“What?” Molly demands, her voice shrill.
“Are you certain?” I ask Avrell.
He nods rapidly, a smile stretching across his face. “The wegloscan is one hundred percent accurate. One hundred percent, Draven. This means—”
I wave off his words. “My mate and I need a moment.”
He frowns but acquiesces. “I’m going to peek in on Calix and Galen to see how the formula is coming along. I’ll be back to check on you both.”
As soon as he leaves, Molly regards me with tears welling in her pretty brown eyes. I stroke my claw gently along her jaw.
“When I was locked in a reform cell, I was hopeless, Molly. Everything was so dark and painful and horrifying.” I squeeze my eyes shut, shuddering at the memory. “I barely made it through. The Rades not only ravished my mind and my body, but it shredded my soul.”
A tear leaks out of her eye, and her bottom lip wobbles. “Oh, Draven…”
“But then, hope came in the form of a beautiful alien with a voice of magic,” I tell her, astonishment in my tone. “She stumbled right into my arms. As though she were my gift. A gift I didn’t know I wanted until I realized it’s all I ever wanted.”
She sniffles and swipes away the wetness on her cheeks.
“With your smiles and your hugs and your fierce disposition, you threaded those pieces back together with you, Molly, my mate. We’re completely woven together now. Together, we’re stronger than we ever were apart.” I pull her palm to my mouth and kiss her flesh. “We both know unimaginable loss. And through our mutual pain, something wonderful has grown between us.”
“Do you really think?” she whispers as her other palm splays over her stomach.
“One hundred percent certain,” I tell her. “It is our gift.”
More tears leak out.
“But I’m a terrible mother,” she rasps out, choking on a sob. “I let them take my little girl. She is three years old, Draven. Lost. Out there without her mother.”
“She lives in your heart,” I assure her. “And she will live in the heart of our mortling because we will make sure our little one knows all about sweet Willow.”
She sits up and throws her arms around my neck, pulling me to her. My nog-ache subsides as my heart thrums wildly in my chest.
“We can do this,” she says as though she’s trying to assure herself more than me. “Together.”
“You’re rekking right we will. Never apart. Just like how you insisted trekking through The Graveyard with me on a rogcow hunt. I’ll keep trekking through this life with you until one day we meet The Eternals together.”
She laughs and kisses my neck. “You’re so dark sometimes, but I understand the sentiment. And I love you too. Until the end, baby.”
“And then some, my mate.”
***
“Explain it to me again,” Galen says, marveling at my words.
I go through all of our findings. The cave. The valley. All the plants that seemed to be thriving in our otherwise harsh climate. I brought back some samples, and I’ve never seen Galen grin so much in all my life.
“You know what this means,” Galen tells Breccan. “I’m going to Gunteer Channel.”
I expect Breccan to argue, but he gives him a clipped nod. I think he’d agree to anything right now. His son suckles from a nipple—fashioned from the same material our minnasuits are made from—that’s attached to a rogstud horn. Between the supplement Calix created from Emery’s colostrum, mixed with the rogcow milk, Sokko is finally getting the nutrients he needs. It’s been three solars since we came back from our journey, and the little mortling is finally growing. For a spell there, everyone was certain he wouldn’t make it.
“Boo,” Aria says, sneaking up behind me.
I jolt in surprise and glower at her. Now that I have Molly, my mind isn’t a mess. I don’t fret about shadows and darkness and bad memories. I don’t count exits or have to keep open spaces behind me. All I see is Molly. When my eyes are open and when they are closed. She has cured me.
“How’s my little piggy?” she coos as she comes to stand in front of her mate.
Breccan kisses Sokko’s head. “Hungry.”
“Well, good news,” she says with a slightly crazed laugh. “My milk came in. I’m leaking like a damn rogcow. So engorged now. Let me see him.”
When she tugs at her minnasuit to reveal a breast, Galen makes a choking sound, and I drop my gaze to the floor. Breccan growls, and his sub-bones start cracking.
“Oh my God, Breccan,” Aria chides. “I’m not getting naked for your friends. I’m about to feed our very hungry baby. You’re going to have to get that protectiveness in check. You all are. You’re breeding us females left and right. Where we come from, the women feed their babies whenever and wherever. I won’t cover myself or hide because you think someone might catch a peek.”