“You are worrying me, female,” he told her softly.“We will talk as much as you want once Kirzalla has attended to you.”
But she was already shaking her head.
And her next words made him freeze.
“I’m falling in love with you, Rixavox,” she admitted softly.“I wanted you to know that, regardless of what happens.”
“Female…”
“But you’ve been lying to me since I met you.And I just want you to say it, just once, so that I can understand.”
There was complete silence as Rixavox digested her words.Emotions pummeled him from all sides until he felt both beaten down and lifted up by them.It was an indescribable feeling.
But one thing was clear to him.
She knew.
It was not the situation in which he’d wanted to tell her.He’d thought of a million different ways to tell her, but this had not been one of them.
Even as dazed and sickly as she looked, hisluxivawas not going to back down from this talk.He could see the stubbornness shining clearly in her eyes.Even though it frustrated him, seeing her this way, he admired her persistence.
He admired much about his female.
And at any other moment, where she told him she was falling in love with him, he would be the proudest Luxirian to have ever lived, blessed with the love of an amazing female.At that moment, however, his joy was dulled by his concern, his worry.
Still, he felt the words tumbling from him, all the words that he had collected for his female that he couldn’t voice before right then.
“You are myluxiva, Sessela,” he told her, grasping her waist and holding her weight.“My fated mate, the one female that the Fates have gifted me for the rest of my life span in this world.I have known since I first saw you, since you first awakened the dormant Instinct within me.There will never be another for me.It is you.You.It will always be.”He pressed her closer.“If anything happened to you,luxiva, I would not know how to process it, but if you chose to leave me, I would accept your decision.”He couldn’t stop the words now, even if he tried.“But if you choose to stay, with me, on Luxiria, to build your life here and live out the rest of your life span with me at your side, I will make you happy.”Tears started to glimmer in her eyes and Rixavox rushed to finish, worried that he would not be able to tell her everything that he wanted her to know before she stopped him.“I want to build a family unit with you.I want to sire offspring with you.I want you here with me.”
Tears began dripping from her eyes and Rixavox’s heart sank in his chest.Tears meant humans were sad, didn’t they?
“Luxiva…” he murmured, wiping away the strange liquid off her warm cheek.
“I c-can’t have children,” she said, more tears replacing the ones he’d smoothed away.“The chemo…and the radiation…I can’t—I can’t give you children, Rixavox.And Levrix said that they’re important, that—”
“Vraxwhat Levrix says,” he growled softly, crouching so that they were at eye level, his heart thundering in his chest.“No offspring then.It does not matter.What matters is you,tev?”More tears fell and he growled at the sight of them, hating to see them.This was too upsetting for her.He worried it would be too much.He brought her to his chest, embracing her, feeling her body against his.“Enough now.We will talk of this once you have been healed.”
“And what if it doesn’t work?” she asked softly, sniffing.Her voice seemed so small, so weak, and it only worried him more.“What happens then?”
“I will be there with you,luxiva,” he murmured down to her.“Have faith that the Fates will see you through.You were led here for a reason.”
“That reason was you,” she murmured quietly, looking up at him.
Rixavox’s chest ached and he wondered what was taking Kirzalla so long.He didn’t like the way she sounded resigned, like she was already expecting the worst outcome.How sick was she?Had she been hiding this from him?
“Be an idealist, female,” he said quietly.“Remember?”
She huffed out a weak laugh but then flinched.She was so pale that it made Rixavox’s stomach clench.
“Rixavox,” she murmured, her eyebrows furrowing.
“Tev, luxiva?”
“I…I don’t feel so well.I-It started getting worse after you left.I’m not sure if…”
But she never finished because her eyes rolled back into her head.Rixavox roared in alarm and caught her just as she fell, unconscious, in his arms.
After what seemed like rotations, he heard a hovercraft land on the terrace outside his dwelling.
