by Ella Maven
She sighed. “I know, I know. You’re mad I left. But I don’t care because you were doing exactly what I knew you’d do—interrogate the human.” She stopped and looked over her shoulder with a grim expression. “She got him home alive, Sherif. How would Bosa want you to treat her?”
“Bosa isn’t the pardux of this settlement,” he answered her.
“No, but he’s your friend. And he’s risked a lot for us. You know that.” With a nod of respect to her leader, she turned around and led me from the hull.
I could feel Sherif’s eyes boring into my back as we walked, but Gurla and I remained protected—surrounded by a contingent of Kaluma warriors—as we walked back to the settlement. Each warrior had different matz patterns on their chests and necks and carried a wide variety of weapons. Sherif wore two long blades strapped to his back like Deadpool, and the thought of him using them in battle filled me with curiosity. When he caught me looking at him, his eyes narrowed further, and I looked away quickly. What was up his ass?
Gurla whispered a few instructions to me to watch my step but other than that she didn’t talk, so I remained silent. The only sounds were the soft footfalls of the warriors, and I marveled how they could make so little noise despite how large they were.
Eventually, the tension in Gurla’s shoulders eased just as the forest opened and we began to tread on a worn dirt path. Up ahead, I could see the edges of a few low buildings, but it wasn’t until we reached the center of their village that I let out a gasp.
Bosa had told me what his home was like, but nothing compared to seeing it in person. Massive trees the size of redwoods stretched toward the sky, blue and purple leaves the size of cars swaying. Jutting out from the trunks were large mossy platforms, massive fungi the width of a house. And on each sat small, vine-covered dwellings. The sun had begun to set, and lights dotted the tree village, probably solar powered.
Long, thick vines hung down between the mossy pads, and I watched in awe as an older Kaluma warrior swung from vine to vine like a monkey before sliding down to the ground like a fireman on a pole. He gave a start when he saw me, and his eyes darted to Sherif.
I didn’t turn around to see what Sherif did, but it must have reassured the older Kaluma, because he gave a little nod before hurrying away.
“This is beautiful,” I said to Gurla. “Bosa told me about it, but this is… indescribable.”
She grinned. “Thank you. We’ve done a lot of work since…” her smile faltered for a second before she regained her composure, but this time the joy didn’t reach her eyes. “Anyway, we’ve worked hard recently to make it even better.”
I knew about the past of the settlement, but now wasn’t the time to say anything to her about it. I didn’t know what she’d suffered. So instead, I patted her hand and gave her my kindest smile. “And you’ve done wonderfully.”
Her smile returned and grew even wider when a voice called, “Gurla!” A Kaluma female who looked to be slightly older than Gurla based on the fine lines around her eyes hurried over, her skirt flapping behind her.
She didn’t seem surprised or startled to see me. Instead, she rushed up to me right away and stopped a foot away. She took me in from head to toe, not in a way that felt assessing but more… like a mother checks her children for injuries. She glanced at Gurla. “A little different from Tab, isn’t she?”
Who was Tab?
Gurla shrugged. “Not really. She was standing up to Sherif when I found them.”
I heard a snort behind me.
The older Kaluma beamed. “Ah, so the boldness is a human female trait, I see.”
“I wasn’t always bold,” I said. “But I had to stand up for myself. And Bosa.”
“I’m Wensla,” the older female said. “I’m the head of the females here, so if you have any trouble before you leave—not that I foresee trouble happening—you just let me know.”
“Before… I leave?” I asked.
Wensla’s head cocked. “Bosa said he planned to take you to Corin, our sister planet. The Drixonians there have… oh about a dozen human women so it only makes sense for you join your kind.”
“My kind…” I whispered. I turned to find Sherif watching me closely. He knew I had a bond with Bosa. Did that not matter? And was this what Bosa meant when he said we’d talk about our future? He mentioned taking me to Corin, but that plan certainly changed now… right? Suddenly I felt hot, dizzy, and weak. I rubbed my forehead. “Right, I guess… that’s what will happen. Um, where is Bosa?”
“He’s resting with our healer. We’ll take you to see him when he is finished.”
“I don’t want to wait,” I said, my voice low but firm.
Wensla blinked.
“Look human,” Sherif began from behind me, but Wensla shot him a look so deadly he stopped talking immediately. The females held some power in this settlement, apparently.
Wensla reached for me. “I understand, but the healer needs to be alone. It’s the best way to make sure Bosa recovers.”
I wanted to protest, but Bosa recovering was the highest priority, not my aching heart. Near tears, I just barely held myself in check. “Right…” My stomach growled and I pressed a hand to it. “Could I… bother you for some food?”
“Of course!” Wensla nearly shouted, suddenly flapping her hands. “What was I thinking? Gurla, take her to Bosa’s hut for now until we can set her up in an empty one. I’ll send someone up with food.”
Gurla ushered me toward a set of stairs etched into the trunk of one of the trees. The steps were slick with dew and moss. I slipped a couple of times, but Gurla caught me every time. She didn’t falter once. What was she, part mountain goat? I wished with all I had that I could hear Bosa’s voice. I didn’t care about eating. Or sleeping. I just wanted him. I wanted to stay here. But every minute that passed without Bosa at my side made the future I desired feel like it was slipping through my fingers.
Fifteen
Bosa
My kotche turned her face up to me with a smile. Her skin had darkened since we’d been home, as we spent a lot of time outside our hut exploring the settlement. She wanted to learn all about growing crops. She told me she had a small garden on what she called a “terrace” back on Earth, and always wished she had a “yard.” I wasn’t sure what those were, but she remained delighted at the large amount of land where we grew our food. We raised birks for meat, which she said tasted “like pork.”
“I missed you,” she said.
I pinched her side. “How have you missed me? I haven’t left your side all morning.”
Her smile began to fade, and her eyes grew wet with her tears. “You left. And without you, they’ll send me away.”
I stopped abruptly and gripped her arm as my teeth grated together. “What? Who?”
“Your people.” Tears dripped down her cheeks. “Don’t leave me, Bosa. I missed you.”
I woke with a gasp. Blinking at the ceiling, I took a moment to regain my wits. My head ached, and when I lifted my arm to rub my face, a sharp burn roared up my arm. “What—?”
The last thing I remembered was blowing up Frenz’s cargo ship. I’d watched his charred body fall to the ground with a crunch. Was I still on Gorsich?
I reached behind my head and felt the smooth logs of a constructed home. I paused, because that wood felt familiar… Suddenly a few distorted memories came back—the sound of a cruiser taking flight, Karina’s frantic voice, and had that been… Sherif’s deep tone?
I sat up with a jerk and looked around. I was alone, but I knew exactly where I was. Despite the pounding in my head and the momentary dizziness, I couldn’t be mistaken. I was home, on Torin, in the healer’s hut. Where was Karina? I tore the fur off me and threw my legs over the side of the bed.
As soon as bore weight on my left leg, pain shot down through my foot and my knee buckled. I hit the ground with a thud and groaned. Squeezing my eyes shut, I waited for the pain to pass. I had to get up. I had to find Karina. Had they sent her
away? Hadn’t she told them she was my linyx?
Fuck it, if they sent her away, I’d go get her back. That was all there was to it. I managed to make it to the door crawling in my hands and knees and had just stumbled to my feet when the door flung open and Pruwik, our healer, stood in the doorway, blue eyes wide. “Bosa, what are you doing up?”
“Where is she?” I gasped. Near the door was a crutch, and I grabbed it as I hobbled forward. “Where is my linyx?” I shouted in his face.
He remained frozen. “I don’t… I have no idea. Bosa—”
I pushed past him, knowing I’d have to apologize to him later for being a yerk, and burst out onto the main path of our settlement. “Karina!” I hollered, my throat scratchy. My arms already trembled. How the yerk was I so weak? What had happened to me?
A hand settled on my shoulder and spun me around so fast I began to topple over. Strong arms caught me and set me up right before a familiar face glared at me. Cravus’s jaw was tight when he spoke two simple words. “Go back.”
“Where is she?” I felt like I was losing it. No way would I remain horizontal while Karina was missing.
“You need to heal. You were near death.”
“Where is she?” I shouted in his face.
Then I heard it, the one word drifting down from above like a falling leaf. “Bosa.”
I glanced upward into the trees to see her round face peeking out from a vine hut. When our eyes caught, they held, and then she was on the move, racing to a vine and leaping for it.
She wore a skirt that one of the females must have lent her, and it billowed out behind her short legs as she ran. When her light body swung out and slid down, my heart nearly stopped.
“Kotche!” I cried and dropped the crutch as I raced toward her.
She made it down a level just as I sped up the spiral stairs. When she spotted me, she jumped across a platform, scaring a child who was playing quietly, before throwing herself into my arms.
I caught her, managing to stay upright despite my leg, because just seeing her filled me with more strength than anything the healer could do to me.
“Bosa,” she whispered as she sobbed into my neck. “I missed you.”
I hauled her up my body and pressed my lips to hers. Immediately, my damaged body no longer cared about my injuries, because my linyx was in my arms, waking up my cock. I could smell her arousal as she pressed her hips into my stomach. “I missed you too, kotche.” Sparing a glance around, I could see a few onlookers gawking at us. Keeping her in my arms, I stumbled the last few steps before staggering out onto the platform that held my hut. The inside was just as I left it, and I swung the door shut behind me, elbowing the bolt into place to lock us inside.
We were alone, and as I delved my tongue into my linyx’s mouth, I knew that this was what I needed. I couldn’t heal if she wasn’t by my side.
“Don’t leave me,” she whispered as she nipped the edge of my jaw. “Don’t make me leave you.”
“Never,” I said.
She pulled back. “Never? You won’t send me to Corin to live with the Drixonians?”
I pushed her hair off her face and gripped her soft cheek. “No. But just so you know, they have human females there.”
“But are you there?”
I swallowed. “No. This is my home.”
“Then this is my home.” She bit her lip. “Is a visit possible?”
I smiled. “They owe me. A visit is definitely possible.”
“I thought you don’t keep score?”
Laughing, I squeezed her round back end. “You’re the only one I don’t keep score with.”
She kissed me again, hard, so that all thoughts of scoring and visits vanished under the pressing need to be inside my linyx. She was soft and pliant against me, arching her back and rubbing the heat of her slit along the cap of my cock.
I only wore a thin pair of pants, which I shredded with a quick slash of my claws. After hiking up her skirt, I lined myself up at her entrance and surged inside with a quick jolt of my hips. She cried out as my vurs began to pulse and my cap began to spin, rippling along her inner walls. With each thrust, she gasped against my neck while she gripped my unbraided hair.
“We’ll never part,” I growled into the top of her head while I powered into her sweet heat. “We are bonded now. A linyx pair. I need you.”
“And I need you,” she panted. Her jaw opened as she set her teeth against my collarbone. Her body began to shake, and she squeezed my cock as she came, crying out against my scales. I let go, spraying my seed inside of her. And for the first time in my life, I hoped I made a life with a female. With my kotche. Karina.
Once I drained myself dry, I became aware of the ache in my leg and the burning pain in my arm. I stumbled over to the bed and dropped us down onto it. I let out a groan, and Karina quickly rose onto her knees at my side. “Oh shit, that was probably a terrible idea. You’re still hurt.” She made a clucking noise. “I think this wound reopened. Do you feel okay?”
“No,” I said with a husky laugh. “I don’t.” I turned and grinned at her. “But I’ll get there as long as you’re here.”
Her eyes went soft. “I don’t plan to leave, even if your leader or whatever doesn’t seem to like me.”
“My pardux. And Sherif doesn’t like anyone, really, so don’t feel special.”
She let out a snort. “Yeah, but are you sure I’ll be accepted here? The other females…”
I frowned. “Were they unkind to you?”
“No!” she cried urgently. “Not at all. Wensla and Gurla fed me and gave me a change of clothes. But they assumed I’d be traveling to the Drixonians.”
I cupped her cheek. “Then we’ll have to tell them the good news.”
She bit her lip, but I wasn’t worried. This was the way it was supposed to be, I knew it. “What’s a linyx?” she asked.
I crossed my hands behind my head. “A bonded pair. It doesn’t always happen to Kaluma who decide to mate, but sometimes the female begins to have visuls… that’s usually the sign of a possibly linyx pair. When I released my seed inside of you, and your visuls became premonitions—”
“And I could blank…” she widened her eyes at me.
“That too, although that was unexpected. Anyway, that confirmed the pairing.”
“So my visuls…”
“Your visuls will often let you see the future.”
Her mouth formed a perfect O. “Wow.”
“I didn’t think it was possible to form a linyx pair with a human.”
“But look at us defying the odds,” she grinned. Her hands cupped my face as her eyes grew misty. “I was so worried about you. When I heard your voice calling my name, I thought my heart would burst.”
“I had a visul of you. You said you missed me.”
A throat cleared and I reluctantly took my attention off Karina to glance at a shadow just barely visible through the slats of my plank-paneled door. A heavy fist knocked, rattling the bolt. “Open up, Bosa.”
I went to heave myself up, but Karina placed a hand on my chest. “I’ll get it. You rest.” Righting her skirt, she hustled to the door and stood behind it as she opened it.
Sherif marched in, blazing eyes on me.
As expected, he was pissed, and I was sure Pruwik wasn’t too happy with me either. But I couldn’t bring myself to care. I was home. I had my kotche. All was right in the world. “Pardux,” I said with a smirk.
“Don’t call me that,” he said, which was always his response.
Cravus, his head nearly touching my ceiling, stepped up behind him and shot me a glare so vicious, I thought he’d stab me. “I didn’t carry you here for you to climb up to your hut and hurt yourself further,” he growled.
“You carried me?” I smiled at him, and that only pissed him off more. “That’s sweet of you, Cravus. You’ll make some female really happy—”
This time he did stomp to my bedside and smack me in the head, hard enough to make my ear
s ring. “The females are taking care of your linyx. You’re no use to anyone if you can’t even stand.”
“He still has a use to me,” Karina muttered as she hurried to my side.
I grinned at her as she sat on the bed pallet. “Was that a mating reference?”
Her eyes went wide and then she squinted at me. “I’m not going to hit you now because you’re injured, but I’ll hit you later for that.”
“I’m going to need a report as soon as possible,” Sherif said. “What the yerk happened?”
“We got paid, right?”
Sherif’s nostrils flared, and a scale or two shimmered. “That’s not what’s important.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, your life is what’s important. Do you know what Gurla has been going through since you’ve been gone?”
My good humor faded, and I rolled my head to face the ceiling. “I’ll speak to her later.”
“You go off on a mission with some human—”
“That mission mattered,” I growled. Sherif flinched, as if surprised by my tone. “Human females like Karina are brought here against their will—”
“She doesn’t seem so unhappy now,” he spat again.
I swore I saw red. “She’s making the best of a terrible situation. She didn’t ask to come here, nor do any of the other human females.” My hands clenched into fists, and my wounds flared with pain, only fueling my anger. “I didn’t do a yerking thing to help our females while they suffered, so I couldn’t stand by when I could help others, non-Kaluma or not! I’m just one warrior from a settlement with many. I’m nothing special, so if I had to be sacrificed for many, then that’s my choice.” I slammed my fist into my chest. “But my linyx saved my life. This is her home now, and you’ll accept her, or you’ll find yourself minus one warrior. And friend” I swallowed, and my stomach rolled. “Don’t make me choose.”
