Lysa paused for a while after she initially started to speak, biting her cheek and swirling the wine in her glass, looking at it like the rose liquid would answer the question Martinez had just posed to her, for her to clarify what Nelya meant by that they had to have kids to be Gra'hu.

Being a Human with little experience with the Aviex and the GU at large, Martinez assumed it to be with a title for marriage, but apparently, it meant something closer to parents.

“I wish to begin by stating I fully intended to explain it to you—just–just,” Lysa started before growling at herself.

This conversation was something Lysa was not ready to have at this moment. She planned on following a more traditional Human style of relationship development, assuming she had months, if not years, to explain the concept of Gra'hu entirely.

Thanks to Nelya's intervention her hopeful timeline was rushed to right now.

Lysa would have to chastise or argue with her mother about that later. She did not need to toss a wrench into the plans she and Lysa had already discussed. That and Lysa knew Nelya, and there was no way Nellya did not know what she was doing by implying she and Martinez needed to hurry and have kids.

“It's just what?” Martinez prised, pouring himself a glass of wine, preparing for what likely would be a long or uncomfortable conversation, unsure of where the ball would fall for the time being.

“The difference between our species—relationship development might be too much, and I don't want it to be taken as that I was trying to mislead you,” Lysa said, fidgeting her legs, trying to keep tension from building in her further.

“Well, I'm already aware there is something vastly different. So can you just say it? I'm fairly positive of what it is anyway,” Martinez sighed, leaning back and sipping his wine, letting the heat pull tension from his sore muscles.

Lysa let out an exasperated sigh, one that is uncharacteristic of her. “Very well, but as I said before, I was not trying to deceive you.”

“I never said you were,” Martinez interjected, not out of malice but trying to assure his Ruh'ah he was attempting to understand.

“As I was explaining—” Lysa grumbled, somewhat annoyed, not taking his words to mean what he intended. “We, Aviex, have a different social understanding of pairing, mating, and life. Especially when compared to Humans,” She explained, gesturing up and down at herself and him in contrast. “Humans—-had a far more hospitable world than Aveix. Because of Aveion being a dark, barren place—-we consider what you call marriage to only exist once children are sired.”

From his research on their biology, Martinez knew about the Aviex homeworld but nothing in-depth like social strata. Still, he was already aware their world lacked resources on all levels, and without the GU, they would have never risen to the stars.

“For us—due to the lack of supplies and safety, it was rare for Aviex to be conceived, much less carried to term. The defined vocabulary for what we mean to each other is a byproduct of that rarity,” Lysa grumbled before sipping her drink and looking over at Martinez for a moment.

“Ruh'ah technically means we have tried and failed to have kids,” Lysa sighed, hanging her head, sounding almost ashamed. “It doesn’t mean we have just slept together.”

“Well, that’s certainly something,” Martinez replied, unsure of how he should take that.

“I’m sorry—I–I meant to explain, but with how we are different species—and likely could not have kids naturally—I thought the original context did not matter, so I leaned on what I learned about Humans through my readings, and chats with you,” Lysa slowly said at nearly a whisper, each word feeling like venom in her mouth.

Explaining this to Martinez was horrendous; it was like she was breaking everything she and Martinez had built up to this point. She legitimately never intended to deceive him, and with his knowledge of medicine, she assumed he knew they could not have kids anyway.

She had tried to justify it by telling herself she was giving him close-to truths. But that was wrong. She wasn’t kidding Martinez, not even herself, now that the cat was out of the bag.

She lied for her own sake; she did not want Martinez to leave once he learned that Aviex only considered relationships legitimately sanctified once they had kids, and nothing up to that point mattered in tradition.

Lysa glanced up from her wine toward Martinez and could hardly look at him for more than a breath. His genuine look of concern for her might as well be glass carving her soul to shreds.

He did not look furious at her; seeing the gears in his head turning was evident in his bark-brown eyes and scrunched, almost pained expression. But she could not predict his conclusion or how he would act.

In her mind, Martinez was reflecting on everything they had ever done and judging it all under this new light, likely not one that would benefit her.

Deep in the vortex of scenarios she could cook up in her head, they all resulted in Martinez walking out that door, getting in the car, and leaving. She betrayed his trust in her and could not justify why he would remain loyal to her.

“I—I—I’m sorry,” Lysa sniffled, averting her eyes, not wanting his bark brown stare to rip her apart anymore.

Looking over at her, Martinez sighed and leaned forward. He had not reached out to make physical contact yet but was just aiming to be nearer to his Ruh'ah. Yeah, was she technically not his Ruh’ah in the true meaning, but that did not matter.

They were not the same species; having kids naturally was less likely than being struck by lightning multiple times.

Martinez felt somewhat betrayed by her bringing him here under a false pretext. Not because she lied to him, but because he could not have met her expectations and desires in a partner.

Martinez grew up in a traditional Latino household and was perfectly comfortable with having kids with someone he loved. He would be lying if he said he had not thought about having kids with Lysa at least once.

Still, she should have told him, not let him lie to himself or her family. If he had been introduced with the idea that one day they would have kids after meeting a genetic specialist, he was game—but now Martinez almost felt dirty, Like he was introduced as a broken product. Someone they would never accept and never want as their family.

Stewing on that idea, they sat there for a while, silent and each dwelling in their minds.

Martinez almost wanted to go full Marine, or in his case, Devil Doc. Still a Marine in attitude but not in name. A part of him wanted to be mad, wanted to yell at Lysa, scream, break a wall, and ask what the fuck was she thinking.

Another part wanted to silently stand up and walk out that door. The Human Navy, his family, and himself held honesty in high regard, to the point the trait was cardinal to living an honorable life.

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His entire body tenses, all of his muscles ripping themselves apart. After years of combat trials, a part of him could not help but feel the slightest twinge that Lysa was a threat, even if he did not want to.

He knew she deceived him, and the only people or aliens he knew who did that meant him harm in some form.

Looking over at her and seeing a tear rolling down her cheek and dripping into her wine glass pulled him back to the here and now, not thoughts of what might be or what he should do.

Doing anything brash would only cost him the only woman he had ever loved, so Martinez swallowed the first horrible instinct years on Verilon had taught him, and simply rested his hand on Lysa’s shoulder and sighed, “Why?”

After almost recoiling from the sudden contact and ripped from her imagination, Lysa reached up and clutched his hand tightly, enough so Martinez winced. Lysa looked toward the coals and damn near sobbed. “I–didn’t want you to go.”

Lysa then reiterated why the Aviex were hated in the galaxy, that she had never had anyone other than her family and a few friends, and how she had been treated like a monster for years since running away from home.

Outside of the few empires of aliens that drank blood exclusively, the Aviex were unique because they ritually consumed it.

Martinez doubted that was the only reason the Aviex were hated in the GU; there had to be more going on after all. Many aliens ate meat, and he could not understand why blood drinking was the linchpin of generations of hatred.

The idea seemed almost hypocritical if that was all it was.

That thought was why he knew something else had to be going on in the GU; whether the Aviex were a useful boogeyman to the GU or just so happened to be the victims of decades of stigma, he did not know. However, he did know the GU at large was wrong about the Aviex and her.

Lysa was kind and understanding and never once drank his blood without his consent, a far cry from the uncontrollable, blood-hungry monsters the GU populace at large treated the Aviex like.

“I’m not mad,” Martinez said, pulling her close, wanting to be a rock for her, feeling Lysa needed him right now.

Lysa clung to him and squashed her plush breasts against his chest. “But–I,” Lysa shuttered but was cut off by Martinez interjecting.

“Stop. Yeah, I am slightly peeved that you did not tell me, but I understand why you did what you did,” Martinez assured. “If you told me after the first night you were trying for kids—I probably would have thought you were nuts,” he said with a slight chuckle, fully imagining how off the walls that would have been.

“Can you forgive me?” Lysa pleaded, wanting nothing more than him to. She would do anything to even hear there was a chance of him doing so.

“I already said I’m not mad; forgiveness is not an issue, but will you explain more clearly how this usually works for Aviex? At least then I won’t get blindsided by your dad in a few days,” Martinez requested.

Lysa clutched him harder, burying her head into the collar. That he was even giving her a chance was beyond what she had hoped for. If they were able to just reconcile, she would tell him anything.

“Come on, let’s have a few more drinks while we clear the air,” Martinez said lightly, pushing Lysa back so he could give her a beatific smile, one she thankfully returned, even though she had to wipe a few tears from her cheeks.

“Indeed, let’s,” Lysa replied, shifting so she was sitting beside Martinez again, though there was no gap between them now that Nelya had left them alone, and they were somewhat on the same page.

Martinez wrapped his arm around her waist, holding her tight. While they were both sweaty from the sauna, neither minded it; they were used to it.

After the next ten minutes and a glass of wine, Martinez was introduced to a new world of her culture. Lysa had left details about Aviex courtship in her previous, far more passive explanation, but her new clarification made it far more straightforward.

As far as a traditional Aviex was concerned, Lysa and Martinez might as well be single and not involved at all; Ruh'ah was precisely what she had just explained: Martinez and she had tried and failed to have children.

Both of them could quickly agree that they had not really tried because they had not been to a fertility clinic, nor could they likely have children naturally. So they wanted to continue to use the title to refer to one another; they had done so for months at this point, and it only felt natural to keep doing so.

With the understanding of what Ruh'ah meant out of the way, Lysa explained that Gra'hu meant that a pair had children; Lysa did not even have to explain that, but she did anyway just for clarification.

The only things she explained that Martinez wanted further explanations on were what you called kids and how conservative her father was.

Martinez's interest in what their eventual kids would be called made Lysa happy—hell, beyond happy. She was both turned on that he was interested and overjoyed he was willing to listen to the idea.

If not for her being in the middle of explaining and reconciling, she would have jumped his bones already. They were dressed for the occasion and alone.

But she would act on that in a few minutes after Martinez had all his questions answered.

Aviex children were called Yha-re or Yha-ru, translating to hunter and huntress, respectively.

Lysa was unsure why her Mother referred to her with the Standard equivalent of those words, explaining that she had always done that. Martinez assumed it might have something to do with Nelya not being incredibly conservative, unlike her Father, Kyroll.

He would be an issue in ways Martinez had expected and ones he did not.

From what Lysa was able to extract from Nelya and her past interactions with Kyroll, several things were guaranteed about the old veteran: he detested non-Aviex almost across the board, he hated Lysa ever dating in the past, and he was incredibly protective of his daughter.

He could agree that a Father should be concerned for his daughter, especially when she is an only child until she gave an example of how overprotective he was.

“Well shit,” Martinez muttered, hearing Lysa tell a story about her father scaring off some of her friends by sitting on the porch with a rifle.

That he is so willing to even threaten violence against Lysa’s friends and potential lovers was horrifying. Martinez knew about Humanty’s past of racism and bigotry but had assumed that type of genuine hatred was mainly dead in the GU.

Some of the members of the GU species might have a bit of a stick up their ass, believing themselves truly better. But the GU rarely worked with those members, finding them prickly and stuck up.

“It will be fine,” Lysa assured, sipping her drink. “Mother has made it clear she won’t accept any treatment like that toward you.”

That did not make him feel any better; everything Martinez had learned about Lysa’s father only made him more concerned about the inevitable meeting. He had money on that violence was unavoidable, even if Nelya and Lysa were there.

Kyroll was dangerous, specist, and was more than willing to defend his little huntress from anyone, including him. Along with his background, Kyroll would be intelligent and capable.

“One can hope,” Martinez said, leaning over and kissing Lysa’s cheek.

Both had agreed to see a fertility clinic in the future; when? They were unsure but knew it would be at least after he completed his schooling. With that clear, they planned to continue going on as they have, supporting one another, cooking, and damn near living in each other's houses.

An idea Lysa took to heart a bit more than Martinez had anticipated, considering they had just cleared the air.

“Well then, Ruh'ah—since we have this alone time—care to pretend we can have our own Yha-re and Yha-ru?” Lysa purred, rubbing her palm up against his inner thigh.

Martinez looked over at Lysa, about to tell her no and that he was not in the mood after that heavy conversation, but Lysa surprised him.

No, surprised was not the right word, stunned him. Lysa smiled, clutched his hand, and brought it to her supple lips, treating two of his digits like a lollipop.

“I researched a bit of your species—-pornography. While I know it is a bit taboo, I have been practicing not letting my teeth get in the way,” she purred after leaving his fingers wet and slick.

How Lysa practiced was beyond him, but her sharp teeth barely touched his skin as she teased him with the idea of her trying to suck him off.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?’ Martinez asked, remembering her telling him she should never try that and recalling how much she bites in sex.

Lysa paused for a moment after pulling his hand close to her breasts, “do you not trust me?” Lysa questioned, sounding almost hurt by the question.

Martinez was about to crack a joke because she just finished clarifying a lie she had told him. But she genuinely was looking at him, breathing heavily, and eagerly awaiting his answer.

Lysa then kicked any ideas of him not being in the mood out the door when she leaned close to his ear.

“So long as it's just me pleasing you, you are safe in my hands, mouth, or pussy—My Ruh'ah” Lysa purred in his ear, her purplish tongue licking him slowly between her words. “I won’t bite.”

“Just take it easy,” Martinez gasped when she slinked her hand toward his groin. Her nails tickled his scarred skin, pulling a shiver down his spine, much to her enjoyment.