Page 24 of Sheltered in the Storm (The Fortusian Mates # 1)

CHAPTER 23

CALLA

That night, for the first time since my arrival at Vos’s home, sleep eluded me.

Exhausted from our outing to the sea, warm from a hot bath, and wrapped in Vos’s arms and tentacles, I fell asleep easily enough, but woke only a few hours later in darkness with my heartbeat thundering in my ears and my stomach churning.

Had a sound woken me? I listened for well over a minute, but heard only the rain and Vos’s steady, deep breathing against the back of my neck. I couldn’t remember if I’d had a dream or nightmare, but my heart raced as if something had frightened me.

I didn’t want to wake Vos because he would worry, so I lay still and quiet with my head resting on one of his tentacles. Another had coiled around my lower right leg. I’d grown so accustomed to that sensation that I barely noticed it anymore—but the moment I did, I felt guarded and needed and content.

How quickly I’d settled into Vos’s tentacles, home, and bed. And hearts .

My love .

Today, in the ocean, he’d called me his love. I want your sweet pussy, my love , he’d said, his eyes glowing and cock rigid in my hand. He’d said it so easily, so simply, that lost in my arousal I’d scarcely given it a thought. Now those two words had ripped me from my sleep and echoed in my mind like a shout in a cavern.

My love .

Terror and nausea rose. I bit my own hand to hold back a choking sound and swallowed hard. Vos stirred, then relaxed again, his breathing deep and even.

How could he love me? He barely knew me.

A true mate, I understood. That was biological, physiological. There was science behind it, even the metaphysical elements. But love—love was make-believe. Love was illusory. Love was a lie and a trap. Wasn’t it?

I thought about the way Vos looked at me, the way he softened when he held me, how he treated me like a treasure and called himself privileged to care for me and fill me. Was that love, or the mate bond? Was there a difference?

Of course there was. True mates were physical. Love came from something else. Science couldn’t measure it, quantify it, examine it under a scanner, or dissect it into component parts.

My love , he’d said without a hesitation of any kind, as if loving me and saying so was the most natural thing in the world.

Vos’s tentacles caressed me as if they sensed or smelled my distress. They probably did. How strange and wonderful to be treasured and cared for by Vos and his tentacles too.

If Vos were awake, he would coo, and all this confusion and fear and anger and doubt would melt away. I would feel safe and secure again, and maybe I could close my eyes and sleep. But he wasn’t awake, and I felt as lost as when I woke in this bed the first time .

I doubted he would mind if I woke him, especially if it meant he could soothe my hurts. But if I didn’t sort through these thoughts and feelings, I’d still be as adrift tomorrow as I was right now.

I had faced squadrons of raider ships and beasts in the arena and more terrors on more planets than I cared to think about, but none of those nightmares scared me as much as Vos’s love.

Why? Because it didn’t make sense. He’d given his hearts and more to a scrap from Ganai.

I closed my eyes to hold back my tears, but they leaked from under my lids.

I hadn’t made a sound, but it didn’t matter. I both heard and felt it when Vos inhaled deeply, and then he drew me closer with his arm around my middle until my back pressed against his chest.

“My Calla,” he said, his voice fully awake though he’d been sound asleep a moment ago. “Do you weep?”

“No.” It came out as a sob.

Ever so gently, his tentacles turned me to face him. His eyes shone in the dark, beautiful and silvery-blue and as gentle as the rest of him, full of worry and care and love.

How had I not seen it before? Maybe I hadn’t wanted to.

“What hurts you, my mate?” His tentacles roamed my body, tasting and scenting my skin, maybe searching for injuries. “Why do you cry?”

How could I tell him that his greatest gift to me caused me pain? The words made little sense in my head, and they’d make even less out loud.

He cupped my face and used his thumbs to wipe away my tears. “Please, Calla. Let me help.”

“Today, in the sea, you called me your love,” I whispered, because if I didn’t speak the words I felt like I’d choke on them instead. “Did you mean it? ”

“Of course.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead. “My Calla, did you not know?”

I opened my mouth to tell him I didn’t know what love was, but that wasn’t true. I’d recognized it, so I must know. So where did this terrible ache come from?

Maybe the part of my heart that was terribly—and I feared irrevocably—broken.

“I don’t think I can love you, or anyone,” I said, my voice rough. “I’m sorry.”

I had no idea what he would say or do. I thought maybe he’d coo, or he’d argue with me, or he might be angry.

Instead, he held me against his chest. I burrowed my face against his skin. His scent had become a balm for me even when my hurts threatened to carry me away. His bioluminescence pulsed faintly along with his heartbeats, so strong and even. My stomach still churned, but I found my own heart slowing and my aches easing as I listened to that familiar, reassuring sound.

It was a long, long time before he spoke.

“Five standard years, three lunar cycles, and five days ago,” he said softly, “I completed my final assignment for the Silent Guard.”

My breath caught in my chest.

With his arms around me and his head resting against mine, Vos told me the story of the death of the Kurutan Ambassador N’Vors.

He tried to keep his tone even, but I heard the strain in his voice and felt the tension in his body as he described the impossible choice he’d faced about whether to fire his weapon and risk killing the ambassador’s child, and then how terribly wrong his mission had gone thanks to an unknown killer or killers.

Why he had chosen to tell me this story now, I wasn’t sure, but if I could take some of his hurt away by listening, I would. And I held him tightly until the story ended and he went quiet .

“N’Vors gave their life to save their child,” I said quietly. “Or in the hope that they might save them.”

“Yes.” He kissed my hair. “I do not know what N’Vors’s final thoughts were, but I imagine they were a prayer for their child—that if they did live, their life would be good.”

Such incredible selflessness. I swallowed hard around the lump in my throat. “Did you know the child’s name?”

“No. I do not speak Kurutan, and I did not inquire.” He took a deep breath, his gills fluttering, and let it out. “I wished the past to be past.”

Gods, if only it could. “Did you ever find out what La ka na means?” I asked.

“Yes.” His tentacles caressed me, but I thought it more for their comfort than mine. “It means Are you an angel , or something similar to that. There is no direct translation to Alliance Standard. The people of Kuruta believe divine aspects of their gods walk among them, and intervene to save the lives of certain people when their lives have special meaning. If I had known at the time what it meant, I would not have answered in the affirmative.”

“Oh.” The lump in my throat grew into an ache. “You were that child’s angel that day. They lived because of you and N’Vors.”

“I am no angel.” Now he sounded almost savage. “Not by any metric, my Calla.”

“Who are you to say?” I countered, my voice soft to counter his harshness. “The universe is vast. We understand so little about our own existence. And maybe all that matters is that you were there and you saved that child’s life, even though doing so put yours at risk. You had all those years of Guard indoctrination and training and brutality, but you couldn’t leave a child to die. Your soul is good, Vos. It’s so good.”

When he didn’t reply, I raised my head and put my palm on his chest above his hearts. His expression was grave, his eyes dark with memories. I imagined my own eyes often looked similar.

“Choices,” I said.

He blinked twice. Whatever he’d expected me to say, that wasn’t it.

“Fate, or the universe, or chance, may put us in a certain place at a certain time,” I told him. “Exactly how our lives unfold, I don’t know, but we make choices too. N’Vors made theirs. You made yours. And yours was good and kind. And…loving.” My voice trailed off.

Oh. Now I understood why he’d wanted to tell me that story, besides the fact the events of that day haunted him, and he believed I could ease that pain by listening.

I knew as much or as little about the Silent Guard as anyone who’d served in the Alliance Defense, but it was common knowledge the details of their missions were confidential to the extreme. By revealing this to me, he had broken his vows to the Guard—and made himself subject to their deadly retribution if anyone ever found out.

He leaned his forehead against mine. “My Calla, N’Vors acted out of love. That is what I saw when I beheld their body and heard the cry of their child. I had never known love, but I recognized it, and it compelled me to carry the child to safety. N’Vors’s loving sacrifice gave their child life, and gave me hope. And because I had hope, I followed your scent to the raiders’ boat and brought you home.”

And so, in a roundabout way, N’Vors’s loving sacrifice had led to this moment, when I lay in Vos’s arms asking myself if love was real and if my battered heart could be capable of it.

The enormity of that realization left me stunned into silence.

Vos cupped my cheek with his hand. “Do you fear loving and being loved, because love makes you vulnerable? As long as you are my Calla and I am your Vos, your love is safe with me.” He studied me. “Or do you not believe you are worthy of love? Because if it is the latter, I will spend the rest of my life proving you are wrong, if that is what I must do.”

I didn’t have to admit it; he saw my answer in my expression, and in the way my tears spilled over again.

He tucked my head under his chin. “I know what I see when I look into your eyes,” he murmured into my hair. “The word itself matters far less than that.”

How did I look at him? What did he read in my eyes that revealed more to him than I saw in my own heart?

“You’d love me even if I didn’t love you back?” I asked.

“My love for you has no conditions.” He settled in, forming a nest for me with his tentacles as he’d done in our first days together, and cupped the back of my head with his hand. “My Calla, there is no need to search for reasons that I might not love you. There are none to find.”

We lay together for a long time after that, awake but quiet. What he thought about, I didn’t know, but my own thoughts were full of his story and the question of love—what it was, what it wasn’t, and what a force it might be, even when we weren’t aware of it.

I wanted him to rest, because both of us didn’t need to be tired tomorrow, but he wouldn’t sleep until I did. I had learned that early on. Even so, I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t even close my eyes…

…Until he began to sing.

It started as soft murmurs that turned into a melody I recognized. The Fortusian lullaby. The song he’d hummed for me during our first bath, the one that let me know I was safe and cared for and that I would live. He’d hummed it for me after we discovered he could heal me with more than just his blood and I’d questioned how such a miracle was possible. But now there were words as well as melody. His voice was wonderfully deep and sonorous .

I’d relied on translators while stationed on Fortusia and never learned Vos’s language, so I understood only a few of the words of the song, but recognized enough to know it was about water and going home.

I thought about the way Vos had carried me into the ocean today: reverently, worshipfully…lovingly. His arms around me in the deep, holding me close, bringing me up to air and then giving me all of himself only when I’d asked him to. Only after his gentle coo had made it not only not painful, but pure pleasure to take him.

Yes, that was the physiology of being true mates, but it was certainly love too. But what did I have to give him in return?

Maybe something I was afraid to give, or maybe something I was afraid I’d be giving up.

Finally, Vos’s loving lullaby and comforting heartbeats carried me away into sleep.