Page 33 of Defiance (The Intersolar Union #7)

Renata, Yaspur, Mandaahl System.

“Well, this is me,”

I laughed, butterflies in my chest.

Novak and I came to a stop in front of my flat’s door. His tail flicked across the hall, smacking into my neighbor’s potted plants. His ears were perky, a light in his eyes.

“This is… us,”

I corrected myself with a bashful clearing of my throat. He didn’t move, frozen with intensity.

“You are coming in, right?”

He glanced at me, ear twitching.

“I didn’t want to assume.”

“For feck’s sake, you better assume!”

I punched his bicep and he chuckled.

“Are you sure?”

he asked, both of our bags held in one four-fingered fist. He squeezed them, his feathers ruffling with uncertainty.

“My work will take me away a lot. The guild… Are you okay with that?”

I shrugged one shoulder, a little ache in my heart.

“Xata will keep me busy while you’re away. She’s really taken to the senescence program and thinks we could really do it. But maybe I can help you with the guild. Go with you sometimes? Jaysus, what am I saying, you kill people for a living.”

I blew out a breath, staring at my shoes.

“Anywhere, anytime, Novak. You’ll always come back for me. As long as you promise you won’t wander away and forg—”

“I love you, Charlie.”

My heart lurched, adrenaline gushing through my veins. I stared up at him in blistering shock. He set down our bags and took my hands, his tail spiraling around my feet.

“Union translators are cruel, sometimes,”

he laughed bitterly under his breath.

“Each species is coded, you know. Swear words, terms of endearment… They’re translated based on the species in question, not the language they actually speak. Words like mother, father, baby, lover… Advenans don’t have a mother tongue anymore, just a few words that have survived over time. But there’s no endearment for me to call you. No priya or vira to tell the world what you mean to me.”

“Novak…”

He held my face and rubbed his colear? against my forehead with affection.

“I’d like to call you my kralna,”

he purred.

“If you take up the mantle of a guild master alongside me, it’s the closest I can offer you to… to an oath like that. Would you want that? I won’t lie, it’ll stir the waters.”

I squeezed his wrists with reassurance and placed a kiss on his muzzle.

“Of course I would.”

I bit my lip to keep the tears back.

“I love you too.”

His hand slid down my throat to rest over the two little pinpricks on my breast and I pulled him backwards through my door. As soon as we were inside, he breathed in with his cavernous lungs, taking in all of me.

It wasn’t much. I’d never been good at decorating, and the boots by the door had been wet when I left. Ripe. I glared at him sharply.

“Don’t tell me it smells like the river.”

His ears perked so hard that their tips drew closer together over his head like a pair of devil horns.

“Of course, kralna.”

My consternation broke into a beaming smile.

“Welcome home, Charlie,”

BEO said from the recesses in the walls. The colony AI’s old world accent instantly eased my shoulders, like turning on the telly to find it still on your favorite channel.

“BEO, add Novak Gaul. He’s staying permanently.”

Novak grinned, sliding open the latches of his uniform next to the kitchen counter.

“I can smell your bedsheets,”

he panted. We both kicked off our boots impatiently.

BEO binged with an update as my kral tore down the hallway after me and tossed me into the rumpled blankets I’d left behind. I screamed with laughter that devolved into moans as he tore open my shirt and bit my breast anew.

“Residents updated,”

BEO said to no one in particular.

“Welcome home, Agent Gaul. Such a pleasant surprise.”