Page 41 of Crash Landing
Hearts.
There was a strange tremor in his pulse that stood out to me. I could distinctly hear two rhythms working in strange unison with each other. Two hearts. All valerians had them and since Innifer bonded with Vahko, we’d learned that the Thinning had caused the second heart to stop functioning properly. The heart that controlled most of their hormones for breeding. When Vahko touched Innifer, it triggered the second heart.
So why was Saleuk’s beating? The question teetered on the edge of my tongue but never came. I couldn’t ask because I feared the answer. I feared it and I longed for it. Why I longed for it with Saleuk, I didn’t know, but I did. I longed forhimand in that longing, I slowly found sleep. A deep, peaceful sleep curled into the crook of his strong, shielding body.
17: Saleuk
Sam slept so deeply beside me. I monitored her breathing, listening to the subtle cadence when she finally surrendered to rest. I was so thankful that she could find that peace, but I couldn’t. For the life of me, having her bod\y pressed against me, warm and soft and smelling of all the things that drove me crazy, I couldn’t even bring myself to close my eyes. The incessant shudder of my two hearts battling for space in my chest was a thing I was no longer used to and the tempo was almost aggravating.
How could my paetal finally being awake after so many cycles infuriate me? I’d wished for it, but it had come at such a strange and puzzling time.
Turning my head, I stole a deep breath of Sam’s hair just as the eclipse began to fade and faint streams of light started to bleed in from outside. It was another day soon to be filled with a kind of torment I wasn’t trained to handle. Gently, I slid out from under Sam’s head, setting her down on the bundled blankets so I could leave the room without waking her.
The relief of fresh air hit me like a bucket of cold water. I took it in like a cleansing bath and walked down into the lobby where my instruments and tools were still laid out on the table. I knew my people would find us, but if I could get the tracker or the comms working, I could get them there sooner and I needed to get off that moon. If I didn’t, I knew I would say something to Sam that might upset her or scare her off. After all, whenVahko told Innifer about the surge, there was a mess to be had before she even considered making a life with him. I didn’t want that with Sam. Our strange friendship, if that’s what it could be called, was precious in a way to me. I didn’t know many humans I could tolerate let alone humans as engaging as Sam.
It was a foolish reason not to tell her about the surge and about how my body burned for hers.
No, nothers. A surge was not fated like the religious fanatics on Syferion used to think. It was not partial to one person. A surge was simply a physical attraction, but it could not force the emotional bond between two beings. The fact that I’d surged meant only that my reproductive hormones were being restored. That I could breed. Find a mate. Be one of the few that broke away from the long-term effects of the Thinning.
But valerian females were affected as well. It meant the odds of me finding a mate in a valerian were so slim. We all knew that now. It was why my race jumped at the opportunity to study Innifer when she and Vahko surged. Humans were viable mates.Samwas a viable mate.
I shook my head with a hiss and began to work on the comms device. At the very least, it gave my hands something to do.
When I heard Sam’s gentle steps descending the ramp, I looked up from my work to see her lazily walking toward me, her hair in knotted waves against her shoulders. She was combing it with her fingers as she approached and then began dividing the thin strands into three parts that she wove together on one side. Noticing she was pinching the end, her eyes wandering the room in search of something, I knew she needed something to tie off her locks. I swiped one of the rags I’d been using to clean equipment and pulled a loose string from the folds, handing it to her.
“Thank you,” she said, wrapping it around the end of her hair.
Digging around in her bag, she pulled out the chocolate from the day before and nibbled on the corner of it.
“There is more kalaha in my bag,” I said.
She nodded but continued eating her chocolate, breaking some off with her teeth to suck on it.
“Will we be going to get that root stuff you were talking about?”
“Yes.”
I put down my project and turned in my chair to slide my boots on. Realizing what I was doing, Sam put her chocolate away and grabbed her boots as well, sliding them over her small feet.
“So, they’re like potatoes, huh?”
“I’m assuming. But I’ve never eaten your potatoes.”
“They’re starchy roots that taste like nothing, really. They mostly just take whatever flavor you put in them, but I don’t mind bland food. Especially if I’m starving.”
“You’re starving?”
“I’m pretty hungry. I’ve only had a few fruits and some chocolate and water. I’ve been saving my protein bars for an emergency so I only had a bite of one last night. After running through the woods, I think it’s safe to say I’m in a deficit.”
“Well, then we should find some moon potatoes for you,” I said, standing.
Sam smiled at that and walked with me to the entrance.
“I like that. Moon potatoes. I’ll call them that when I tell the world about my discoveries here.”
We walked down the riverside for a while under the fiery light of our star until we reached a soft patch of dark soil nuzzled up against a wall of mossy mounds. When I started to remove my boots, Sam mimicked me like a toddler copying their bigger brother. Then I rolled up the cuffs of my pants until they sat at the middle of my calf and I started venturing into the soft,muddy patch. I wasn’t surprised when Sam followed. She wasn’t irritated or appalled by the wet clay around her feet and between her toes.
“So?” she said. “What do we do now because this is kind of gross.”
