“Why is it that you never eat with me?” she asked, curious, trying to distract herself from the desire coursing through her limbs. “Do you usually eat before…?” she trailed off, not quite knowing how to word her question.
Khiva made a trilling sound in the back of his throat. “Keriv’i do not need to eat every day,leeldra. We eat two or three times during the week, at one large meal.”
Eve raised her brow. “That must be some meal.” To sustain that body, he had to consume a lot of food.
His eyes lightened slightly, the color physically changing for a brief moment. “Pax, it takes all day to prepare, I’m told. On Kerivu, our lines, our families, would gather for a feast only once during the week. A grand feast. But on Kerivu, our food sustained our bodies better. We didn’t need to eat as much. Human food lacks some of the nutrients we need, so we must eat more often.”
“You miss Kerivu,” she commented softly, feeling her chest twinge slightly at the longing she sensed in him. Of course he did. It had been his home.
Khiva was quiet and then said, “I miss the freedom of Kerivu. I miss knowing that my family is safe, more.”
Eve stopped eating and turned slightly to look at him straight on. “What do you mean?”
“I do not know whether my mother or brother still live,” he confessed. “For all my time on Everton, that is what I have wondered the most.”
Eve felt like all the air had been squeezed from her lungs, like when the colony had its annual decompression.
“Khiva,” she said softly, placing her hand near his knee. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
He watched her carefully before saying, “You perhaps understand the feeling better than most. Not knowing and how that’s almost worse than the alternative.”
He was referring to her father and she swallowed thickly. Except, she did know. Deep down, she knew he was gone. She wondered if Khiva knew deep down too, or if that lack of knowing meant that his family was still alive.
“Many Keriv’i experience the same,” Khiva told her. “Dravka, one of the other Keriv’i here, lost a sister and his father. He does not have hope, however. He fears they are dead.”
“How…” she licked her dry lips, “what happened on Kerivu? That day?”
Khiva’s gaze flickered and his fingers, which had been caressing her shoulder, suddenly tightened and clenched into her skin.
He was quiet for so long that Eve squeezed his hand and said softly, “It’s okay, Khiva. You don’t have to answer.”
Impulsively, she leaned into him and pressed a gentle kiss to his shoulder before resting her cheek there. Her gaze strayed to the window and saw his solemn reflection. She couldn’t imagine the horror of what must’ve happened on Kerivu, the day the planet was destroyed. Eve wondered how many Keriv’i died that day, how many were separated from their families, how many escaped into the universe not knowing where they would go or how they would begin again.
It was simply…unfathomable. Horrifying.
He didn’t say anything to her words and a part of Eve wished she hadn’t brought it up. It was a painful memory, a dark time in history. Of course he wouldn’t want to revisit it.
Eve bit her lip and then stood from her chair, tugging on Khiva so that he followed her to the bed. He threw her an unreadable look, but joined her when she laid down, lying on their sides to face each other. Her dress rode up slightly and Khiva’s gaze flickered down to the flesh of her upper thigh, but she paid it no mind. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen—or touched, or licked, or kissed—before.
“You should finish your meal,” he told her softly, his hand moving to rest on her thigh. The heat from his hand sunk into her skin and made her belly feel warm and fluttery.
“I’m done,” she replied. “I just want to lay here with you.”
Khiva’s gaze ran over her features and they looked at each other in brief silence before he said, “We do not speak of that day, Evelyn. None of us. It is an unspoken rule. Because of that…I simply do not knowhowto speak of it, how to put that day into words. There are no words for what happened.”
“I understand, Khiva,” she said softly. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”
“You may ask me anything,leeldra,” he told her, those swirling eyes on her, “but that day…I cannot answer you for that day.”
There were so many questions she wanted to ask about him, about his past life, about his present life…so many questions that she felt as if they would burst from the tip of her tongue.
Instead, she pressed her cheek just below his round shoulder, breathing in his scent, trying to commit it to memory. Khiva blew out a long breath that ruffled her hair and his hand slid up higher on her thigh, pushing up the material of her dress.
“Tell me, Evelyn,” he murmured softly. “Tell me something.”
“What do you wish to know?” she asked, tilting her chin to look up at him.
“I want to hear your voice,” he told her. “I want to know what you do when you are not here, what you think, what you see.”
