The word hangs in the air like a foreign object.
Sarven’s head tilts.
“Koh-fee,” he repeats slowly in my mind, tasting the shape of it. “This is the bitter brown drink you and Ah-lex spoke of.”
“It’s—” My chest aches a little, unexpectedly. “It’s a thing from home. Earth. Hot, dark, bitter. It tastes like smoke and roasted earth, but it wakes your brain up before your body is ready to move.” I wave a hand. “Don’t worry about it. There’s no coffee here. I’ve accepted my fate.”
Sarven goes very, very still.
His gaze moves from my face to the fire, to the water skins, to the baskets of dried herbs stacked nearby as if the answer might be hiding among them.
“If this ‘koh-fee’ exists on Xiraxis,” he projects slowly, “I will find it. If I have to search every ridge and valley. If I have to trade every hunting tool I own.”
I stare at him, throat tight.
“…Sarven. It’s just coffee.”
His brows tighten. “No.Your voice changes when you speak of it. Your memories around it are…” His head cocks as he brushes lightly against that tangled knot of early-morning kitchens and cheap mugs and city air. “Soft. Important.”
He leans closer, lowering his mental volume so the thought is just for me.
“You gave up your whole world,” he thinks, quiet and fierce. “If there is a way to bring you one small piece of it, how could I not try?”
I blink rapidly.
Sarven, former Stabby mountain menace, is earnestly vowing to scour an alien planet for bean water.
I laugh because if I don’t, I’m going to cry. It comes out a little wobbly.
“Careful,” I tell him, nudging his ankle with my toes. “You keep talking like that, and I’m going to have to promote you from mate to husband, and then you’ll be stuck doing half the dishes forever.”
Sarven freezes. His hand stills on the gourd.
“Husband,” he repeats in the mindspace. The word feels heavy, strange.Huz-bahnd.
Before I can explain, I feel him reach out through the bond. He just…looks. He pulls the concept straight from my brain archives, rifling through years of rom-coms, my sister’s divorce, my friends’ weddings…
He sees the legal documents, which look like thin, dead leaves to him. He sees the white dresses. He sees the arguments about leaving socks on the floor, the concept of sleeping in separate rooms, the fifty-percent failure rate, and the human men who stop hunting for their mate’s favor after the ceremony.
Sarven’s lips curl, revealing a fang.
“This bond is… dust,” he projects. “It is markings on dead fiber. It can be unmade by the words of a stranger in a long coverings?”
Long cov…oh, a priest’s robe?
“Well, it’s supposed to be forever,” I say. “But yeah, it’s complicated.”
“A ‘huz-bahnd’ is merely a nest-partner held by a rule, not need.”
He leans forward, his crimson eyes burning so hot the air around us crackles.
“I am not a huz-bahnd,” he practically growls. “I am Tor-vakh. I am the one who breathes your air. If you cease to love me,I do not tear up a marking. I wander the dust until Ain bleaches my bones.”
My breath stops in my throat. “Okay. Wow. That is… significantly more intense.”
“Also,” he adds, tapping the gourd with a claw, “I saw the memory of the ‘deeshes.’ Cleaning the eating tools?”
“Yeah,” I say out loud. “It’s a chore. Husbands usually complain about it.”
