Chapter 56 Found
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Tamar heard the lift open, his footsteps draw near, that's when she noticed it. There was a hitch in his step. He was limping, limping to her. Yellow eyes sprang open, watching him struggle his way down the corridor. His side was dark with wetness, and he left his life on the floor with every step, yet he didn't, wouldn't, stop. With a wheeze, he stopped about twenty feet from her and slumped to the floor. Then the waiting began, a game they had played many times down on the planet. The memory brought a soft growl from her lips because it was a game she was yet to win.
His patience seemed inexhaustible. She watched him pull himself into a sitting position and place his hands on his knees. He neither looked her way nor made any move towards her, and for the next two hours they both stayed in that position.
"You should be in bed." She whispered when she could take no more.
"So should you." Came his response.
"What, so I could kill someone again? You're the only one I can be around without worrying. I'm going to do something I'll regret." Her voice came out as a ragged gasp.
"That was not your fault. It was mine. I should have told them not to come in and disturb us while you were slee..."
"Don't you get it!" Tamar leaped at him, her anger and grief forcing her to give them physical vent.
"I don't want to be like, like, THIS!!!" She tore her clothes to ribbons before him. "I can't even trust my own feelings." She grabbed his hand and mashed it between her bare breasts. "Do you know what that is? It's fur. I'm covered in fur like an, an, animal!" Tamar threw his hand to the side and bounded away.
"Just go. I don't want you here. I don't want anyone here."
"I'm not leaving." He whispered.
Tamar whirled on him, fangs flashing as she snapped them shut a hair's breath from his throat.
"Why won't you leave? Everyone else has. I've been alone my entire life and a part of me likes it." Her legs gave out, and she slumped to the floor at his feet.
"But I want more than that. I don't want to be like this. I want someone to love me. I want to hold a child that is mine. I want all the things I know I can't have. I hurt everyone near me. I can't trust myself around anyone." Malachi just sat and listened, learning more about her, the real her, than he had in all the time they'd been together.
"Why do you want me?" Malachi realized the question was directed at him and looked down. Tamar was staring up at him, her eyes filled with tears, and he knew he had to make this answer count.
"Because you're everything I've ever wanted in a woman. I don't care if you're covered in fur, or hair, or whatever you want to call it. I want you, Tamar, the girl trapped inside a cage no one else can see. But I see it. I know you've been pounding on those bars by yourself for far to long." With a hand, he cupped her check, lifted her face to make sure she was looking at him.
"Why don't you let me pound for a while?"
"But why, why would you even want someone like me? I look like an animal." Her eyes screamed for him to answer, pleaded for him to reassure her. She needed to hear it from him, that no matter what she did, he would still love her.
"Because my heart wants what my heart wants,"he held out both of his arms to her. "And my heart wants nothing but you."
Tamar melted. She lurched into his lap, her tiny arms wrapping around his chest. Without realizing his suit wasn't active, she dug her claws into his back, not daring to let him go for fear he might disappear. Malachi winced but held his position. Even with blood streaming down his back, he didn't move. He would have rather cut off one of his arms than move from where he was at that moment.
"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to. I wasn't even awake." Tamar pulled her face back to look in Malachi's face. "It was like when we were in that bank vault. When I came to, I lost it, panicked, and ran. I thought you'd kill me." She shoved her head back against his chest, which elicited another wince from him.
They stayed that way for hours, Tamar content to just be near him, to know without any doubt that she was his. Malachi wanting to be nowhere else in the entire universe. To know that this tiny woman needed him, more than then that, she wanted him. It was enough to make him feel ten feet tall and bulletproof.
"I want to show you something."
Tamar had pulled her claws out of his back more than an hour before and was now content to curl up and doze on his lap. Her mouth opened in a lazy yawn, to Malachi's amazement it kept opening until her head looked like it had split in half along her jawline. Her mouth opened nearly ear to ear, with only about an inch of skin between each side and her ears.
"What?" she asked while her eyes tried to focus.
"I have something to show you. The nearest one isn't too far from here."
"What is it?" Tamar asked. Sliding off his chest, she stood and stretched. It was then that Malachi noticed that she was nude from the waist up.
"I think you lost something." He pointed to her chest while covering his eyes behind an arm.
"Really? You're worried about seeing my baby feeders?" She giggled.
For a few seconds, she tried to cover up with the shreds of her shirt.
"There," she snorted. Having to spin the shirt around so the shredded front left her back exposed instead of her front.
"You can look now," she mocked. Once again, she was having trouble matching the two sides of this man into one. She'd seen him bring down over ten Rougarian landers by himself. Yet expose her breasts to him and he was a flustered as a new-born kitten.
"Good, now all I have to do is get up." With a groan, Malachi placed his right hand on the floor and tried to lever himself to his feet. After much groaning, he had both feet under him. His left knee hit the deck when his leg buckled. The only thing keeping him from face planting was Tamars timely intervention.
Grabbing him by the left side of his waist, she stopped his downward motion, only to tear a scream from him. Tamar jumped back and felt something on her hands. Looking down, she saw dark red fluid dripping from her fingers. Blood, his blood.
"What did you do?" Her voice more a whine than Malachi had ever heard it.
"Some of the stitches tore a little while I was busy chasing you. It's nothing, come on." He stood and turned to walk down the corridor, only to be stopped by a vice grip.
"Are you kidding me?" Tamar held up both her hands, showing the blood. "This is more than nothing, thank you very much."
"I'll live," He growled and shook off her hand. "Now come on." He began to limp down the hall, only to stop when he couldn't hear Tamar following.
He turned to see her shaking in the middle of the corridor. Her eyes were covered with her palms, but he could see the tears running out from under them. With as much speed as he could manage, he limped back to her. Grabbing her by both shoulders, he drew her against his chest.
"This isn't your fault. I choose to come after you."
"Yeah, but if I hadn't run from you, you would still be on that bed instead of bleeding all over the floor. Why can't I trust you? After everything you've done, I mean, I want to trust you, I do, but it's just so hard. My instincts scream the exact opposite of what I want."
"And what do you want?" He whispered into her hair.
"I want you okay!" she yelled into his chest. "I want to be able to be yours completely. To not have to worry about running from you when I should be running straight towards you." She pounded her head against his chest, almost knocking them both over.
"You are just learning you can be what you've always wanted to be. All we have to do is except that it's going to take a lot of time and patience to get there. But we can get there." his grip tightened. "Because I'm not letting you go."
"But I cause this," Tamar nodded towards his side. "You started bleeding again because you followed me here."
"Oh this, I've had far worse than this. I'm not bothered by a little of my own blood. Besides, Claws already stopped most of it. A little more time I'm I'll stop leaking. Just no more high-speed travel for a while, okay?"
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