“I need you,” I say, holding in my tears. Words fail me.
His hands tangle into my hair. “I’m here, female.”
“Don’t leave me tonight. If you do, take me with.”
Vruksha pulls me into his arms. “I’ll stay.”
He carries me to our spot behind the counter. And for a time, he just holds me, giving me everything I’ve missed, I’ve needed. This. Us. I burrow hard into him, relishing his body, his warmth. Whatever may be outside can stay there, but tonight, it’s just the two of us in this building. I curl my fingers against him as he winds his tail through and under my legs.
I could never leave, even if I wanted to. I could never leave the heaven of his arms.
Not for rank, not for paints, not for anything.
Anything… Fantastical I am not. Perhaps, that will be my greatest secret. That I have chosen Vruksha over everyone.
His hands grip my hair, they run up and down my back, and his heart thunders under my ear.
“I miss you always,” he says softly, holding me tighter against him. “Every time I take my eyes off you, I miss you.”
A laugh bubbles up. “Is that why you’re always watching me?”
“I always watch you because you are beautiful, and you glow in the light. But perhaps I also watch you because I’m afraid if I don’t, you’ll disappear.”
My chest tightens. “I won’t.” I mean it.
Silence returns for a time. Vruksha sways his tail, caressing my body, keeping me warm.
“I want you to choose me,” he says after a while.
I lift to look at him. “I have chosen you.”
He meets my eyes in the darkness. “I need you to choose me.” His voice roughens. “Every day.”
“Every day, I will choose you.”
His finger caresses my cheek. “I need you to really choose me.”
My lips purse, confused. I pull away a little further so I can see him better, trying to figure him out. “Is that why you’re unhappy?” I ask softly. “I’ve chosen you over everyone, I lo—”
He interrupts me. “I’m not unhappy.”
“You’ve pulled away from me.”
“I haven’t.”
“Then explain it to me. What’s going on? I choose you, Vruksha,” I declare. “I’m not going anywhere. You’re the only one I trust.” It hurts to say it, admitting the betrayal of my people, but it’s also liberating. “Should I scream it?” I deadpan.
His finger drops from my cheek. “Your trust is a gift,” he says.
“You’re deflecting.”
He hisses.
I hiss back at him.
His lips wrinkle, gifting me a brief glimmer of a smile.
Vruksha is handsome when he smiles. I grin, hissing once more. “I can do it too.”
“Yesss, you do it well.”
“Now explain it to me,” I demand. “If we’re to be mates, we can’t have any more secrets.”
His chest puffs out, and he exhales. “I’ve never been chosen,” he begins.
I give him all my attention.
He continues, “I told you about my father, my mother. How he stayed to raise me and my sisters, though, I know now he died the day my mother did. He chose to live, to protect me and my siblings, and that was enough for a young male like me. I didn’t know better, not like how I do now. How that choice he made, to stay with us, was everything. A sacrifice I can only start to comprehend. But it didn’t last, that choice he made, and when my sisters chose to go into the west, I knew it hurt my father gravely. That day, he lost them, like he lost my mother.
“I wasn’t enough.
“For years, he stayed with me, teaching me to hunt and use the tech. He showed me how to live, but he was already dead, and those final years, I knew being with me killed him. He worried about my sisters. I wasn’t surprised when he decided to go after them. Once he made his decision, he became happy, and I realized how much being with me was hurting him. He chose me, but not really. Those days before his departure, the happier he got, the more it hurt.”
“Did you tell him this?”
“How could I? I’d never seen my father smile before. I couldn’t take that away.”
I can’t imagine. “I’m sorry.” I could say it a thousand times, but it would never help.
“I watched him leave me, never to return. He never asked me to join him.”
I lean my head against his chest.
“After he left, it seemed he left not only me behind, but his darkness, his grief. And that grief went into me instead. I mourned the loss of my sisters, but it was not the way I mourned the loss of my father. For years, I was alone, never seeing another soul, not until Zhallaix established a den near my own, and in doing so, brought Zaku and the other nagas out of their territories and into mine. He and the others distracted me, and I moved on, forgetting what it was like to be lonely, that my family abandoned me.
“And then a ship came out of the sky, and with it, humans.”
“Me,” I whisper.
“You, sweet mate. I was lucky enough to see the ship land and go after it. Many of us did. Then, one day, you appeared, walking from the confines of that vessel and into my world. I noticed your hair first, the way it shimmered in the sunlight, its brilliance. I looked down at my scales and realized we were the same color. You wore my color, and I knew you were mine. Nothing else mattered. I had to have you. There was nothing else. And when I took a second glance, our eyes met.”
“I remember.” I shiver thinking of that day and how afraid I was when I saw Vruksha for the first time. I like hearing him tell it from his point of view though. It makes me happy. He hadn’t seemed real, not with his shock of red amongst the trees. “You scared me. I thought you were covered in blood.”
“You stood there staring back at me for
