Dravka growled, capturing her lips in a swift kiss, one that made her chuckle and smile.
“I’m so ready to have you all to myself,” he rasped.
A warmth spread in her chest, one she’d grown used to this past week. Truthfully, it was one she’d grown used to in the past five years, whenever Dravka looked at her like that…like she was the only female in the entire universe. The only female for him.
Just to be sure, she asked, “Is this real?”
She had the strangest urge to pinch herself, the closer the planet out the window came into view.
Dravka’s opal eyes glittered with amusement, with certainty, with their future together, with his love for her. It was all there. Right there. Beautiful in its honesty. Absolutely perfect.
“This is real,mellkia,” he rasped, his voice sending pleasurable shivers down her spine. “It always has been.”
Out the window, suspended in a bed of stars, Dumera was waiting for them.
Epilogue
Two months later…
* * *
“Dravka,”Valerie murmured, trying to hide her impending smile with a stern expression. “You’re distracting me and I’m losing sunlight here!”
Valerie was on her hands and knees, her palms deep in the dark, fragrant, rich soil of Dumera. The last tendrils of sunlight were disappearing on the horizon but she could already tell that a magnificent sunset would soon take their place. Over the last two months, she’d become very well-versed in sunsets. And sunrises. She never missed a single one.
Just that morning, Dravka had woken her with kisses across her neck, just as the rays were beginning to spear across the thin furs that lined their bed. He always woke her for the sunrises and they watched them together…before his hands started to wander, of course. And since they slept with the windows open, they had a perfect view of it, every morning, high up in their house in ajiveratree.
Valerie had always dreamed of being surrounded by plants, of watching things grow and live and thrive. And now on Dumera? She lived in an actual tree. Ajiveratree house, strong and surprisingly spacious and roomy, since eachjiveratree was massive. The whole planet, for that matter, was home to all sorts of plant life. Plants she intended to spend her days studying because it was all so new and exciting to her.
And because Dumera’s weather was humid and since, according to Eve and Khiva who had been on Dumera for five months now, it rained a lot, it was a green haven. A perfect place, one that Valerie could never have imagined.
Sure, Dumera was small. There was a ‘city center,’ though it mostly consisted of a couple bars, which served the plethora of beings that worked in the mines every day. Dumera was rich in minerals, which were its primary source of income—or at least, they used to be.
Khiva himself had worked in the mines when he’d first arrived on Dumera, but it was dangerous labor. Eve had told her, amid one of their many ‘afternoon tea’ sessions, that he’d often come home bloodied, with a new wound, and sore muscles.
Now, however, since he’d begun to create firestones again, he’d created new jobs on the planet and brought in a lucrative source of income for their little colony. Firestones were selling faster than they could produce them and there was a buzzing of life and excitement on Dumera because of it.
In the city center, there were also the archives, which was where Eve worked during the day—at least when she had the energy to. She was going on five months pregnant now and seemed to get bigger and bigger every day. She’d known that Keriv’i were large, so it made sense that Keriv’i babies would be as well, but according to the healer she saw in town, she still had many more months to go until she delivered.
Dravka and Valerie had spoken of when they wanted to start having children. They both wanted them, very, very much. But Dravka’s contraception implant—which all of the Keriv’i had been given annually on Everton—wouldn’t wear off for another six months and Valerie was content to wait. She was content to have him all to herself for a little while longer.
Dumera was a perfect place to raise a family, however, when they started having children. It was small and quiet. They lived on the outskirts of the center, close to Eve and Khiva, and close to Tavak and Ravu’sjiveradwelling as well.
Sometimes, Valerie would wake up in the mornings, or lie in bed at night, and marvel that she was so fortunate. That everything had worked out in a way that she’d only dreamed of.
But as Dravka often reminded her…this was real. This was their life and it would be for the rest of their days.
So, right then, Valerie was wrist-deep in Dumera’s soil, in the garden that Dravka had made for her. It was the first thing he’d done once they were settled in their tree house. He’d built fences for her—the posts of which he’d had to cut extra long because the ground was soft on this planet. Things sank into it easily, which was why the majority of homes were built in the trees.
Then again, as she was finding, that same soil was perfect for plants.
Dravka came to crouch in front of her, examining the little holes she was digging out for the scraps of roots from last night’s dinner. She was experimenting, to see if they would regrow if the root tips were replanted. One of her many experiments that were scattered through her plots.
Dravka had just gotten home from the labs in the city center, where he worked with Khiva, Tavak, and Ravu. Khiva had put Dravka in charge of the firestone exports now that they were expanding their operation, since Dravka had been a merchant trader back on Kerivu. He had specialized knowledge that the others didn’t have, old connections through the Quadrants, and he could read trade lines and run numbers like no other Keriv’i.
Seeing him return home every night with a quiet determination and satisfaction after his day was a reward in itself, one Valerie would never get tired of witnessing. She loved watching him pore over trading figures at night before she dragged him to bed, loved seeing the way his mind worked away from Everton. It was a side of him that she’d never experienced before, one she’d never seen, and it had only made him more attractive to her when he’d already been absolutelydevastatingbefore.
“Have you been out here all day?” he asked, eyeing her in a way that made her shiver. She knew that look. It was a look that told her her male would be ravenous that night. The fact that she was on her hands and knees before him didn’t help matters. Her male particularly loved that position and if they weren’t at the base of their tree house right now, he’d probably already be deep inside her.
