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“Not more than I love you.” I kiss her again, inhaling her words as I press my hand over her lower belly, holding her tight against my chest, our packs weighing us down, but her words and her taste making me feel weightless.
When we finally break, I set her down, and she completes one last scan of Paradise, our home—a home I have never valued more than now, for the first time entering it alongside my owelay, my queen.
We turn and start down the treacherous staircase to reach the green-carpeted valley floor, and as she walks, I hear her muffled whisper, “If only Pam could see this.”
ChapterNineteen
Epilogue—ten months later
Irun. I can’t even believe how fast I’m running. “Move out of my way!” I shout at Hopolai before bounding off the stone platform where I’d been tending to the garden.
Hopolai releases a whooping laugh and curses at my back—a curse I understand because my Vironai is getting so good I don’t even wear my translator mostdays. I land hard on the moss-covered rock in my sandals and sprint toward the town square.
Hopolai is one of the Vironaireleeya—an owelay tender, which I find pretty funny because I’m a releeya now, too. I suspect she’s younger than I am—not that they celebrate birthdays unless I force them to, which I do, randomly and often—but she’s taken me under her wing and taught me so much about the soil, the land, the ways of life here that she might as well be my new avó. She’s been an amazing teacher and friend, sitting around the fire with me, dancing with me, letting me point out possible mates for her that I think might suit her best. She’s giggled at all of them.
Hopolai has spent even more time with me these past three weeks that Lacchus has been gone with the other warriors in the Barrens. He refused to leave me the last time he was called on to go on a hunting expedition, but during that expedition, they lost a warrior to a frex-frex, and I refused to be the reason Lacchus didn’t join the next expedition. Especially not when things were going so well, and I was actuallydoingthis whole living thing. And loving every second of it.
I miss Pam sometimes and, on the rare occasion I wake up crying, overwhelmed, missing Portugal and everything I once knew, I have Lacchus there to hold me, kiss away my tears, tell me stories of a world that’s wonderful and wild and new. But today, I havenewstories for him, too.
Sprinting across the square, I join the other families who’ve gathered to meet their warrior kin—fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, brothers, sisters, and friends. I jump to try to see him as he comes down the stairs, and he’s not hard to spot. His brow is furrowed, and he’s scanning the crowd searching for me, and I know—everyone knows—the minute he finds me.
Because the crazy monster that loves mejumps.The crowd screeches and laughs, dispersing to make space for this massive creature covered in scales to land on the ground. He carries an enormous weight of logs under his arm, but somehow manages not to hit anyone, including me, as his taloned feet sink into the softer soil in front of me.
I laugh. He drops the logs where he stands, closes the distance between us and wraps me up in a ferocious hug. He kisses me senseless, and I kiss him back. I glide my fingers through his hair while he paws at my ass, carrying me away toward our home, a beautiful three-room—three-cave?—space built directly into the mountain. It’s not the largest I’ve seen among the tribe, but it’s perfect for us and our little family.
“Wait, wait, wait! I have something I want to show you before we…go home,” I stutter in broken Vironai.
He growls against my neck, “I wanthomenow.” His voice is laden with implication.
I swat his shoulder. “You feral beast. I want to talk to you, first. How was the hunt?”
“Torture.” He rubs his cheek across mine and I laugh and wriggle until he’s got no other choice but to set me down.
“For me, too,” I tell him shyly. I kiss his chest—the highest point on him I can reach—and squeeze my arms around his waist. “But did you get your kills?”
“More than enough to feed the tribe twice over for many months.” He shifts uncomfortably between his feet. “I don’t want to part from you again for a long time.”
Oh, my heart. My fragile beating heart. My little slice of time. “I like to hear that. And hopefully, you won’t have to go as often anymore. We’ve got some exciting stuff going on in my garden.”
I pull him across the central meeting space where the fire rages earlier tonight than usual—celebrations will span from now well into tomorrow—and past the various stalls where villagers work to create and restore things the tribe needs for survival, past the place where frex-frex hides are treated, past the place where food is stored. I pull him all the way to the raised gardens that have never seen such blooms before.
I nearly trip when he comes to an abrupt stop, and it’s my turn to laugh as I turn around and take in his shock. “You… These are from your little Pam packets?”
I nod. “Yep! Pam would be so proud.” I didn’tjusttake green beans on my last trip to the Chamber, but seeds for potatoes, carrots, onions, tomatoes, and other fruits like grapes and seeds for tree saplings like avocados and oranges and mangoes.
But it’s my green beans that first impressed the tribe by sprouting with abundance. They are a messy horde of bushes that much smarter releeya than me have managed to corral and make sprout even brighter.
“You…” And then he frowns. “Were you not supposed to return to your Pam and tell her if you were able to get life to grow on this planet?”
Yes. I was. I am. But for as much as I may miss humans, I also remember them. They could be cruel and terrible, especially when confronted by things they did not understand. This is Paradise. Small, but pure. And if humans were able to ruin a perfect, paradisical world once, I don’t want to let them try to ruin this one, too.
“Maybe.” I wrinkle my nose up at him and wrap my arms around his waist. “But like I said, I was never a very good Sucere participant. I amjustthe artist.” And artist I am. I’ve painted the history of my departure from the Sucere Chamber and the Vironai’s violent success on rocky walls, painted everything with all the paints I’ve got and all the new colors I’ve made with my two hands. Our cave—my and Lacchus’s home—is a place of brightness and life now.
He chuckles and circles my back with his heavy arm, draping it down my spine and leaning down until he can cup my ass in the way he likes. “But you are an excellent Vironai, sprouting all of these seeds for us.”
I grin and brush my lips over the skin on his ribs. “They are not the only seeds that I will sprout for you, Lacchus.” I grab his hand and place it over my stomach and watch as dawning comprehension crosses his face and know that I made the right choice to leave the Chamber when my big bad monster’s eyes begin to gloss.
He picks me up and runs with me at full speed all the way back to our home carved into the mountainside of this sweet, sweet paradise.
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