get being our clanmate wasn’t your decision, and you don’t understand your place yet. But this has to stop.”
He was mad at her. He might be mad enough to send her to another clan, maybe one that wasn’t as kind. “I’m sorry. I—I—what do you want me to say?”
“Gently.” Yorso’s tone was sharp as he glared at Tukui.
“I know. Tone, Navigator.” Tukui softened and sat down again. He took Tina’s hand and kissed it. His gaze was imploring. “Tina, you’re our Matara, the greatest gift we could have ever dreamed of. Your wishes are important to us. Quit telling me you’ll do whatever I say. That’s not what I need to hear.”
“Then tell me what you do want to hear.” She’d repeat it a thousand times if she knew. Anything to be safe. To be accepted.
“What. Do. You. Want? More than anything? Don’t think about it, tell me!”
“Not to be scared I’ll be sent away. To belong somewhere.” The answer surged from her gut, a plaintive plea for rescue.
They stared at her. Silence spun out, heavy in the too-cramped room. Tina was afraid of what her outburst would lead to, but they appeared confused. Not angry.
When Yorso spoke, he did so slowly, as if feeling the words out to make sure they were correct. “Are your parents similar to Brenda’s? Did they send you to the convent against your wishes?”
Tears sprang to her eyes. She wouldn’t have told them the shameful truth in a million years, but the dam had been cracked and the words came pouring out. “I tried so hard to make my father love me. But after my mother died giving birth to me, he was too angry. It was my fault he lost her. Then he remarried, and his new wife got pregnant. He had no need for me then, the daughter he despised. I cleaned and cooked and I would have helped with the baby too—both babies, because she had another later. But he sent me to the convent. I tried there too, and I thought they appreciated me. Then just before you came, Mother Superior said I had to leave. She told me she could tell my heart wasn’t in the right place to become a nun. Nobody wants me. Why doesn’t anyone want me?”
The men’s expressions were shocked. Silence returned at the end of her confession, as oppressive as before.
Terrified she’d messed up—again!—Tina grasped Tukui’s hand in both of hers. “Please, give me a chance. You’ve been mostly nice to me, and I’ll do what I have to so you won’t give me to another clan. I promise, I can be whatever you prefer.”
He blinked. His mouth moved soundlessly for a second before he choked, “Tina. My Matara. I could never make you leave.”
She hardly dared to breathe. She hadn’t wrecked everything? “Do you mean that?”
“Even if we wanted to—and I can’t imagine any of us being that stupid—we’re your clanmates. Lifemates. Clanships are different from your Earther marriages. We don’t divorce. We don’t abandon our Mataras.”
Osopa drew close to kneel at her feet. She couldn’t have named his expression, except that it was intense. “Clanning is forever. We’ll never leave you.”
“Never?” She knew the word, but it sounded foreign in that instant.
Yorso brushed her hair from her face and kissed her temple. “Never. Our bond is permanent.”
Tina attempted to wrap her mind around it. It didn’t seem possible. “No matter what? You can’t send me away?”
Tukui uttered a sound that could have been laughter—or a sob. “Sweet lady, you are irrevocably stuck with us.”
Tina fought to absorb the shock. “You don’t know me. But you made this commitment.”
“Wholeheartedly.”
Yorso’s expression was guileless, without a hint of falsehood. “You’re a dream come true for us.”
They kept saying that. Could it be true that she’d found others she could count on for longer than a little while? They looked so hopeful, including Osopa. As hopeful as she’d never dared to be.
“You want me. For keeps.”
“Forever,” Tukui assured her.
She was desperate to believe. She was afraid to. But if it were true—
Tina reached for Tukui and stroked his stubbled jaw. Drank in the pretty purple eyes with the catlike pupils. Thought of how soft his lips were on all the places she’d felt them.
Her clanmate. Hers. For always.
She leaned forward, clumsy in the attempt to kiss him, as if that would somehow prove what they’d claimed. He drew her close, his mouth hot and wonderful against hers, melting her. She wished she could dissolve and seep