Rikek came back from his journey to the Black Back country to find that his trip to educate himself on the other nations he'd have to negotiate as chief had become a waste, as his missing brother, the only sibling who had inherited the royal purple, had returned not only alive, but having grown wings. It was the one thing Rikek lacked that he thought he might never have to address. No one enjoyed the cold, stinging air of the peaks. And while he had interest in being chief and feared nothing, he did not like pain.
Inflicting pain, however, was a different story, as the moment he saw Gilrack he was all claws and poison spines upon his wings.
His stupid younger brother got in a good few gouges in his tender membrane before Gilrack managed to fling him off into the wall. The hardening of his body had given him greater strength in return for losing his flexibility, but Rikek was sticky like a cave newt when he wanted to be.
Before Rikek could get his legs under him to attack again, the royal guard near the entrance of the royal hall had reached him and had hold of him. Rikek strained against them but a moment before settling for hanging from their arms and glaring daggers at Gilrack. Bits of his purple mane stuck against his bared fangs.
"You said you had no interest," he hissed.
Gilrack flicked his injured wings, spraying specks of blood on the polished floors.
"Still not," he growled. "Though I'm thinking of being chief out of spite now, you violent bastard."
Attracted by the scent of blood, more guardsmen appeared from around the corner, falling in line with Gilrack. From above landed his father, Horack, whose pupils had narrowed and ears flattened. His lip curled at the sight of his son's injured wings.
"Rikek, what is this? What did your brother do to deserve this?"
"He lied!" he screeched. "All my effort, all my—I was going to become chief! He said I could! Two-faced! Hypocrite!"
"You don't know the story," started Horack.
"What other possible reason would he have to go to the peak!?"
"I didn't go to the peak," said Gilrack.
"Worm shit!"
"He didn't," said Horack. "He was taken to the heavens."
Rikek stared. Then started to laugh. The guards holding his arms were so put off by this, their grip slackened enough for Rikek to tug his bronze arms from their grip. He clenched his dark, violet fists.
"Now you're just mocking me."
"I can explain it all or you can ask the chieftess when she returns, but it's truth. He brought back a divine being for a mate."
Rikek stared. Then he snarled.
"You're mad." He looked to Gilrack. "The peak air muddled your brain."
But Gilrack had run out of patients for Rikek's drama. His wings hurt, and he didn't have the climbing abilities of his father to get back to Jolene's nest. If he so much as struggled to reach his mate, becoming chief would be the least of Rikek's worries.
Thankfully, while painful, he was still able to fly and managed to reach the landing while his father and the guards dealt with the snarling Rikek.
The moment Jo saw him, her eyes went wide and her fearful alarm stabbed into his brain, making him wince. Perhaps he should have at least cleaned up before coming.
She scrambled out of the nest. "What happened?"
"My brother is displeased with my wings," he said simply, moving to the sink to grab a rag and possibly a sewing kit to do up the holes in his membrane. "He thought I lied about not wanting to be chief and climbed the peaks to grow wings."
Jo found the rag before him and gestured at him to turn around. He did so, crouching down so her smaller form could reach his gently spread wings.
"If he has a temper like this, maybe he shouldn't be chief."
"He is not..temper often, but when he is he's all temper. All anger—no, full anger. Top anger."
"I get what you're saying. He's all or nothing." Her touch was more gentle on his wings than his would have been. Any excuse to get touched by her was a good excuse, and he found his anger at Rikek melting. "So, is that how you guys grow wings? You go to the mountain peak?"
"Only those of royal blood. And they either die or grow wings."
"How often do they die? Is it because of the cold?"
"Very often. Cold and...little air. Strange air. Suffocate."
Her touch paused. "Did that happen to you? When you first arrived at the space station, did you suffocate?"
"Yes. I thought I die."
"'Would die.' You thought you would die. Spread out your wing a little more. Jeeze, jerk did a number on you. We're going to have to sew these closed. Are you okay with me doing that? Is there anything we can numb it with."
"I am strong."
"It's still pain. I don't want to hurt you."
"I'm okay."
She still rolled her full bottom lip between her teeth the entire time she got the sewing kit and threaded the bone needle. He couldn't help but stare, feeling his belly heat and his knees loosen. His drawer ached to open.
Wait...couldn't he touch that mouth? She was his mate, wasn't she? And she had come here, surely, and she let him sleep by her in the nest.
Just as her lip escaped to complete her frown as she did a knot at the end of the silk thread, he turned and dove forward to brush the sensitive skin of his mouth against hers. A caress of the most intimate kind, one that sparked fire into his blood and sent his spines rustling.
"Was...was that suppose to be a kiss?"
His gaze trailed past her soft, white jawline and down her gently sloping neck. "What is kiss?" It sounded familiar. Wait, they had told him about it once. "A sign of spouse? What is the sign?"
She hesitated, rolling the threaded needle between her fingertips.
"If...um...I can show you, but you have to hold still after so I can fix your wings."
He did so, being sure to crouch at her level so her small self could reach him easily.
She stuck the needle into a fold of silk at her hip, then slowly, radiating sheepish apprehension, her hands reached for his face.
"Now, I don't have any practice for this, so it's totally okay if you don't like it. We're different species after all."
Her hands, her delightfully soft hands, he could get drunk on the feel of them holding his face. But then she leaned forward and did more than just brush her lips against his. She pressed those plush, hot lips against his, coaxing his own mouth open. It was a touch that longed to press closer, deeper, to sink inside him.
Every part of him erupted. He completely forgot that she was still healing from birth. His mind went blind with delight, every feeling in him responding to the touches longing by pushing her down, spreading her out, digging himself between her legs and drawing back his drawer. His mate wanted him, she finally wanted him! He touch her deep, burrow into her cave till they were one—
Her sharp cry jerked him back to reality.
"What are you doing?" her arms were drawn into her lush chest, eyes bright with fear. He'd pushed her down onto the cold floor, catching her head and waist with his hands. Nary an inch remained between them.
He scrambled for words, terrified that he had screwed up once again.
"Kkk...the, chit chit, touch of spouse, your mouth wanted me. I wanted to give."
She blinked several times. "You—hold on, just how much do you get through a touch?"
He didn't understand the question. Touch was touch. Its very nature was intimate. A touch could convey more than a thousand sounds. And she had pressed in, didn't that mean she want...
Wait, this was Jo. A divine being. Clothes were their touch. Everything had to be reevaluated when it came to her.
He pulled away, inwardly groaning from the agony of having to do so.
"I...no hurt. I not—don't want to hurt. I thought you wanted it. Are you hurt?"
The spikes of fear, thankfully, eased away. "No?"
He sighed in relief and finally managed to let her go.
"I...I am sorry." For multiple things at this point. Closing his drawer had been painful enough, but now his want for her was enough for him to claw his face off. Perhaps she'd be the death of him before the eggs had even hatched. If only he couldn't remember their first joining and the euphoric pleasure it had been. If only she could remember it. She had enjoyed it then, he knew she did, her mind waves could not lie.
He tried to hide from her by bringing his wings about him, which also displayed the holes she was to sew before her at the same time. She looked at him for a bit longer before sighing and plucking the needle out from her clothes.
"It's alright, Gilrack. I'm not offended. Just surprised."
"You were afraid."
"Not of you."
He peeked up above his wings to show her his disbelief as well as emitting it through his mind's waves.
She pouted. "Look, you may remember us...mating, but I don't. It's something I've never done before, so I'm a little scared. I don't know what to expect."
"Pleasure," he said, perhaps too quickly.
"I don't know that. You're an alien, what if it's different from how we do it?"
"You liked it." He said. "Mind waves said so."
She paused just as she had pinched the first hole of his membrane closed.
"I did?" she sounded actually confused.
He couldn't help but scowl and flatten his spines. "Is the mating of divine beings not pleasure?"
"No, it is. Well...most of the time. It can hurt, especially the first time for girls. Actually, if it hurts it's only ever the girl who does so."
Gilrack could understand that. His kind wasn't so different. Unlike males, who grew hard and sturdy, females remained soft and tender. But that was easily rectified, and he had done so their first time. Like he would ever do anything to harm his mate. His father had been a good parent and taught him what to do beforehand.
"I did not hurt," he said.
She said nothing, but her mind waves grew into a befuddled knot of emotions. He found himself swinging his tail happily that in that knot there was definitely curiosity and interest, though it was muddled by that ever present apprehension.
"But...I don't know if I love you yet."
His tail froze.
He could have sworn he felt her affection for him on multiple occasions. It's sprung out like a spark of fire when he reappeared after an errand outside the den. Sure he couldn't quite compare it to his own burning worship of her, but still...had he interpreted wrong? Was this another area of divine beings he didn't understand? Or, maybe, did she perhaps not know her own feelings?
He couldn't very well tell her that she loved him, could he? That would sound pushy or even like he was telling her what to feel.
Ugh, but he wanted her. He wanted her so bad. He wanted to smother her in his heat. Could she feel his mind waves? Couldn't she trust him?
So, he sat there, brooding in his own muddled thoughts and pawing through her various emotions in the air as she set to work sewing his wing. She was cautious at first, waiting to sense so much as a twitch from him. But the membrane of his wings wasn't as sensitive as his skin, and while it still hurt, he was far more preoccupied with other sensations in his body to be overly affected by it.
She worked quickly, to which he was thankful. Once the final hole was done up, she tied the string and cut it.
"There. If you get a chance, point out this Rikek to me so I can punch him in the face. Honestly, is it normal to attack someone like this?"
"No." He folded his wings in gingerly. What, did she think they were savages? "I am not...point-less violent. Respect instincts, respect rules, no violence needed."
"Is he going to get in trouble for hurting you at least?"
"Yes. He attacked the next chief. The chief will punish."
"Good."
"No need to punch."
"Good. I'm not pointlessly violent either, I hope you know."
He hesitated, rolling the words in his mouth before letting them fall. "If you want to punch one who hurt me...that means you love me?"
She paused mid soaping down of the needle, cleaning it of the blood. She looked at the mosaic behind the sink, her mind waves hitched.
"Perhaps," she said. Then, she did the unexpected. "What do my mind waves say?"
He floundered. That wasn't fair. She had to know how great the temptation would be to lie, if he ever had to lie to begin with. Perhaps she really did trust him then.
"Yes," he said, very carefully. "But...not as great as mine. Not yet."
She flicked the water from the needle, dried it with another rag, then carefully put it back into the sewing kit.
"That's okay," he said, suddenly quick. "I don't—I want—Jo must be happy."
"Your happiness matters too."
"I am happy." And he was. "Beautiful, kind mate, beautiful young, and...you still like me. You don't hate me. I thought...I thought you would hate me."
He said it in such a small voice, his mother would have been ashamed. But it was his greatest fear, and brought back the nightmare of his time in heaven. Even now his stomach clenched and rolled at the memory of those white halls and all the fear they held. He had wanted to die. He had wanted to—
Her warm arms suddenly wrapped around him.
"It's okay, buddy. I don't hate you. It's okay now."
Ah. He must have let his mind waves go. She must have felt all that.
Slowly, so as to not alarm her again, he returned the hug, wrapping them up in his newly-sew wings as well, despite the pain.
"I love you," he whispered. "I love you. I love you."
"I know," she whispered back.
After a moment, just as he was wondering if he should let her go, though he didn't want to, he felt the brush of her too-soft lips against his chest.
He shuddered.
"Alright." The touch of her mind waves were tentative, but gentle, reaching up to him. "Okay. We can try. When my bleeding stops."
Try? Wait, did she mean...?
He felt her lips smile against his skin.
"We are more or less married now, after all."
Oh gods above and below, she did.
He almost threw her ontop of their eggs in his excitement to cuddle her to show off his delight. She had to feel it, had to understand, surely, what she had just done for him.
She must, because she laughed out loud even as he bundled up both her and their eggs in his wings.