Something was wrong.
He'd felt it the moment she woke up and her brain waves weren't any different from what they'd been the night before. He didn't expect her to suddenly love him as he loved her, because he knew that took time. Then when he tried to explain the mating bite, it suddenly occurred to him that, maybe, divine beings didn't marry through bites. Their teeth were duller, being omnivores, but they'd still had little fangs. But never once had he seen those little fangs extend.
Despite having learned so much of their language, he struggled to convey something his kind simply didn't put words to. Emotions could be conveyed through mind waves. That's why one of the most basic lessons one learned as a child was how to keep your mind waves inside. But these divine beings they had no such training. Their minds were free, and Gilrack had supposed that was their way of making up for having weaker changes in their scent with their emotions. They'd already told him he stank and wrinkled up their entire faces whenever he got frustrated or angry. It had been insulting, but enlightening.
The wrongness became certainty when his beloved maiden didn't so much as flinch or change course when she met up with the dead-eyed male. She didn't act any differently, nor did the dead-eyed male react as he thought he should on smelling her mated scent. Perhaps the other was more civilized and controlled than Gilrack had presumed, but as he listened to their conversation—and he could always understand more of their language than he could speak—it became a certainty.
She didn't know they were mates.
Being rejected would have been far much better than this. How could she not know? Surely she remembered him moving through her. Surely she remembered his touches, his praises, felt the remains of his love when she woke up.
But the more he listened, the more he remembered, and the more horrified he became.
The poison. The poison these strange beings drank for fun. It could interfere with memory. Not only did it make them silly and honest, it could make them not remember.
Gilrack hardly noticed himself moving as he followed Jolene, his thoughts racing and screaming soundlessly. There was no precedent for this. He'd never heard of this happening. He'd heard fairytales of evil males drugging females into a deep sleep to mate them against their will, but Jolene had been awake. She'd touched him too, she'd pulled him in, her mind waves had keened to be held and loved by him. He'd never been told what to do if a female simply didn't remember, there was just no way!
Well, really, there was only two options he had.
One, he could not tell her and continue to try and woo her and hope his seed hadn't taken root. Once she loved him too, and by then he should know more of the language, he could fully explain what had happened.
Or, two, he told her right now and hoped for the best. He had their word for mates, 'spouse.' He also knew their words for marriage and copulation. It would be a painfully, blunt, and raw explanation of the bite.
Neither option reassured him, but the second option terrified him the most. There was a word the chieftess Naomi had told him about which the divine beings looked upon with just as much hatred as his people did towards the villains who drugged the females and forced mating upon them: 'rape.' Such was one, not out of desire, but also out of hatred and violence.
If he were to tell his beloved she might assume he had done this 'rape' to her, and such an act of savagery was the farthest thing to the gentle love he had made to her. For her to think of that of their mating...her one day returning his love would be the least of what would become out of his reach.
His spines and stomach began to hurt as his most base instincts flailed at the very thought. For his mate to be so wounded, by him nonetheless, how would he live with himself? How did one deal with such a thing?
Without meaning to, he let out a low, pained keen.
"Gilrack?"
His beloved turned around, her smooth eyebrows high in concern.
"Are you okay?"
He looked into her eyes, wondering just how much of his body language she could understand. Even that was different between their two people. How much did she even understand him? Could she even feel his mind waves as he could hers?
Instinctually, he pulled back his walls, letting his distress flow over to her. She was still his mate, after all. Even if she didn't realize it, he needed her now. He needed the gentle intelligence of his female.
Something like relief eased the pain in his stomach as her brow did the furrow he recognized as concern. She backtracked down the hallway to him, and it took everything in him not to reach out and draw her to him. He couldn't alarm her. If she couldn't remember, he was back to not knowing what touch was okay and what wasn't.
Thankfully, the dead-eyed male had left them to do whatever work he had in the station.
He did, however, let himself bow his face to draw closer to her smell. He sought comfort, but the smell also reminded him of just what he might lose, and that made his entire insides tighten back up in pain.
He would die. She would reject him and he would die. Or worse, he wouldn't die.
At his second keen, she reached out, and he happily met them half-way with his cheek. The ethereal softness or her skin, so utterly perfect for holding their hatchlings, made his heart break further.
No. He couldn't do this. He couldn't. He had to persuade her, had to prove himself a perfect mate before explaining. He had to give her some reason to hesitate, had to have some change of survival.
Her thumb stroked the circle beneath his eye and he sighed, letting his eyes close.
But how? How could he prove himself an able provider and protector in this sterile world of the divine beings, where they controlled everything so perfectly? There were no prey to catch, no stone to dig dens, no bioluminescent moss to cultivate along its walls. There were no jewels, no gleaming metals of the deep, no hot springs to reroute to their den for the perfect bath, no kind family to introduce her to, no furred creatures to make blankets or fluff flowers to weave décor. There wasn't even any trees or plants to weave baskets for holding hatchlings.
He turned his face to press it in her little hand, wishing, for the first time, that it was bigger so he could hide himself.
Jolene's mind waves heightened sharply with deepening alarm. Her concern had a faintly sour taste.
"Gilrack? What's wrong?"
I love you, he thought, wishing to every star that she somehow heard the words in his mind waves. I love you, I can't live without you, but I have nothing to make you stay.
But, even as his breath shuddered, he held his legs fast. He could not be overwhelmed. He could not lose here. Giving up would mean instant failure, and he couldn't accept that.
So, after allowing himself to breathe, steadying his blood, smoothing his aching spines, he lifted his face to meet her beautiful, earthy gaze.
"I cannot say yet," he said. "Have no words."
Even a half-lie tasted bitter on his tongue to his mate.
She looked at him for a second longer, as though hoping to read the unspoken words on his face, but eventually nodded.
"Is there anything I can do to help?" she asked.
He hesitated. Why did temptation have to be so powerful?
"Hug?" he asked.
He half expected her to grow cold and back away like she had when he'd asked to touch her breast.
But, instead, she smiled, and her eyes grew warm. Her pupils, which were always round, seemed to grow rounder, making his heart thump hard.
And she drew near, pressing herself to him and wrapping her arms about him.
He embraced her back, wrapping them tightly in his wings, letting his senses soar with her nearness.
It was enough to give him hope. Surely he could find something to prove himself. Surely, if not by his own traditions, he could learn something of these humans and learn to use their world to prove himself.
Surely. If he tried...
So that's what he did. Already he'd been pushing himself to learn their language as quickly as he could, but now he threw himself into learning how to work their station. He learned to at least recognize the strange written language where they got their food enough to connect them to which meals, specifically Jolene's favorites and non-favorites. He watched carefully as they worked their tools. He even managed to convince the cheiftess and Jolene to teach him about their dirt and plant room and how to grow their food in the dirt—which ended up being his favorite activity at all. It was the closest to what he already knew in cultivating moss and other plants around a den. Most of all, he dedicated himself to discovering all that which pleased Jolene and what she looked for in a mate.
All the while, he felt the dead-eyed male's gaze on his back grow colder.
He had always suspected that, although Jolene didn't know, her male companion did. Gilrack did his best to avoid the other male, and it was obvious the other male did the same.
Then, a few weeks later, an unmistakable change came over his beloved's scent that shook Gilrack to his core. It weakened his knees with its sweetness and made his head spin with both joy and fear.
His seed had taken.
Gilrack now had a time limit to proving himself to her. By the time she had their young there would be no question as to what Gilrack had done. There'd be no point to him explaining.
There could be no room for failure now. It wasn't just Gilrack's life on the line, their children needed their mother. If she rejected them, they would die as well.
The reality of it all froze him to his makeshift den for three days. He couldn't eat. He couldn't sleep. He could hardly move for the weight of it all, and the comfort of the familiar plantlife was all he had. For the first time, he actually missed his mother. His cold, self-serving mother, because at least she would have helped him. At least she would have been someone he knew and who understood their customs. He would have given anything to have at least someone from his people there. At least then he wouldn't be utterly alone in his head.
The divine beings respected his space. They knew his territory was important. But on the third day, the door to his den slid open in that alien, strange way they all did to reveal his mate, who didn't know she had as much claim to his den as he did.
Still, she didn't enter, just stood in the doorway radiating that slightly sour concern and with her eyebrows puckered.
"Are you sick?" she asked.
He shook his head, his throat too tight to speak.
Her soft lips tightened and she searched his den carefully, like a female carefully inspecting their home for pests. The act was so familiar to him that he couldn't hold back the weak keen from his chest.
Her eyes snapped to him, attentive, alert, caring.
"Can...can I come in?"
He nodded fervently. Please, his soul begged.
She did, letting the door close behind her. Her lovely, new-mother scene mixed in his den, making him melt even further into his nest. It felt more right than anything ever had in his life.
She knelt beside his curled form and ran a hand through his mane. He shuddered.
"You don't look well," she said.
Drugged by the comfort she gave my her mere presence, he didn't ask when he reached out and gently pulled her into his nest. His heart sang when she let him, even helping in tucking herself up perfectly against his chest.
He could see the gentle swelling of her stomach. It was small, maybe that's why she didn't seem to notice. Her breasts were already large so perhaps she wouldn't notice when they swelled with milk. His females always noticed when their small breasts grew.
He gave in to his poor, neglected instincts and rubbed his jaw against whichever part of her he could reach, scenting her and in turn more carefully taking in her scent. She smelled healthy. Besides the sour tang of concern, she also smelled content.
"Are you eating good?" he asked.
She gave him an odd look she usually reserved for when he used their words wrong, and for a minute he thought he had misspoken, even though all the words fell right.
"Why wouldn't I?" she asked.
"You must eat well," he said. "Meat. Lots of meat."
"Well, lucky you, I've been craving protein like mad. Pity we don't have any animals on board. I've been seriously craving something red and bloody, I feel like a savage."
He purred, pleased. Everyone knew the more a female craved fresh meat the healthier the young. The freshest of meats was best for little ones.
But he didn't purr long, yet another worry added his weight.
There was no prey in the divine being's home.
He almost keened again, every fatherly instinct in him wailing.
"Home," he pushed out. "Can we go home?"
"To your planet?" she asked, and he nodded. "You have to learn the escape pod landing sequence. We've been trying to teach you that, remember?"
Oh yes, of course. The most confusing task of all. It was all symbols and buttons and switches that all looked the same. Every time he ended up in that cramped space reeking of bad memories of suffocating and burning from the inside out he ended up fighting to not tearing everything in sight with his claws.
But, now, he had more reason than just homesickness to learn it.
"Come with me," he said. "I get you meat. Best meat. Bloody meat."
She chuckled, a sound he loved most of all because it meant her amusement or joy. "I can't live on your planet, remember? The heavy air, the argon, we can't breathe it out."
"We stay high. High in mountain." He'd already connected the dots that the heavy air was the same kind younglings were kept away from. Those with nests always built them as high in the caverns as they could. The lower dens were for the old. The old did best with heavy air.
But, as she had before he suggested this to them, she shook her head.
"It's too dangerous."
"I hold you feet up."
She chuckled again. "I'd rather you not have to be constantly flipping me just so I can breathe, Gilrack. Besides, we don't even know if we could eat the food down there."
"I can eat your food."
"That's you. I'm not you."
He knew she had a point. She was far more intelligent than him.
And yet, his instincts pined all the more. He had young to provide for and no way in which to do it. It was utter agony.
At his deepening keening, she rubbed her thumbs on his face, something he assumed her kind did to soothe each other. Really, any of her touches did the trick for him, but he could only tell her that through his actions, by pressing his face back and closing his eyes and doing everything he could to not whimper in desire.
"We'll get you home, Gilrack. I promise."
He let his spines rattle with his shuddering breath. "I cannot go without you."
Her thumbs paused in their ministrations, and for a moment he thought he had said too much.
"Maybe it wouldn't hurt to visit," she said carefully. "But the station is already understaffed as it is. I can't leave it forever."
It was better than nothing.
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Egg Slipp'n Alien's found out he's an egg slipp'n alien, oh no! And thanks to all y'all who have commented and such. It's good to know I'm not the only weirdo who wants a weird alien romance.