Page 28 of His Human to Adore
“Then go ahead and read it. Sate your curiosity.” I nod toward the journal and hug Deja closer to me as she continues my mother’s story.
“In his absence, I have found comfort in another. Yes, I know it is wicked what I want now that the male I mated has left me to carry our young alone, but another has stepped up in his role. A male who lost his female and his daughters early to the sickness and who has been pampering me with his protection and his comfort since no one else is sure what to do with me.”
“Narrath opened his home to me when my male left one day with many of the other young males. He didn’t even wait for me to ask. He just moved everything into his home and offered me the room he and his mate shared because he could not bear to be in there any longer. He had been sleeping with his sons, Toron and Yril, for many days already, so he said it was no trouble to have me taking the bed. I do not know when his looks towards me became heated, but it is something he tries to hide, especially around his sons.”
“Narrath may have started being kind to me because he is my mate’s brother, but he is still kind to me for some other reason. I can feel it in the way his touch will linger when he finds excuses to be near me. In the way, he provides for me and looks to me for approval when he is raising his sons and hunting for our peculiar little family. He gives me strength on nights when I am alone and begging the goddess to help me survive the sickness long enough for my babe to survive outside of my womb. I would not have made it this long without him, and I hope that with this next storm, I might be able to ask him what his hope is for the remainder of our time together.”
Deja cuddles up next to me and looks up at me with a smile on her lips. “The storms are good for getting people together, don’t you think?”
“If you would have asked me before you came into my life, I would have told you I hate the storms,” I answer her and trace a claw across her cheek. “I think that they have shown me their beauty by giving me excuses to be close to you.”
Deja places a small kiss on my lips, and I flick my tongue over her lips, begging her to let me taste her more. She giggles like she does every time I try to take her in this way and then turns back to the journal.
“The storms are here. It is the first night, and Toron and Yril are being put to bed now. I know I should not be scheming on how to get Narrath’s affections, but I do not think it will take much. I finished cleaning in the kitchen earlier after dinner and told Narrath that I was hoping we could enjoy each other’s company after the young go to sleep since they always go to sleep much earlier than we do. I do not want to seduce him. I only want to make it clear to him that if he feels so inclined, I will not thwart his advances toward me.”
“This is foolish, isn’t it? I am swollen with his brother’s young, and he has been nothing but kind to me in these last hundred days. No, that is a lie. He has been more than kind. He has been supportive and patient and so respectful of me. Maybe he fears he is disrespecting his passed mate or his brother. I do not fear disrespecting my male because he has disrespected me in the worst possible way by leaving me to die of an illness that will surely kill me. All while I am in the process of creating our young.”
“I can hear Narrath finishing with his sons. The goddess must mean for me to make this final step in finding some semblance of happiness in this place that is mostly filled with sadness and despair. I may not be able to mate with Narrath since my male still lives, but I can be his comfort and his companionship until I pass from this world. I will follow this calling in my soul, and if the goddess does not want it, there is plenty she can do to stop me. The strength I feel in my decision tells me she is here with me, and she approves of what it is I want to do.”
“Is my mother about to be with Narrath?” I ask with a frown. My eyes try to scan the journal, but I cannot read too well from the angle she has it. “Just warn me when we get to the vulgar parts.”
Deja hits my chest lazily with the back of her hand. “None of it is vulgar. She talks about finding happiness in his physical touching, but that’s it.”
I cannot silence the hiss in my chest before it erupts from me. Mating and lovemaking are beautiful and wonderful things. I know this, and I believe this. However, there is a difference between thinking it is a good thing and hearing about my mother being with males who are not my father. I calm my nerves with a few deep breaths and the feel of my mate’s soft body against mine. “Finish the story since you have probably just told me the worst of it.”
Deja chuckles and rubs my chest lightly with her knuckles as my beating continues to slow. She waits until I am much more peaceful before continuing, and as soon as the words leave her mouth, I know why.
“Oh, the goddess is kind to me. I needed only to open my mouth, and Narrath seemed to understand what I needed from him. He pulled me into the living area. All the rooms in the house bore too many memories of either being his daughters’ rooms or the room he shared with his mate. He said the sweetest things to me as he removed my clothing and then knelt over me. I worried that I would not be able to control the volume of our passion, but the goddess had the storm rage outside so loud that we could not be heard even in the same room.”
“Yes, as though I could not love the storms even more for bringing us all closer together in a familial sense. I now love them for bringing me the comfort of Narrath’s touches and his tenderness. Storms are for lovers. They must be. That is how I will look at these storms as they rage outside for the next long days. It is how I will remember them even in the next life. The storms bring new love and inspire passion and dedication that sometimes is too scary to admit when the world is calm. How I never knew this about the storms surprises me. I hope my young finds beauty in them as I have. I hope they can find their mate and the comfort of the storms to mark their devotion. Yes, the storms are for lovers, and I will never see them as anything else.”
My beating is hard in my chest, but not because I have been scandalized by knowing my mother and Narrath apparently had passionate lovemaking during a storm when I was still in her womb. Although I am scarred by that, more important things have been made clear to me. I am a foolish male, and I am just now seeing that my mother never, not for one moment, did not want me to mate this beautiful female in my arms. Oh, I am the most foolish, most stupid, most despicable male. No wonder my mother tried to smite me down so many times during the storms.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Deja has shifted in my lap so that she can cradle my face in her small palms. She wipes away tears I do not realize I am crying. “What’s wrong, Dath?”
I wipe at my tears, a smile appearing on my lips as a dry laugh leaves me. I shake my head, unable to believe just how pathetic of a male I am and how much I have put my sweet female through all because I never read the complete journal from my mother and twisted her words into what I thought she meant instead of reading what her signs could have actually meant.
“I told my mother about the new females coming to our tribe the day you arrived.” I laugh again, thinking about how I was so upset with her that first day. So uncertain of why she would be so cruel to me. “She sent these storms, and I thought it was her warning me not to take a human mate because she knows how badly the storms scare me.” I pause, realizing I have never told my female about the nightmares I have and why I have them.
“I know why the goddess has chosen you as her warrior,” Deja says sweetly, seeing that I am trying to figure out a way to tell her. I am sure it is Narrath’s doing, probably while I was trapped in my workshop away from my mate. “Did you tell me you couldn’t mate me because you thought your mother didn’t want you to mate me?”
I nod, knowing how foolish it is now that we both know how my mother feels about the storms. “She speaks later about wanting me to find a mate that will love me and cherish me and complete me in a way she never knew.” A clap of thunder outside shakes the workshop and isn’t as terrifying to me as it once was. Not when my mother loved storms, and I have my mate in my arms to ease my panic. “I thought when she brought the storms on the day I was telling her of human females, she was angry at me for even thinking of being with one.”
“And what do you think now?” Deja asks me. Her hands travel up my face until she grabs me by my horns, forcing me to look into her dark eyes and bask in her never-ending beauty. “What do you think now that the goddess has given you a female meant to calm you and carry your young?”
I groan in appreciation as Deja uses the same language my brothers and I use to talk about our mates. Hearing her embrace my customs and my traditions when she could just as easily ignore them has me wanting to show her just how devoted I am. I need to hunt something for her, build something for her, anything that shows her she has picked a male that can provide for and protect her. I cannot do those things now while a storm is raging, so instead, I try to grab a piece of parchment and get to work on sketching a new portrait of my female. Something she can see and hold and touch to know that she is my everything. My Deja does not release my horns, though.
“Answer me, mate,” she growls the words, and it is the sexiest sound I have ever heard in my life.
“I think I have been blessed beyond measure, and I need to show you I can be a good male for you.” I pant softly as my cock twitches in my pants. She called me mate, and she is needy and aroused as well. It is no wonder that I want to be planted firmly inside of her.
“No more being upset with yourself.” She lifts herself up, her friction leaving my groin. “You have no reason to think your mother, the goddess, or me is mad at you, right?”
“Very true.” I nod. “All the females in my life have shown me I have been blessed, even though I do not deserve any of it.”
“You deserve it and so much more, Dath.” Deja’s face softens when she hears the words of self-deprecation that come from my lips. “Stop talking down about yourself. You are the first chosen of this tribe. You were picked by the goddess to be her warrior. You are worthy of so many good things.”
“Thank you,” I whisper to my human because I cannot be strong in my words right now. I hold her tightly against my chest and let my tears fall from my eyes and down onto her. “Thank you for being my mate. Thank you for being my strength.”