; his hand on your shoulder; you stroking his hair. Or is it that you are not permitted to mate with him? Has he not proved himself worthy yet?”
A thousand different thoughts ran through my head. It was oddly reassuring that Goroz blithely assumed I had earned the necessary worthiness myself. I felt baffled at the notion that their entire society ran on the back of its members having to go into battle to prove themselves. And then I felt a sudden, desperate concern about what the rest of my team thought about my relationship with Dax. Aiden had been very insistent that having an intimate relationship with a dimari was necessary to maintain their mental health. But the vast majority of Alliance society still held the view that sleeping with someone who couldn’t truly consent constituted sexual abuse. If our affectionfor each other was this obvious, then I was about to get stuck between the two conflicting sets of values.
Then again, Dax was far more opinionated than the average dimari, so perhaps his forthright behaviour might be able to convince people that he was a willing participant in our relationship?
“Have I offended you?” Goroz asked, suddenly seeming awkward about it. “Humans have different customs from Ranzors. Perhaps what I said was not appropriate?” I’d learned a great deal about Ranzor culture throughout the day, but it seemed that Goroz had learned just as much about mine, and was putting in an effort to conform with at least the more obvious of our social standards.
“No,” I said honestly. “Not offended, no. It’s just that we haven’t made any kind of public statement about it. I hadn’t realised it was so obvious.”
“You should ask your commanding officer for permission to mate him,” Goroz decided firmly. “He would make a good match for you. Unless you want pups of your own,” he amended his own idea.
“No, I don’t,” I said quickly, not caring whether that was appropriate or not. I’d largely been sitting on the fence about the issue before Ixralia, and now, there was no way my mental health would tolerate trying to raise a child.
“Then he is a good match,” Goroz repeated, staring down at me expectantly.
I nodded, sorely wanting to end this conversation. “I’ll give it some thought,” I told him. Thankfully, he was willing to let that be the end of it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Zeke
Goroz’s words stayed with me all evening. We packed up our equipment and stored most of it in the office – the only space around with a lock on the door. I explained to Goroz what we expected of the Ranzors overnight, and he agreed easily, stating that they were here to prevent trouble, not to create it. For my own part, all I could do was hope for the best. And then I sent the rest of my team off home and headed up the hill with Dax.
“How are you feeling about the camp?” Dax asked, once we were away from the park and could talk in privacy.
“Tired,” I answered, stating the most obvious response first. “It’s been a long day. But it’s also… invigorating. We got a hell of a lot done. And we’re doing incredibly well in creating a positive relationship with the Ranzors. Not that it’s all perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than I was expecting. All in all, I’m very pleased with it.”
Dax smiled, seeming both smug and bashful at the same time. “I think you’re doing very well,” he said. But even so, he soundeduncertain, as if he didn’t have the right to be commenting on my performance.
Okay, maybe it was time for me to cut the bullshit. “I’m still very much in two minds about this,” I admitted, after we’d walked a way further. “There are moments throughout the day where I feel very much on the verge of a breakdown. I had no clue what to do when the Ranzors arrived, and the fact that things seem to be working out there is mostly just thanks to gut feeling and luck. I’m terrified that shit’s going to hit the fan while we’re away tonight, and if it does…” I shuddered. “I think that could send me right back into a downward spiral. This is a fantastic opportunity for me to prove that I’m still useful for something, but it’s also the perfect storm to prove that I’m a total basket case.”
Dax stopped, right there in the middle of the street, and took my hands. “What I’ve seen today,” he said softly, “is that this assignment is far more pressure than you were intentionally signing up for. We were going to go to the base to just have a chat with Henderson. Instead, we’re playing peacekeeper between Halagal refugees, Ranzor aid workers and Alliance protestors. You’ve been given an assignment that requires long days with no clear end in sight. Yes, you are struggling under the pressure at times. But at other times, you’re thriving on the challenges and coming up with solutions that are well outside the box. I think that even if parts of this fail, it doesn’t prove that you’re useless. It simply shows that you need an assignment that falls within more controlled parameters.”
I sighed and shook my head. “A week ago, I was drowning in alcohol and couldn’t handle any challenge more complex than putting a puzzle together.”
He grinned. “And today, you earned the respect of one of the most badass species in the galaxy. That’s a remarkable step forward.”
I let the wave of relief and warmth that his words generated wash over me, for once, without trying to tell myself I wasn’t worthy of feeling that way. How the hell had I spent an entire year thinking that Dax was nothing more than an annoyance and a burden? Sometimes, I could be an absolute fucking idiot.
“Thank you,” I said, turning to continue our walk home. But I didn’t let go of his hand, not until we arrived at the house and I needed to open the front door.
“Let’s have something simple for dinner,” I said to Dax, as I shut the door behind us. “I think we both need to go to bed early.”
He nodded and headed for the kitchen, returning ten minutes later with two bowls of canned camel stew and a plate full of toast. In the interim, I’d been looking up the answers to a few questions I had on Ranzor culture, to try and keep ahead of the inevitable issues that were going to crop up tomorrow.
And speaking of tomorrow, I was surprised to find that I was actually looking forward to seeing Ru and Gasrin. For a long time, the thought of seeing them again had filled me with dread, for fear that it would dredge up too many bad memories. Or that they would blame me for their injuries and their ongoing trauma. I’d been the leader of our doomed mission, and for a long time, I’d believed they would have been within their rights to hate me for it.
But in the space of just over a week, Aiden, Dax and a large dose of soul searching had made me realise that their survival was something to be celebrated. No, I hadn’t managed to save everyone. And no, they hadn’t made it out unscathed. But they had their lives, and all three of them, Matchi included, seemed determined to make something useful out of what they had left.
I avoided thinking about the natural extension of that idea – that if I should be celebrating their survival, then I really should be celebrating my own, as well. For too long, I’d given up on anyhope for the future, and recent developments were too new for me to feel any kind of security in them yet.