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 mekillyou?” 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,Ihave dishonoredyou. 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 adifference 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 aremine.My mate.”
Isobel was frozen in place, too afraid to breathe as she waited for thebutthat would undoubtedly follow.
He made a sound of disgust. “I’m anevskoln 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 thisgives 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 seeyou. 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.Youhave 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.”
