“Okay,” she said slowly.
“Breeding pairsaremonogamous,” he told her next.“They are partners who choose to join their life spans together, to have a family unit together, though they are not fated mates.”
Cara’s brow furrowed.“And what are fated mates?”
Devix had to make an effort to control his breathing as he said, “Fated mates are rare, chosen by our deities, the Fates.Two beings chosen to come together.Their partnership is…right.When a male sees his fated mate for the first time, his Instinct awakens.”
Cara was watching him closely, her expression serious.“What’s an Instinct?”
“A force.It is difficult to explain,” he told her.“It guides the male to create the mating bond.It is like another entity, separate from the male, but within.”
Devix wanted to tell her thatshewas his fated mate, hisluxiva.But something stopped him.Fear that she’d retreat, when everything was still so new for her.He didn’t want to overwhelm her, not when Sarkon might be looking for them, not when they’d just landed on Rozun the span before, not when she was still recovering from their very thorough first mating.
“I see,” she said slowly and Devix wanted to know what she was thinking, whether she suspected what they were to each other, whether she felt it too.“And is that what your parents were?”
“Tev,” Devix said.“It is why my sire followed her to the blackworld.Fated mates cannot live without the other.It destroys them from the inside.The greatest of blessings and yet a curse.”
Cara’s face softened and she leaned up to press a kiss to his lips.“I’m sorry,” she whispered.“I’m sure you miss them both.”
He inclined his head, memorizing the way she felt in his arms.It seemed so long ago when he still thought he’d be able to deliver her to Sarkon, to never look back.It sickened him now to think of it.
“Tell me about your sire,” he murmured.She’d told him, when they were still on the vessel, that he’d died, that she’d been with him, the reason for the scar that ran down her leg.It had been clear to him that she didn’t wish to speak of it, but he wanted to know his mate, wanted to know everything that had made her.
Cara swallowed, her tongue sweeping out to lick her bottom lip.“I loved him.He was my whole world, the best dad I could’ve ever asked for.”
“You mourn him still,” he said.
“Always,” she said.“I grew up without a mother.She left my dad when I was small and he took care of me as best as he could.”Devix couldn’t imagine a mother abandoning her offspring.It was simply…unfathomable.“But my dad was different than most of friend’s dads.He was part of a MC…a motorcycle club.It was in his blood.”
“I do not understand,” he told her.“The language implant does not translate.”
“It’s hard to explain…but the club is like a family.A sometimes very rough, very strange, very unconventional family.My grandfather had been a part of one, my dad had grown up, knowing one day he’d be a member too,” Cara said.“But it wasn’t an easy life.Sometimes it was violent and my dad tried to keep me separate from it.”
“Why would he stay if it was violent?If it put you in danger?” he asked, trying to understand.
“He’d been a member for so long.It was all he knew,” Cara said.“I’m not naive.MCs aren’t known for being the most law-abiding citizens.My dad would’ve done anything for me, but I also know that he’d done some bad things too.”
“Why?”
“For money,” she said.“To prove his worth to the club, I don’t know.But I’m not sugar-coating who he was.I’m telling you that I loved him, despite all of this.And he loved me and he protected me, in his own way.”
Devix might not understand, but he could at least respect that.But if he sired a daughter, Devix knew he wouldn’t even associate withanythingthat would put her in danger.
“But it made me tough, growing up in that environment, knowing who my dad was and who he associated with,” she said.“I was still around the club at times.I grew a thick skin.It made me realize that it wasn’t the life I wanted and I threw myself into school, into work.I’d always loved to cook, to create new recipes, so I went to culinary school.And my dad was really proud.He always told me so,” she said softly.
Then she sighed.
“It was shortly after I graduated that the accident happened.One of the things we did together was drive along the coast on his motorcycle.It was freeing.I loved it.But then one day, on a normal day, everything turnednotnormal and my life turned upside down.A car hit us.My dad died instantly.I went to the hospital for my leg, with a long recovery ahead of me.I couldn’t believe that a world existed where my father wasn’t in it.That was the hardest thing to cope with,” she confessed.“I was in a dark place for a really long time.”
“Luxiva,” he said softly, words stuck in his throat,needingto comfort her though he knew that that kind of pain would never heal.
“My work got me through it,” she said.“After physical therapy for my leg, I got a job at a restaurant.My dad would always brag that one day, I would be a rising chef, that people from all over would come to try my food, my creations.It was like…I needed that to be true, to make him part of my life again.So, to get myself through that time, I worked my ass off.I worked long hours in a shitty restaurant as a line cook, in pain from my leg most of the time.Eventually, I worked as a saucier in a better restaurant, worked up to sous chef after three years and just last year, I got offered a position as head chef of a new restaurant in a new city.I was becoming everything my dad said and I was finally happy.I loved food, loved unexpected flavors and surprising people, and the smell of the kitchen, and creating dishes from simple ingredients.I was always fascinated by that, ever since I was little.”
Devix didn’t understand most of the words she was saying—restaurant, sous chef?—but he understood her meaning.And right now wasn’t the time to ask her to elaborate.There would be much time for that later.
So, he stroked a hand down her back and murmured, “Continue,luxiva.”
“And then I wasn’t happy anymore,” she confessed quietly, catching his gaze.“I’d finally achieved my goal.A national magazine called me a rising star of the ‘culinary world.’I was creating recipes that peopleloved.Food critics were giving me rave reviews.It was surreal.And I should’ve been happy.But I wasn’t.Suddenly, going into the kitchen every day was a chore.I’d lost my inspiration to create, I couldn’t come up with anything new.I missed my dad, I felt like a stranger in Seattle, I felt alone and lost and restless.”
