by Erin Raegan
“Fenru and I do not get along,” Killian said and walked to the window overlooking the glowing city below. “But he does try. Perhaps I should reach out to him.”
Oren grunted. “No, he’ll want to meet Theo.”
Killian frowned looking at me over his shoulder. “Come here, sweets.”
I walked to him, warily looking out the tall window. Aliens were several stories below us, all of them coming and going from shops and bars and just merging together into groups on the street-like traffic. “What are we doing now?”
“Now,” Killian murmured, playing with the little bead in my hair. “We have a drink.”
“Another!” Dereth crowed over the loud crowd.
Our alien waitress winked at him and sashayed away, her tail flicking behind her along with her long mane of bold green hair. As she turned away, the neon lights glistened against her snout and I stifled a shudder. I hadn’t even known she was female until Dereth started flirting with her unashamedly. She returned his interest so long as he was tipping her in gold coins.
Our waitress wasn’t the only female or male in the bar showing the males I sat with interest. Half the crowded bar was full of Kilbus, but the other half watched from their tables with rapt interest as the Kilbus grew more and more rowdy with every drink they ingested. Alien males and females, dressed scantily, danced on tabletops and from long poled platforms distended from the ceilings, all of them whistling and shaking their assets for the rowdy Kilbus below. The music was loud, tinkling bells and blaring horns, sort-of techno in nature but unlike anything I’d ever heard. I could feel every beat pound into me from the tops of my toes to the tips of my ears.
If it wasn’t for Killian grounding me, I would have been overwhelmed from every sense.
I sat on his lap, his hands spread wide and relaxed on either of my lace covered thighs. Oren passed me a few different drinks to try and I sipped on them, watching the antics of the Kilbus as nearly every one of them tried to outdrink the other.
Everyone seemed relaxed, not at all on guard for the supposedly dangerous creatures that I had been warned would lurk here. Oren and Dereth were weaving and bobbing in their seats, pounding their fists on the table for more drinks. Only Killian seemed the most sober, but with every drink he did finish, his hands became more and more invested in feeling me up in the most discreet ways possible.
First, just my thighs, then my hands, parting my fingers, and sliding his along the skin between them. I was squirming in his lap, tingling from more than the warm rush of the alien alcohol. “How long are we staying?” I whispered in his ear.
He pulled me tighter to him, brushing his lips against the shell of my ear. “Bored?”
I could hear the amusement in his voice and it only served to drive my anxiousness that much higher. I didn’t want to be here, surrounded by so many strange beings and faces. Drunk aliens all around me. But more than that, Killian was driving me mad with his wandering fingers and he knew it. “I’m tired,” I lied. I was not the least bit tired. His clawed index finger drawing little circles on the inside of my thigh made sure of that.
He chuckled darkly, most likely reading my lie before it even left my mouth. You’d think it would be hard for me to accept that Killian could be in my head at any given time, knowing my thoughts at any given moment. And sometimes it did bother me, a lot, but that was who he was. It was as easy to him as breathing was to me. I also knew he could control it. And it may seem a little oblivious or short-sighted of me, but right now I was choosing to believe that he was showing restraint and leaving my thoughts to myself for the most part. That could change in the future, but it was just too exhausting to worry about it every minute of every day.
Killian and mind-reading went hand in hand. If I was really going to give him a shot, give us a shot, I was going to have to accept that about him.
Even the mind control. Even that.
I could hope and pray he wasn’t using it on me or anyone I loved, but it was who he was, and at some point, I needed to either put my trust in the words and promises he gave me or back away from him completely. Forever.
I couldn’t do that. I just couldn’t. My feelings and heart were in too deep. They always had been with Killian.
So in the sand my head would stay. For now.
A male walked into the bar, pulling Killian’s attention from me.
The patrons stopped to stare. A hush falling over the room.
He was tall, dressed in black from neck to toe. A few pelted furs hanging from the belt at his waist and over his shoulder. He had short cropped hair, nearly to the skin of his head. His eyes were dark, shadowed by a deep black battle paint, painted across his face in stripes from his temples to meet at the bridge of his nose. Given that his skin was a deep shade of emerald, the sparkling of his silver irises stood out starkly against the black paint.
His ears stood up against his head with a sharp pointed tip and rows of pearl matte stones hung from the lobes in a row. They looked like bones.
He had two arms, two legs, and humanoid features, but he was by far the biggest male in the room. His head was over a foot taller than the Kilbus he passed as they each turned in stony silence to watch his progress to our table. Several aliens like him remained at the door, all of them dressed in the same black leather and furred adornments.
The newcomer kept his eyes on Killian as he swaggered closer, his muscular arms swinging by his side relaxed. His clawed emerald hands without a weapon.
He flashed Killian a sharp grin, revealing two rows of razor-sharp teeth.
Killian remained relaxed under me as he grinned back, but his hands were very, very tight on my hips. “Fenru!” Killian called grandly. “I’d heard you were near.”
This was the Ockdal Commander Oren and Dereth had been talking about earlier. The uptight commander.
I stifled a shiver. This Fenru didn’t seem uptight, he seemed dangerous. Very dangerous. He could crush me with one swing of those massive arms.
“Kil,” Fenru said in a strange tongue. My implant stumbled over itself to relay the translation. That hadn’t happened before. “I wish I could claim the same, but it seems the Marcovin had been determined to keep your presence as quiet as possible.”
I felt my brows hike up my forehead in surprise. Killian and the Kilbus had been the opposite of quiet in every way since the moment we stepped off the ship. Every presence here had stopped to stare.
Those dark piercing silver eyes shot to mine and I stiffened. “Or, not your presence, I should say, but rather that of your new queen.”
Killian stiffened then, his arms coming around me to gently push me from my seat on his lap. He stood in front of me, crossing his arms. “I’m surprised to see you off your ship, my friend. Surely you did not break your isolation to gossip.”
Fenru chuckled then. A dark, sinister sound. “You owe me,” he said darkly. “I’ve come to collect.”
Oren’s hand claimed my arm in a tight grip. Suddenly he and every other Kilbus were stone cold sober.
Killian shook his head, clicking his tongue. “Are you sure Fenru?”
Fenru nodded, still grinning that sinister smile. “I’m afraid so, friend.”
Killian sighed heavily. “I’m quite fond of her.”
Fenru just kept grinning, his eyes pinning Killian.
Killian nodded back to me. “You’ll find my queen is quite fond of me as well.”
Fenru just shrugged. “One night in my bed and she will have forgotten all about her cheat of a king.”
Killian chuckled again. “Very well, commander. To the death?”
Fenru nodded, his eyes gleaming. “To the death.”
To the Death
Theo
“What’s happening?” I asked Oren for the hundredth time, seething.
We were in a huge room, a crowd of hundreds cheering and roaring below the platform I sat on with Oren and Dereth at my sides. Below us and the crowds in the stands were a bare-chested Killian and Fenr
u, both of them kicking up dirt at their boots as they circled one another in what was clearly a battle ring. Blood still stained the dirt under them and what looked suspiciously like bones were piled up in the far-right corner of the ring, right next to a massive gate that had eerie animal roars coming from behind it.
Several Kilbus had already tossed both opponents different weapons but all of them had been rejected by both Killian and Fenru. This fight was apparently going to be hand-to-hand—for which I was grateful. I’d nearly had a heart attack when Fenru seemed to closely consider a swinging metal ball covered in serrated blades.
“It’ll be fine,” Oren murmured, absently patting my arm as he watched the two of them circle each other.
I fisted my hands. “What will be fine?”
Neither Oren nor Dereth answered me, both of them nearly vibrating with excitement.
I pinched Oren hard on his inner thigh. He yelped and glared at me. “Explain. Now.”
He rubbed the spot I abused, shifting away from me, still glaring. “Fenru and Kil are evenly matched.”
Dereth nodded then, also patting my arm. “If our lord were facing the Shadow Assassin, you’re concern would be more tolerable.”
“Tolerable?” I asked through my teeth.
Oren nearly rolled his eyes at me. “You insult Kil with all your worrying, he’ll be fine.”
I was vibrating with frustration. “I don’t even know what this is all about!”
Oren looked at me warily. “H—”
“And he said to the death! They both did!”
Oren opened his mouth, backing away from me a little. “Y—”
“And you said they were evenly matched! That means there’s a fifty-fifty chance he could die!”
“Theo—” Oren lowered his voice, looking around us. “Ca—”
“Why did he agree to this?!”
Dereth stood, glaring at us both. “We’re going to miss it.” He walked to the end of the platform, looking down.
“Oren, if you don’t explain right now—”
“Shh,” he hissed, covering my mouth. “It’s starting.”
My eyes bugged out in outrage and then a loud horn echoed in the room. The crowd went crazy.
Kil vs Fenru
Kil
“You’re queen seems to be in a fit,” Fenru observed with a grin.
I looked up, watching in delight as she shouted at Oren. “She will be angry with me.”
Fenru snorted. “This makes you happy?”
My smile grew. “Very.”
Fenru rocked his head to the side, stretching, prolonging the tension soaring through the room. “She is disobedient,” he noted accurately.
I shrugged, relaxing my stance as I watched her fury fly. “Yes.”
Fenru twisted his mouth in disgust. “I do not see the appeal in mating. What has happened to you?”
I roared my amusement. “If you were to settle, my friend, you would have the most submissive of mates,” he grinned, unrepentant, “but I must caution you, such a female does not exist.”
“I will find her,” he claimed arrogantly.
“Your mate will find you, Fenru,” I told him with mock sympathy. “and she will be savage.”
His expression twisted again. “Pass.”
The crowd roared their impatience. “Ready?”
He jumped in place, waving me forward. “I have been since we last met.”
I nodded, stepping forward. “Very well. I hope you’ve prepared your successor, for your brothers will be needing him.”
Fenru grinned. “He is ready to claim my throne should you best me.” He swung and I narrowly avoided the blow to my chin. “I doubt Oren is as equally as willing.”
I knocked his next blow aside, hitting him in the sternum. He grunted backing away. “Oren knows there is no need, it will be you leaving in a tomb this eve.”
Fenru rammed me head on, thrusting my back into the dirt below us. He straddled me, aiming for my throat. I kicked up, flipping him to the side and stood again, pulling him up by the chain of his belt and kicking him back with a blow to his temple.
I sighed and backed away, letting him roll to his feet. “Why do you even want a human?”
“I heard they sell well,” he grunted, wiping the blood pooling at his temple.
He ran for me, and I clasped his shoulder as he raised me above his head, grinning at the frenzied crowd. Grandstand.
I elbowed his spine and he dropped me, hissing. His eyes bled red, a sign of his true nature fighting to get free of its confines. His next drive of his fist would have broken the skin of my lip but I stopped him with my own. “Not the face, bastard, I will not be able to enjoy my queen’s mouth this eve.”
Fenru grunted in exasperation and delivered a solid kick to my chest. I coughed, laughing. “If you’re dead she’ll get to enjoy my mouth.”
I hissed, glaring. I would take a lot of boasting from the Ockdal commander, but, “Too far.”
He chuckled then, grunting as I took him to his back with a solid kick to his thigh. “I didn’t believe it,” he panted as he threw hit after hit at me. I dodged each one, busting his own lip. “But it’s true. The Kilbus Lord brought to his knees by a human female.”
I looked down as I stood above him. “I am not the one kneeling.”
Fenru shook his head and rolled sharply, knocking me to my knees and wrapping his thigh around my neck, choking me. He pulled my arm above my head, grinning down at me as I rolled to my back. “Do you hear them?” He taunted as the crowd roared its approval. “They want to see your blood staining my boots.”
“Perhaps if you let the beast out of its cage,” I drawled back, thrusting my legs up. “They might.”
Fenru scowled, hating that I knew what lurked beneath his skin. It was true, had Fenru released the side of himself he kept so tightly leashed, he would be an opponent I could not best. But fear and uncertainty restrained him, as well as the blessed ornaments he wore to chain himself. As all the Ockdal wore. I thrust up, using his bulk to leverage myself and broke free of him. We backed away from each other.
“You’ve been training,” I noted, impressed.
Fenru’s chest lifted with each panted chuckle. “You have not.”
I shrugged and walked to the side of the ring, choosing a long sword. His brows rose and he did the same with the crude flail he had considered earlier. He swung it wide, spinning to face the crowd with wide arms and an overconfident grin. He would not be wearing it much longer. My Theo was growing anxious and frightened and though I enjoyed this little dalliance with the commander, I had far better plans awaiting me with her naked form and the anger in her eyes.
I told him so and he sighed, “Very well then, I’ll make it as painful as possible.”
I chuckled, amazed at how confident he remained after his last—and failed—attempt at me.
By the end, we both spilled blood in the dirt.
Fenru lay on the ground, his death glazed eyes open and unseeing above him. His neck split and hemorrhaging. My thigh had deep marks from the blades of his flail but my face—true to his word—remained untouched. I nodded to the Ockdal that walked into the ring to claim their commanders lifeless form. They nodded back, silent and respectful as was their way.
Then I looked up at my Theo, her tearful eyes full of fear and relief and silently thanked my dead friend.
He had just ensured I had a very good night ahead of me.
Playing Nurse
Theo
Killian killed him. That big ass sword swung high and nearly cut the green head off of Fenru. Now Fenru was very, very dead and I was having trouble not vomiting all over Oren.
It was the strangest experience. Sitting there, watching Killian and that guy try their damnedest to kill the other while Oren and Dereth hooted and hollered their excitement. I didn’t see one single thing about that exciting.
It had been terrifying.
I nearly came straight out of my boots as I trembled, wait
ing for Killian to make his way up to us. My eyes glued on Fenru’s friends as they reverently dragged his lifeless body from the dirt.
Dead. Just totally dead. And they had been laughing. Like the whole time. Blow for blow, laughing and heckling each other.
Fenru had seen that blow coming. It was too quick for him to move from, but I could see it in his eyes. He knew in that too fast second that death was coming. I would never get that look on his face out of my mind.
He hadn’t been afraid. Not angry or emotional. Just resigned. He looked disappointed but he had a little smile on his face and Killian had been laughing as his blade cut into Fenru’s neck. The pair had said something and then Fenru was dead. A crude word on his chuckling lips. Killian bowed for the cheering crowd and then he walked off, a swagger in his step.
I blinked away tears as I saw him moving up the long stairway, his eyes on mine.
That could have been him. Killian laughing as he died. I just knew he wouldn’t go out afraid or sad. He would take it the same way, with a laugh. That was more terrifying than actually seeing him kill someone.
He was only three feet from me when I pushed past Oren and ran for him. He grunted as I slammed into him, stepping back on a foot. I pushed away, running my eyes up and down his blood-soaked shirt. “Where are you hurt?” My hands ran over him frantically, my fingers feeling both his blood and Fenru’s.
Killian pulled me into his side, walking us though the crowd with a wall of Kilbus between us and the onlookers. I looked up at him, my eyes stinging as I felt the little cuts in his shirt.
“Killian?”
He frowned down at me. “Everywhere, love,” he said gravely. “I hurt everywhere.”
I made a noise in the back of my throat, scared and sympathetic and hugged his middle as his arms came around my waist. He lifted me from my feet and held me to his chest as he walked. “Don’t,” I squeaked. “I don’t want to hurt you more.”
