Page 15 of The Dreamer and the Deep Space Warrior (Xaal Alien Romance #1)

Isobel

“You’ll need to untwist the cords,” Ved instructed.

The space was cramped. Ved explained it would have taken him hours to pull off some of the panels to access this one area. Since she was smaller, though, she could reach into the gap between two of them.

“I’ve got it,” she said. For the next few minutes, she worked blindly to straighten the thick cords out. Then her fingers roved over each to ensure there was no damage to them.

“ Kegis ,” Ved said when she pulled her hand out.

“What does that mean?”

He offered her his hand to help her off the floor, but she resolutely ignored it.

Not that it was, in itself, inappropriate, but she wanted to stick firmly to the boundary she’d set before.

It was difficult, though. Ved was naturally a physical being—he’d told her just yesterday that touch, whether it be violent, intimate, or somewhere in between, was completely different for Xaal.

“It means…” He trailed off .

“Exxo can’t find the word?” she asked, arching a brow. Over the last several days, she’d figured out very quickly that the neurolink didn’t like to fail, especially in linguistics.

There was a pause where Exxo must have been speaking, because then Ved said, “I’m not telling you his response.”

Isobel giggled. She hoped that she could meet Exxo one day, but until then, she liked the small exchanges they sometimes had through Ved.

They moved on to the next area, and Ved studied the gap between the panels. “There is a casing where all the wires converge. I need to ensure that they’re all running through it. Can you reach it?”

Isobel peered into the slats, studying her next task. “ Vay ,” she said, using his language’s word for yes.

He seemed surprised if the hitch in his breath was any indicator. “Very good,” he praised in a rough purr.

The simple praise made her want to learn every word in his language.

Over the last couple of days, he’d been teaching her Xaala, his language, and also the universal tongue.

The universal language was surprisingly simple, made to convey ideas quickly and concisely among beings that shared no common tongue.

The phrases “don’t touch my ship” and “I’ll delete your carbon trace” were her favorites, even with the violent overtures.

Though she was quite certain she would never need to use such expressions even if she did somehow make it into space.

Xaala, however, was far more difficult. She couldn’t quite pin down the sounds that needed to come from deep within her chest. The language was harsh, so unlike the soft-spoken words of a gentle lady.

Which meant she practiced often, even whispering the words to herself as she readied for bed or when she awoke in the morning.

Some of the bite-sized words were the only thing she’d conquered thus far, though.

Words like vay for yes, kel for no, and unxa for how.

“All the wires are going through,” she confirmed. Pulling her hand out from the tight space, she scratched her cheek absent-mindedly.

Ved tilted his head at her.

“What is it?” she asked.

He reached for her hand, then seemed to think better of it.

Following the gesture, she found her fingers covered in dark grease. “Oh, goodness.” Using the back of her clean hand, she tried to wipe away the smudge on her cheek.

Ved made an amused rumble. “This is not the way, you’re spreading it.”

Picking up a nearby towel, he placed one hand beneath her jaw. She felt him searching her eyes for permission, and she gave it with the slightest nod. So much for not touching.

Tilting her head back just so, he wiped the oil away. But she couldn’t seem to look away from his eye shields.

What expression was he making behind the mask?

“Must you always be covered?” she asked as he swiped the towel across her cheek one last time. “Do you only take it off when I’m not here?”

He held up her hand to clean next, and she quietly cursed herself for letting him do it.

“For most Xaal, once we earn our masks, our bare faces are only seen by a select few. To be unmasked outside of those chosen, especially outside of our clan, would be dishonorable,” he explained.

Disappointment lanced through her. She imagined that a spinster from Earth was not one of those lucky few. “Who has the honor of seeing you? ”

He paused in his movements, and she wondered if she’d made some mistake. “My mate can, and my bruvya, Kravis. He dined with me most days.”

She swallowed hard. “You have a mate, then?” The word sounded much more serious than husband or wife . More fiercely intimate and sacred.

Ved chuckled low in his throat—an unmistakable sound that she wanted to draw from him again, but she was fully focused on his response. “No, Isobel Nott, I am untethered. A mate would be problematic. As qon, it is difficult to be concerned about such things.”

“Such things as love?” she asked. That seemed to be the only thing she did focus on. The idea of it, the magic of it, and thus the very real lack of it in her life.

He hummed in agreement. “It’s a weakness.”

Isobel furrowed her brow as something tightened in her chest. He spoke about love like it was a chink in his armor or the lesser of two weapons. “But love, especially true love, can be so powerful. Why would you see it as a vulnerability?”

“Because it is,” he said gruffly. “It can be twisted and used against you, it can muddle your senses. One might as well put their weapons out to rust and let their armor fall into disrepair. Love is nothing but a death sentence.”

Isobel pressed her lips together as he stepped away from her.

The absence of his heat was instantaneous.

She thought to argue the point but felt she had little ground to—she’d never been in love.

The closest she got to it was reading it in her books.

How did she know what was and wasn’t a weakness?

Especially to a Xaal. Especially to him.

With great effort, she let the topic go in favor of safer waters. “Bruvya…” She tasted the word. “What does it mean?”

The muscles in his back shifted as he reached for a tool. “Bruvya is what we call those we’ve chosen as our closest comrades. We usually only have one, but some Xaal have more. Kravis is my brother—we’re sworn to each other. Through battle, through blood. In this lifetime and even in death.”

There was something in his tone that she couldn’t quite decipher. “But he isn’t actually your sibling?” He’d said his brothers were dead. Yet she found it hard to understand choosing someone outside her family. If she were Xaal, would Henry be her bruvya? Or Clara?

“No, we do not share the same birth Xaal. We were from warring clans. There should have never been a reason for us to choose each other.”

Isobel was captivated. “How, then?”

Ved made a thoughtful sound as he placed a large cylindrical object she couldn’t fully process the function of onto a nearby ledge.

Inside the strange design of it, there was a glowing green liquid that sloshed around.

“When I was unmasked, in my youth, I was weak. Try as I might, I couldn’t keep up with the others in training.

The will was there, but my body could not match it.

I was slower, smaller, breakable. There is no place for such a Xaal in a clan.

” His voice was rough but otherwise carefully devoid of emotion.

It was like he spoke of someone else, distancing himself from the child he’d been.

“I find it difficult to imagine you as anything other than…” She gestured to his powerful form.

He grunted and continued on, “One freezing night, I was awakened by three of my peers. They beat me and dragged me to an icy field.”

“Why would they—”

“Do not pity that youngling, Isobel Nott. I couldn’t fight them off. A weak Xaal is a dead Xaal. ”

Swallowing hard, she nodded. She didn’t have to like or fully understand it to know that it was the way his world was. It’d been established the moment he crash-landed here that it was a far harsher one than hers.

“After taunting me and beating me, they cut me open and left me to bleed out. They were so certain I would die that they didn’t stay to finish the kill.”

She gasped, and his shields flickered orange and darkened again. Isobel pressed her lips together even though her heart broke. It was some piece of his culture that didn’t translate to life as she knew it. But she ached for that little version of him. Why hadn’t someone protected him?

“I should have died there, but I bargained with the death gods, using my own blood as offering. I vowed I’d never be weak again if I survived.

But it wasn’t the gods that answered me, it was Kravis.

He’d been watching the entire time. He came to stand over me, and I knew he wasn’t of our clan.

I expected him to finish the kill, but instead, he merely said, ‘Then fight. Tell death you do not yield.’

“He had a skid nearby that he carried stolen goods from our clan on. But he didn’t carry me or help me to it. He made me drag myself there, across the ice, while I bled.” It sounded like he was smiling at the memory.

“My God,” Isobel said, covering her mouth. She couldn’t imagine a child going through all of that. How alone he must have felt when he was in that field, freezing and bleeding out. How had he survived it?

“Although it took me the better part of the night, I was able to get to his skid. Then he took me back to his clan. Kravis bargained for me. His clan agreed to house me but only gave me basic care. I had to fight to survive on my own, I had to earn the privilege of life. There were many times I should have died—I’d lost far too much blood as it was, and my wounds festered.

I was delirious with fever for days, but I fought,” he said through gritted teeth, “and the moment I could stand, I left that death hut where the weaker version of me died. And when I did, Kravis was the one who welcomed me into their training.”

“And that’s when he became your bruvya?” she asked.

Ved laughed, a rich, deep thing. “No. He became my bruvya when we almost killed each other. I knew from that moment that he was the only one I wanted to battle beside.”

“But you were from enemy clans. How did you reconcile that?”

“The moment I survived, Kravis’s clan became my clan.”

“So, Clan Cleave?” she asked.

He finished screwing something into the cylinder before he sat it aside.

“No, Isobel Nott. Once I earned my helmet, with Kravis at my side, I returned to my birth clan. I killed the qon and those loyal to him. I then challenged the qon of our clan in the same night—cleaving two great clans and rebuilding them into one.”

“Qon is a leader like…”

“Exxo says that the closest word you have to qon is king .”

Her lips parted in silent surprise. “You killed two kings in a single night and took their place? Are you telling me that you’re…”

“I am Ved Qon Cleave,” he stated simply, as if the information he’d just imparted was not extraordinary.

“Ved Qon Cleave,” she repeated. “The King of Cleave.”

He rumbled with satisfaction. “Vay, and Kravis was my general.”

“Was?”

His voice became grittier, deadlier. “Before I was pulled into the vector tear that brought me here, I saw his ship get attacked. He couldn’t have survived. ”

“Oh, Ved,” she murmured as her heart broke for him anew. “I’m so sorry. After everything…”

“It’s why I must repair my ship quickly. I have a blood vendetta to settle. I will kill every member of this Clan Rax. Blood for blood,” he growled. “An ocean of it for a drop.”

Isobel had never had an enemy—not like that.

Her mother, her sister-in-law, and her father hadn’t been killed by some adversary, yet she understood exactly how Ved felt.

If she had some entity to hold accountable for their deaths, she’d do the same.

Even without such a thing, she was often angry at the world and at God.

“I’ve experienced loss, too,” she murmured.

“Not in such a way, but when I was only four, my mother passed away from a bad fever. Hetty, my brother’s wife, died giving birth to my niece, Clara.

And just two years ago, my father died after falling ill and declining rapidly.

That loss was the hardest for me. He was a great man, and I loved him very much.

He allowed me certain liberties to be myself and was full of wisdom. ”

Isobel tried to imagine telling her father about Ved. Once he overcame his initial disbelief and shock, she thought he might have been just as curious as she was. And… “I think you would have liked my father. He was a skilled hunter and very clever.”

Ved tilted his head as he listened to her. He’d stopped working the moment she’d started speaking. “Your heartbeat changes when you speak of them,” he said after a long moment.

“You can hear my heartbeat?” It somehow seemed too vulnerable, too intimate, and she instinctively crossed her arms over her chest.

“And see it beating in your chest, if I want.”

“How often do you do that?” she managed. She was certain that if humans had such an ability, it would be considered impolite or improper to use it. If not downright scandalous and sinful.

“It pleases me,” was all he said.

She blew out a breath and willed herself not to blush at the thought. “There have been many revelations today, Ved Qon Cleave. I’m not sure I can take many more.”

He huffed. “You are telling untruths,” he said. “You are far too curious to be finished.”

It had only been a short time of getting to know each other, yet he knew her so well. But something nagged at her, a familiar fear. “My curiosity doesn’t bother you?”

“Why would it?” he retorted, moving on to another cylinder. “I’m as curious about you as you are about me, Isobel Nott.”

As they returned to their work, she couldn’t help but think that no one had ever said something quite so meaningful to her.