“It’s beautiful,” she said softly, sitting down beside him in the sand, looking out over theLopitaxsea, with its shimmering, serene waters.
During the cold season, those waters became dangerous, with waves cresting high up the cliff, but right then?It was perfect.
“Much better in person,” she added softly, looking over at him.
Vikan braced himself for this conversation, pressure weighing him down.It would be the most important conversation of his life.
“Luxiva,” he murmured, his eyes memorizing her face as if it would be the last time he’d see it.“I do not know where to begin.”
“Then let me begin for us both,” she whispered softly, turning towards him, her legs curling under her.“Vikan, I’m sorry for how I handled things earlier this morning.I was hurt and I handled it the way I always had before…by retreating into myself and blocking out the problem until it hurt less.But I don’t want to do that.Not to you.”
“I drove you to it,” he murmured.“The fault is entirely mine.”
“No, it’s not,” Taylor replied, shaking her head.She blew out a breath and met his eyes.“Tell me what happened this morning.I’m ready to listen.Did you…is there some way you canactuallyvisit Nitav?”
Vikan ran a hand over his left horn.Hewantedto tell her everything.
“Nix,” he murmured, holding her gaze.“I can revisit specific memories and they can begin to feel as if Icouldactually speak with her.They morph and change, different conversations we had had or words that she would have said that stem from my own mind.”
“Oh,” she murmured softly.
“After her death, it was a comfort to remember, to visit her there,” he admitted.
“I’m sure it was, Vikan,” she said softly, reaching out to take his hand.“I truly am sorry that you had to go through that.Grief isn’t easy and we all deal with it in different ways.”
Vikan lifted his head.“Ineededto go to her last night,luxiva.It was not because I longed to see her, as you thought.I went to her because I needed to say goodbye in my own way.I never truly said goodbye to her because I never got to say goodbye.I was off planet when she died and she was burned in the Luxirian custom before I could return.”
“Vikan…” she whispered.
“I told her that I had found my fated mate.I told her your name.I told her that I had come to finally let go of her becauseyouare my present and my future and that I wanted to start right, to begin again with you,” he murmured, watching her eyes fill with moisture.“I could not do that knowing I had not truly said goodbye and made peace with her death.”
“Oh, Vikan.”
“It was, perhaps, unfortunate timing on my part, but I do not regret seeking her out in my memories,luxiva.It needed to be done and I felt such relief and happiness afterwards.”
“Until I ruined it all,” she whispered, her shoulders dropping a bit.“I should have believed you when you told me.”
“I had given you no reason to,” he murmured.
“You have though, Vikan,” she said softly, meeting his eyes.“You’ve given me so many reasons to.”
His breath hitched at the look in her gaze, but he would not let hope make a mockery of reality.
“Will you tell me about her?” she asked.“About what she was like?”
His brow furrowed because her request was so unexpected.But he would’ve done anything that she had asked.
Vikan swallowed before saying, “Nitav was…carefree.That is the first word that I think of that described her.She lived in her own head sometimes, oblivious to much that was going on around her.But she laughed and smiled easily and she enjoyed her life, as short as it was.Problems to her were fleeting and anything could be solved.
She was beautiful.She was somewhat vain about her hair.She brushed it so often that sometimes she joked that it would fall out and she wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore.”Taylor smiled at that.“She did not think about the future much.We spoke of it sometimes, but she was too impulsive for plans.To me, it was…welcome, since all I ever thought about was the future, and not necessarily my own.”
“She sounded lovely,” Taylor whispered, her eyes softened.
“She was,” Vikan agreed, inhaling a slow breath.“But she was also young.We both were.And when she died,tev, I was in misery.But not so much that I decided to end my life span, like so many other mates had when their partners were ripped away.I always felt guilty about that, like I had somehow not loved her enough.”
“Vikan.Don’t ever feel guilty about that.”
“I do not anymore,” he said.“I realized that I did not end it because I knew what awaited me.”
