Breath of Life Page 10
At once he came to me and took my hands in his gloved ones. “Oh, no, Anika. You misunderstand. While some races may go about such things coldly or carelessly, it is not that way for my people. We must be truly one with our partners, or there can be no consummation, no children. It was only by having you here with me, and learning who you truly are, that I could confirm we were compatible. I felt that we were. My soul told me so, but it also told me to be patient.”
That reassured me a little, but something else occurred to me. “Then why ask me to marry you from the beginning? Why not wait and see how things progressed?”
“You’ll notice that I did change my course midway, after you requested it.” He shook his head—at himself, I was fairly certain. “Eagerness, I suppose. I knew from the second you crossed the threshold that you were the one. I suppose I hoped you would have a similar reaction, even though such things are not as common in humans. I soon learned I was wrong—and yet, the way you responded to me each day told me something more about you. I saw a change in you, a gradual softening, even if you did not yet recognize it yourself. It gave me hope.”
I couldn’t deny that. The truth had come to me slowly, but even during those months of willful ignorance I had seen a change in my feelings toward him, from alien captor to fond companion. It had only required a crisis to allow me the final realization of what he meant to me.
He gazed down at me, hands still wrapped around mine. “And so you became a part of my life, your spirit so interwoven with mine that when I said it was impossible for you to be away any longer than three days, I told you the truth. With you gone, I would die.”
He spoke simply, as if relating a fact so obvious it needed no further explaining. I shivered then, thinking of how close it had been. Damn Libba and her carelessness! It was, I realized then, something I had always overlooked before that moment. My sister thought of herself first—not maliciously, but with an airy disregard for the things other people might consider important. It was what had spurred her to stay on as a graduate student, even though I’d been itching to get off Lathvin, and it was that same heedlessness which had allowed her to dismiss my concerns about getting back on time.
Because of her, Sarzhin had almost died.
Because of her, I had almost lost everything. Only now was I beginning to understand how terrible a loss it would have been. Not just for me, but for his people as well.
“I’m so sorry,” I murmured. I blinked then, watching as his dark form began to dissolve in a blur of tears. “So, so sorry.”
And then he did pull me toward him at last. Surely he must have known how much I wanted him to hold me. Truly, my need in that moment must have been so obvious that even a non-empath could have sensed it. His arms went around me, and he pulled me close. His touch seemed somehow familiar, no doubt because of the echoes from that one dream, but the reality was far better. Under the robes he wore a close-fitting dark tunic of a softer weave than his outer garments, and I laid my head against his chest and listened to the beating of his heart. It seemed to be located on the opposite side from a human’s, but the sound itself was familiar enough. He smelled good, too, of something warm and woodsy that somehow reminded me of the greenhouse and its rows of lovingly tended plants and herbs.
Just the softest brush against the top of my head, a feather touch telling me he had placed his lips there. I tightened my arms around him, and we stood, clinging to one another, for some time. Finally, though, he pulled away—only a little, so he could gaze down into my face. I stared up at him, at every elegant line of his features, at the mouth I wanted so much to taste.
He said, “I’ve asked you the same question many times before. May I ask it again now?”
I nodded, but told him, “Only kiss me first.”
As quick as lightning his lips met mine, and there was something electric in the shock that meeting sent through me. I hadn’t realized a kiss could be like this, where every nerve ending in your body seemed to catch fire, and the universe narrowed down to the perfect symmetry of his lips against yours. What would come next, I couldn’t begin to guess, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, except that I could finally give him the answer he’d been waiting so long to hear, the answer I had been hiding in my heart all that time, even if it had taken far too long for me to recognize the truth of my love for him.
“Oh, yes,” I told him, and watched his blue eyes seem to light from within. “Yes, Sarzhin, I will marry you.”
And again our mouths touched as his swirling robes surrounded me with their warmth. We kissed for a long moment, until he lifted his lips from mine and pulled me close against him. Within that embrace, I knew I was safe, and loved. I also knew some people would never understand, that they would look on Sarzhin and see him only as an alien, and not the person who had become everything in the world—the universe—to me. Some of them would very likely be my own family members. But I would face those problems when the time came. For now it was enough to feel the lift of Sarzhin’s chest beneath my cheek, to know how precious every breath was. I had almost lost him. I would not take that chance again.
“And what now?” I asked. “A big wedding with flowers and overpriced food?”
He smiled down at me. I found myself fascinated by the shimmer of his skin, the way the light caught in the little crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiled. All those months, I had never known such beauty hid itself beneath the heavy dark robes.
“My people’s ways are not your ways,” he replied. “When souls have communion, there is no need for laws and documents and forced celebrations.”
“Thank God,” I said frankly. “Because after listening to Libba natter on about seating arrangements for the past few days, I’m pretty much done with weddings. I’d love to do it the Zhore way.”
“Then come with me.”
He took me by the hand and led me out of the study, up the stairs and down the corridor. We passed the doorway to my rooms, headed to the one place in the house where I had never been. His chambers.
Again I had a flash from my dream, of that empty room with the cold wind blowing through it, but I told myself not to be ridiculous, that Sarzhin was right here with me, and everything was fine. Better than fine, really.
Those foolish concerns disappeared as soon as he opened the door. For instead of the barren spaces I had dreamed, I saw a room filled with green, with living things everywhere. The air was moist and rich, and smelled of delicious off-world flowers.
I blinked, and realized the effect came from vining plants that grew from cunning planters on the wall, as well as more of the wall fountains Sarzhin—or perhaps it was every Zhore—seemed to love. Underneath was a carpet as soft and thick as the greenest grass from Gaia’s fabled meadows. I saw a bed hung with airy fabric in the same elusive blue-green color as the coverlet in my own room, and on the far wall a fireplace sheltered another glass-bed hearth, this one also shimmering in shades of aqua and green.
Sarzhin led me to the fireplace. He reached up and undid the clasp at his neck, and the heavy robes dropped to the floor and puddled at his feet. Somehow he seemed even taller without them; now that the hooded cloak was gone, leaving only the close-fitting tunic and pants behind, I could see just how well-built he was, slender and strong.
“I told you how my people wear their robes to protect themselves from the emotions of others,” he said. “But we do not hide ourselves from our life partners. I could not reveal myself in this way until now.”
I nodded, but waited for him to go on. As much as I wanted to be with him, I couldn’t help experiencing a slight shiver of unease. After all, who knew what rituals the Zhore practiced in private?
“Nothing all that exotic,” he told me.
My mouth dropped open slightly. “I thought you said the Zhore weren’t mind readers.”
“We’re not. But the combination of your emotions and the look on your face is easy enough to read.”
“I guess we’re not going to h
ave a lot of secrets.”
Another one of those heart-breaking smiles. “No.”
He removed his gloves and dropped them on top of the discarded cloak, and then reached out and took my hands in his. It was the first time our fingers had touched in this way, bare skin to bare skin. Now I could feel the heat of his touch much more clearly, sense how smooth and yet sensual all those little scales were, pressed against my own human flesh.
“I give myself to you,” he said. A pause, followed by a little glint in those gleaming blue eyes. “Now you.”
“I give myself to you,” I repeated.
“Wholly.”
“Wholly.”
“In this life and the next.”
So the Zhore had some belief in an afterlife. I scolded myself for making anthropological observations at a time like this and said, “In this life and the next.”
“So it is.”
“So it is.”
This time the touch of his lips on mine was gentler, but the kiss lasted longer, as if to demonstrate how enduring our union would be. And when he raised his head to break the touch, it was not the end, but only the beginning, because he reached down and lifted me as if I weighed nothing, taking me to the fabric-hung bed and laying me down. I reached up to him, and his weight was on me, our mouths coming together again. My dream hadn’t told me he would taste so good, nor that I would be just as eager to reach out and undo the clasps of his tunic as he was to loosen the buttons at my neckline and pull the garment over my head.
His skin was beautiful, sending out tiny glints of jewel colors against a background of pure black. I could only hope he’d think as charitably of my pale indoor skin.
“You are beautiful,” he murmured. “In every way, my Anika.”
“Mind reader,” I teased.
And there was no more time for words, only bodies touching, and the empty spaces in my soul finally filled. Afterward, we held each other for a long time. His chest rose and fell beneath my cheek, and I thanked whatever powers in the universe which might exist that I had not lost him, that I had returned in time to save his life.
I realized then that I might have saved him, brought him back from the darkness with the gift of those life-giving breaths…but in giving me his heart, he had saved me as well.
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Table of Contents
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Breath_of_Life
Books_by_Christine_Pope