“Are you suggesting a dive into the oasis will show me all I need to know about my hidden inner desires?” he challenged dryly.
I rolled my eyes and shot back, “No, but I am suggesting it will help you understand that you don’t have to let everyone else’s expectations be your measuring stick. I mean, who would expect an Elder to do something like this?”
He canted his head to the side and sucked his lower lip into his mouth thoughtfully, squinting. I’d never seen him make that kind of expression before and didn’t know how to take it, so I just stood there and tried to look confident in what I was asserting. After a brief time, he released his lip with a snap and said decisively, “Fine, but I am only agreeing to this silly proposal on one condition.”
“What’s that?” I asked, beaming with delight.
His white irises caught a ray of sunlight, and they sparkled at me as he answered, “You must jump with me.”
I glanced back to the rocks, trying to determine how tall they actually were. Heights had never been a huge fear of mine, but I also didn’t go out of my way to leap off of tall buildings or fall from an airplane miles off the ground. Nevertheless, it was unfair of me to ask this of him if I wouldn’t do it myself, so I turned back to him and nodded firmly.
“Deal,” I agreed.
He held out a hand, palm up, and I placed mine on top of it. Then, together, we skidded down the dune and approached the perfumed lake and its guarding crags. Standing next to them, I wondered how it was even possible to climb one of the colossal formations, but Venan knew very well where to go and what to do. He pulled me around the circumference of the stones to reveal a set of shorter structures that looked like one of the masses had tumbled over and broken into pieces.
“Use them like stairs,” he instructed, “but climb carefully.”
I did as he warned making sure every place I set my foot was sturdy, and my hands always had something to grip onto. It wasn’t as difficult to traverse as it looked from the ground, but by the time we reached the top, I was out of breath and bathed in sweat.
Looking down, I realized with a jolt exactly how the poor young A’li-uud child had died. The drop seemed endless, and the water looked like just an uneven circle of stained glass. I couldn’t even see the ripples on its surface. Venan wrapped my hand in his and shook my arm encouragingly, which I found mildly amusing since I was the one who had to convince him to do this.
“Are you ready?” he asked. He didn’t sound as certain as he looked, but there was steely determination in his jaw.
I closed my eyes, swallowed hard, and nodded. “Ready.”
He tightened his hold on my hand, I reopened my eyes, and we jumped.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Venan
As I fell, I was aware of only two things: the crisp scent in the air and Octavia’s hand in mine. The wind rushed past my ears so fast I could hear nothing. It was as if we were moving faster than the speed of sound, and my feet kept anticipating an impact that did not come.
Then, in a great splash, I crashed through the surface of the water and was pummeled into the depths below. Octavia’s hand never left mine, but I was uncertain whether she had fallen with me simply because I lost every semblance of comprehension over my senses. My legs flailed in the water, my head nodding back and forth without control, and I felt swollen from the inside out. With a heave of strength, I jammed my feet downward, and I was thrust back to the surface, where my head broke free, and my lungs were able to snag the first gasp of oxygen since my body had left the towering cliff above.
“Octavia!” I shouted. I failed to realize I could still feel her fingers grasping mine, and my first thought upon regaining my senses was that she had not yet made her way to safety.
“I’m here.” Her voice was calm, but I could hear the exhilaration within it. I whirled, spinning in the water and igniting a miniature whirlpool around me, to see her only inches away. She was smiling so brightly she put the sun to shame, and I could see pride in her eyes—pride that I had done it.
Manners dictated that I should ask her if she was all right, but my manners and all sense of propriety left me at that moment. Seeing her there with me, taking the plunge into the pool, her hair slicked back across her skull and dripping beads of water, I could not restrain myself any longer. I yanked her to me, threw my arms around her middle, and crushed my mouth to hers.
Her lips were warm and surprised. Then, they opened slightly and accepted me. I breathed her in, smelling her aroma in place of the lovely floral scent of the oasis, and buried myself in her aura. Our tongues met and slithered over each other like we were starved, and our hands trailed everywhere they were able on the other’s skin. She was beautiful. She was perfect. This human was everything I had never known I needed.
“You did it,” she gasped, breaking the kiss and pulling back to smile at me.
I nodded. “I did, and it is only because of you,” I said. My heart was pumping, though whether it was with the adrenaline of the jump or the adrenaline of the kiss, I did not know.
Her midnight eyes sparkled, and I found myself leaning into her again. Once more, our mouths met, but this time it was with feverish need. Slick skin and hungry lips slipped and slid over each other. Legs tangled beneath the disrupted water, and arms wrapped and curled. She was a specimen unlike any other, A’li-uud or human. This woman was a creature of mythological proportion, and I had her held against me as if I could never let her go.
The world shifted. We were not just kissing anymore; we were meeting. My soul was reaching for hers just as my tongue reached for hers, desperate and hopeful and needy. I had to know her. I was destined to know her, to truly know her from the deepest part of herself, and it was in the middle of the oasis without another body around for miles I would do so. Tingles ripped through me as I felt her spirit intertwine with mine, and I was falling into our kiss.
I loved her.
Just like that, I knew the truth. I loved Octavia. Never before had I felt love like this, as the love for my family could not have compared in the slightest, but I knew what true love felt like now because I was experiencing it through every nerve I possessed. It was gripping, heart-stopping, yet life-giving and godlike. There was no need for a lengthy build-up of dinners, walks, and conversations. It was the Grand Circle in all its glory, dictating what is meant to be without the preamble of societal proprieties. I had opened myself to her, she had seen me in a state of utter depression, and she was still here jumping with me from the heights of the heavens knowing what was at stake.
I withdrew, desperate to see her face. She was glowing, her cheeks pink, her smile dazzling and her eyes twinkling with stars that had yet to appear in the sky. I had only one question for her.
“Why?” I whispered.
She crinkled the corners of her eyes. “Why what?”
“Why did you want me to jump?”
Her gaze flicked to the nearby dune where we had stood at the top and had our conversation about her bringing me here. “I told you,” she said. “I wanted you to realize that everyone’s expectations of you didn’t have to be yours.”
“You misunderstood,” I said with a shake of my head. Droplets of oasis flung in every direction from my cropped hair, and I saw a couple land on the swoop of her nose. “Why did you want me to have such a realization? Why did it matter to you at all?”
She shifted then, an awkward feat given the instability of our watery surrounding, and she proceeded to look over my shoulder rather than at my face. I could see a hint of uncomfortableness in her expression, and it occurred to me then she may have been put up to the task by Zuran. She bit down on her lower lip for a moment, the same lower lip I had tasted only a minute before. Finally, she murmured, “I care about you.”
I stared at her, startled. The vocalized revelation was one that elated me, but it still surprised me to hear it from her. The very second I realized I was in love with her had been an exquisite moment, but I certainly had not antic
ipated she could have felt even a fraction of the same way.
“I mean, you were pretty much a mess when you summoned me to the palace to cut your hair,” she went on quickly. I realized my staring had given her the wrong impression, that I was displeased with her admittance rather than stunned, and she now felt a need to justify it. “It worried me. You seemed so impulsive and vengeful and defiant, and after you told me what had happened to you when the last Elder died, I was afraid you were going to do something that would put you right back into the same spot. So, I figured I could help you channel your frustration into something productive for yourself instead of something that’d get you into a heap of trouble.”
“Thank you,” I said the words firmly, almost as an interruption to her ramblings, and she grew quiet. I leaned my forehead down to press upon hers and looked deep into her eyes. “You were right to do what you did for me, and I am grateful for the reasons behind your actions.”
It sounded much too formal and not nearly moving enough for what I was truly feeling, but I was still reeling from the core of my emotions for her and unable to properly express myself. She gazed up at me through her lashes, at the tips of which dangled several tiny drips, and I saw a reverence from her I had only seen exchanged between my parents in the quietest hours of the day. Another surge of tingling shock rocketed through me, and I wondered if I was looking into the eyes of someone who not only cared for me but loved me too.
“Do you see what I meant now?” she questioned. “About expectations and your obligation to live up to them?”
In truth, the jump was little more than a symbolic gesture to represent a reality I already knew but had denied for so long. There were a hundred other ways I could have accepted that I was living my life by the rules of a misconception, yet I had a sneaking suspicion only Octavia could have been the one to bring me to the light.
“Yes,” I honestly replied.
“As long as you’re happy with yourself and your happiness doesn’t harm anyone else, that’s all you need to worry about.” She sounded almost motherly in her speaking. Her voice sounded airier than usual, like she was channeling someone else to spread the message. “You’ll never be able to do what’s best for the kingdom if you’re not even able to do what’s best for yourself.”
I slipped my hands to the small of her back and pulled her to me. She burrowed her cheek into the hollow of my neck, and I rested my chin on the top of her head as I mulled over what she told me. These were all things I had known in the back of my mind, but I had shoved them away to adopt a different and less successful method of excelling instead. As a young A’li-uud, the warriors of Ka-lik’et and Elder Kharid had seemed so important to me, practically untouchable in their authority and power. Everyone respected them not just because they were legally bound to do so but because they wanted to, and I had wanted to obtain that same measure of respect for myself. A large circle of friends or a string of romances had never appealed to me the way it had my brother, but I had fooled myself into believing my disdain for such practices meant I cared not for popularity. That was untrue. I cared deeply for popularity, but a popularity of a different brand—a popularity spawned from hard work, diligence and unmatched devotion to the well-being of those around me.
It was only now I was able to fully comprehend what seeking out such a popularity had done to my spirit. It had crushed it into pulpy silence and stifled its voice until I had lost even the smallest inkling as to where my true happiness lay. And Octavia was absolutely right in asserting I was unable to please the masses if I could not please myself, evidenced in the Dhal’atian opinion of me. Elder Kharid’s death would have never happened had I not been so focused on securing and maintaining his unwavering approval, and the public would not loathe me had he never died.
But there, in the middle of my splintering confidence and uncertain future, was Octavia, and I was never going to let her go.
Chapter Thirty
Octavia
The week after taking Venan to the oasis was utter bliss. I spent every possible moment with him, and the ones I couldn’t were basically miserable. Every time I was holed up in the salon doing someone’s hair, my mind was stuck firmly on him, but it was no longer the obsessive wonderings I’d harbored before. Now, I was caught up in thoughts of our evening to come or my next day off with him. When I woke up in the morning, he was at my door with a traditional Ka-lik’et breakfast, and when I left the salon for the day, he was ready at the palace with dinner. We lounged on cushy poufs together, walked the Merchant’s Walk together, journeyed out into the abyss of desert together. Our attraction to each other was tangible, but we’d become so much more than that so quickly. I could talk to him in a way I’d never been able to talk to anyone else, and I got the impression he felt the same about me. Even more amazingly, we could sit in silence together beneath the endless blanket of evening stars and say absolutely nothing but feel as if there were no two people more connected than us in the universe.
One thing that didn’t escape my notice was how little I saw Edie now, and I felt horrible for it. The reason we’d become as good of friends as we were in the first place was because Phoebe, Zuran’s wife, had virtually disappeared into nonexistence when she started seeing Zuran seriously. I was pretty much doing the same thing to her, which made me feel not only like a crappy friend but a crappy person as well.
“I think I need to hang out with Edie,” I mused one evening to Venan.
We were stretched out on a chaise-style sofa in one of the palace’s many parlors, his muscular form curled comfortably around me with an arm draped across my belly and the other perched beneath my head as a pillow. I was breathing deeply as his smell was delicious, rich and woody, and staring up at the brightly-painted ceiling.
“Oh?” he asked idly, lifting his hand to trace a fingertip across the curve of my waistline.
I shivered with the sensation and nodded. “I haven’t seen much of her since you and I started spending time together. She’s got her Corporal and everything, but I don’t want her to feel slighted, you know?”
“Do you think she feels slighted?” His absent tone made it clear he was not interested in Edie’s feelings so much as he was interested in mine, but it didn’t deter me from plowing forward with my thoughts.
“I don’t know, but if she does, I want to fix it. If she doesn’t, I want to prevent it.”
“How Elderly of you,” he remarked. I felt his grin against my shoulder, which elicited a grin of my own. He was so much more relaxed now after what we’d done at the oasis, and the confidence he felt in himself was actually visible. He held himself differently, and his humor came more easily to him. I didn’t think he was like Zuran in the sense of having deprecatory wit and an everlasting attitude of smugness, but he had definitely become a closer doppelganger to his twin with the more frequent occurrence of a smile and the undeniable lightening behind his eyes.
I rolled onto my side to face him, and the finger he’d dragged across my stomach was forced to resume along my back. “I’m serious,” I said, though I couldn’t hide the grin I’d developed. “It’s important to me that I don’t abandon my friend.”
“A trait I very much admire in you,” he complimented, tilting his chin up to kiss my forehead gently. When he pulled back, he asked, “Is there something you would like me to do?”
“For my friendship? I don’t know what you could do about that,” I replied.
He bumped the tip of his nose to mine. “Well, there must be a reason you bring this topic up to me.”
“Oh.” I looked down at the fabric beneath us, a satin-like weave of blinding magenta. He dipped his head to try and meet my eyes, but I studiously avoided him. I wasn’t worried about upsetting him with my request, but I didn’t want to make it because, frankly, I didn’t really want to change out my time with him for time with Edie. I knew I should, though, so I forced myself to say, “I just wanted to see how you’d feel if we didn’t see each other for a night so I coul
d meet with her.”
The way I worded it made it sound like I needed his permission, which was far from the truth, but I couldn’t help hoping he’d tell me he didn’t feel good about the idea. Unfortunately, Venan was more easy-going than I thought, and he responded lightly, “Do what you wish when you wish it. I have an obligation this week anyway; perhaps you would find that night suitable.”
“You do?” I asked, drawing myself up onto my elbows.
He looked up at me nonchalantly and nodded. “A Forum has been scheduled.”
“Is it about something I should worry over?”
Venan pulled his lips tight, and his angled eyes turned to slits. This time, it was he who didn’t meet my eyes as he instead stared fixedly down at his kicked-up boots. “Perhaps,” he returned. “The Novai asked the Council to decide whether they are permitted to make a permanent residence on Albaterra alongside the A’li-uud and the humans.”
I bolted upright, straightening so stiffly my back cracked, and I nearly tumbled off the chaise. Venan flung his hands out to catch me by the middle and tug me back toward him, but I refused to be maneuvered on top of him as he was attempting.
“What?” I exclaimed. “I thought their colony was a trial!”
“It is,” he agreed. “The Novai who have not been living at the camp, however, have been living aboard their mothership in space and their resources are running low. According to the captain, they do not have much time before they need to either settle permanently or move on elsewhere to replenish and seek other permanent living arrangements. Thus, they need the Council to make a choice before we would have otherwise.”
The thing about the Novai was I didn’t have a lot of knowledge about them, but what I did know had created a bias in me toward them. From my understanding, they were mean and violent, and it had been because of a Novai that Venan was thrown in prison for months, let alone why he was facing the distrust from his people now. I didn’t trust them and, while forming an opinion solely based on hearsay was nothing short of ignorance, I felt a shadow of fear at the thought of living side-by-side with them.
Venan: A Paranormal Sci-Fi Alien Romance: Albaterra Mates Book 7 (The End) Page 15
