“It doesn’t feel mild when the sun’s beating down,” she said, dusting her palms on her pants.
“In comparison to other regions of Dhal’at, the winds and storms are mild,” I explained. “Have you never walked the desert outside the Ka-lik’et walls? The sand is like silk, soft and drifting. This is because there is much activity in that region.”
“Okay,” she uttered slowly. “So, we know we’re in a remote area, but we already knew that.”
I held up a single finger. “Not just remote. Mild-weathered,” I pointed out. “That means we are in northern Dhal’at, as the winds grow stronger and the population swells the further south we go.”
She pursed her lips thoughtfully, bouncing her head from side to side with consideration, and then asked, “That means we just need to go south, right?”
“In theory, yes,” I agreed. “We begin by going south, but that alone will not necessarily mean we will reach Ka-lik’et. We will need to observe other clues along the way.”
“Wow,” she said suddenly. She jammed her hands onto her hips and shifted her weight back onto her right leg, looking at me with unexpected awe. “You’re more like me than I thought.”
I did not take offense to the analogy, but I was still curious. “How so?”
“Well, what you just did with the sand, analyzing it and using your knowledge to come to a reasonable conclusion, is exactly what we’re trying to do with the Novai,” she expounded. “You’re smarter than you want to seem, I think.”
I resumed walking again, and she fell into step beside me. “I do not seek to present myself as an imbecile,” I objected.
“Yeah, but you act as if you like it when people underestimate you.” She was looking at me; I could feel her gaze, though I did not look back.
“Underestimation is an asset,” I said. “When failure is expected, success is celebrated.”
Her eyes were drilling into my temple, urging me to meet her stare. “You don’t think success is celebrated even when it’s expected?” she inquired.
“I think the negative will always prevail over the positive, in both A’li-uud and humans,” I responded. “A good deed is easily forgotten. A bad deed is never forgotten.”
Phoebe grunted. “I don’t think that’s true.”
“You think it untrue because you wish it to be untrue,” I said, finally looking at her. She frowned. “Believe me, Mother and Father can tell you each and every time I was brought home by a guard, but the day Venan graduated from training is nothing but a distant memory for them. I am certain that is the root of his overachievement.”
“Well, that couldn’t have been easy for him,” she murmured empathetically. “When you do everything right, and nobody notices while your sibling messes up and gets a bunch of attention. That would make anyone frustrated.”
I gave her a devious half-smile. “Maybe, but frustrating him has always been one of my favorite pastimes.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” she laughed, rolling her eyes.
“No? My charm has not deluded you into believing I am nothing but pure in spirit?”
She turned her laugh into a fake cough and dramatically said, “Oh, of course, it has. I am totally under your spell, Zuran.”
I took a great stride ahead of her and spun, cutting her off in her tracks. She looked up at me in surprise, and I contemplated her momentarily. In the darkness, with only the stars to shed a whit of light upon her, she was ethereal. Her skin was pale as cream, and seemed to glow while her features were masked in the shadow of night. She was almost spooky, and it was a beautiful spectacle.
“Are you?” I intoned softly. “Are you under my spell?”
Her lips parted, and I heard the effervescence of breath slip between her teeth. The air no longer felt chilly against my skin as prickling, bubbling heat flooded my core and skimmed out to every limb. It was too black to see the details of her expression, but the whites of her eyes had grown exponentially, and the darkness did nothing to mute the vivid greenery of her orbs.
“Yes,” she whispered, her voice a lilt against my ear.
I reached for her, cupping her chin between my fingers. Again, there was a slip of a gasp, but I did not stop. I turned her face upward bit by bit until her neck was sensually taut. With my other hand, I grazed my fingertips from her jaw to her collar, slowly, slowly, with feather-light softness.
“What do you see?” I murmured.
Time stopped moving in that moment. The desert, the starry sky, the dunes, Dhal’at and even Albaterra as a whole disappeared, leaving only Phoebe and me to the ether. Only we existed. Only we mattered. Her lashes fluttered, and she spoke.
“You.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Phoebe
His mouth was on mine before my voice died.
Everything in my life, every decision I’d made and every experience I’d had and every moment that led me to right now, came to a head. It coiled into a ball of energy and slammed into me, rocking me to the deepest part of my being. I didn’t feel like a human anymore. I didn’t feel like anything anymore. I just was. There, in the middle of the godforsaken desert beneath the space-riddled sky with only miles between me and my first criminal act, Zuran kissed me, and I just was.
He tasted like heat. There was no other way to describe it. He tasted like he’d been made from sunshine and lava and flames and passion, hot and heady and erotic. He tasted like danger, risk, and sarcastic smirks. Just like him, his flavor was impossible to identify, to understand and categorize. He was a good guy, but he wasn’t. He was a jerk, but he was sweet. His favorite thing to do was enrage his twin brother, but he was willing to jeopardize his career and his freedom to rescue Venan. Zuran was an anomaly, a contradiction, and it only made sense his kiss was the same.
And I loved it.
I fell into him, my chest crushing to his as he snaked his tongue between my lips. I wanted to hold him, claw at him, beg him for more. He had me under his spell, indeed. Every nerve in my body was on fire, not the simmering embers of hot coals but the crackling, raging flames of arson. I was withdrawing from a drug I never knew I needed, and he was the only one who could soothe the ache.
We eased apart slowly, like neither of us wanted to actually separate. I looked up at him through hooded lids, feeling shy all of a sudden. He, however, was staring at me with a blend of hunger and surprise on his handsome, striking face.
“I definitely didn’t see that coming,” I muttered jokingly.
He grinned, and he swooped down again. This time, it wasn’t a slow, burning kiss but a quick one, a peck of claim. His hand closed around mine, and he righted himself southward again.
“We ought to continue,” he said.
His tone was light and airy as if we hadn’t just practically devoured each other, and, at first, I wasn’t sure how to take that. But when he flashed a second grin at me, I smiled back. He was teasing me.Ppurposefully, leaving me wanting more. And he succeeded. I was practically salivating with desire.
It was weird to walk hand-in-hand with him. We talked casually just like we had for the last few weeks, and it wasn’t awkward at all, but there was definitely a new zing of electricity between us. Our spark had erupted into electrocution. I could feel him now. Just his hand wrapped around mine felt like my body had absorbed his. His pulse throbbed in his fingertips, and mine matched. Thump, thump, thump. We were united. Two separate bodies, but united. It was like this was what we were meant to be all along.
“I would like to ask you something,” he announced without warning. He was looking straight ahead, but I could tell he was cautious.
“Sure,” I agreed. “What?”
He didn’t reveal his question right away. I could see a muscle in his jaw clenching and unclenching like he was thinking really hard if this was the right time or even an appropriate query at all. I squeezed his hand reassuringly. There wasn’t anything he could ask me that would offend me, I was sure. I wanted to share myself with him—in
more ways than one—and I wanted him to share himself with me.
The squeeze around his fingers did the trick. “Did you decide to become a nurse because of your sister?”
I almost stopped walking. It wasn’t that I was angry or hurt by his curiosity, but I was so stunned that I didn’t know how to process it. Thankfully, my feet kept moving of their own accord, and he continued to stare straight ahead, so I was able to collect my thoughts without interruption.
“I think so,” I answered slowly. “In a way. I didn’t decide to go into nursing specifically because of her, but, after what happened, I knew I wanted to help people somehow. I considered other fields like grief counseling after seeing what my parents went through when we lost her, but I ended up choosing nursing because I noticed that almost all the time Finnie was in the hospital, it was the nurses dealing with her. The doctors didn’t seem to be very involved. So, yeah, I guess it was because of her, more than I thought.”
He nodded his understanding, and I saw relief soften the sharp angles of his cheekbones.
“Why do you ask?” I wondered.
With a glance at me, he said, “I just wanted to know. It is a rare individual who devotes their life to others. I knew you were that type of person when I saw you with Kharid. You cared what happened to him even though you did not know him. I have never met someone like that.”
I didn’t blush or blow off the admiration like I normally would have if he’d complimented something like how I looked. What he described was exactly who I was, and it was also the reason I’d wondered several times if being a nurse was actually the right choice for me. Becoming so emotionally involved with patients wasn’t beneficial in my line of work; it was draining, difficult, and sometimes crushing. But it was me, and it was a prime example why I didn’t think he was right in his theory that good things were outweighed by bad. Those patients I lost, who either died or were diagnosed with something awful or even had just been dealt a bad hand, were hard for me. But the people I managed to save and rehabilitate and heal were like my oxygen. It gave my life a purpose.
“What about you?” I asked, turning it around. “Did you become a warrior because of Venan?”
His smirk returned, but it wasn’t the smirk of mischief and danger. It was droll and ironic like there was a joke inside his head I couldn’t hear. “No,” he said. “I became a warrior in spite of Venan.”
“Well, if not because of him, why did you then?”
Zuran bent his head toward me, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. “For far from noble reasons, I am afraid.”
I raised my eyebrows and pressed further, “What, like, they’d clear your record if you joined up or something?”
“No,” he repeated. “I became a warrior because the A’li-uud we are going to see needed someone on the inside.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Zuran
I dragged my finger over the blade, admiring the way the metal was shaped into a tapered wave. The hilt was propped only delicately in my other hand, and the crimson glow of the inlaid geodes reflected off my palm. It was a beautifully crafted piece, and a most lethal weapon to boot. The unique shape meant each strike was deadlier, each twist more painful. I could spear an organ and sever another with a simple jab.
“It has a brother,” Terrik said, holding up a second dagger. I took it from him and held one in each palm, placing them alongside one another. They were even more impressive as a pair.
“I will take both.”
Terrik smiled, revealing the gap of missing teeth on the upper left of his mouth. “I knew you would approve,” he claimed. “You have always favored the intimacy of close combat.”
“Proximity allows control. I have no use for ranged weaponry. It leaves too much to chance.” I dug into the pocket of my jodhpurs and extracted several vials. The citrine liquid within pulsed as though it were alive. Terrik eyed the glass capsules eagerly, and I said, “Concentrated angui venom. Two drops to the tip of a blade, one for ingestion.”
“You seem to have learned much from your time with the farmers,” the A’li-uud replied, pleased. In the blue light from the mineral lamps dangling throughout the lair, the thick scar trailing from his hairline to his upper lip appeared shiny. He had had that scar since our meeting four years prior, but I only realized at that moment I had never asked him how it was received. Terrik was not the sort of whom one asked those kinds of questions.
“Yes,” I acknowledged with disinterest. “The Elders were not wise to convert my sentence to labor, though I am grateful they did.”
My snaky companion leered. “Perhaps they will place you in the altisuam mills next time. There has been a resurgence of requests for finger-blades, and I have found the teeth from the ‘suam saws do quite well.”
“There will be no next time,” I returned at once, fastening the dagger sheaths to either side of my belt. “I have no intention of another arrest.”
Terrik crooked an iridescent eyebrow, which tightened the scar below into near-transparency. “You are not suggesting renouncing the rogues?” he probed skeptically.
I would have ignored him but, just as he was not one to query, Terrik was also not one to ignore. “No, I do not intend to renounce the rogues,” I said as I slid the daggers into their places. The weight of one on each side of my hips felt comfortable, and I tested the ease with which I could draw them. They slid metallically from their scabbards without flaw. Terrik was still eyeing me, so I continued to speak. “I merely intend to change course. The underground trade has become too saturated, and the guards too smart. It will not be long before entire operations are shut down.”
“To what do you intend to shift your focus?” He pressed a finger over his lips as he asked, muffling his words slightly.
“I have not yet decided,” I evaded. I sheathed the daggers again and looked up, inclining my head. “I do appreciate our working together, though, and I am quite pleased with my latest purchase.”
Still, Terrik held his forefinger to his mouth, staring at me. I felt uneasy. I was not an A’li-uud who was frightened easily, and I certainly was not an A’li-uud to be intimidated, but Terrik was unpredictable. It was precisely that, his inane unpredictability that made him such a successful and infamous trader. Amongst the rogues, he was revered and feared in equal measure, and few were willing to work directly with him to meet their ends. I had been one of the few willing, but there had been several times throughout our working relationship in which I felt he might become less of an ally and more of an enemy, and this was one of those times.
Finally, he dropped his hand back to his side and leaned casually against the cave wall behind him. “I have been good to you, Zuran, yes?” he asked carefully.
It was a loaded question. I had learned the tricks to Terrik’s manipulative methods through observation long ago. If I answered in the affirmative, it meant he felt justified in asking or demanding a favor. If I answered in the negative, it was an invitation to battle. There was no satisfactory response to be made, but there was only one if I intended to leave the lair unscathed.
“Yes.”
“I have helped you make money? Helped you find the means to get what you wanted to get and do what you wanted to do?”
“Yes,” I repeated, barely moving my lips.
He tilted his head to the side. He was not smiling, but there was enjoyment behind his glittering eyes. This was a game to him. He had always been a predator, but I had become the prey.
“I have always supported any decision you have made, yes?”
For a third time, I agreed, “Yes.”
“Good.” He was practically salivating now as he verbally cornered me. “Then, I want you to be assured I will support you in this as well. If your desire is to contribute to the rogues outside the underground trade, I am happy to do what I can to help you.”
I waited for him to go on, to stab me with the hook that I was certain would be attached to this line, but he did not expound. He merely lo
oked at me, smiling slightly and leaning against the wall. When it became too uncomfortable to look back at him, I replied brusquely, “Thank you.”
“To that end…” There it was: the hidden twist. He rolled the vials of angui venom between his fingers, and they tinkled lightly each time they inadvertently hit one another. “I have the perfect position for you.”
“Position?” It was a word generally reserved for the militia, synonymous with rank. Part of being a member of the rogues was our distinct lack of organization. There were no jobs within the underground, only those who needed something done and did it.
Terrik nodded, a smug smile maiming his twisted lips. “We need a mole.”
“Pardon me?”
He pushed himself forward, straightening up from his slouch against the wall, and took a step toward me. In his ardor, he looked manic and frenzied. His eyes were wide, his teeth gleaming in the blue light, his nostrils flared. Terrik was an imposing A’li-uud to look upon in the best of times, but this was the face I imagined his victims saw just before he told them their consequence for shorting him in trade.
“A mole,” he said. “We need someone on the inside. As you said, the guards have become too smart. The underground market is in danger of utter extermination if we do not put securities into place. You said you wanted to shift your focus out of trading; well, here it is.”
“You want me to join the warriors?” I asked incredulously. I could not fathom doing something as regimented as owning a shop, let alone spending my days and nights taking orders about everything from my hairstyle to my attitude from someone else.
“It should be an easy transition for you,” Terrik noted. “You are already a deadly fighter, and you have been arrested enough times to have gained a measure of insight into the job. And your brother is part of the guard, is he not?”
“He is,” I acknowledged tightly.
Terrik grinned widely, again revealing his missing teeth. “How perfect! He can certainly put in a good word for you, maybe help you get those arrests off your record to ensure your eligibility.”
Zuran: A Paranormal Sci-Fi Alien Romance: Albaterra Mates Book 6 Page 12
