Page 16 of Offering Herself to Darkness

“Thank you, Commander Xarex—that was very kind of you but I’m just not very hungry or thirsty right now.”

“You don’t have to call me by my formal title anymore,” Xarex pointed out. “I’m no longer your superior—I’m your mate. Your ‘husband’ as the humans say.”

Nora nodded.

“All right. Thank you, Xarex. It was nice of you to think of me but I’m just not hungry or thirsty at the moment.”

“You may not be feeling hunger or thirst but I can tell you are feeling emotions,” he pointed out. “Negative emotions.”

“I’m really sorry.” She straightened up and tried harder to smile, though the expression clearly didn’t reach her eyes. “You’ve done so much for me and been so kind. I…I’ll try to do better.”

“I don’t want you to ‘do better’—I want to know what emotions you’re having. Even if they’re negative ones,” Xarex told her. He took off the tux jacket, which he was still wearing, and sat on the couch in the living area. Then he beckoned to her. “Please come sit with me and let’s talk.”

Reluctantly, he thought, Nora came over to him. She perched gingerly on the edge of the cushion, as though she wasn’t sure how he might react to what she had to say. But then she just stared at him mutely, twisting her fingers together in obvious agitation.

Xarex decided it was probably best to be direct.

“Are you having negative emotions because you’re afraid of me and what might happen tonight?” he asked. “Or was it something that happened during the medical consultation for Anna?”

At once, her eyes began to brim over with tears and her lovely mouth twisted.

“They…they said they can’t help her,” she whispered as the tears slid down her flushed cheeks. “They said that since Pulmonary Crystalosis is such a new disease, they don’t know much more about it than the doctors down on Earth.”

The sight of her tears did something to Xarex—it seemed to break something inside him to see his new mate in such terrible emotional distress. He had no words to comfort her—nothing he could think of to say seemed adequate. But he had been studying human emotions for some time now and he had seen several human entertainment vids in which a crying female was comforted by physical touch. Would that work here? He didn’t know but he desperately wanted to ease the agony he saw on Nora’s lovely face.

Reaching over, he gathered her into his arms and pulled her into his lap.

Nora stiffened at first, as though she wasn’t sure what was happening. But when he just held her close and didn’t do anything else, she finally seemed to relax. She melted against him and buried her face in his chest, still sobbing.

Xarex felt like his heart might burst! He wanted so badly to comfort her but didn’t know what to say. He cuddled her close, stroking her long hair and her trembling shoulders, wishing he could do something—anything—to ease her grief.

“She’s going to…going to die,” Nora cried, her shoulders shaking as the sobs wracked her. “I tried so hard but there’s nothing…nothing I can do. This was my last hope and now…it’s gone!”

Xarex felt again like something inside him was breaking. He wanted so badly to protect the curvy little female in his lap—he wanted to comfort her and make the pain go away.

This needing to help while being helpless to do so was possibly the most painful emotion he had felt yet. He didn’t have a name for it but he didn’t want it to stop, even though it hurt. He just wanted to keep Nora close to him.

“Did they give you no hope at all?” he asked at last when her tears had tapered off. “Maybe there’s a cure on another planet, in another solar system somewhere. I would journey to the ends of the universe if I could, to find something to cure Anna.”

Nora looked up at him with red eyes.

“There was something…but I don’t think it would work.”

“What?” Xarex asked anxiously. “Any hope is better than none at all.”

“It’s this thing that grows on another planet—the Flower of Healing,” she explained. “But there are certain criteria that have to be met for it to work.”

“Tell me,” Xarex urged. “Whatever it is, I swear I’ll do it.”

She sniffed at looked at him uncertainly.

“Well the first thing is, whoever picks the flower has to have the same DNA as the person it’s meant to heal. That’s not a problem because Anna is my niece so we do have the same DNA. It’s the other thing that’s a problem.”

“What other thing? Tell me—maybe I can help,” Xarex urged her.

“Uh, you would have to help for it to work, but I don’t think…I’m not sure if you can.” She shifted on his lap, looking uncomfortable. “See, in order to pick the flower, you have to offer a kind of, uh, sexual sacrifice—and it has to be done with emotion. The way Commander Sylvan described it was as a ‘moment of pure love and devotion.’”

“I see.” Xarex nodded thoughtfully. “And you believe I couldn’t help you with that because?—”

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