Page 43 of The Dreamer and the Deep Space Warrior (Xaal Alien Romance #1)

Isobel

Despite her protests and concerns about hurting him further, Ved carried her all the way across the foreign land and to the ship she had come to know well. He’d washed some of the gore from himself with swamp water, but it barely did any good. They were both sorely in need of a hot bath.

The general waited outside while Ved deposited her inside the familiar space. “I’ll be back,” he said and, without waiting for her response, left to meet Kravis.

Peering out the hatch, she watched as they spoke in low rumbles but with the passion of an argument. At one point, Kravis threw up a hand and gestured to the ship. Her intuition told her that they were speaking about her. Discomfort washed over her.

After they pulled each other into what she could only describe as a rough, brotherly embrace, Kravis took off at a jog in another direction.

As Ved boarded the ship again, he simply said, “Follow me.” The hatch shut behind him with a groan.

He led her through the bridge, pressing some of the nodes glowing in the once dark table she’d looked at dozens of times.

A sound like violent wind started and grew in intensity as the ship rose from the earth.

But they didn’t stay to watch as it did. Instead, he led her into the belly of the ship, where she’d only been once before. A door slid open to reveal his bedroom. It felt like forever ago that she’d been in this room with Ved.

So much had happened since then. So much had changed.

A compartment hidden in the wall opened as Ved approached it. He dug through it before pulling out a folded piece of material.

“Ved—” she tried, wanting to speak to him now that they were alone, but he interrupted.

“Let me take care of your neck, and then you can bathe,” he grumbled.

Something dropped in her stomach. Was he upset with her?

When she didn’t move, he motioned for her to follow him into an adjoining room.

It was dimly lit with lights that turned on as they entered.

The lights gave off a soft amber glow that gave her a sense of warmth and safety.

Although, some of that could be due to the very large and very warm Xaal warrior.

Ved leaned into a booth with a drain in the center of its floor and tapped against the sleek wall. Seconds later, rainfall released from above.

She marveled at the technology; it still felt like magic. Revolutionary inventions, truly. The people of Dorsent would do anything for such advancements.

Opening another compartment seamlessly built into the wall, Ved withdrew a wand-like instrument.

It was small, and the tip of it glowed bright white.

He pressed it to her throat without preamble.

There was a sudden heat—though not to the point of burning—then a pinch and pull on her skin.

It wasn’t painful, just uncomfortable as it crossed the shallow wounds.

“Is this how you healed the wound on my temple, too?” she asked as she looked into his dark eye shields. Somehow, he felt more distant than he’d ever been.

“Yes,” he said. “It is good for minor cuts and bruises.” He moved around her just as she lifted her hand to touch his arm.

“What about your injuries? They are not minor,” she countered. “I can help you treat them.”

“I can take care of them. For now, bathe,” he commanded over his shoulder. “And you can change into this.” He held up the folded material he had grabbed earlier.

Something of his.

“Thank you,” she murmured as she rubbed a finger over her newly healed skin. She didn’t know why she felt so vulnerable, but she did. Something was happening between them that she didn’t understand.

“I’ll be at the controls. Can you find your way there when you’re finished?”

Isobel nodded, still struck by his manner—detached, bordering on cold.

“Take as long as you need.” And then he was gone, the door sliding shut securely behind him.

She stared at the closed door for a long time, but the steaming water called to her. Catching a whiff of herself finally propelled her into action. Perhaps Ved was merely offended by her smell.

Determined to figure out this inventive way of bathing, she quickly took off her dirty gown.

By the time she was clean and out of the bathing chamber, her fingertips were wrinkled.

The hem of Ved’s tunic dropped far past her knees, which was comfortable, but she was forced to roll the sleeves up several times just to free her hands.

The best part was it smelled like him. She breathed his scent in—metal and midnight, salt and spice.

With the translator safely back in her ear, she took several deep breaths before opening the door and heading to find Ved.

As she padded barefoot down the hallway, she braced herself for what was sure to be a difficult conversation.

She was his mate.

Had he known? And if so, for how long?

He was at the controls when she approached, and tilted his head slightly, acknowledging he had sensed her.

As she rounded the pilot’s chair and his large frame, he looked at her.

She wondered what expression he wore as he scanned her appearance.

It only took a brief assessment of her own to realize he had bathed and changed as well—there was not a single trace of the bloodshed that had occurred just a short while ago.

But her attention was caught by the view beyond them. It was the most magnificent thing she had ever seen.

Purple and blue swirling lights danced in the otherwise black realm as they flew, flew , through the cosmic expanse. The profound depth, the endlessness of it all, made her feel both significant and infinitesimally small .

She’d dreamed of it since first meeting Ved, but nothing could have truly prepared her for it.

“This,” Ved rumbled, “should have been your first experience sailing the stars.”

“It still is,” Isobel said, stepping closer to him. “I didn’t get to see anything when I was taken. So, I’m experiencing it for the first time with you. Just how it should be.”

They sat in a weighty silence before a yawn overtook her. Her body shook with the force of it. Exhaustion sat deep in her bones even as currents of anticipation coursed through her veins.

“To bed,” Ved ordered. “You should rest and—”

“No,” she interrupted.

“Isobel Nott—”

She crossed her arms. “It’s Isobel,” she corrected. “Tell me what’s happened, Ved. You are distant all of a sudden, and I don’t understand why.” She’d meant to ease them into the topic, but perhaps he would respond to Xaal tactics better—swift and exacting.

“It’s nothing. You’re tired and you should go—”

“I will do no such thing until I’m satisfied with your explanation. Have I done something to upset you? Has something else happened?”

“Isobel, I will not—”

“Ved,” she snapped.

Without warning, he lifted his hands and stood, a snarl ripping from his throat.

She stepped back only so he had room for the explosive energy.

“You almost died!” he bellowed, his tone a wreckage of its former calm.

“They took you and hurt you. And it’s my fault.

Mine. I should never have allowed us to go as far as we did. I was weak and put you in harm’s way.”

He ripped a plasma dirk from its sheath and fell heavily to one knee. Seeing him like this made her heart twist. Isobel was certain that Ved Qon Cleave had never been on his knees a day in his life, and now she’d witnessed it twice in one day.

Holding the plasma dirk up with one hand, he pulled down the fabric around his neck. “Take this blade and slit my throat, for I have dishonored you. You, and only you, have that right.”

Her gaze shifted from the plasma dirk to his dark eye shields. Was he mad?

“You’d have me kill you?” She stepped into him, moving his proffered arm aside with her body and framing his mask with her hands.

“Ved Qon Cleave, you are the most infuriating male I have ever met. You didn’t dishonor me.

If anything, I have dishonored you . I was the one who was too weak to fight against my attackers, the one who got captured.

I’m the one unworthy of being your starborn mate.

If you must die for your failings, then so must I!

” Tears, hot and angry, welled in her eyes and spilled over her cheeks.

“You’ve done nothing wrong,” he said hoarsely, “and are more than worthy, of everything. The very cosmos should be yours if you want them.”

Isobel shook her head. “I don’t give a bloody damn about the cosmos. You’re too hardheaded and short-sighted to see that I only want you.” Her brazen confession echoed in the space.

He inhaled deeply.

Her heart felt like it was going to beat out of her chest. “Or is the prospect of death preferable to dealing with emotions for you?”

The plasma dirk clattered to the ground.

Quietness surrounded them. As exasperated as she was, his silence didn’t bother her. Processing emotion was new for him in ways she couldn’t understand, and as long as he wasn’t brandishing a plasma dirk, she could be patient as he took it all in .

But perhaps he merely needed some direction. “How long did you know,” she asked softly, “that we are starborn mates?”

The universe seemed to celebrate as she said it. A thrum picked up deep inside the chambers of her heart. Mates.

“I only knew for certain when I saw the plasma dirk to your throat. A mate—a true, starborn mate—is rare, and with you not being Xaal, I didn’t think it was possible.” His voice was thick with emotion.

“But you had your suspicions?”

He huffed a breath, and something in his body language told her that he was uncomfortable. The only other time she had sensed it from him was when he’d visited her bed chamber and apologized.

“Well?” she prompted.

“I am unfamiliar with such … emotions.” Though he was speaking Xaala, he said the word with hesitation.

“And there are so few Xaal with starborn mates that the connection is not greatly discussed. I was drawn to you like a planet to its sun. I think”—he swallowed hard—“the vector tear pulled me into its depth just to bring me to you.”

“And after all of that, you think such a connection is a weakness?” Her hands trailed down the metal of his helmet to his broad shoulders.

He took one of her hands in his and placed it against the center of his chest. “I know it is. Such soft things have no place in my world. You’ve seen it, now, for yourself.”

Anger and sadness twined together as Isobel pulled away from him.

After all they had endured for one another, he still thought that way.

“I guess,” she said, swiping tears away swiftly, “I thought you’d have seen the power in it.

It was there on that island—in the mud as you knelt in it, in the bravery I found to act, in Kravis tearing up the very earth to get to you.

But perhaps I’m nothing but a silly woman to think such things or to hope that having a starborn mate would make a difference for me.

I’m still not quite right, even for you. ” She nodded as the truth sank in.

Ved had it wrong—love wasn’t a weakness. It was a weapon, a dagger to the heart. Did anyone make it out alive?

Isobel belatedly tried to build armor around the shattering pieces of herself. “Say it, then,” she whispered. “Tell me you don’t want me.”

Ved’s empty hands closed into fists. Those proud, broad shoulders that carried the weight of his entire clan dipped. His chin tilted down as if he could find the answer waiting for him on the floor of his ship. His thick chest heaved with words he wouldn’t speak.

She sniffed and took another step back. Actions were far louder than words, and—

“I cannot,” he rasped. Agony coated every syllable.

Ved leaned forward, grabbing her hips. “I’ve spent so long purging myself of weaknesses and guarding against anything that could destroy me that even when the very stars gift me with a mate, I can’t accept it.

But you and I, Isobel Nott, are fiercely owed to each other.

Even if you are a vulnerability, even if our connection is, I’d spend a lifetime becoming strong enough to bear it.

And I’d destroy entire worlds for you, reshape them, to keep you as you are.

As soft and gentle as you may be, you are no weakness. You are mine. My mate.”

Isobel was frozen in place, too afraid to breathe as she waited for the but that would undoubtedly follow.

He made a sound of disgust. “I’m a nevskoln fool. You are right to doubt me.”

Without another word, he placed his fingers on the jaw and sides of his helmet and depressed something she couldn’t quite see. There were several snaps and clicks before the helmet emitted a low hissing.

“I have dived headfirst into a hoard of snornax, fought countless battles without fear, and most recently swam with krugdar, but this gives me pause,” he admitted. “You deserve to see my bare face. But I do not look like your pretty, unmarked males. I don’t look like your Richard.”

She pressed her palms against his chest to feel his hearts beating like thunderous drums beneath.

“Rest assured that I don’t desire the men of my planet.

When I tell you, Ved Qon Cleave, that how you look cannot diminish how I feel about you, I mean it with my entire being.

I haven’t seen your face, but I see you .

I’ve spent my entire life dreaming. I dreamt I was in another world, that I was someone else.

That I could find true love like in the stories I read.

Because I knew none of that was possible, there were even times I dreamed about not existing at all.

You have made dreams a reality. I’ve fallen in love with you.

I’m in another world,” she said, gesturing to the dark realm beyond, “and I feel like someone else—someone deserving of seeing you unmasked.”

Ved’s hands tightened around the metal of his helmet. “You are,” he rasped, “and always have been.”

And then he removed his mask.