I stare down at her, my rumble humming quietly in the base of my throat.
“I am here,” I project back.
Her dark eyes go round.
”Holy shit,”she projects.
A sudden, baffling image of sacred waste flashes across the connection. I frown deeply.
”I’m in your head,”she finishes, the realization hitting my mind with the force of a falling rock smashing down from the high ledges.
“You are in my mind,” I correct her. I pull her back down against my chest, wrapping a thick arm over her bare shoulders to trap her against the heat of my skin.”And you are very loud. Go to sleep.”
She lets out a sharp, breathless sound of disbelief, her body stiffening for a half-second before she sags into the furs against me.
“Bossy,” her mental voice mutters against my skull.
The sheer, exhausted relief radiating through the mindspace settles deep into my bones. I close my eyes, burying my face in her soft mane. She is mine. She is safe.
And then, the memory of her words from the cold cavern entrance hits my mind.
We grow them. We carry them here. Inside our bodies.
My eyes snap open in the dark.
I stare down at the soft, fragile expanse of her bare stomach, pressed flush against my hip. I had just filled her. The scalding fluid of my release is currently pooling deep inside her heat.
The ancient carvings in the Hall of Knowing crash through my memory, along with Jah-kee’s frantic explanation to Tharn.The egg comes from the woman, the sperm comes from the man. During the act of joining...
“Eh-ree-kah,” I project. My mental voice is suddenly sharp enough to shatter stone.
She flinches against me, her eyes flying open. “What? Kol, what is it?”
I slide my hand flat over the soft curve of her lower belly. I can feel the erratic flutter of her fragile pulse beneath her skin.
“The joining. The fluid I placed inside you.”
Her thoughts instantly flood with a chaotic, blinding mix of embarrassment and realization.
“Oh. Oh my god. We didn’t—I mean, I can’t believe I didn’t even think about...”
“You carry the newly-formed young inside your body,” I project, the panic rising so fast it physically burns the back of my throat. “For a complete half orbit of Ain.”
Her mental projection stutters. “Yes, but Kol, it’s really hard to get pregnant on Earth. I’m human...and you’re Drakav. We might not even be compatible?—”
“The dust made me compatible to you,” I rumble in the mindspace. My arm tightens around her shoulders, clamping her so tightly against my chest she gasps. “I restructured my very bones to fit your heat. If my fluid takes root, you will grow a Drakav inside this fragile shell.”
“Kol, you’re crushing me,” she gasps aloud, pushing frantically against my chest.
I loosen my grip by a fraction, shifting my weight so my upper body hovers directly over hers. I bracket her head with my claws, staring down at her in the dim light.
“How do they come out?” Despite my efforts, the thought still bleeds terror into the space between us. I remember Tharn’s same fear in the Hall of Knowing. “You have no seams for aDrakav to come through. You are too soft. Will you crack open like the Giving Stone? Will it rip through your flesh?”
Her dark eyes go wide. “Crack open? What? No! God, Kol, no! Humans don’t crack open like rocks!”
“Then how?”
“Through the same place you just put the fluid!” she projects, a hysterical edge bleeding into her mental voice. “It’s called birth! It’s difficult and painful, but women don’t explode!”
