by V. K. Ludwig
“A shimid leading a group of females, most of them young enough they surely should be claimed by now?” Totally unheard of. “How come no Warlord has forced you to join their tribe?”
“None of them know of our existence,” she said, eyeing me up and down. “Freeraiders leave us alone in exchange for her readings and spiritual guidance. That might change, now that one of them brought you here. That was foolish.”
A bump with my fist against my sternum. “Zovazay showed me the way to her, but I needed a guide to avoid tribes, Warlords, and groups of freeraiders.”
Frowns lined between her brows. “Before her mother was captured, she often told me that she believed you claimed Naney.”
“Or perhaps she claimed me. There are rumors of a human female who was abducted and forced into prostitution. Some say a Jal’zar male stung her, closed the bond with his hum, and put a child inside her.”
Her brow flicked up. “Another hybrid child?”
“Why another? Did you hear of more?”
Her spine snapped straight just a little too quickly, looking all sorts of suspicious. “So what of it? Rumor or truth?”
I shrugged. “She disappeared before our CAT officers could return her to Earth. If she truly carried his child, perhaps the Jal’zar is hiding her somewhere.”
She grunted before she said, “Your presence is endangering everything she so carefully protected all this time.”
“Surely we can move trees? It’ll take the freeraider a few suns to inform others of my whereabouts, which gives us plenty of time. This area is too dry, anyway.”
“Rain brings nothing but risk and heartache,” she said in all the glorious ambiguity of a Jal’zar. “Naney’s words.”
“Why are there no males? Because of your heat?”
“We’re better off without them,” she scoffed, then jutted her chin toward a black-haired female. “Temuja spent four solar cycles in an Odheim brothel. When she escaped and returned to Solgad, our males spit in her face and called her a whore, unworthy to be claimed.”
My muscles tightened.
“Aresha.” She pointed at the young girl who buried her feet in the sand. “Conceived inside a brothel. Her Jal’zar father died, and no other male here wants her mother. Naney took them all in.”
My chest curled, the end of my ribs digging into my organs as my illusions came to a stuttering halt. During my time in Odheim, I’d spent the fortune of my noble house, acquired over many generations, to purchase Jal’zar prostitutes.
Not for an argos.
Not for a night.
I’d purchased their freedom and smuggled them back to Solgad. And for what? So their own males could shun them? All this time, I’d tried to repent for my many sins, help in the small ways I could, and now it turned out it was all for nothing?
I swallowed past a lump of regret. “Tell me about the life she’s lived while I was gone. We both know she’ll only hiss at me if I ask her.”
“She led us deep into the most barren places of Solgad where Vetusians didn’t follow.” Yral’s gaze went adrift somewhere on a ledge, where an abandoned tendetu nest still rested between rocks. “Whispers hushed between some females, calling her things much worse than what our males called Temuja. They left us, but Naney remained steadfast. Whenever she cried, she did it inside a yoni where her tears did nothing to the salty water. But I heard her sobs.”
“She feels responsible for this mess, but it was all me,” I said. “From the beginning, I knew this would end badly if someone found out about us. I should have left her alone but I just… couldn’t.”
Yral drew out her sigh. “Go home, Chainsmith. Don’t repeat your past mistakes.”
“Oh, I will go home. But I will take Naney with me.”
“To Odheim?”
“Earth.”
Her laugh showed little confidence in my plan. “Why would she follow you?”
“Because she and I belong together. She’s my mate, bound before Mekara.” I stared at Naney’s slender frame, her waist too narrow and her arms too skinny. “I know she had a hard life… everyone on this planet did. On Earth, she won’t lack food, or safety, or comforts. What could possibly keep her here?”
“You’d be surprised,” Yral said with a concerning smirk lining her lips. “Naney hasn’t made herself a priority in fourteen sun cycles.”
“Well, then it’s time—”
“So it’s true!” a voice too deep for comfort shouted across the gathering area. “The Chainsmith came to sully the ground from which our tree grows? Mekara will have the leaves wilt away because of this insult!”
I spun around as Yral mumbled “shit,” and the blood clotted in my veins. A Jal’zar male stomped toward me, his purple eyes burning with rage. His face betrayed his young age, which stood in stark contrast to his perversely wide chest.
He was a strong male.
I could tell the moment he punched me straight in the face, and I stumbled back. My foot caught on something, arms paddled the air for balance, and I hit the ground a moment later. Not that I stayed there long.
The moment he kicked ash into my face, I rolled away and jumped to my feet. “I didn’t come to fight!”
“Fight,” he scoffed and rolled the ends of his white strands off his shoulders. “You’re old and slow, Vetusian, and pose no challenge. Putting you out of your misery will be a kindness.”
The guts of that arrogant prick.
I sidestepped toward a clear area. “Still fast enough to beat that soft, unscarred hide of yours.”
Yral hurried between us. “Stop this at once, Zerim!”
Zerim rounded Yral and came straight at me with his horns. I grabbed them and threw myself to the ground, using the thrust of my weight to toss him across the gathering area.
“Stop this insanity!” Naney screamed from afar and ran toward us.
“You’re a traitor,” Zerim barked as he backflipped, and then straightened himself into a solid stance once more. “A male with no honor.” He whirled his tail across the ash and sent a gust of it straight into my eyes. “By Mekara, I’ll end you and feed her your blood.”
Blinded, eyes burning each time I blinked, I only saw his outline when he came at me again. He jumped and kicked his feet against my chest full-force, sending me halfway across the gathering area.
I crashed into a group of females who hurried away under shrieks. Pain exploded inside my ribcage, and I groaned. Naney leaned over and retched onto the ground, heaving with how much of my pain she must have felt through the bond.
That was when I saw red.
“You have to stop, Zerim,” Yral urged him once more. “They share zovazay!”
A flinch gripped the warrior’s features, and I took the opportunity of his distraction. I combat-rolled toward him and swung my leg at his. It ripped out from underneath him, and he hit the ground with a groan.
“Arrogant little shit.” I sat astride his thighs, gripped his horn with one hand, and punched him with the other. “You speak of honor but attack an unarmed—”
His tail wrapped around my neck.
Heat flared around my earlobes, and my eyes darted nervously toward his tailclaw. That was when I noticed it.
He had none.
Where a black, concave claw should have protruded from the end of the tail, there was nothing but… skin. Flawless skin, with not even a scar suggesting someone had relieved him of it.
“Naney!” Yral screamed.
My kunazay collapsed to the ground.
I curled my hand into a fist.
I banged it against the warrior’s temple.
With a hiss, he released his grip on my neck, and I sucked in a quick breath before I snarled, “Look at what you did to her!”
I punched him.
Punched him again.
“Stop it, Zavis!” Yral whirled up another cloud of dust as her knees sunk into the ground beside us. “You can’t hurt him!”
“Oh yeah? Why not?” At my third punch, my knuckles met rock,
and a wave of pain washed across my fingers and deep into my wrist.
What the fuck?
Knuckles bloody, maybe broken, I stared down at the Jal’zar male. Where I expected to find a blood-smeared face, black scales covered his features, save for those purple eyes wide with fear.
All blood drained from my veins and a freezing chill paralyzed my muscles. Why did he have nano armor? What was going on here?
“Who is this guy?” I asked. “What is he?”
Yral sighed before she said, “He’s your son, Zavis.”
Seventeen
Naney
The clanks of pottery roused me from sleep, and my nostrils flared at the sweetness of vasani syrup lingering the air inside the hut.
For a moment, I didn’t want to open my eyes. Didn’t want to face Zavis, his presence undeniable with how my soulbond chirped and sang at our closeness. Would it grow dissonant once I sent him away? Screech and torture me for the rest of my life?
“Twice, I’ve held you in my arms while you slept, watching you, studying you,” he said, sending a nervous tingle into my limbs. “You have this habit of drawing in a sharp gasp when you first wake, much like the one I just heard.”
I blinked my eyes open, watching him rummage through the wooden shelves lining the wall. “How is Zerim?”
“Fang’s hanging a bit lose, but he can still hiss and snarl just like his mother. Luckily, he willed his nano armor around him.” A smile lined his lips. “Babies on Earth have those too, you know. Since they’re coded into our DNA, Vetusians equipped with them pass it on.”
“They startled me when he first cried after his birth and black patches showed on his red face.”
“Oh yeah, they scared me too when I met him,” he said. “He went out to hunt again. Said he needed to, and I quote, “get as far from me as possible before he takes me into the plains and slits my throat to let ragna feast on my corpse.” He’s very… dramatic.”
I flinched.
My son’s words vibrated with a hate I recognized all too well. It was the echo of what I’d carried with me for what felt like a lifetime. It had strengthened me once, allowing me to overcome hardships, but now it felt like I was drowning beneath it.
Zavis cleared his throat. “Were you going to tell me? Or just ship me off, never mentioning a word about him?”
The answer shamed me down to the marrow in my bones. “His life is no easy one, Zavis, and this only makes it worse.”
“He abhors me. I always found your death threats cute. But his? He fucking means it. I can hear the raw, deep-rooted hate in his voice.”
Choked and brittle, his voice held a million different pains. I felt every single one vibrating along our soulbond, so violent and severe my chest curled toward my stomach until I was but a ball on the cot.
Mother had once told me Mekara cannot fill a vessel already brimming with hate. Perhaps I’d been so full of it, Zerim had soaked up whatever I spilled. I didn’t like it. Had never wanted my son to carry the weight of this destructive emotion.
“Stop that.” Zavis’ harsh order ripped me from my thoughts as he kneeled beside the cot with a mug in his hand. “Of all those things I sense through our bond, your shame is by far the most disgusting one, like… sticky tar. Here, drink this.”
When he reached the mug to me, I cocked my head and asked, “What is it?”
“Sweetened luplap tea.” A tingle hushed along my fingers as he took them and wrapped them around the warm mug. “I sensed your cramps, so I went to a yoni before the sun rose and gathered you some. It’s fresh and potent, and will ease your pains.”
I stared at him for some time before I took the first sip. “How do you know?”
“I took care of many tummy aches during my time on Odheim.” He flinched even before I did. “That came out wrong.”
My earlobes heated in an instant and the hum of my bond distorted. “Did it?”
“Now that’s a sensation I like,” he said and rubbed a palm across his ear. “Little did I know my kunazay is quite the territorial female.” Large and warm, his hand settled against my cheek, thumb stroking, drawing circles, luring me into his touch as gray eyes locked with mine. “The night we coupled in the nabu was the last time I’ve been with a female in such way.”
“Your fame suggests otherwise.”
“Which is the way I needed it to be.”
I hated how my chest lifted with hope. “You never touched another Jal’zar female?”
“Oh, I touched them.” As if he’d anticipated my retreat, his hand slipped to my chin, where he clasped to hold me in place. “I spanked their asses, draped their thighs to clasp around mine, kneaded their breasts, and feasted on their lips. Slapped a few across the room, too. Not proud of that, but I had no choice. I had a reputation to maintain, after all.”
“The reputation of being the male responsible for enslaving our females and making good use of every single one.”
“Yes, Zavis the Chainsmith,” he rasped, placing soft kisses along my jawline. “The exiled warden with a lust for Jal’zar females all solar systems gossiped about. Brothels loved me because I lost my fortune in them, but not for the reason you think.”
My mind spun at his words and kisses alike. “What do you mean?”
“I bought as many of them as I could, and a Kokkonian trader smuggled them back to Solgad for me. The brothels didn’t care where the credits came from, and there wasn’t exactly a shortage in Odheim to find replacements.”
“Now I know you’re lying,” I snarled. “If that was true, those females you claim you saved would have spoken up for you.”
“Most of them never knew I was the one who got them off Odheim, and that was how it had to be.” A slight tremble started in his fingers, and they clasped my chin tighter as he kissed the side of my neck. “I treated them like whores, Naney. They stripped down for me, danced for me… hissed at me. A lot. But the truth is, the closer they came, the more they nauseated me. Because none of them were my kunazay, and our soulbond made that quite clear.”
His lips ventured to the scar he left at the base of my neck, the tissue mostly numb but the way he suckled it still sent raw longing into my womb. “By the Three Suns, how I wanted to sink into them and forget this entire mess. A million times, I took one to my room. A million times, they weren’t you, which made me furious and happy alike. I sent them all away.”
Our bond betrayed no lie, but instead, vibrated between us like a gentle exchange of energy. He had remained true to it, as had I — neither one of us capable of giving ourselves to another. Where would we take this from here?
“Zerim will forever suffer for his father’s reputation,” I said.
He pulled back and released my chin, stroking his fingertips through my hair instead. “Warden Mares got rich on his little endeavor, and I needed him to believe I was his best customer. Perhaps I would have done it differently, had I known I left a… left my son behind. Never did the chance cross my mind, even after I learned of our bond.”
“I didn’t want to believe it,” I said, my voice thin. “Thought it impossible but, a moon after you left, my belly swelled. Nothing but bloating from the lack of food, I told myself. Until Zerim grew so big, he ached my back and kicked like a warrior.”
“A strong male.” Zavis climbed onto the cot, rubbing the back of my neck, his eyes glazed over. “Looks nothing like me, but his right hook packs a punch like his father’s.”
A faint scoff escaped my throat. “He’s cocky.”
“I noticed. Did you, um…” He stroked over the tip of my nose. “Did you do that thing with his tail when he was a baby?”
“I did.”
“Good,” he said, his voice thick with tears. “He has purple eyes and white hair, like a shimid.”
I nodded. “Touched by Mekara. Solgad has never seen a male with this gift. He hates it. Hates how the young females among the freeraiders laugh about him.”
“How old is he now?”
“
Almost fourteen.”
“By the Heat of Heliar, what did you feed our son?” Zavis smiled at the laugh he lured from me. “Hormones getting the best of him, hmm?”
“Many times, I caught him practicing his hum when he thought himself alone. He has a beautiful hum, rich and deep, but the females we sometimes cross paths with have no interest in him. He’s too strange, too different.” I stroked over his beard, the sensation so odd and familiar at the same time, it warmed me from within. “Only the females in this camp know that you’re his father.”
Zavis nodded and tension settled onto his features. “Is he in danger?”
“When he was born, his skin was odd in color, neither Vetusian nor Jal’zar. It still is in some spots, although it darkens each sun cycle. I mixed water with ash and rubbed his skin when he was a baby.”
Understanding settled on his face. “Staying out of the rain so it wouldn’t wash off.”
“I had to hide what he was from whoever called himself a Warlord.”
“They would have killed him.” Zavis tortured his upper lip near bloody before he spoke again. “And if someone from the Empire would have found him…”
“Vetusians would never have left Solgad, and instead studied him like some sort of beast so they could recreate however this happened.”
“They would have bred Jal’zar females.” A growl vibrated in his chest. “Can you imagine that? We were so dead-set on Earth females, we didn’t realize the solution to our near-extinction might have been on this planet all along. And we fucked it all up. Then we went to Earth and fucked it up there, too. From what Torin told me, that invasion didn’t go as planned at all. We’re united now, but the way there wasn’t pretty.”
“I heard of the many casualties.” I placed my hand on his arm. “They’ll find him, Zavis. Once word of your presence travels to the city Noja, the Warlords will search for you. Our peace is brittle, and no Vetusian is allowed to set foot in Solgad. A male shimid born with no tailclaw draws unwanted attention.”
He nodded, and gray eyes disappeared as he kissed my sternum. “In addition to all that, Naney, he’s my heir. Do you understand what that means?”
