by V. K. Ludwig
Until now.
The sight of this Vetusian stoked a warmth inside my belly I had long thought extinguished. The scar he’d left at the bottom of my neck itched — a reminder of how he once wanted to claim me.
But he hadn’t.
Because he couldn’t.
“There’s no soulbond.” And he’d wasted his time coming here. “Wake him.”
With a nod, Yral grabbed the clay mug from the ground, opened the lid, and held it to his face. Sharp and pungent, the stench of ushti scat never failed to bring someone back to consciousness.
Zavis first groaned, then gagged, and perhaps he would have smacked the mug away were his wrists not bound to the post at one end of his cot. He tossed his head, taking in his surroundings, lean muscle shifting underneath his shirt. How strong he still was, his back broad and his arms thick with corded muscle.
When his eyes found mine, he had the audacity to lick his lips. Slowly. “I liked it better when I had you tied up, but I’m open to trying new things if it makes you happy.”
“I will leave you two alone,” Yral said, and the bones strung to the rope curtain clanked as she left.
I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “Fourteen sun cycles, and now you decided to show up here?”
“I wanted to come sooner but, you know… First, I was hunted for treason because I killed my own warriors. Then I had to hide on Odheim for almost a decade, where I killed a few more of those involved in all this mess.” He smacked his tongue. “Oh, and then there was that thing when I killed Warden Mares and went to jail for… well, treason. Again. All thanks to you.”
“Thanks to me? Me?” How could he dare show up here and blame me? “You betrayed me. You used me.”
“Well, see—”
“After you escaped your capture, more Vetusians came to Solgad.”
“I know, but—”
“They drove the females across the planet like leaps of yuleshis!” I shouted, the back of my throat parched raw by the sheer anger heating my voice. “Females so young they hadn’t even gone through a heat yet… friends, my mother.”
“Please hear me out, Naney.”
I would never listen to his lies again. “They put them in chains and herded them straight into the brothels of Odheim. It lured our males out of hiding. Your warriors detained most, but still, they killed so many. You betrayed me and used that warrior to guide you toward the largest group of young males.”
“To save you!” His roar shook the marrow in my bones, and I stumbled back.
“To save me.” Those words had made no sense the day I stung him, and they made none now. “I thought I’d found an ally in you. A friend.”
A lover.
Of all those things, I still didn’t know which loss had ached me the most. But I wouldn’t let that pain return now, especially not fourteen sun cycles later. Not after what I’d went through.
“Naney, look at me.” I shouldn’t have, but I brought my gaze to meet his, immediately regretting how the sight of his eyes still managed to captivate me. “Yes, I betrayed you, but I had my reasons. The sun after I returned to camp, I learned that—”
“Lies. All lies!”
“I should have killed the two warriors who found us in the yoni!” he blurted.
That made me halt. “What?”
“The sun I returned to camp, I learned that they’d raped a young Jal’zar female.” When I remained silent, he asked, “Will you hear me out now?”
I stared at him for a couple of breaths. Zavis might have betrayed me, but before that, he’d never been dishonest. What if he told the truth?
When I nodded, he continued, “Throughout the occupation, we had our warriors believe that we’re incompatible to mate with you. Rumors spread after those warriors found us. That female wasn’t the only victim.”
I stared at him, flabbergasted. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Torin found out about us and wouldn’t let me leave camp since he feared I would betray him again.” His eyes held mine throughout, not a single lie unfocusing his stare. “We knew rape would run rampant across Solgad from then on. The thought of walking in on your cold body at forensic pathology one sun… fuck, Naney. I made a choice that day to bring the occupation to a quick end and remove our troops before things got worse.”
My mind spun, and I backed away until my shoulders rode up against the leathers lining the wall. There, I sunk to the ground, dizzy with how everything I thought I knew distorted and rearranged itself.
“Females disappeared,” I mumbled. “Scouts reported several units of Vetusians roaming the plains, so I figured…”
“That we were rounding up the females and driving out the hidden warriors all in one sweep. We only went after the warriors. The captive Jal’zar agreed to give them up since I told him I knew of the rut.”
I’d never heard any of this before.
But that sun had been utter chaos, leaving no room for explanations. He’d saved my life many times before his betrayal. Was it so unlikely his intentions had been good, mangled by mayhem?
“Everything I told you is true,” he said, his voice solid. “Torin said he will confirm it, as will others.”
“He knows you’re here?”
He nodded. “As much as I wanted to tell you that sun, I feared I might endanger you further by revealing your new location. I knew you would hate me for my decision, but please believe me, Naney, I never had the intention of betraying your trust.”
His words sent an unwelcome flicker of warmth into my chest, like a leftover trace of that affection I’d started to grow for him then — which had somehow survived, no matter how I’d tried to forget.
My entire body slumped into a pile of misery on the ground. For so long, I’d thought he’d betrayed and used me. The first tendrils of guilt gripped me like rope, because I was as responsible for this mess as he. Perhaps more.
“I should have killed those two warriors who found us in the yoni.”
“We should have, yes. I made a mistake that day by letting them live, one I will never stop to regret.” His confession touched me where I’d built a wall of hatred around me, sun cycles strong and a decade thick. “I loathed myself for betraying you, but above all else, I wanted to keep you safe.”
Memories pushed before my mind unbidden, reminding me of the passion we’d shared wrapped up in my heat… and the moments of closeness and intimacy that had come after. The night we’d talked for hours wrapped up in each other’s embrace? I’d thought I was falling in love with him then. Young and foolish as I was, I’d told myself we could be together somehow.
“When you killed the warrior,” Zavis said on a sigh, “well, everything went to shit from there. Torin helped me escape to Odheim, but a temporary warden took my place, outvoting him in favor of capturing Jal’zar females. The rest is ugly history.”
And all because of my arrow. “Had I known of your plan, I wouldn’t have shot the Jal’zar.”
“I should have known that you kept tabs and protected him better.”
Learning all this did little to uphold that loathing I had nurtured against Zavis. Had he betrayed me? Yes, but with the intention to keep me safe. Always safe.
Overwhelmed and unable to look at him, I turned and hid my tears. “I wish I would have learned of this sooner.”
“Many times, I considered smuggling you to Odheim to protect you,” he said. “When the Empire placed one bounty after another on my traitor head, and I realized I could barely protect myself, I chose not to.”
None of that mattered now.
“It’s in the past.” But as much as I would have to come to terms with this revelation, my guilt, my blame in all this, I would not rekindle an old sin. “I appreciate that you came to tell me. Now, you need to leave.”
There was a sigh and then, “The fuck I will.”
“You can’t stay.”
“If you want to get rid of me, return half my soul.”
My tongue somehow curled w
hen I said, “I don’t have it.”
“Yes, you do, kunazay.”
A Jalut term of endearment, soulmate. “Don’t call me that.”
“But that’s what you are,” he said too softly. “It took me many solar cycles to figure out what you’ve done to me.”
“I’ve done nothing to you.”
“How empty I felt with the vastness of the universe between us,” he crooned. “Like a void beneath my ribs and a chain wrapped around my sternum. Tug, tug, tug, it went all night, urging me to return to my kunazay.”
I cringed. “I’m not your soulmate.”
“At first, I ignored it. Then, I drank it away.” There was a moment’s pause before he added, “Then, finally, your mother was kind enough to—”
“Do not speak of my… my mother—” My voice broke off, shredded by a sharp pain, and it took several swallows until I found it again. “My mother died alone in a filthy room inside an Odheim brothel, forced to endure the most depraved acts after she was captured.”
“Your mother died clasping my hand while she told me the story of how you tamed your first yuleshi at the age of seven and broke a toe. Inim, you called the beast. She gave you a whipping in anger while your father gave you a saddle in pride.”
I jerked back and glanced over my shoulder to stare at him. How could he possibly know?
“I was with her,” he said. “In a filthy room inside an Odheim brothel, yes, but alone, she was not.”
Something tickled my cheek.
I hadn’t realized I was spilling tears for those I’d lost until Zavis sighed and said, “If my time at the brothels taught me anything, it’s that Jal’zar females rarely cry. If they did, they were often broken beyond repair. Please tell me you’re not.”
I couldn’t help it but, each time he mentioned other females, something scratched beneath my sternum. “Yes, Zavis, I’ve heard of how familiar you were around the Odheim brothels. How you paid dozens of Jal’zar prostitutes to keep you good company—”
“They make rather poor company.”
“Good enough to fuck them all.”
He shook his head. “That’s not true.”
Even if it were, why would I care? What Zavis and I had half an eternity ago meant nothing. He’d slaked his lust; I’d placated my heat. In the end, our foolishness had unleashed chaos and suffering.
And yet I snarled, “So the whores are also liars? Zavis the Chainsmith. Who surrounded himself with Jal’zar prostitutes, indulged in drugs, and spent each night drunk. Your reputation has reached even the driest plains of Solgad. Do you deny it?”
“No, that last part is true,” he said. “Except for the minor detail that I spent my suns drunk as well.” The amusement in his voice only enraged me more. “Like I said, I thought I could fill that void with alcohol, until your mother told me what it was. Zovazay.”
There was that word again, driving a shudder across my arms and a burn along my chest. “Zovazay is the purest bond a male and female can share before Mekara. There’s no room for another being within it, which clearly, has not been the case for you.”
The deep baritone of his chuckle raised my hackles. “I didn’t think you had jealousy in you, Naney. Adorable.”
So he didn’t deny that he had been with other females, which served me well. “Not jealousy, merely proof that there’s no soulbond between us.”
“As a shimid, can you not see it?”
“My strengths as a shaman lie elsewhere, and I feel no bond. You’re mistaken.”
“Cut me loose and I’ll prove it to you. Figured I’d done that already when we struggled earlier. Bet you only stopped choking me with your tail because you couldn’t breathe anymore.”
Nothing but a coincidence. “You will remain bound until I find a way to smuggle you onto an unmarked ship that will return you to Odheim.”
“Earth. I live on Earth now,” he said. “Not that it matters because I’m not going anywhere until you returned my soul.”
“I do not… have… your… soul,” I ground out as I rose and swung toward him.
He grinned and wiggled his bound wrists. “Prove it.”
“You have not changed one bit.” I grabbed the knife from the leather sheath tied to my belt, walked over, and cut him loose. “Still arrogant and provoca—”
With one quick movement, he rose, grabbed the back of my neck, and pulled my mouth to his. He assaulted my lips with a violent kiss, sending sparks of electricity through my body, and retreated before I could bite him.
His fingers dug into my braids, tilting my head until he trailed his tongue over the shell of my ear. “Neither have you, kunazay. Still as fierce as I remember, and too damn proud to ignore my teasing. You have no idea how hard I get when you’re like this. Come on… tell me you’ll kill me.”
Bending my neck to the strength in his arm, I lifted my own and pressed the blade of my knife against his throat. “I just might…”
“Fuck, how much I missed you.” His groan caressed me in a thousand different places, feeding that damned heat of mine. “Problem is, you’ll drop dead the moment you slit my throat.”
“No.”
“Yes, kunazay.” He pressed against the blade and a rivulet of blood ran down his neck. I sensed it tickle along my skin, the burn of the cut clenching my jaws. “Hurts, doesn’t it? Not sure how much, but the way your sweet little lips tremble? It tells me you just realized that our souls are bound before Mekara. We had plenty of chances to kill each other, but not anymore.”
He said more after that, but my pulse shuddered violently in my ears. Suns where I could barely bring myself to rise. That disgusting tug on my ribs. A constant echo within my chest. The signs that I’d been claimed had been there, but…
“How?”
Zavis wrapped his fingers around where I gripped the knife’s handle and slowly lowered the blade from his neck. “Never figured it out.”
“The sun I drove my claw between your ribs…” I’d hummed for him like a male would to complete the bond, so shocked was I when I saw my vision manifest itself.
“Or perhaps my bite.” His lips suckled on the silk of my dress, tugging it aside. “Let me see the scar I left on you, Naney. Such a pretty little mark—”
“Stop!” No matter how I wiggled, his arms wrapped me like iron bands. “We should never have been together then, and we won’t be together now.”
His grunt hushed over my neck. “You said you would let me claim you.”
Didn’t he see how impossible that was? How it was insane, dangerous, and wrong all over again?
“It was a foolish thing to say then, but it is ludicrous now. The moment the Warlords find out the Chainsmith dared step onto Solgad, they’ll hunt you across the plains for the fun of it.”
“Then you’ll tie me up, hand me over, and tell them you captured me for them.” Another suckle of lips so close to the scar it dizzied my mind and weakened my knees. “I claimed you over a decade ago, Naney. Zovazay brought me back to you.”
“I have lived just fine without knowing.”
“Lived or survived?” he rasped, asking something I didn’t want to answer. “Because I’m sick of surviving as half a male with half a soul, stuck within a body that longs for you. Always longs for you.”
Had longed for me but enjoyed others, filthying a bond barely established. “You need to leave.”
“Give me half my soul back.”
A hiss through gritted fangs. “If my mother told you of the bond, you know I cannot return your soul.”
“Yeah, I know.” He clasped my chin, forcing me to meet the silver swirls of his eyes. “You stole my soul, Naney. Now I returned to steal your heart.”
Sixteen
Zavis
My kunazay bumped her horns against my head and fled the hut, but at least she hadn’t stabbed me with her dagger. Or tailclaw.
The blade hit the compacted ground with a dull thud and bones clanked as she rushed outside. Considering how Okitai, her mother
, had told me that mates sharing the soulbond would always long to reunite, this hadn’t quite gone as planned — probably because this was Naney, so nothing ever did.
I grabbed the waterskin from a low table and took a sip, then stepped out into the open. All eyes immediately fell to me, each set either narrowed or poison-dipped, or both. Not a surprise exactly.
Jal’zar females milled about underneath the shade of a small mother tree. Some sprinkled ashes onto hissing flames to bank the fires, while others placed stones onto embers. Soon, they would cook the tendetu that hung limp over the lap of another female who plucked the orange feathers.
I sucked in a deep breath, holding the scents of wildflowers and minerals from a nearby yoni for a moment. An odd tingle spread across my body. In a way, I’d missed this planet. It held memories of so many fantastic moments — moments I had shared with Naney.
It took less than ten minutes of strolling through the small camp to take account. Twelve females lived here, including Naney. A boy and a girl toddled between the fires, reaching no higher than my hip.
Not a single grown male.
That was… unsettling.
The end of our occupation had thrown Solgad into a state of internal turmoil. Warlords had lost their lives in battles outside the atmosphere, leaving what remained of their tribes to wander aimlessly. Young warriors rose from the ashes and claimed themselves leaders in their place, fighting against each other for scraps of power. So, how come this group hadn’t been absorbed by one of them?
“You shouldn’t have come.” A female walked up beside me, her golden eyes familiar, her hiss even more so. “Didn’t she suffer enough?”
I glanced over where Naney tossed bones into the dirt, likely asking Mekara how she can get rid of me. “Yral, correct?”
The female nodded. “Yes.”
“Okitai told me about you.” Whenever the female had been clear-headed enough, and the tumor growing in her brain hadn’t clouded her thinking too much. “Who’s leading this group?”
“She is.”
