Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
How can I not?
Pale-faced but flushed pink in her cheeks like the clouds of Hallalah, I understand how seeing her is the paradise. Once I’m sure her presence behind the glass wall in the room full of shelves lined with books isn’t something I’ve dreamed up, I waste no time leaving the cot and my fitful rest behind.
“Zawla,” I say the moment my palms find the glass. My sudden presence, or maybe the speed behind it, sends her stepping back an inch or two. It’s not much, but it’s too much.
Please, come back.
The words in my own tongue stick to the roof of my mouth. I don’t get it out because just like before, she matches my movements as if she doesn’t have a choice. Whether she understands it or not, her hands find the glass the same way mine do. She might have inched back but nothing stops her eyes—that special blue-green shift between them—from staring straight into mine.
“Zawla,” I tell her again, wanting her to know.
My mate. My life.
That’s who you are.
She does something I don’t expect. A smile lifts her lips at the edges, lighting her oval face in a way that makes the rest of the things separating us disappear.
“Selina,” she says.
My brow furrows. The translator in my ear doesn’t register the word, but the second her hand drops from the glass and she points at herself, she repeats it.
“Selina.”
All at once, I understand.
And I realize, she does not.
“Zawla,” I repeat, pointing at her just the same way she does now, but I carefully form the name I will never forget, and say, “Selina.”
Not only does her face light up now, but as that smile blooms to show perfect white teeth, her eyes almost glitter like stars under the lights. “Yes, Selina. That’s me.”
I point to myself, then. “Bothaki.”
Time and space seems irrelevant as she watches my mouth form my name, and I’m enraptured as hers does the very same.
It’s never sounded better.
“Bothaki,” she says, still smiling.
Bo, I want to tell her. Bo, like my father used to yell through the forest when he needed me to come back home. Bo, like my brother and sister use when we’re just kin behind closed doors and not a spectacle for an entire planet.
Just Bo.
This time, Bothaki will do perfectly fine.
Her other hand lowers from the glass and for the first time in my life I want to beg. Beg for her touch that I’ve never even truly felt back. Plead for her to talk to me more. Anything to make sure she doesn’t leave. She was gone far too quickly yesterday, leaving me yearning for her presence all day.
Her eyes go back and forth between mine, as if she’s making some decision. With her swallow, I can tell she’s chosen, but what it is, I have no idea. Then, she’s moving and panic overwhelms me. I quickly go through what I’ve learned of their language for the words I can try my best to say for her to stay, but then I realize she’s not going towards the exit of the library, but instead, over to where the glass opens to the panel where the guards are always standing by. I stay utterly still as she slowly comes around the glass, too afraid to move and scare her off.
She comes closer and closer and I internally beg her to come to the bars, close enough for me to touch her. That way I can show her images that can explain, so much better than words ever could, all that she means to me, and all that I have to offer her. No female on my planet would even consider accepting me as her mate until I had proven myself to her. I don’t know if it’s the same here, but I figure I cannot go wrong with showing her that I can protect her, cherish her, and give her a good life.
She stops when she reaches the table, her eyes leaving me in a way that makes me physically ache to look down at the cards on it. Her eyes widen and she snatches the cards up, coming a little closer to the bars. There’s such excitement in her eyes as she looks through the cards. Finally, she holds one up.
“The sun,” she says.
Yes, the sun. So the general has told me again and again. Her brows raise, though, awaiting a response from me. I would never give one to the general, but for her I try to form my lips the way she just did. But then, she puts the card to her chest and says sun again, and then she extends the card to me. Not sure if I’m understanding her correctly, I say what I think she wants me to. Not in her language, but in my own.