by Ella Maven
Then an awareness slammed into me. For a moment my head spun like vertigo. I tore my hands away from the ones I’d been holding to grab at my head. “Reba?” Hap said in alarm just as Frankie and Valerie both gasped simultaneously.
I glanced up to see their faces drain with color.
“There’s a problem,” Frankie whispered just as all dozen Drix warriors guarding the front of our panic cave collapsed in unison.
I spun around just as I heard his voice. “Where’s my female and her little bastard?”
Eighteen
Ward
I wiped the back of my hand across my forehead to get the blood and sweat out of my eyes. It wasn’t my blood though.
I did not relish killing Drixonians. Any of them. Even the ones whose faces I remembered as they beat the life out of me. But the battle had to be won or lost. I had Reba to go home to, so the Night Kings would be victorious. The battle waged in the air and on the ground. Several of our best riders, like Sax and Xavy, headed up our bike fleet, weaving in and out among the Red Hand battle formations, taking out their own riders with machets and solar guns.
The rest of us remained with our feet planted in the dirt, slashing and hacking at our opponents with machets, claws, teeth, and armed tails.
So far, we’d lost two Kings warriors and a half dozen had been wounded severely enough to be carried back to Rokas, who worked near the gates on any injured.
The Red Hands had more casualties. The only one I cared about was Barto and Gaul. The drexel coward had only shown his face at the beginning of the battle, and now hung back as his warriors sacrificed for his fool mission.
“We have to draw Gaul out,” Daz spat as he kicked a young warrior in the back, sending him sprawling into a group of five, who all went down. He panted as he eyed the return attack. “Why’s he not leading his warriors? I’ve never seen a drexel do that. And it’s not like Gaul. He loves a fight. He’s been itching to kill me for many cycles.” He held his arms out at the sides, machets gleaming with black blood. “Come fight me drexel to drexel!” he roared over the sounds of battle.
He got no answer.
I slashed at an attacker as I peered through the bodies fighting between me and where I’d seen Gaul last. When I didn’t see his ugly face, a chill went down my spine. “Daz?”
“Yeah?” He plunged his horn into the chest of an oncoming warrior. He’d live, but he’d be down until the end of the fighting.
“Do you see Gaul?”
Daz went still at my words for a brief moment before he screamed a cry of anguish into the sky. My cora thudded as we plowed through the ground, shoving bodies out of the way. When we reached the back edge of the fighting, we saw no sign of Gaul or Barto.
I turned to Daz slowly as his chest heaved. “The females,” I whispered. “This entire battle was a diversion.”
“He wouldn’t attempt to travel on the freshas?” Daz said incredulously.
I nodded and said the words even though I felt like I’d been speared in the gut. “He would Daz. He absolutely would to get his hands on a female.” I swallowed as bile rose up my throat. “A pregnant female.”
I hesitate a moment longer. I took off running toward our gates. Daz’s boots pounded the ground behind me, but I didn’t look back, not even as I heard him shouting orders to our warriors and recalled Sax from picking off warriors in the air.
“What’s going on? Why are we retreating?” he called above the roar of his bike. “My aim was ten out of ten.”
“Yeah and mine was twenty out of twenty,” Xavy shot back. “Gotta get faster.”
“Oh, shut up—”
“The females!” Daz roared. “Gaul disappeared from battle. This was all a diversion. He must be using the freshas to get in the back door of the camp.”
For a moment, there was no response, and then Sax growled, the rumble increasing in crescendo until it ended in a blood-curdling cry. “Val!”
The four of us raced into the compound, leaving Gar and Nero in charge of the fight. Gar alone could have taken the rest of the Red Hands, so I didn’t worry about that. My focus was on Reba.
Just as the gates closed behind us, we heard a scream drift up from the panic cave, as the females had called it. “Fleck!” I shouted. Sax and Xavy leapt off their bikes as we sprinted to the edge. I didn’t waste time getting a rope or ladder. I swung over the side of the cliff, scraping my claws along the rocks to slow me down. Grabbing the lip of the cave with my hand, I swung inside, only to land on the bodies of a dozen unconscious warriors.
“What the—”
Gaul stood holding my female pressed to his chest, his clawed fingers around her throat. Barto held a struggling Fra-kee, and the rest of the females were guarded by a few Red Hands warriors. Hap sat slumped against the side of the cave, his skin a grayish blue and a massive wound in his chest. Anger surged in me as I watched Gaul grin. Three more thuds sounded behind me. Daz stepped up beside me, eerily calm at the sight of his female being held by an enemy. Sax pushed through from the back with his fists clenched at his sides. “Lioness!”
“Here,” a small hand lifted at the back of the cave and Val’s face peered around him. “They won’t let me see to Hap!”
“Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m not hurt!” she sounded pissed. “Hap is though.”
I glanced behind me long enough to see Xavy check on the bodies behind us. He nodded with a small smile, so I knew they were alive.
“So, what’s your plan, Gaul?” Daz crossed his arms over his chest. This was why he was the drexel. Despite the threat, he remained calm.
“My plan? You know, I’m winging it a bit, but I’m thinking harem. I hadn’t known they were all so attractive and smelled so good.” He grinned and jerked his head toward Justine. “That one’s even pierced.”
“I’ll pierce you,” Xavy growled behind us. “Pierce you from your gut to your throat and watch you bleed out.”
“Enough,” Daz said. “You’re cornered in here.”
“Cornered? All I see is the numbers. That big beast with the broken horn isn’t here, so I’m looking at odds and I think mine seem pretty good. I got a few goodies up my sleeve. How do you think I took out twelve of your warriors before I stepped foot in here?”
“Trading with the Uldani now?” Daz sneered.
“I might have told them they could have one female. I won’t deliver though, but they don’t know that. So, they helped me out with a little weapon. Puts warriors right to sleep like chits.” He laughed. “Welfs too.”
I just noticed a ball of fur in the background, and my mouth went dry. If they’d killed Luna… but then I saw her sides rise and fall. She wasn’t dead. Yet.
Reba’s green eyes were luminous, and she hadn’t taken her gaze off me for a moment. I wished I could reassure her this would work out. I knew it would. Fleck numbers. Gaul didn’t know what I’d be willing to do for her.
“I swear to God,” came Justine’s voice from the back of the cave. “If one of you motherfuckers sniffs me one more time, I’m going to slam my entire fist up your nostrils. Smell that, you pieces of shit.”
“Justine,” came a sharp reprimand from Miranda.
“I’m so fucking pissed, I might just have Drixonian strength right now,” she snapped back. “I feel like I could lift a damn Hummer.”
Daz took a step forward, and Gaul tensed, his claws tightening around Reba’s throat. She made a small panicked sound in her throat and my vision went hazy. “I don’t need Gar to take you out,” Daz said.
“In a moment, you’ll be on the ground like the rest of your men,” Gaul said. “And then I’m going to take these females, drop down to the qua, and take a little freshas trip back home.”
“You plan on swimming?” Daz said.
Gaul grinned. “Our transportation should be pulling up now.”
“Uh, you mean the transportation that is currently being pulled under by a pissed off pocrewller?” Xavy said from behind us.
/> Gaul, for the first time, showed a crack in his armor. “What?”
Crashing sounds followed Xavy’s words. Cries and groans. A shrieking roar that sent a shiver of dread down my spine even though I knew my males were safe. A pocrewller would not take kindly to a strange vessel on the surface of the freshas. However Gaul had planned to get home was no more. He should have known better than to try to escape the ruthless residents of Torin’s freshas.
Gaul’s eyes went wide. Reba met my eyes and brought up her hand. Before I could shout no, she slammed her elbow into Gaul’s gut. He doubled over, claws piercing her throat. She cried out, and then a ball of gray fur streaked through the air. Luna barreled into Gaul’s back, and he fell to the ground on top of Reba.
The scuffle sent Barto and Fra-kee to the ground. The peaceful standoff turned into a cluster fleck. Justine screamed and slammed her fist into a warrior’s nose. Val crawled on the floor amid bodies to get to Hap, and Sax dove on top of her while Miranda covered Tabitha and Naomi. Daz launched himself at Barto, slicing his head clean off his body.
Fra-kee didn’t even scream, just flew into Daz’s arms. Xavy went ballistic—slicing at the remaining warriors with Daz on his heels, machets flying and blades—his specialty—whistling through the air.
Three Red Hands placed themselves between me and my female. I gave them no mercy. They wouldn’t live to see the sun rise. I barely even registered their machets slicing into my flesh as I took all three of them on at once. I didn’t remember killing them. I blinked and somehow the three of them were at my feet, while I dropped with their blood.
I headed for Gaul. Daz had promised me his head, and I intended to take it. He was wrestling on the floor with both Luna and Reba. She was pummeling him with her tiny fists. But he’d regained awareness quickly. With a vicious heave, he tossed Luna against the wall, where she hit with a crack and a whine. Reba shrieked, and Gaul punched her in the face so hard that her head whipped to the side.
I picked him up by his hair and dragged him off her. He hadn’t seen me coming, and his eyes widened at the sight of me. “Ward,” he whispered before he snarled. “The Uldani know. They’ll come to steal what’s theirs. You’re not evolving. None of you are. You’re too stuck in the past!
“Stuck in the past?” I spat in his face. “We have the future right here.” I didn’t wait for his response. I was done hearing his voice. Forever. I slammed my forearm into his face. Machets out.
The first blow took off his nose. The next poked out an eye. I kept going until his skull was caved in and even then I wasn’t done until I sliced him from guts to throat. That one was for Xavy.
When I stumbled away from Gaul’s body, I lifted my head to look at Reba. She stared at me with wide eyes, cradling a whining Luna in her arms. “Ward,” she murmured as only the heavy breathing in the aftermath of battle surrounded us. Daz held Frankie while Val fussed over Hap.
“My mate,” I said just as my knees buckled and I hit the ground.
Reba scrambled over to me, running a wet cloth over my face, ignoring the bloody black streaks that stained the fabric.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry he got to you.”
“He didn’t get to me,” she said. “I knew you’d come. I knew you’d defeat him. I only had to wait.”
I felt a wet tongue on my face and looked up to see a limping Luna giving me her best welf-grin. “Hey girl. You did good protecting our human.”
Luna licked Reba’s face and then sat on her haunches. I lifted my hand to brush Reba’s wild hair off her face when I felt a strong burning sensation in my wrists. “What the—” I whispered just as golden lines appeared on my skin, running parallel to each other around my wrist.
“Oh my God,” Fra-kee murmured. “Reba, your wrists. The loks!”
Reba stared at her arms in disbelief as golden lines appeared on her skin to match her golden hair. The etchings appeared between the lines simultaneously, a soft peaked pattern like the rolling of waves.
Reba’s eyes were huge and round as she alternated between staring in shock at me and her wrists. “But… but…” Suddenly her eyelashes fluttered, and she raised a hand to her head with a wince. “Wow, I can feel you. You’re there, Ward. In my head. Your aura!” Her smile lifted her lips just as the morning sun crested the horizon and spilled its yellow light into the dark recesses of the cave.
I felt her too, crowding into my head with her excitement. She glowed in the corner of my mind like a beacon of yellow light.
“You’re like a wave,” she said. “Blue waters. My ocean.” Her eyes glazed over as she breathed in deep. “You’re calm now. Steady.”
“You’re excited and pulsing,” I said in awe.
A shadow moved, and I glanced up to see Daz smiling down at us. “Congrats, warrior.”
“How?” I asked.
“Gaul, he struck her. Drew her blood. And you killed him. That confirms the bond.”
“He hit me the day we first met too,” she said.
“So, if I never killed him…”
“I’m not sure how Fatas makes these things happen. All I know is that Sax and I killed the males who made our mates bleed. And that was when the loks appeared.”
I clasped her hands in mine and pressed a kiss to each of her wrists. “This doesn’t change how I feel.” I looked into her eyes. “I was yours before the loks. And I’ll be yours with them. Forever.”
Reba’s eyes watered.
“I’m so happy for everyone involved, really,” Val said hurriedly. “We can throw a ‘You Got Your Loks’ shower later. Right now, can we get Hap and the rest of the males to safety?”
I groaned, feeling the pain in my own limbs. I didn’t even want to catalogue my injuries. The thought of crawling up the cliff face to the surface didn’t sound appealing either.
But then Reba pressed her lips to mine, and her little arms helped me stand. I could do this with my mate at my side.
Nineteen
Reba
The adrenaline of the battle didn’t wear off for five days.
Ward’s injuries were superficial, and he healed with one vial of medis. Several Night Kings had more serious injuries and were taking time to heal. When the green dust settled, the Night Kings had lost six warriors, which we mourned as a group.
Several of the Red Hands defected to us, having been unsettled by Gaul’s rule. The rest turned tail—literally—and ran with the promise they’d remain in their territory and restructure.
Hap’s injuries were the most serious. Not only was he in pain and had lost use of his left arm, but he was mentally checked out. No matter how many times we all assured him that he hadn’t failed us, he refused to come out of his hut where he was convalescing.
The next day, we hadn’t seen a single bit of the vessel Gaul had hoped to sail home with us stolen females. The Drix told us that a creature called a portcrewller took down the ship, and all I could picture was a giant squid. It made me shudder. Ward had said Gaul should have known better than to travel on the freshas, but his desperation had led him to take a risk. A risk that hadn’t paid off.
“We’ve called Tark and Shep,” Ward said one night as he and I lay in bed. His aura was calm, the surface of his waters barely a ripple. I rested my head on his chest, running my fingers over some of the scars he’d sustained in battle.
I remembered who Tark was—a lonas who was a tech expert with a human wife and a child. I was eager to talk to her about childbirth. “Who’s Shep?”
“He was the healer of Tark’s clavas before he went lonas too. He’s one of the oldest of us, and the most experienced healer. In fact, he taught Rokas everything he knows. Daz wants him to help Hap.”
“He won’t even talk to Tab. They’re like best friends. She’s heartbroken.” Hap was always a bright light at the camp, always ready with a smile and eager to help anyone with anything. I’d never seen someone so selfless. We all hated to see him struggle with his injury and guilt.
Ward pre
ssed a kiss to the top of my head. “I know. We’re all worried.” He reached down and palmed my flat stomach. “How are you feeling?”
I didn’t feel much different other than bloated and tired. Val had a few bouts of morning sickness, but I’d been lucky to avoid that. So far. “I’m good.”
“Your nightmares have stopped.”
Yeah, that had sucked. For three nights, I’d woken up in a cold sweat with the phantom feeling of Gaul’s fingers around my neck. I shuddered. “I hope the worst is over. The girls are getting me through it. They have their own nightmares.” I propped my chin on his chest. “Do you think someone like Gaul is born or made?”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Was he born thinking that violence was the answer and taking something that isn’t his is okay? Or do you think that he evolved that way based on all you’ve been through as a race?”
He sucked in a breath and stared at the ceiling before exhaling with a long sigh. “I think that Gaul wasn’t evil. I don’t know that I believe in evil. Gaul thought what he was doing was the right way. He might have been rude and crude about it, but he thought keeping you and stealing the rest of the females was the way to ensure his blood—which he considered superior to everyone else’s—would live on in the species.”
“The hero of his own story,” I murmured.
“Hero?”
I shook my head. “And what about the Uldani?”
“Same thing, I guess. They think they are doing what is right to ensure the success of their race.”
“So, it’s a problem of who thinks they are more superior?”
“Sure, but don’t we all place our lives and those of our loved ones over others? We all live based on some sort of hierarchy like that. I’d kill a salibri mom in front of her cubs if she were to attack you. Did that salibri deserve to die? No, but she threatened my female, who I treasure most on this planet.” He shrugged. “To Gaul and the Uldani, we are attacking salibri.”
