Grief and powerlessness swept over him like the waters of a flood, threatening to drown him. His breaths came ragged and shallow, and his hearts raced, thundering in his chest.
“Hey, hey.” Callie moved in front of him and grasped his jaw, cradling it with both hands. “Urkot, look at me.”
He pulled his gaze away from the vrix remains and looked into the warm, dark depths of Callie’s beautiful eyes.
“It’s okay,” she said gently, and she drew his head down to press her forehead to his headcrests. “Just breathe.”
But he couldn’t. There was too much tightness in his chest and throat, too much heat building inside him. He forced his eyes shut and focused on Callie—on her scent, on her touch, on the sound of her voice.
“Breathe for me, myluveen. In and out. There you go. Keeping going, just like that. You’re here, I’m here. We’re still alive, and we’re getting out of this place together.” She stroked her thumbs along his jaw and pressed a kiss to his mouth. “We have a life to start, to build. The both of us. We’ll share a den, have lots of amazing sex, and I mean a lot. And maybe…maybe some babies along the way.”
His hearts stilled, and the sounds from his memory went abruptly silent.
Babies? Broodlings…like Akalahn?
She wants to carry my broodlings?
He searched her eyes. They were filled with sincerity, and sparkled with a hopeful, dreamy light. She’d thought about the same things he had. She’d envisioned the same future he had, a future made together, a life lived together.
She smiled. “You like that idea, huh?” One of her hands slid up into his hair, and she combed her fingers through it. “I watched you at the party, you know, while you were with the broodlings. I saw you playing with them. I won’t lie and say it didn’t turn me on, because it did. It really, really did. And I… I’d love to see you play with our own kids one day. I know you’d make a wonderful father.”
A growl rumbled in his chest as he placed his upper hands on her hips and flattened the lower over her belly. “Yes. I much like that idea.”
She chuckled. “Then we need to get out of here so we can get to work on that and have all that hot sex.” When she pressed her lips to his mouth again, they lingered, lightly brushing back and forth.
Urkot firmly kissed her in return, closing his eyes and crooning as he drew her closer. His suncrest indeed. She’d chased away the shadows in his hearts so easily, had driven them back to the pits from which they’d crawled.
The tightness in his chest eased, as did his breathing along with it. “I will bring you home, Callie.”
“As long as I’m with you, I am home.”
His heartsthread thrummed at those words. Such a simple, powerful way to describe what he’d been feeling, to express these complex, deep-running emotions. Callie’s presence made him feel at home in a way he never truly had before. And he did the same for her.
When he’d visited Takarahl, there’d been an empty space in his chest, far too vast to have fit inside him. He’d been aware ofeach moment he spent away from Kaldarak, and those eightdays had felt like the longest of his life.
He hadn’t understood the cause of it, not until he’d returned to Kaldarak and had seen Callie again. Not until he’d been blessed by the beauty of her smile and the joy of her laughter.
Only then had that ache been soothed, that hole filled.
The humans had another way to express all those feelings, one even simpler than Callie’s words. Urkot had heard Ivy and Ketahn say it to each other, had heard Rekosh and Ahmya do the same.
Urkot opened his eyes and lifted his head, meeting her gaze. He moved a hand up to her face, cupping her cheek. “I love you, Callie.”
He had never spoken truer words. Had never spoken with such confidence, with such vehemence.
Callie’s smile was wide and radiant as her eyes glimmered with a sheen of tears. “I love you too.”
Urkot released a low, deep trill as he caressed her cheek with the back of a claw. It was hard to look away from her. His beautiful mate, his Callie, his suncrest, his heartsthread.
Yet he pulled his gaze away from her, looking over the rockfall and down to the skeleton crushed beneath it. Memories raked at his mind, but they did not burst in; Callie’s presence and touch held them back.
“I have lost many to the tunnels,” he finally said, voice low and raw. “Friends and kin both. I have seen rocks fall atop them, have heard their cries, have watched them die. And every time, I have wondered what I could have done to save them. Have wondered why I walked away when they did not. I know these dangers too well, and yet I go to the tunnels again and again, hoping to spare others from such fates.
“That is why I did not want you to come. I have lost too many in places like this. But to lose you, Callie?” He turned his faceto her, and a tremor coursed through him. “I would not survive that.”
“Oh Urkot…” She slipped her arms around him, embracing him tightly. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.” Softly, she rubbed her cheek against his chest. “But I’m glad I came to visit you. I’m glad that I’m here with you, that you’re not alone here. If I hadn’t come, if you hadn’t pulled me away from the others…you could have died too.”
He’d been so set on moving forward, on not thinking about what had happened and what could’ve happened, that he’d failed to even consider what she had just said.
