Page 10 of Sheltered in the Storm (The Fortusian Mates # 1)
CHAPTER 9
CALLA
Vos hadn’t fooled me with his cool and distant facade. He probably knew he hadn’t. We both knew he was trying to fool himself.
The real depth of his feelings showed plainly in the way his body seemed to turn to stone in the wake of my words, and how his tentacles that weren’t holding me swirled around, sending a wave of bathwater over the side of the tub.
“So you can fill in the rest for yourself, probably,” I continued, my voice calm, as if I hadn’t noticed what was a simple statement of fact for me caused Vos to transform from reluctant bathtub lifeguard back to sea monster—as if the villains of the story weren’t light-years away from this place.
As if I couldn’t still smell the bloody dirt of the arena, or feel the cold metal of my child-sized but very deadly weapons in my hands.
A low, dangerous sound rumbled in his chest.
I kept talking because my voice might calm him. I didn’t fear Vos anymore, but I also didn’t want him enraged on my behalf. We were having a relaxing bath—or trying to—and no amount of anger could change the past anyway.
“I’m the one Ganaian child gladiator in fifty who survived to sixteen and earned her freedom,” I said. “I bartered my way off Ganai, put on an Alliance Defense uniform, and busted my ass to earn myself a flight suit.” And a fighter, which now lay scattered in a million pieces across the ocean floor.
Strangely, that mental image didn’t hurt as much as I’d expected. Part of me still wanted to reenlist and get that big bonus that would enable me to chase my dream of traveling the galaxy in relative freedom…but that goal had lost some of its luster. I’d spent the last several days lying in bed thinking about the fact getting that bonus would require me to serve two more years in the Defense, dodging death at every turn, either in battle or the kind of mishap that had caused my crash on Iosa. The odds of surviving long enough to see those credits show up in my savings account were slim.
Meanwhile, Vos’s silence felt heavier and thicker than the steam that filled the bathroom. I lifted my head from where it rested so comfortably on his tentacle and looked up.
His expression had gone so cold, so deadly, and so utterly ferocious that it sent a chill through my entire body from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. But it wasn’t fear that caused it.
It was desire.
His warmth…the hard muscles of his body…his selflessness…the way he held me as if I was the most precious thing in the world, even when he wanted to convince himself that he could crush his need for me under the weight of his will alone. It all made me wonder: was I wrong to have shot him down so quickly?
When we’d first met and he’d said I smelled like his true mate, I hadn’t been remotely clear-headed at the time. I’d barely given him a moment’s consideration before telling him thanks but no thanks.
Was I more clear-headed now, or simply grateful for his kindness and flattered that he looked ready to rend anything and anyone to pieces that posed a danger to me, while his tentacle around my ankle remained as gentle as ever? I wasn’t sure.
His eyes turned that silvery-blue that had so terrified me on the raiders’ boat. Now all I could think was how beautifully they glowed.
I couldn’t help it; I reached up and cupped his face with my hand. His bioluminescence pulsed faster, moving along his skin toward my touch.
“It was a long time ago,” I reminded him, stroking his jaw with my thumb. “I’m alive, and most of the people responsible for what happened to us are dead. Ganai is still a shithole, but it’s a shithole without arenas where rich bastards from across the galaxy watch children fight to the death anymore. No need to be angry at a memory.”
Vos held my hand against his face as if my touch comforted him. Maybe it did.
“I am always angry at memories.” His voice was rough. “Mine, and now yours as well.”
“My past isn’t a burden you need to carry,” I said, because I didn’t want to cause him any more anguish than I already had. “That’s not why I told you where I came from. I wanted you to understand why I don’t trust easily—well, why I usually don’t trust easily.”
Vos’s hand closed around mine and lowered it back to my lap. “I am not someone you should trust.” His tone had gone cold again. “I am a monster.”
He’d probably said it to shock and scare me because we’d had a moment of tenderness and that wasn’t part of his plan to keep me at arm’s length. But it didn’t shock or scare me, for a lot of reasons.
I’d met monsters—real ones. Monsters who looked like monsters, and monsters who didn’t. I had learned very early in my life that nothing about monstrosity was ever simple. In this case, I doubted Vos thought he was a monster because he was genetically engineered or had these beautiful deadly tentacles. His shame seemed to come from somewhere much deeper than that.
He’d asked me about my past. I was curious about him too—most especially why he considered himself a monster.
Vos had always been so candid when we spoke. I actually found that refreshing. I preferred forthrightness myself. Evasiveness and diplomacy, even about difficult or contentious topics, had never suited me. Really, that was a major reason I couldn’t get along with the literally and metaphorically slimy Squad Captain Proos, who talked in circles and whose opinions always mirrored those above him in the chain of command whose favor served him best.
“Why do you call yourself a monster?” I asked.
Rather than appear offended by my bluntness, Vos tilted his head. “It would be difficult to find someone in all the galaxy who would not automatically consider a member of the Silent Guard a monster.”
My heart twinged. The child gladiators of Ganai were certainly pitied, but many called us monsters too. We’d been trained to kill from an early age. Those who survived the arena often became mercenaries or worse in adulthood. Some of us were monsters, but most of us weren’t. Most of us were just survivors.
“Well, you found someone who doesn’t automatically think you’re a monster,” I said, and he blinked at me. “And I didn’t ask what others thought of you; I asked why you call yourself a monster. Do you think being a killer makes you a monster? ”
“Yes,” he said, his voice quiet.
“Would you consider me a monster?”
His brow furrowed. “You are no kind of monster.”
I snorted, then flinched because it hurt my abdomen. “You know me so well that you can make that assessment? Maybe you see what you want to see when you look at me, then. I’m a killer too, many times over. If that’s all it takes to be a monster, then that’s what I am.”
Vos didn’t like that at all, judging by his deepening scowl and the uneasy way his tentacles swirled in the water.
“You had no choice in the arena,” he said. “Or in your fighter.”
“You had no choice in the Guard,” I countered. “And I didn’t just kill in the arena and in my fighter. I took the scenic route from Ganai to the Alliance Defense. Traveled from planet to outpost to colony to more planets, doing what I had to in order to survive until I got to the Defense recruitment outpost on Havel Prime.” I rested my head on his tentacle again. “There are bodies behind me, Vos. A lot of them, same as you. So you don’t have a monopoly on that monster thing.”
He studied me for a long time, clearly trying to figure out a way to justify his assessment of himself without condemning me too.
I understood him fairly well for having only known him a few days. Part of that was due to his candor, but I couldn’t shake the feeling the resonance of the true mate physiology had something to do with this level of comfort between us. He certainly had an uncanny ability to understand my needs, both physical and emotional.
Maybe that was why every morning when I woke and Vos wasn’t next to me in his bed that I felt like someone was missing, when I’d never felt that way before. Not ever.
And maybe that was why I’d told him the truth about my past. I’d certainly never felt compelled to tell anyone else I had survived Ganai's arenas. I usually made up a story of growing up in a frontier colony and being orphaned in a plague or raider attack. Before this, I’d found it much easier to deal with sympathy over a lie than real care about the awful truth.
More than anything, though, I let Vos into my secrets because he was the first person I’d ever met whose eyes reflected the same darkness I saw when I looked in the mirror. Plus, he deserved to know I might have fallen from the sky, but I was no gift from the heavens.
I didn’t know what he might say next, and I certainly didn’t anticipate what he did: he cooed.
Maybe it wasn’t all that unexpected. I probably radiated anger, pain, grief, guilt, and more, so of course he’d instinctively wanted to help. All my tension slipped away, leaving me warm and relaxed. Even my aches and pains faded.
He instinctively made a sound that was just meant for me, designed to heal my hurts, whatever they were. That was a treasure in itself and not something I should just throw away for a reenlistment bonus or a nebulous dream of traveling the galaxy, as if I might somehow find happiness on some starship or distant world without finding it in myself first.
“Have I destroyed your vision of me?” I asked.
“Destroyed my vision of you? Never.” He cupped my face then, so gently I could have fallen asleep with my head on his tentacles. It wouldn’t be the first time that had happened, and hopefully it wouldn’t be the last. “Calla, the more fully I see you, the more I know my soul fits to yours.”
Those sweet words gave me the courage to murmur, “I would like to start over again, if you’d be willing to consider it.”
His breath hitched and his tentacles vibrated.
“I understand if you don’t want to,” I continued. “I know I hurt you when I said I didn’t want to stay here. At the time I did intend to leave as soon as I was able, but I’ve realized over the past few days that I didn’t give the situation as much consideration as you deserved. I’m sorry for that.”
“Please do not apologize.” Vos inhaled deeply. I could only imagine how conflicted he must feel. “I have also come to understand that it was unfair of me to reveal so much to you only minutes after you awakened in a stranger’s home following such a traumatic incident. I was so lost in my own emotions that I did not consider the reality of the situation as logically as I should have. From my hearts, I apologize for placing you in that position.”
“Apology accepted.” I waited a beat, then asked, “So starting over…good idea? Bad idea? Need to sleep on it? Maybe drink on it?” Was there even booze on this moon?
His eyes blazed with silvery-blue fire. “I would cut my way through the entire raider camp for the chance to start again.”
His ferocity stirred something in my belly: a kind of longing, mixed with gratitude and hope. “You don’t have to go through any more raiders, Vos. I’m right here.”
“I am more grateful for that fact than you will ever know.” He rested his head against mine and made a low, rumbly sound deep in his chest. “Has the bath helped your pain?”
“Yes—with the aches, anyway.” I sighed. “I’m sorry to ask, but could you wash my hair? Trying to raise my arms over my head hurts so badly.”
“I am happy to help.” One of his tentacles coiled around a bar of soap that smelled sweet. “This will cleanse and soften your hair. I made it myself, for my own hair.”
I feigned indignation. “Are you saying my hair isn’t soft?”
“It is wonderfully soft,” he said quickly. “I wanted to assure you it would remain so.” After a hesitation, he asked, “Were you teasing me?”
“I was,” I admitted. “I’m sorry.”
“I am not offended.” His tentacles lowered the back of my head into the water. “I am glad to hear you joke, even if it is at my expense.”
A few minutes later, as he gently lathered my hair and massaged my scalp with his fingertips, I murmured with my eyes closed, “Will you start sleeping next to me in your own bed again?”
“I will,” he said, equally quietly. “If that is what you want.”
The hot water, steamy room, and Vos’s gentle touch had me nearly asleep sitting up. “Thank you. I hate sleeping alone in your great big bed.”
“These past few days have been difficult for both of us.”
He lowered my upper body into the water to rinse my hair. Gods, his fingers were so incredibly gentle and soothing as he untangled my hair. And the smell of the hair soap was so pleasant and natural—a far cry from the chemically based cleansers aboard the outpost.
“This change of heart is not because you believe you owe me for caring for you?” Vos asked.
My eyes were closed because I didn’t want to get soap in them, so I couldn’t see his face, but his voice sounded guarded. And I couldn’t blame him for wondering.
“Not at all,” I promised. “Your kindness is a factor, but far from the only one.”
“I will take you at your word. And now your lovely hair is clean.” Vos raised my upper body and wiped water from my eyes with a towel. “Shall I wash the rest of you?”
“Yes, please.” I opened my eyes to find him watching me intently. “What?” I asked, frowning.
“You flinched several times.” His concern was palpable. “I am worried. And I wish I could ease your pain.”
“It will be a long road to recovery. We both know that.” I took his hand in mine. “But I’ll take it over the alternative, okay? The fact I’m here at all is a miracle.”
“Several miracles, in fact.” He hesitated, then kissed my forehead. “I will finish washing you, and then we will lie down together in the bed, if that is all right with you.”
I pictured myself curling up under the blankets, still warm from the bath, with Vos’s tentacles around me. Heavenly. “Yes, please, Vos. Thank you.” After a beat, I added, “Poe will be happy her scheme to get you in here with me worked.”
The corners of his mouth turned up for the first time in days. “She is a good friend,” he said, and picked up a washcloth and another bar of soap, this one green. “Perhaps later, if there is a break in the rain, I can take you outside to see the garden.”
“Even if it’s raining, I’d still like to go,” I said. “I won’t melt in the rain, you know. I haven’t actually felt rain in years, other than on the raider boat. I lived on an outpost in orbit around the planet Solan.”
Lived , not live .
Whether Vos noticed my choice of words, I couldn’t tell. He lathered up the washcloth and began to wash me, starting with my face and shoulders.
When the cloth moved below my collarbone, though, he paused, his gaze on mine.
“It’s all right,” I said.
Carefully and extremely gently because they were covered in bruises and still healing from the injuries that had mangled my insides, he washed my chest, my breasts, my stomach, and my back with light swirling motions. And then he soaped my legs, lifting each out of the water one at a time, and then my feet and toes.
There was nothing overtly sexual about this bathing, and I thought he was being oh so careful not to make it feel romantic, but it was deeply sensual. My skin tingled wherever he touched. And the closer his hand and the cloth came to my inner thighs, the faster I breathed. My stomach fluttered in anticipation.
With his glowing gaze fixed on my face, he nudged my legs apart. His touch was so soft, so caring, and so intimate. My chest heaved with ragged breaths as the cloth brushed my most delicate skin.
“Calla,” he said, his voice rough.
I couldn’t help it—I made a desperate little sound and grabbed his arm before he could move away. “It’s all right,” I said again, though it was far more than all right to be touched with so much care and reverence. I’d never experienced that kind of touch before.
He kissed my hair, withdrew his arm gently from my grip, and squeezed the soapy water from the cloth before draping it neatly over the side of the tub. “We are done.”
I took a shaky breath and tried for a smile. “I hope I smell better now.”
“You have never smelled anything but good to me.” Vos sat on the edge of the tub, draped a thick towel over his thighs, and lifted me from the water to sit crossways on his lap.
His tentacles held me upright as he meticulously dried me with another towel, even drying between my toes very carefully so he didn’t tickle me. Then he towel-dried my hair, worked out the snarls with his own comb, and braided it.
By the time he finished, I was drowsy and my stomach hurt from sitting up for so long. I tried not to show I was in pain, but he knew anyway. Maybe he saw it in my eyes, or he could smell it somehow. Or both. I’d probably never be able to hide much from him. Strangely, that was more comforting than I thought it would be.
Cooing, he carried me back to the bed, wrapped me in blankets, and settled me under the covers before taking my little collection of cooking pots back to the kitchen. I didn’t protest. Even I knew I wouldn’t be doing any more weight-lifting today.
What would it be like to be with someone with whom I could be authentically myself, and know they were themselves too? To know I would receive an honest answer to any question I asked, and feel comfortable answering questions honestly too? The Calla of a week ago would have scoffed at the idea.
When Vos slipped under the covers beside me and his tentacles wrapped around my blanket nest, an overwhelming sense of peace swept over me. He sighed in unmistakable contentment. Even his tentacles relaxed.
I might be achy and tired, and nothing at all about our future was settled, but this moment was something close to bliss. The fact he so clearly felt the same warmed me as much as the hot water and blankets.
Before I closed my eyes, I leaned over and kissed his jaw. He smelled like the same soaps he’d just used on me. I liked that very much. “Thank you for the bath.”
He touched his forehead to mine. “It was my pleasure, my—Calla.”
Even though he’d stopped himself from calling me my mate , or maybe my Calla , my name sounded like a coo again. It almost made me forget how much my arms ached from lifting those damn pots.
Ugh. Almost .