To prove it to him, she tested their blood bond, that strange, new, comforting sensation inside her.She opened up her heart to him, her mind, until he could feel everything that she felt at that very moment.
Then he did the same.
And it was more beautiful than she could have ever imagined.
The purring started up again and she was glad to hear it.Burying her face into his chest, she felt the vibration through her own body and she smiled, tears shimmering in her eyes.
“How do you feel,luxiva?” he murmured down to her, rubbing his horns over her hair.Through the blood bond, she knew he meant whether she felt pain from the poison…the poison that Levrix had been giving her.
But she didn’t want to think about Levrix just then.The Luxirian female, who she’d started to consider a friend, could wait.She didn’t want anything to ruin this time with Rixavox, not even the thought of Levrix’s betrayal.
“We won’t know until Privanax runs his tests, right?” Cecelia said.But she didn’t feel fear anymore.She felt strong.
“Tev,” Rixavox said, shifting slightly.He didn’t like not knowing.Her well-being and health was a priority to him.Through the bond, she felt just how much it bothered him that he couldn’t protect her, even it was from herself, from her own body.
But Cecelia only felt hope.She feltfaithand she’d never been a particularly religious or spiritual person.If these Luxirian Fates had brought her to him, she truly believed it was for a reason…because they healed one another, they made each other stronger, together.
She knew, even if she didn’t have the tests to prove it, that she’d been given a second chance.And it was all because of Rixavox.
Looking up at him, her chest swelling with the knowledge of what he’d done for her, she whispered, “Thank you.”
His brow furrowed.“For what, female?”
She could put together the pieces of the puzzle easily.She could understand everything that he hadn’t told her before they’d done this.
Cecelia was his mate.Hisfatedmate.And they’d just bonded their blood together, becoming closer than what was evenpossibleon Earth, to save her life.
He’d told her that she still had the option of choosing whether she wanted to return to her home planet with the other women and she knew it was true.He would never force her to stay, even after what they’d just done.
But she also had an inkling of what that would do tohim.Feeling the intensity, the closeness that the blood bond created, she understood now why so many Luxirian males had chosen to take their own lives rather than living another day without their mates.She understood why so many lives had been lost, not just female lives, when the Plague had decimated their population.
The bottom line was that Rixavox had tethered his life to her own.
He’d done that without knowing what her decision would be on whether she would stay.He’d done that without knowing whether she would evensurvivethe poison or the cancer that had infected her body.
Before the blood bond, he’d been willing to die for her, to diewithher.
And he’d known that if she left him, if she decided to return to Earth, his own life was forfeit as well.
Cecelia would never find a partner like him in her life.She would never find someone so selfless, so caring, someone that lit her blood on fire and made her feels things she didn’t even know possible in her life.
So, when he askedfor what, she was torn between wanting to kiss him senseless or shake her head at him.
“For everything,” she finally said.Then, with her heart beating in her throat, feeling the strong beating of his own heart against her skin, a soft smile crossed her lips when she asked him, “Are you sure you won’t mind not having children?Truly?”
When she’d revealed to him that she was infertile, he’d barely blinked.He’d told her he just wantedher, that it didn’t matter if they couldn’t have children.
But she just wanted to make sure.To givehiman out, even though she already knew his answer.
Rixavox stilled, his body going taut, as he looked down at her, his expression more serious than she’d ever seen it andthatwas saying something.
“What are you saying,luxiva?”
She shifted in his arms, his cock still nestled deep inside her.Leaning up, she brushed another kiss over his addicting lips, but he remained perfectly still, as if he was afraid to move, as if moving might erase what she was implying.
“I’m saying that if you’ll have me, if you don’t mind that we won’t have children, or that it might take me a little while to learn about your people and culture, or that I’ll probably butcher your language more often than not,” she teased, smiling, “then I want to stay.Right here with you.”
“Sessela,” he purred.
