Time passes, and Mardok sits down next to me. He looks stressed, my mate. The lines of his face seem to be deeper and sadder than ever. I take his hand in mine, and he holds on to me tightly. It is like he needs comforting, too. So I put my head on his shoulder and let my fingers run up and down his arm. Just a light touch, just to let him know I am here, at his side.
Niri comes in a short time later. Rukh jumps to his feet, his big body trembling with worry. “How is my mate?” he asks.
“She’s weak,” Niri says in that flat, unfriendly voice of hers. I wonder how someone so impatient with people can be a healer, but I suppose not all that are called are kind and gentle like Maylak. “She has a very large malignant mass in her brain that is pressing against her frontal lobe, and it looks like it’s been there for a while. I take it humans aren’t technologically advanced enough to remove it?”
I am surprised to hear such a thing, but Rukh only nods. “She said it has been there a long time, and the khui keeps it at bay.”
“Well, it’s failing,” Niri tells him bluntly. “Do you want me to remove it? The mass? I can do it, but…” She looks over at Mardok.
I look at him, too. I do not understand. If we can save her, why do we not do it?
“But it’ll be expensive and the captain won’t like it?” Mardok’s voice is bitter. “I don’t care. Dock my pay. Just save her. I can’t believe you even have to keffing ask, Niri.”
“I don’t work for you. I work for Chatav,” she retorts. “But I’ll do it as long as her husband signs a release that this is what his woman wants.”
“Anything,” Rukh says tightly.
Niri nods. “Come with me, then. I’ll show you where to input your signature.”
They leave, and then it is just me and Mardok. “I do not understand,” I tell him softly. “Why did she hesitate?”
He just shakes his head. “It’s complicated. Too much worry over money and job security. It’s what happens when you get rescued by four loners.” The smile he gives me is faint. “None of us are very good at being compassionate.”
I think he is very compassionate, but it is clear he is troubled, so I do not press the matter. There will be time enough to discuss it later. “As long as your heart is good, it does not matter.”
“My heart is not good,” he says. He turns and cups my face in his hands, his strange, pale eyes wild. “Most of the time I’m just…tired. Existing. But around you, I want to be better. I want to be more than what I am. Is it crazy to be this addicted to someone I just met?”
“It is resonance,” I tell him happily.
“Even without a khui?”
I shrug. “Does it matter? You are my mate and I am yours. That is all we need.” He will have a khui soon enough. I talked with my father and the other hunters while Mardok sat at the fire, and they agreed to do a sa-kohtsk hunt the moment I give the word.
He kisses me. I am surprised when his lips brush against mine—because I have always initiated our contact—but his tongue presses against the seam of my mouth, and I am lost. As my khui sings to him, we kiss, lips and tongues entwined. It is like nothing I have ever felt before, and I am alwayshungry for more of it, even when we break apart.
“Stay with me tonight,” he murmurs. “Either here on the ship or in the village.”
I nod. It is no hardship to be with him. As long as I can lie in his arms, I do not care where we are. “Of course.”
He presses another hard, fervent kiss to my mouth. “Stay with me. Forever.”
I kiss him back, dragging my fingertips along the stubble of his scalp. At first I thought his lack of hair strange, but I find the feel of it against my skin arousing. “Always. We are mated. You will get a khui, and then you will resonate to me and all will be as it should. You can move into my house with me. It is small but pleasant.”
Mardok pulls back, his delicious, fascinating mouth flattening. “I want you to come with me.”
“With you? Where?” Surely we cannot leave now, not with Har-loh in med bay—
He shakes his head. “I mean when we leave here. Come with me. Leave this planet behind.” His fingers twine in my mane, and he presses more light, dizzying kisses to my face. “Be at my side, always.”
“I cannot leave,” I tell him softly. He does not yet understand how a khui works, it seems. “I was given my khui many, many years ago. Once a khui is placed inside someone, it cannot be removed. If I take it out, I will die. If I leave, it will die. I must remain on my world.”
He presses his mouth along my jawline and then moves to nip my ear. I gasp, because when his teeth brush over my lobe, it sends sensations skittering through my body and distracts me from his next words. “We can remove it.”
It takes a moment for me to realize what he is saying. I pull back, gazing up at him, surprised. “What do you mean, you can remove it?”
“The med bay. It can remove it, easily. You can have it taken out, and then you can come with me.” He grins as if this is a wonderful thing. “Don’t you want to see the stars? Other worlds? There are some that are so warm and pleasant that it’s like being wrapped in a blanket. There are worlds where there is no such thing as snow. And beaches as far as the eye can see. I bet you’d love beaches.”
I shake my head, pulling away from him. I take a few steps, because I need time to think. “You would take my khui out of me?”
