by Poppy Rhys
“They’re winning,” she thought. “They’re winning!”
Dania dragged her eyes away from the race just quick enough to send a silent, grateful thank you toward Yit, even if the woman wasn’t looking at her.
Her information helped!
Her mates pushed back onto the main trail, Trik and Raim two mount-lengths behind. The gong struck again as Val’Koy and Jruviin jumped across the finish line. A plated door dropped right after Trik and Raim made it past, sealing the canyon and those within.
They won.
Dania closed her eyes and released a sigh, relieved that she hadn’t seen any of the infected bite, scratch or lay their jiggly appendages on them.
If she wasn’t surrounded, she’d squeal and stomp her feet.
They won!
****
The tower was quiet as the small crowd gathered inside. Dania stood near the center beside Yit, both waiting for their males since Trik and Raim were hers again. Judging by the satisfied glint in Yit’s eye, she was pleased about it.
Ahh, Dania was a bundle of nerves! She could go the rest of her life without seeing her mates compete in anything dangerous again, and it would still be too short.
The crowd stirred, and Dania peeked a glance as the four competitors passed through the main doors to be greeted. She fought the urge to run and jump into their arms. Instead, she curled her toes and clasped her hands at her front.
Had to keep her head down, keep pretending.
Nothing good would come of this situation if anyone noticed how much she cared about Val’Koy and Jruviin. How worried she’d been or her excitement when it—
“I invoke a reckoning!” Trik shouted and the crowd stilled.
Dania’s head snapped up, her middle hardening and eyes widening.
A reckoning?
Trik’s heated announcement, his fiery glare toward her guys, and the instant dialed-up intensity of the atmosphere made it hard to draw breath.
Sharn stepped forward, face grim. “Your reason?”
Wait, wait, what the fuck was a reckoning?!
“Cheating,” Trik answered. “These otherworlders sought information to undermine—”
“We committed no such acts!” Jruviin interjected, his body rigid, black eyes boring into Trik as if he were a nuisance he wanted to snuff out.
Sharn’s son squared his shoulders, smirking. “I have a witness.”
“Bring them forth,” Sharn calmly ordered.
Raim, standing beside Trik, turned his head in Dania’s direction. Her throat went dry. “Yit,” Raim released, “is our witness.”
Dania’s lungs deflated, her brow pinched, and she slowly regarded Yit at her side.
Yit?
River growled, the rumble vibrating her back when he quietly slid a sinewy, furred arm around her middle and pulled her against his unyielding body.
No, this couldn’t be. Yit had been... had been...
“Why?” Dania whispered. “Why would you do this?”
Yit lifted her face to the air, staring at Dania over her face hump where a human’s nose would be. “Your otherworlder males rejected me in the trade.”
“I...” she frowned, “I thought you wanted Trik and Raim? The kitchen—”
“I want no male who would choose something like you over me,” Yit bit out, her tone so quiet she didn’t think anyone else could hear the words. Her sharp teeth clicked together. “Your males will pay with their lives, and Trik and Raim will be stuck with a pathetic, ugly presch.” Yit’s face morphed into one of cruel humor. “In the end, I have won.”
River’s growl turned into a snarl and, while Dania’s brain put the pieces together, he’d pulled her another foot away from Yit.
Absolute rage flared to life in her chest.
How fucking dare she?!
Dania’s fingers curled in on themselves and she lurched for Yit, but River caught her and held her firm.
“Let me go!” she screamed internally, completely irrational.
“Dania, must stay calm!” he warned, that snarl never ceasing as he threatened the crowd around them when they got too close.
Yit walked forth, head turned down in submission as she approached Sharn with a false display of humility.
“Tell us what you know,” the Equis requested in a stern voice.
“The otherworlder female approached me for information about kweekotuh,” she claimed, voice loud enough for the whole room to hear.
Dania’s teeth clenched together. She hadn’t approached Yit, but she had asked. Who wouldn’t? At the time, she’d been afraid for her mates, and needed something to go on.
“She later asked for ways the otherworlder males could win against this tower’s warri—”
“LIAR!” Dania screamed, heat boiling in her veins. Members of the crowd shifted, agitation brewing. “You—”
River cupped a palm over her mouth, his curled claws scraping against her ear with his abnormally large paw.
“Your mates,” he advised, and her eyes immediately found Val’Koy and Jruviin. They pinned her with a hard stare. One that clearly warned her to be quiet.
No doubt her outbursts would only make things worse and this vile creature would continue to twist the truth. Their lives were on the line here, and no one was shutting Yit up!
“I told her of the shortcut, not thinking she would tell the otherworlder males.”
“Females are not suited to rationality and thought,” Raim accused.
Dania’s throat itched with an audible seethe that died into River’s hand.
“Too right,” Sharn agreed. “The reckoning will stand then. Yit will be punished with twelve lashings for her carelessness. The kweekotuh is void, and my guests will relinquish their claim to the human female effective immediately.”
Panic squeezed off her oxygen. The anger and uncertainty in her mates’ eyes confirmed they were just as surprised as she.
Then—suddenly—her world swam and her body was encased with warm fur as River slung her onto his back. He took off.
Dania held on, fingers curling into his shoulder fur as the wolvenk broke through the shouting crowd and burst through the tower’s doors.
Everything moved too fast, she couldn’t think!
Terror and confusion swamped her. The urge to flee fought with her fear for her mates that were left behind!
River kicked up sand as he raced from the tower doors. The hot sun pelted her skin and eyes with its rays before a crack split the air.
River yelped, and the world somersaulted again. Dania rolled to a stop several feet away, grains and debris clinging to her skin and hair.
“River?!” she cried, moving to her hands and knees and hurriedly crawling over to her collapsed companion. Her gaze shot back to the open doors, where a guard dropped his arm back to his side. He was holding a gun.
Dania screamed, “River!” as she draped herself over the wolvenk, shaking him, when the men rushed forward.
“Don’t make me kill your protector, female,” Trik threatened.
River groaned. “Mine?”
An incredulous sob-screech escaped her. “River? I’m here!”
“I’m here,” she repeated over and over in her head. They hadn’t killed him. Couldn’t have.
Trik plucked a small dart from River’s flank and tossed it aside. The wolvenk stirred and a gnarl—still deep and harrowing enough to make her hair rise—ripped from him.
“Stand down, River,” she begged. “Please—”
“No!” she screamed aloud, burying her fists into his thick, silvery-gray fur as a few men attempted to drag him away. “Don’t touch him!”
Raim approached, knocking her off River with a boot to the shoulder before hauling her up by the hair. River’s pitiful, waning whine clawed at her chest and she struggled against Raim’s fist.
“Mine,” he slurred into her mind.
“Don’t fight them! Please, don’t fight them,” she implored. If he didn’t fight them, they wouldn
’t have a reason to kill him, right?
Raim gave her a good shake and dragged her toward the tower. “Behave and we may let you keep the animal after the ceremony.”
“What are you talking about?” She struggled in his hold as the doors shut behind her, and she was dropped in the circle of the room.
Gaze lifting, she got to her feet and saw her mates on bent knees being held at the point of several weapons. Cold trickled into her veins.
Trik moved to her side, his biting fist inevitably clasping her upper arm and giving it a yank as he forced her to look at him. His calculating blue eyes set in his long, muted green face made her fume.
“You’ll be ours soon.”
Dania sucked back the saliva in her mouth and spat in his face.
Fat chance.
He viciously backhanded her. Smack. Her head snapped to the side, tendrils of her loose hair curtaining her vision as angry tears coated her eyes.
An instant fiery throb made the whole side of her face burn and the slick, salty tang of blood filled her mouth.
Dania gasped, the deep breath immediately shuddering from her lungs. Her hand flew to her face, cradling the abused, pulsing flesh. Trik hit her so hard, she struggled to move her jaw without pain.
Two thunderous roars vibrated her eardrums.
Val’Koy and Jruviin struggled against their captors, the intent for absolute annihilation burning in their eyes.
Zed’s voice shot through her mind, “Captain, they will be ki—”
“No!” she cried, outstretching her hand as if she could stop the Equahn who raised his weapon, intending to plunge it into the back of Val’Koy’s neck. “Please!” she begged, dropping to her knees, her aching face forgotten with the looming threat of death to one of her mates.
He didn’t lower the weapon! He hadn’t lowered the fucking weapon!
“I’ll do whatever you want!” she screamed, tearing her eyes away just for a split second to implore Raim and Trik above her. “I’ll be g-good. I’ll be good!” she promised, watery vision darting to her mates once more.
Raim lifted his hand, stopping the man.
Dania crumpled forward to rest her forehead against the ground, a relieved sob squeezing from her throat, the tears rushing over her cheeks.
He’d been seconds away from slaughter.
No, no, no... she couldn’t handle it. Couldn’t take it if any of them died. She’d be good. She’d do whatever they wanted if they didn’t hurt her guys.
Dania didn’t care if it was fucking selfish—she needed them to stay alive.
FORTY-FOUR
VAL’KOY
They have her. They had his mate. They’d lain hands on and assaulted her delicate flesh.
They’d abused Dania—the bewitching, beautiful human he had promised to protect.
Val’Koy struck the rigid cell bars once more, the deep hum filling the air with their vibration, yet they didn’t budge.
He’d been imprisoned before, this wasn’t new, but it stirred up fears he wanted to forget, stuff down into the back matter of his brain until he couldn’t remember what it’d been like to be held against his will and at the mercy of others.
“Save your energy,” Jruviin murmured from the other side of the cell, watching through the bars as another pair of Equahn’s leisurely walked by. River lay passed out at his feet, slumbering from whatever drug Sharn’s men shot him with.
“They have her!” Val’Koy snapped, looking to the tan bricked ceiling above. They’d been dragged down into the tower’s underground. It only exacerbated the feeling of being buried alive. Helpless. Helpless and unable to protect Dania.
“I am aware,” Jruviin replied in his annoyingly calm manner. Val’Koy knew it was in his best interest to relax and think clearly, but tranquility fucking evaded him.
“What are they doing to her?” he asked. It didn’t matter how pointless the question was. Jruviin knew as much as he did—nothing at all—and Val’Koy could only speculate on what Trik and Raim were doing with her right now.
He punched the wall.
“Your pacing is agitating,” Jruviin hissed under his breath.
“You think I care?” he roared, punching the wall again.
Jruviin shoved him toward the back of the cell, Val’Koy’s breathing harried and his mind a mess. He’d failed—again!
“Do you think they plan to keep us down here forever?” the Draekiin pointedly whispered, feathered nose nearly touching his as Jruviin stood toe to toe with him.
“N—”
“Let me answer that for you,” he interrupted. “No. Do you know why they keep us for now?”
Val’Koy’s teeth clenched together, his anger simmering just below the boiling point. Jruviin was making him think—think about something other than Dania—and it was working.
He took the bait and bit out, “Why?”
“Glad you asked.” Jruviin smirked and Val’Koy bared his teeth. “I think they plan to keep us alive long enough to parade Dania in front of us at whatever this feast is they have planned.”
His blood fired back up to the boiling point, and he feared no amount of talking could bring him down.
“Just wait,” Jruviin ordered, shoving his hands against Val’Koy’s shoulders and pressing him into the rough wall when he tried to move. Sometimes he forgot how much power the Draekiin held within his svelte frame. “If they do what I imagine they will... they have to let us out.”
“Do you know how unlikely—”
“Maybe.” His barbed tail swished behind him as he continued in a hushed tone. “Maybe I am wrong, but I think I have these Equahns pegged. They boast their victories.” Jruviin grimaced. “I know the type.”
Val’Koy searched the black pits of Jruviin’s eyes, a shared feature of their species. He’d never seen Jruviin’s true eye color—a testament that the Draekiin constantly warred with his emotions to a degree Val’Koy had never seen in another being.
No matter how it sounded, Jruviin wasn’t calm.
“We will get her back,” he whispered and squeezed Val’Koy’s shoulders.
He nodded, breathing in the dank air. “We will.”
They had to.
****
DANIA
“Strip.”
Dania scowled at Trik’s demand, her eyes darting to every person in the room—Trik to Raim to Sharn and his two advisors, then the two new Equahns she’d never seen before. A shorter man with cropped, faded green hair streaked with white wore a pale smock over his red shirt and trousers. He turned to the female—his assistant, apparently—who held up a pair of white gloves that shrank to fit his hands.
“Why?” she asked. She was past pretending to be a submissive presch. That cat had escaped the bag and she saw no point in keeping up the farce.
“Resisting could create consequences for your mates, Captain,” Zed piped up, lingering in the back of her mind.
The stony glare upon Raim’s face confirmed that statement. Dania didn’t want to make a bad situation worse—nothing would happen to her guys without a fight from her—but every strand of her DNA bucked at the thought of doing what these barbarians said without a word.
“River?” she probed for the millionth time since a group of aliens had hauled his massive body away. He hadn’t answered. Not once. Not even a whine or a ‘mine’. Nothing.
Dania blinked back the sting in her eyes and lifted her chin. She couldn’t afford to think the worst, no matter how much her fear kept dragging her back to that conclusion.
Raim had said if she behaved they would let her keep River after the ceremony. A ceremony she knew nothing about except that it involved her. She’d taken Yit’s place, yet she had no idea what that entailed—except that the Equahn pair that’d challenged her mates said she’d be ‘theirs’.
Though she wasn’t sure if that offer still stood after she’d spat in Trik’s face.
Dania’s jaw continued to thump in rhythm with her heartbeat. A gentle swipe of her cheek
with the tip of her tongue made her wince. The flesh was bumpy and swollen where her teeth had cut.
She turned and slowly pulled the dress over her head before holding it to her front. Shame made her chin tremble, but she clenched her teeth and willed herself to shape up. They wouldn’t get the satisfaction of her embarrassment here.
“Turn, female,” the gloved man commanded. Dania did, squaring her shoulders and dropping the crumpled outfit at her feet.
“Prideful,” Raim sneered, but the amusement in Trik’s eyes had Dania’s nerves unraveling.
“We’ll work that out of her,” he assured his mate.
Work it out of me?
Maybe they believed that to be true—and Dania didn’t want to think about their methods—but she’d rather jump into the canyon and be devoured by the Kwee than let these monsters break her.
The gloved man approached and wasted no time inspecting her. He must’ve been a physician of some kind. He prodded her from head to toe with his hands, peering at her with an eyepiece. Her curls were parted, as if he were looking for bugs. Her ears were checked, her eyes, and when she resisted opening her mouth, he squeezed the hinges of her jaw.
Dania couldn’t hold back the flood of tears to her eyes. They watered so heavily with the screeching pain of her cheek that fat droplets leaked from the corners when she blinked.
She refused to wipe her face.
"It is better to have an Equahn presch," her inspector advised as he probed her abdomen.
Hope rose in her chest...
"We want this one." Trik’s tone was sharp, smothering her momentary optimism. "Do your job."
"Of course, Eq Trik," he bowed. Dania hadn’t heard anyone address Sharn’s son with that title before. "I meant no offense. I only wish to see your union fruitful and there is always a chance of incompatibility with otherworlders.”
"If she proves to be sterile, we will choose another," Trik admonished.
"As is our right by law,” Raim added.
Fuck their laws.
The physician bowed again. "As you wish.”
Dania lifted her eyes to the ceiling when his hands became more invasive. She couldn’t bring herself to look anyone in the eye when fingers probed her intimate places while the room watched on.
