Star Side

Chapter 41

Gilrack kept me held to him long after my hair had dried. He was somehow able to tell the moment I started to overheat in the blanket/towel combo and undid the big knot he'd somehow made out of me, though he was careful not to make me feel exposed. I was able to keep the towel over the most important part of me. Sometimes he responded to my questions and we were able to talk, somewhat. Other times he only answered in the tones of his language, which was good practice or me, albeit I was nowhere near as adept at his language as he was with mine. All the clicks just sounded the same to me.

I could somehow sense from him, in those 'mind waves' that hadn't stopped since that moment in the shower, how deeply he was into his instincts. It was what alerted me out of my panic to what was happening when he'd suddenly whisked me away to his den.

At some point, deep in the well of his instincts, crooning and wafting warm-hot waves of 'peace' and what I now recognized as 'love' over me, he ducked his face into my hair. A cautious hand set itself on my bare knee. Purrs attempted to come up, but they were all smothered by something.

I'd been asking him what was wrong since we had gotten there, but the only theory I could come up with was that he thought I was rejecting him, though it somehow didn't sit right. He hadn't lost it this thoroughly since we'd met. But, then again, this was an alien. I didn't know all that happened in their romance rituals. He'd already made it clear that there was no forcing involved, but this wasn't forcing. It was just him in, like, a panic mode. As though...

I frowned and pinched my bottom lip. Maybe it was his reaction to my own distress? He did say we didn't hold back our mind waves in the slightest, and none of us had figured out how to 'block' our thoughts and feelings from getting out yet, despite Gilrack's efforts to teach us.

His face nuzzled down my hair to the curve of my neck, where he made a throaty roll of 'r's that sounded like a cat's 'prrbt.' He was asking for attention.

Without thinking I started petting the hair away from his face, earning me a hot puff of air from him across my collarbone.

It was kind of cute...

When those 'mind waves' seemed more conscious and less muggy with emotions, I asked "What do mates do? Your people's 'mates,' I mean."

There was a spark of bemused confusion from his mind waves. He probably thought it was obvious.

"They love. They help, male help female, female help male. They make young and raise young. Male and female try to make each other happy and safe." He paused to gather his thoughts. It was the calmest he'd been so far. "Male protect and provide. Female nurture young and make safe den...Male and female nurture each other. Make den. Make home and nests. Make happy."

"Sounds basically what our mates do," If they're particularly conservative folk. Though such a coincidental similarity in our species was hard for me to believe. What was the likelihood that some alien species roughly twenty lightyears away from our planet had the same purpose in mating? Then again, I didn't know the unspoken rule to intelligent life forms. Tell me to calculate the acceleration of time in proximity to the wakes of a black hole, done. Ask me why Gilrack was fine being naked and I wasn't? I dunno. Just 'cause?

I was interrupted from my pseudo-disbelief by Gilrack 'prrbt'ing into my shoulder again. I got back to work petting.

"How many mates do you have?"

He rumbled a low tone of displeasure for some reason.

"Depends," he said stiffly.

"How so?"

"Most one mate for life," he said. "But some...nurgh."

I laughed. It was so funny to hear a sound that was purely him and alien and yet it came across so human.