her back and over her light grey nightgown.
She walked up to me with a strange expression on her face. Picking up the small pile of clothes from my hands, she placed it on the table next to the seating area before facing me again. We stared at each other for a few minutes, a silent communication that I couldn’t define passing between us.
After a beat, her gaze lowered to my chest. “You are far too dressed for bed,” she said matter-of-factly, before boldly lifting up the hem of my shirt.
Speechless, I raised my arms and bent forward to help her rid me of it. I loved the way she just stood there, examining me with something akin to possessiveness. She gave me a mysterious smile and then just walked to her side of the bed then hopped in. I joined her, and she immediately lay her head on my chest.
“If we manage to revive the Creckels, it will take at least a week before they are in any condition to travel back to their homeworld,” my mate said softly.
“That’s no problem,” I replied. “We are not in a hurry.”
The delay actually pleased me to the extent that it would give me more time to properly court my mate.
“Brees says she will not part from me after we leave this place,” Janelle said carefully.
I tensed, bracing for where this was headed. Since discovering she was my soulmate, I’d started looking into Dreija and what kind of life we could build there should she decide to settle on the Creckel planet. Since the Kryptid war, the couple of scientific colonies that had once existed there had never been rebuilt. We would be the only humanoids there.
“She and the others aren’t sure they want to go back to Dreija,” my mate continued in a hesitant voice, choosing her wording carefully.
“Why?” I asked, my fingertips lazily caressing her back.
“They feel they are too different now to breed with the original Creckels. While some of their traits have been enhanced, others have been weakened,” my mate replied with a frown. “And they… hmmm… They liked that fight against the Zebiers.”
I waited for her to continue, but she let the words hang between us. Brushing her hair from her face, I lifted my head to look at her, forcing my mate to slightly roll to the side. I was hoping her mind was headed the same place mine had gone right after that battle.
“It isn’t surprising,” I said in a gentle tone. “Creckels are naturally formidable hunters. Everything about their anatomy seems to have been conceived to make them the ultimate war machines. Your friends have been enhanced for that specific purpose. A civilian life would obviously be more difficult for them.”
The tension in Janelle’s shoulders drained with each of my words. She beamed at me and lifted her hand to caress my cheek.
“You understand. You always understand,” she whispered with something akin to awe.
“You flatter me, but I don’t have much merit in this,” I said, fighting the urge to puff out my chest. “My brothers and I were created the same way, and so was Reklig and his people. The Vanguard has accepted us for who we are, not what others intended us to be. It gave us a chance to become all that we could be and to live proud and free. If the modified Creckels wish to settle on Khepri, I have no doubt something could be arranged.”
Janelle nervously licked her lips, her eyes flicking from side to side as she pondered her next comment.
“They haven’t stated it in so many words,” she amended. “But I believe Brees was testing my response to that possibility. She wants to be like Stran. They all do. They want a place to call home, but they also want to travel, see the world, and fight evil.”
“Stran’s been filling their heads with tales of our missions, hasn’t he?” I asked with a soft chuckle.
“Every night!” she said, rolling her eyes in fake despair. “As you know, Creckels don’t need as much sleep as we do. Once every three or four days suffices for them. So, while they’re standing guard outside, he tells them about his life on Khepri, his epic battles with Doom, and how they are apparently the most unkillable pair in the Vanguard.”
I snorted and shook my head. “As much as it pains me to admit it, Doom is indeed the best warrior among us. But I do enjoy knocking him down a notch