I felt arms shift around me and I jolted slightly, unaware I had actually fallen asleep on the couch. I became aware I was being carried somewhere. Panic filled me as I opened my eyes completely. Someone was taking me.
"Easy, Liv. You are okay." Rhex's voice rumbled through me and I felt myself slowly relax. I looked around carefully, we were going up some stairs and I felt slightly concerned. He was taking me somewhere I didn't know.
"Where are we?" The words showed my apprehension and Rhex said nothing as he pushed open another door, carrying me over the threshold. The room was lit but it was from the light of millions of stars. I let out a gasp of delight as Rhex set me down on my feet. I did my best to take it all in as I slowly turned around. The tiny pinpoints of light marking the stars surrounded us. It was beautiful and I walked forward a smile spreading across my face.
"I come here sometimes to think." Rhex was behind me again and he pulled me over to a blanket laid out on the floor. He sat down and I sat beside him, staring up at the night sky with awe.
"It's beautiful, Rhex." I smiled up at the stars and Rhex grasped my shoulder. I turned to look at him and he tugged me backwards slightly.
"Lay down." The words were soft and despite my confusion I did. He moved his hand from my shoulder and lay down beside me. "I brought you up here so we could talk." His words were even, as if he had planned each one carefully.
"Talk about what?" I swallowed hard and looked up at the stars, trying to figure out what he meant.
There was a faint pause that made my heart beat quicken. "Everything, Liv. I want to talk about... everything." He paused once more and I wondered if I needed to say anything when he spoke again. "There is never any pressure while I am up here. I feel less closed in, more able to freely express myself. Orrians don't talk about such things and I'm trying to figure out how to deal with all this." I watched as a shooting star flew across the sky.
I could tell he was nervous and tense and I bit my lip, trying to think of a safe subject, something that would put him at ease. "I was born May twenty-fourth to Louis and Eliza Burch. I was two and a half months premature and weighed only three pounds and eight ounces. My dad used to tell me that I barely fit into both his hands cupped together." I gave a small chuckle and shook my head. "He used to call me his little potato. Not my most favourite nickname in the world but it was mine. Other little girls were called princess, dolly, or cupcake but I was the only little potato." I smiled at the memory before laughing at the absurdity of my dad's nickname.
"He doesn't call me it much anymore." I frowned slightly before returning my attention back to the cluster of stars that made up the arm of the Milky Way galaxy. It was like a bright ribbon of light across the sky. "He's a genetic researcher helping try and find the cause for Orrian infertility. My mum is a specialist for interstellar plant growth, her research is helping feed soldiers on the front and the Orrians in ships." I rested my hands on my stomach, drumming my fingers, listening to the slight patter they made.
"I had a good childhood. Actually my entire life up until my eighteenth birthday was perfect. I had doting parents, good grades." I let out a heavy sigh holding my hands still on my stomach. "After my, eighteenth birthday I spent the next seven years feeling like I was deformed. I couldn't bond. I was an oddity, a freak. I was referred to as 'the broken one' at Ami'la's office." That nickname haunted me for a very long time. "The only human unable to form a soulmate bond. I hated myself every day for not being normal like everyone else." I felt tears clog my throat and I swallowed, trying to force them away.
"I am glad you aren't like everyone else." His smooth, deep voice startled me. I had almost forgotten he was there. I watched as he reached over, grasping my hand in his, threading his fingers through mine. I shivered at the contact, his skin was warm and rough against my own.
I looked at our clasped hands with a small smile. "You scared me, you know. Well not that I was scared of you but of what you had done to me. I was so scared, confused, as to what had happened to me. Everything was changing when I looked at you and I didn't know how or why." My words were quiet and I turned my head to look at him.
His profile was strong and I traced the edges of it with my eyes. He was handsome and I became aware of a curious buzzing in my veins from being so close to him. There was a thick silence and I turned back to look up at the sky. It was a soothing view and I closed my eyes, enjoying the feeling of being under a blanket of stars.
"The day you came onto the ship I was only down in the recycling bay because I had been assigned recycling duty. It was passed off as a clerical error because soldiers do not get put on civilian jobs. I was upset but I did it anyway. I got to the recycling bay just as you arrived." He let out a small breath, his hand squeezing mine. "Everyone had been talking about the human slated for recycling but I didn't care. I had enough of dealing with death while out on the front, I didn't want to see it at home." He paused and I closed my eyes tighter, not wanting to ruin the moment.
"I saw you and I watched how he was treating you. You were in pain but he didn't care and it made me angry. I had never wished to hurt one of my own before but in that moment as your face twisted with the pain he caused you I wanted to make him stop breathing." He let out a deep breath, his hand tightening on mine slightly once again.
He brushed the back of it with his thumb, his hand made mine look small but I didn't care. "I stopped him, I don't remember why but I told him I could take you to the recycler. I told him it was better for me to waste my time than him. He let me take you." He gave a small smile at that. "Just like that. I felt like I had pulled off a crime to be honest. Like I had just completed the heist of the century." He chuckled and the sound surprised me. I hadn't really heard him show amusement before.
"No one had told me what to expect when I found my soulmate. People were always telling me to bond with someone who would raise my status, who would increase my political standing. The talk of soulmates never entered the conversations." That made me feel for Orrians, to never actually be given the choice to find their soulmates, to be told they would have someone out there that was perfect for them. "Then none of it mattered because there was only you." His words made my heart squeeze slightly. He brought my hand up and kissed the back of it gently. I felt my breath hitch in my chest and I turned my head to look at him again.
"There can be only you, Liviya Mary Burch, and that is a terrifying feeling for me." He shifted, moving closer to me a fraction. "I was engineered to be a soldier. My loyalty was designed to be for the protection of my people but now I find it shifting to you. I have spent my entire life protecting my people and now all I want to protect is you." He turned his head, locking his gaze with mine.
"I cannot allow my allegiances to shift, not now. My people need me to protect them but you are changing that. You are changing how I think, what I need to do." His words hurt but I nodded, turning my gaze back up to the dark sky. He removed his hand from mine and I pulled it back to my stomach.
As terrible as it was I wanted to cry because I ached for a soulmate who wanted me just as much as I wanted them. I sat up, my eyes on the stars above me. I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them.
"It's good that you're honest with me. I appreciate it." The words were quiet and I gave a small cough, trying to clear my throat of the sudden lump that had formed.
"I was born on October twelfth, twenty-seven years ago. My mother is a woman named Ha'li. My father is a political soldier named Ber'reth. I have a sister named Kati. They live back on Oria." He said it said each word precisely as if he had practised them a hundred times before. "I haven't seen my parents in ten years and I haven't seen my sister in five. It takes months to reach Oria and I have always been too busy to visit them." I winced for him. I couldn't imagine being months away from my parents, not being able to see them or truly talk to them.
"Unlike on Earth, children often leave their parents shortly after they visit the Soul Makers. We are all assigned a job and we are expected to train for it as soon as we are able." His tone was slightly cold and I leaned my chin on my knees, looking out across the dark edge of the Earth. It still looked like a blue and green marble but the pale haze of the stratosphere was still visible despite the darkness.
He made a noise of frustration before sitting up. "Liviya, I have been taught how to fight since I was ten years old. I am expected to die for my country and I have nearly done that a dozen times over. I was taught how to kill without remorse but this? I have never been taught how to handle this." I could see him gesture between us in my peripheral vision and I tilted my head to look at him.
Resting my cheek on my knee I noticed the frustration clearly on his face. "Do what comes naturally." I shrugged, turning back to the view, hoping the soothing feeling would come back.
"None of this feels natural." His tone was flat and I winced slightly at it. It pretty much summed up our entire relationship, emotion and then back to being emotionless. Hot and cold, never being consistent.
"Then I don't know what I can tell you, Rhex. I'm trying to understand your position. Trying to understand why you are pushing me away. I get that you need to protect your people, your planet. I get that I'm a danger to that but I can't understand why I can't have a small piece of you for myself." I felt agitated, feeding off his energy. I wanted to stand up and walk away. Why was it that whenever we started talking it devolved into an argument that would never be resolved?
"I was taught that Orrians do not show affection to their mates nor their children. It was how I was raised, it is how it is done. It is the natural order of things, Liviya." His tone was sharp and I gave into my urge and stood up.
I scowled at him, anger filling me along with the agitation. "Stop calling me that! It's Liv. Liv." There was nothing worse than the feeling of him using my full name to keep distance between us. As if he were using it as shield. "There is nothing natural about us, Rhex. Our very bond is unnatural to your people." It was something that people continued to remind me.
"Affection is a natural reaction to being around someone you care about, someone you love. Withholding it is cruel and it hurt me when you do it." I was humane and humans weren't Orrians. "I crave your contact with me, Rhex. I need it like I need to breathe but you are so easy to push that away. I just want to understand why." The hurt poured out before I could stop it and I pressed my hand to my mouth, narrowing my eyes at him. "I can't stand it when you put this space between us that I feel like I'm not allowed to breach but it makes it so much worse when I don't know why." I ran my hand through my hair and tugged on the strands in frustration before crossing my arms over my chest, hunching forwards slightly.
"Because you terrify me. You threaten everything about my life and it terrifies me more than anything I have ever known before. I have fought on the front seven times and I would rather be there than be standing here because at least there I knew where I stood. I knew what I had to do." The words were like a slap to the face and I nearly reared back away from him
"Then go fight on the front then, Rhex. Leave me here and go if things are simpler there." I felt tears in my eyes and I wiped at them furiously, hating the fact they were there. I had done enough crying. I turned my back to him and stared at the sky,. It didn't seem as beautiful anymore, it had lost its magic.
"I'm fucking this up." He let out a heavy sigh and I looked at the floor, tracing the tile pattern with my eyes. "What do you want, Liv? What do you need?" He sounded tired and I shrugged, not trusting myself to speak. "Liv, I need an answer." There was a thread of agitation in his voice and I turned to look at him holding my hands out in a gesture of defeat.
"I need contact, Rhex, and you have made it very clear you don't want that." I avoided his gaze, letting out a shuddering breath.
"Touch me." The words confused me for a second and I turned to look down at him.
"What?" My voice had an edge. I was getting tired of him jerking me back and forth like a dog with a rope.
"No rules, no judgment, no pushing away. Touch me." He grabbed my hand and pulled me down abruptly, practically forcing me to straddle his lap. His pale green eyes darkened slightly. "Touch me, Liv."