Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 124077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 620(@200wpm)___ 496(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 620(@200wpm)___ 496(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Taurex returned to the couch and sat heavily again, and he did not know how long he remained there. Hours, perhaps.
The glow-vines dimmed until only tiny points of light remained scattered along the walls like stars, while outside, the artificial night cycle deepened over the inner forest and the living domicile settled into its resting state.
Taurex did not sleep. Every so often he found himself listening for Terra—a cry, a footstep, anything—but her room remained silent.
Several times he had to fight the urge to go check on her, and each time he remembered the terror in her voice.
“Please, I just need to feel safe right now. I need to be alone.”
So he stayed where he was. It was the only gift he could still give her—distance.
Near what he guessed must be the middle of the night, Taurex rose and walked quietly to the kitchen. The cooking plants were dormant, their heat-veins dark, but when he touched one of the illumination blooms it opened and gave off a faint amber glow.
Terra would need First Meal in the morning. Would she eat? Probably not, but still, he would make something simple, something that did not require her to sit with him. He could pack it for the shuttle if she wished.
The shuttle.
His stomach tightened again. Tomorrow he would take her home, back to Earth, back to Lucy and Cody and Lisa—the people she trusted and loved. He would not ask her to stay on the Mother Ship another hour longer than she wanted, and when they reached Tampa, he would tell her that she never had to see him again.
The thought nearly brought him to his knees.
Taurex gripped the edge of the living food prep surface until the plant beneath his hands stiffened in response. This was what he had wanted to avoid from the beginning.
He had believed that if he moved slowly enough, if he showed Terra day after day that she was safe with him, then eventually she might look at him and see what he saw—a future, a family, a Bond. Instead, one careless confession had destroyed weeks of trust.
How could he possibly ask her to Bond with him now? The answer was brutally obvious—he couldn’t. A Bond required openness so complete that nothing could be hidden. Their minds would touch, their emotions would flow between them, and at the deepest level of Joining, they would know one another in a way no unBonded beings ever could.
Terra had been horrified merely hearing about it.
There was no universe in which a female who flinched at the sight of him would willingly open her mind to his. There was no universe in which a woman who begged him not to hurt her would place her soul in his hands.
Taurex bowed his head. He had found his fated mate, and he had lost her before she had ever truly been his.
The old Monstrum teachings said that finding one’s mate was the greatest blessing the Goddess could bestow. They spoke endlessly of joy, completion and the profound peace of finally encountering the soul meant to walk beside yours, but no one spoke much about what happened when that soul did not want you.
Perhaps it was because so few males survived it well.
Taurex understood why now. The pain wasn’t like heartbreak as humans described it. It was deeper, almost cellular—a sense that some essential part of him had been shown the place where it belonged and then was torn away.
And yet Terra was still only a few rooms away, which somehow made it worse. He could feel her presence in some instinctive way, like warmth just beyond his reach.
But he would not reach for her—not again.
Slowly, Taurex straightened.
“All right,” he whispered into the quiet kitchen. “It’s over.”
If releasing her was what she needed, he would release her. He would take her home in the morning and apologize without excuses. He would explain that the Bond was voluntary only if she wanted to hear it, and if she didn’t, he would say nothing more. He would make certain she and her family were financially secure regardless of whether she continued working for him, and then he would let Terra decide what happened next.
Even if her decision broke him.
The artificial dawn began gradually, a faint green-gold light appearing beyond the windows as the Mother Ship’s enormous interior sun prepared to rise over the forest. The glow-vines responded by brightening one blossom at a time, bringing soft light back into the domicile Terra had filled with laughter only the day before.
Taurex stood alone in the kitchen and watched the light grow, thinking of how differently he had imagined this morning.
He had imagined Terra waking in his arms. He had imagined preparing breakfast for her, teasing her about the ridiculous names she gave his household plants and perhaps later taking her to one of the restaurants she had wanted to see. He had imagined another day of showing her his world.