“Something about this upsets you?” S’samph towed her toward a pair of overturned shipping crates andoffered her the one with less water damage. Seated, they were close enough for their legs to touch, and despite the heat, this warmth wasn’t unpleasant. Undeterred, he kept his tail wrapped around her ankle where it would remain until she told him to stop or they parted ways.
“I mean, I never really had time to think about anything other than work. We needed the credits. Once my da passed, I had to step up.” Her eyes remained fixed on the flowing water. “It wasn’t too bad. I mostly liked my job. Being at the hospital was better than being at home anyway.” Her voice dropped at the end of the statement. This expression he recognized from the creases in her brow and the sheen in her eyes and immediately hated. She was worried. She was sad.
“Something happened in your home.” His frill rose as he tried to keep himself calm. Obviously, she hadn’t told him as much, but his instincts insisted that something, someone had harmed her.
“My brother made things difficult.”
“Your brother harmed you.” He stated it as a fact rather than a question.
Eleri turned further away from him, and it took all of his self-control not to move closer to her still. “It’s complicated.”
“It doesn’t seem complicated.”
“My brother wasn’t in his right mind.” Eleri fiddled with the end of her braid, twisting and untwisting the hair there. “Iridescence changes people beyond reason. It’s not their fault.”
“But he hurt you.” S’samph pressed the point, refusing to let her ignore the harm that had been done to her. Brother by blood or not, no brother should ever lay a violent finger on his sister. That violated every code of honor or conduct he knew across all species.
“He did,” she acknowledged. Her hands dropped to her lap. “Deeply. But he can’t hurt me anymore.”
S’samph thought better of commenting about what he would like to do to this human male if he ever so much as breathed the same air as Eleri again. It wasn’t helpful, only a reflection of his fury. And if he pried further, she would pull away further. Of this he felt certain. “Your life was not an easy one on your home planet. I understand why you left.”
“Thank you, S’samph,” she said as her eyes started swimming with water. It was an adaptation he would never be able to understand. Completely inefficient use of resources. He lifted a finger to her face to wipe away some of the wetness.
“I am glad you left.”
“I’m glad too. If I hadn’t left, I would never have met you.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be so grateful for that.” His tail twitched with wry amusement.
“I am all the same.” She made a small laugh and a sound like a cough before wiping away the rest of her water with the sleeve of her jumpsuit. “I’m glad I met you. Hopefully you’re also glad to have met me.”
Emboldened by her statement, he leaned forward and gathered her toward him. Her skin was hot against his scales as he pressed his face against hers. “More than you could ever know,” he murmured into her forehead.
CHAPTER 16
ELERI
In the quiet hours of the morning, Eleri found herself unable to sleep. With the energy of the previous day still fizzling under her skin, her thoughts kept turning to S’samph and the moment they had shared that afternoon. She didn’t want imagination to get in the way of sense, but a tiny corner of her heart wanted to believe that there was something meaningful growing between them. If she allowed herself even more latitude, she found herself curling around the warm memory of the recordings of his voice she’d listened to on the passage over where he narrated facts about himself and his life.
The most dangerous thing she found herself doing was wanting. She wanted him to want her. She wanted to let him prove his interest and to earn her trust and respect and perhaps even love if she let herself get truly carried away with wanting. But Eleri guarded herself, aware of the dangers of desiring anything. Instead of fixating on feelings, she dove into learning more about latil’e and what life had been like on Latilla before calamity struck the planet. At first, she convinced herself it was purely an academic endeavor, but the more she learned about their culture and the tragedy of their home planet, she realized her intentions had little to do with vocational training.
She confirmed her suspicions about latil’e body language and mannerisms. Most of their gestures were expressed through their frills or their tails, not facial expressions like humans. They were sexually dimorphic, and reproductively compatible with most species that produced eggs. Eleri placed an instinctive hand over her stomach. She knew if she reproduced with S’samph, it would be an egg in an incubator. No viviparous pregnancy for her. But it wasn’t so strange. Not anymore. Her grandparents’ generation was fairly homogenous, but hybrid children on Gaia had become much more common in the past several decades.
When she only treated human patients, she helped deliver a few hybrid babies, albeit never one that hatched from an egg. Her readingbrought her into religion and mating rituals. Female latil’e were responsible for sexual advances in most cases. Mate bonds were recognized in the flame halo ceremony, where they would burn some of their scales in offering to their great goddess before exchanging mating bands. The male would prove his valor and determination by walking through a wall of flames.
Instinctively, Eleri swept her fingers down the span of her hip-length braid. When she was satisfied with her cultural research, her mind turned elsewhere, and she found herself searching for S’samph specifically. Most people showed up on the intelewaves somewhere if you knew how to search, but S’samph wasn’t even particularly difficult to find in the archives. There were so few surviving latil’e that the ones who made it had been noteworthy. He'd been a soldier, a platoon leader. Eleri hadn’t known that about him. His IA dossier had only listed his employment information as a colonist farmer.
She never would have assumed from his quiet presence. There were a few grainy holovids of him participating in military exercises in the desert landscape of what had once been Latilla. She recognized K’kaen there as well and even S’kasia. All of them must have fought together. Eleri clicked off the holovid and returned to her research. After ignoring multiple warnings from top latil’e scientists, Latilla’s inner core had imploded, sending the planet into a crumbling death spin. Only a handful of latil’e had survived. Only those with resources to get off planet immediately. Of the population of nearly 2 billion, it was suspected that only 100,000 survived. Eleri’s heart sank. It wasn’t a topic she would broach unless he brought it up first, but she was glad to understand him a bit better.
She finally had some clarity on the need to find compatible mates if the population was so low and disparate. It also made her realize, with a strange sinking feeling, how small her problems seemed in comparison. The guilt gnawed at her. If S’samph could survive and rebuild after his entire planet was destroyed, then surely, she could manage establishing boundaries with her family. Perhaps she could even allow herself to entertain a romantic relationship with S’samph, as something she chose for herself, rather than as a way to escape from a life she despised.
She disconnected from the intelewaves and lay back on her cot. Her eyes were bleary with lack of sleep, but it was time to start the work day. Eleri made her way down to the clinic and found Aglao hovering in a manner that could best be described as off-kilter. They were not their usual busy self,attending to tasks around the clinic.
“Are you well, Aglao?” She asked. It took a moment for her words to register, but Aglao finally turned their face toward her.
“I am well, but I am not. Apologies, the concept doesn’t translate well into Universal.”
“Is it something I can help with?” Eleri asked.
