Chest tight, he lifted a hand and moved his fingers through hers; the contact produced not even the slightest sensation. Her holographic touch was even more empty than that of a ghost, good only for inducing a memory of what it might’ve felt like for their skin to meet. Volcair wished beyond all reason that he could travel through the tablet in that moment and find himself with her, in that faraway city, in the same room, just so he could smell her and feel the slightest of her touches.
The ache in his groin deepened with unfulfilled want, and he knew his qal was aglow just by the feel on his skin as he huskily replied, “I want the same.”
Smiling, Kiara lay her hand on the bedding in front of her tablet and hummed softly. “My star. I love it when you glow.”
Volcair’s heart thumped as though to emphasize his next words. “For you, I always will.”
Four
London, Capital of the United Terran Federation, Earth
Terran Year 2082
Kiara stared into the mirror and smoothed her hands down the front of her dress—her very grown-up dress. It wasn’t poofy like the dresses she’d worn when she was younger, but a sophisticated garment like those her mother often wore—long and slimming, hugging her body up top with its loose skirt ending just below her knees. The square-cut neckline showed off her collarbone and the pretty necklace Volcair had given her for her birthday two years before. Kiara never took it off.
She turned to look at her profile. Though she’d grown several inches over the last few years and had lost the bit of chubbiness she’d carried as a child, she still didn’t have the full, mature figure her mother possessed.
Kiara covered her small breasts with her hands and frowned.
Soon.
Soon, Kiara would be a woman, able to do as she pleased. But for now, she was a young lady with more growing to do—a young lady who’d be fourteen in a couple days.
Buzzing with excitement, she smiled widely as she turned her body to face the mirror.
What does Volcair see when he looks at me? Does he still see the little girl I was, or the young woman I am becoming?
Her heart pounded at the thought of him. Her best friend, her first crush—her only crush. He was meant to be hers. She just knew it.
No, he is mine.
Volcair had changed a lot over the years they’d known each other; he’d grown taller, his shoulders broader, features sharper, and hair longer. He was by far the handsomest boy she knew—probably the handsomest boy in the whole galaxy. Whenever she saw him, her belly fluttered, and she felt giddy, felt like she belonged, felt like everything was right.
A soft knock on her door startled her. She turned toward it as it opened.
“Kiara,” her mother said, slipping into the room, “they’re here. Are you ready?”
There was something heavy in her mother’s eyes, something sorrowful in her expression.
Frowning, Kiara stepped closer. “Is something wrong, Mum?”
Jada cleared her throat and forced a smile. “Just come down. I’m sure everything will be fine. Volcair is anxious to see you.”
Mention of Volcair turned Kiara’s thoughts away from her mother’s strange mood.
“They’re early!” She squeezed past her mother and raced down the hallway toward the staircase.
“Kiara! You shouldn’t run!”
“I know, Mum,” Kiara shouted, but she didn’t slow down. Clutching the bannister, she descended the steps quickly. Volcair usually met her in the foyer when he came to visit; he wasn’t there now.
Jada hurried down the steps behind her. “Kiara!”
“Where is he?” Kiara asked.
“Outside, but—”
Before Jada could finish, Kiara ran to the tall double doors and darted through one before the doorman could open it fully. Anticipation thrummed through her as she surveyed the loop at the end of the drive.
There, standing in front of a long, black hovercar, was Volcair.
He stood with his hands in his pockets and his head slightly bowed, dressed in a suit that was a hybrid of volturian and human fashion—it mixed the stylized volturian collar and fabric with the sensibilities and fit of a traditional British suit. Such fashion fusions had become popular over the last few years.
And it made him look very grown-up.
Volcair glanced up. His frown rose into a smile that didn’t quite touch his blue-white eyes when he met her gaze.
She sped across the drive, and he spread his arms to catch her as she slammed into him, wrapping her arms around his neck. She’d take away whatever sadness he felt. They always knew how to cheer each other up.
“You’re here!” Kiara said, squeezing him tighter. “I thought you weren’t visiting until this evening.”
He tightened his embrace, as well. When he spoke, it was in lightly accented English. “I wasn’t supposed to, but…something’s come up, Kiara.”
Kiara drew away from him and tilted her head back to meet his eyes. “What is it?”
Volcair sighed, and his frown returned. “There are new tensions between my people and the sedhi. My father has been reassigned to Arthos, where they are trying to mediate peace agreements.”
“Well, your father is a good negotiator, isn’t he? Everything should turn out fine.”
“It means I have to go, Kiara.”
His words—though none of them were complicated or powerful on their own—combined to freeze the entirety of the universe, leaving Kiara trapped in suffocating silence and stifling motionlessness for a second or two.
“What?” she asked breathlessly.
He couldn’t go. He was supposed to stay here with her. They were supposed to grow up together.
“You’ll be here for my birthday, right?” she asked, throat tight.
He didn’t meet her gaze as he shook his head.
“Volcair?”
Kiara’s chest constricted, her heart seized, and her lungs seemed to collapse, starved for air she couldn’t draw in.
“The posting is considered prestigious.” His jaw muscles bulged for a moment; he’d nearly spat that word. “We have to leave today. The qalsarn has demanded we go immediately due to the delicacy of the situation.”
“You can stay here.” She nodded as though that was the answer to it all. “We have plenty of room. You can stay with us.”
“I cannot,” he said softly. “I have to go, Kiara. And…I do not know when I will be able to return.”
“No. No, you can’t go. You can’t!” Tears flooded her eyes, blurring her vision as she turned her head to seek out her mother, who stood a few meters away. “Tell him he can stay.”
Isaiah, standing beside Jada, shook his head. “Kiara, my child—”
“Tell him!”
“Kiara, he can’t,” her mother said, placing a hand on Isaiah’s shoulder. “His place is with his father.”
“His place is with me!” Kiara’s stomach sank, and sobs racked her throat. Her best mate, her Volcair, was leaving. She turned back to him.
Volcair had lifted his face. His features were hard, set in anger and determination. “I will come back some day, Kiara. We’re…we’re best mates, aren’t we?”
Kiara wiped her cheeks and nodded. “The bestest.”
He smiled, but the fierce light remained in his eyes. “Since I won’t be here, I wanted to give you your birthday gift now.”
Those words only made her more miserable. She didn’t want a gift from him, she just wanted him here on her birthday, and the day after that, and the day after that. She wanted him here forever.
Volcair turned away from her and stepped to the waiting hovercar. He opened the back door, and Cypher leapt out in a shape he’d only taken on a few brief occasions—the graceful form of a large-eared fox, albeit one with metal scales and four eyes.
Cypher hurried to Kiara and stood on his hind legs, placing his front paws on her thighs. The series of clicks and whimpers he produced were more distressed than she’d ever heard.
> She knelt in front of him and placed her hands on his sides. “You’re not a zeget anymore.”
“He wanted to change after I asked him to stay with you,” Volcair said.
“What?” Kiara looked at Volcair. “You’re…you’re giving me Cypher?”
No! Her mind screamed that word over and over again. He couldn’t do this!
Volcair nodded, and his nostrils flared with a heavy exhalation. “I can’t stay, but he can. To be your companion and watch over you.”
“But what…what about you? Cypher is your only other friend!”
“I guess that just gives me more reason to get back here eventually, right?”
Kiara shook her head and carefully let Cypher down as she stood. She ran back to Volcair and wrapped her arms around him, burying her tear-streaked face against his chest. “You can’t go. I don’t want you to.”
He embraced her, rested his cheek atop her hair, and whispered, “I don’t want to go, either, but I must.”
“Kiara,” her father said from immediately behind her, gently grasping her arms to pry her away from Volcair. “It’s time, sweetheart.”
“No! Please, Daddy!”
Ambassador Vantricar climbed out of the hovercar to stand beside his son.
Kiara met Vantricar’s gaze as she struggled against her father’s hold. “Please! Please, let him stay with us.”
“That’s enough, Kiara,” Isaiah said, his voice soft but stern.
“I am sorry, Kiara,” Vantricar said as he laid a hand on Volcair’s shoulder. “It has been our greatest honor to come to know you and your family these past seven years, but duty calls us elsewhere. We must serve the will of the qalsarn, and through him, the will of our people.”
Fury flashed in Volcair’s glowing eyes. He bared his teeth and cast off his father’s hand, striding toward her.
Kiara finally shoved away from her father just before Volcair took her into his arms. She clung to him desperately as he leaned his face closer.
When he spoke, his breath was warm against her ear. “Remember our promise, Kiara.”
He turned his head. His cheek was wet when it brushed against hers, but he pressed his lips to hers before she could guess what the moisture was. She tasted him and something more, something salty, and dug her fingers into his back to take more of him.
The kiss was over far too soon; he drew his head back and met her gaze. It was only then she realized the moisture on his cheeks and the salty taste on his lips had been caused by his tears.
Her throat tightened. “Volcair…”
“Remember.” He released her and stepped back.
She sagged forward; it was her father’s strong arms that caught her and held her upright.
The raw emotion on Volcair’s face, the pain and sadness, was more than she could bear to see, especially because she knew it was for her. Volcair only showed his true feelings to Kiara; he was usually quiet and reserved around his father. His open display only hammered home that this wasn’t a jest. This was real.
This was happening.
“I will find my way back,” Volcair said as he walked to the waiting hovercar.
Vantricar reached for his son, but Volcair batted his father’s hand away. Qal glowing bright, Volcair looked at Kiara over his shoulder once before climbing into the vehicle. Vantricar lingered for a moment longer before following his son into the car.
The door closed with a thunderous slam.
Kiara’s lower lip trembled. “Goodbye.”
She stared at the departing hovercar until it was out of sight. Her father held her a little tighter, but his touch offered no comfort.
“Kiara,” he said, “I know—”
Shrugging out of his hold, she turned and fled, racing back into the house, up the stairs, and into her room—barely noticing the clacking of claws close behind her. Once the door was closed, she let it all out—the pent-up pain, the loss, the sense of abandonment.
Her broken heart crumbled into a million pieces.
She threw herself onto her bed as she cried, tears flowing freely. Her throat burned, and it was hard to breathe, hard to feel anything but the growing emptiness torn open by Volcair’s absence.
He’s gone.
She clutched the blanket in her fists and buried her face in it.
Something leapt onto the bed beside her. A long, warm snout nudged her arm.
Kiara raised her head and turned her face toward Cypher. He whined, his eyes narrowing and taking on a sad tilt, before he lay against her. He settled his head next to hers.
Kiara wrapped her arms around him and held him close. “He’s gone, Cypher. He left us.”
Cypher produced a series of soft hums and clicks; she imagined he was trying to soothe her, trying to tell her everything was all right, that Volcair would be back.
Fresh tears spilled from her eyes. “He will come back, won’t he? We’ll just wait for him.”
And she did.
She waited for him as days stretched into months, looking skyward every night to appreciate the stars that reminded her so much of his glowing qal. He was out there, somewhere.
Years passed, and she grew into a woman, marveling at the changes occurring before her own eyes.
How much had Volcair changed? Was he taller, broader? Had he let his hair grow longer, or had he trimmed it?
Did he think of her as much as she thought of him?
When she graduated school at the top of her class, the only face she wanted to see in the crowd was his, but there was no sign of him, no word. Yet she continued waiting.
She went to university, attended parties, made friends among her peers, and excelled in her classes, never giving up hope that he’d return soon.
Her heart broke a little more with each passing day.
Finally, after eleven years of waiting, eleven years of silence, eleven years of her parents urging her to live her life, Kiara finally gave up. She accepted the truth she’d refused to face throughout her youth.
Volcair was not coming back.
Five
London, Capital of the United Terran Federation, Earth
Terran Year 2094
Volcair drew in a deep breath and released it shakily as the automated hovercar descended. His body thrummed with restless energy, and warm tingles coursed along his qal. The vehicle leveled at ground cruising height—just above the black, paved surface of the road—and continued forward. Though the trees, hedges, and fences lining the road must have changed over the years, this countryside remained familiar. He’d always been excited to make this trip as a child; now, he could barely contain his anticipation.
The hovercar turned onto a secluded lane with stone pillars on either side of the entrance. Volcair’s heartbeat sped up. The branches of the towering trees flanking the lane grew together overhead, creating an arched canopy of wood and leaf that only allowed the sunshine through in little rays. The effect was one he’d always appreciated—it made the lane feel like a tunnel with a ceiling that glowed gold and green when the sun was positioned right, a place where shadows danced across the ground to create a whimsical air.
But as much as he’d appreciated that beauty, it wasn’t the reason he had always been so eager to come here. There’d only ever been one reason he loved this place—Kiara. Volcair would’ve found even the barren gray dust of the Earth’s moon a landscape of enchanting beauty if he had to traverse it to reach her. She enriched everything around her. Only thoughts of her, with the balus stone shining around her neck, had seen him through his long years of military service to the Entris Dominion. Those same thoughts would carry him through the remainder of his term.
The hovercar emerged from the tunnel-like lane and continued onto the paved circle at the end, coming to a stop in front of the Moore home. The outer walls, with their grayish-tan bricks, tall windows, and neatly manicured growths of ivy, looked exactly as it had the last time Volcair had seen it.
His mind flashed back to that day twelve years ago,
and his heart stuttered. The tightness in his chest intensified, driven now by anxiety rather than eagerness, punctuated by a pang of guilt and a stab of bitterness.
The day he’d been forced to say goodbye to Kiara had been the worst of his life. He’d fought many battles during his service, had faced his own death—and witnessed the deaths of comrades—on many occasions, had seen blood and chaos, had known hopelessness and despair. He’d faced the death of his mother, who’d been his whole world, as a small child. He’d been forced to move repeatedly throughout his youth, never knowing a true home—though this place was the closest he’d ever come.
None of it had been harder than leaving Kiara that day. None of it had affected him as powerfully. Not a day had gone by during which he hadn’t thought of her in all that time, but circumstance had prevented him from contacting her. First it had been the rules of the Consortium, the rulers of Arthos, where his father had been posted by the Dominion twelve years ago. They’d forbid contact with species they’d not invited to join their city. Four years there had ended with Volcair being shipped back to Korous to officially enter his service.
Vantricar had expected Volcair to take a civil position within the Dominion government. Volcair had chosen military service instead. By now, he could admit to himself that part of his reason had been to spite his father, but the main motivation behind it had been respect for his mother. She’d been a commander in the Dominion military; this was a small way for Volcair to show that he remembered her.
But his decision to enlist had carried unforeseen consequences. His assessment upon enlistment had placed him immediately in a covert branch of the military—a prestigious but secretive posting that had sent him across Dominion space and beyond, that had seen him often operating deep within hostile territory. The work had been dangerous and thrilling, but it had also meant he was prohibited from communicating with anyone outside of ultra-secure military networks.
Entwined Fates Page 5
