“Have you…ever been with a woman before, Khofti?” I felt slightly jealous—had he experienced that joining of consciousness with another? Had she died? Was that where those deep feelings of grief floating within Khofti had come from? Was she being worn by one of the Ak-hal, or would I have to meet her someday? I didn’t want to meet her, but on the other hand, I wouldn’t wish the Ak-hal on anyone.
“You have to ask? I told you. The Kamani mate for life, Shay.” He said it gently, not as an admonition. His twin golden rings looked into my eyes curiously.
“Then how did you know how to do any of those things?” He had seemed pretty sexually experienced, in my opinion. Not that I really had a fully developed opinion on that, myself.
“We all know how to pleasure our women,” he said with a good-natured laugh. “The Ak-hal should know, as well. Women might be an object to them, but they are a treasure also. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have ruined the Sky Jewel to get to you.”
“They really wanted that, didn’t they?” I asked ruefully. It had been an amazing sight to behold. I felt bad that it was because of me that it had been ruined.
“That was one of the things that they wanted in the false peace treaty.”
“It was just a rock.”
“Beauty is power to the Ak-hal,” he said softly, caressing my cheek with his hand.
“What is power to the Kamani?” I asked.
“Love. Kindness. Peace.”
“The noble savages,” I commented, and he glanced at me questioningly. “Earth philosophy, I suppose. Has there ever been a bad Kamani?”
“Of course.” He thought for a moment. “You asked for a story, little one. Don’t think that I have forgotten.”
“Okay. Tell me,” I rolled on my side and propped my head on my hand expectantly. “Once, when only the first Kamani had awoken, the dark one was born,” he began.
“The dark Kamani?”
“Yes. He had black eyes. And his heart had clouds that covered it.” As he spoke, his fingers trailed across my skin, raising lines of goosebumps along it. “He was the outsider. He separated himself from the other Kamani.”
“What was his name?”
“He was called Fana.”
“You said the Ak-hal wore Fana,” I said, recalling something he had said what seemed like a long time ago.
“I haven’t gotten to that part yet.”
“Sorry.”
“You are forgiven, little one,” he said tenderly. “Fana was always alone. It isn’t like the Kamani to want to be alone. That is why we mate—two together,” he said, taking my hand and placing it palm to palm with his own. We both looked down at our hands. “The Kamani didn’t dislike Fana, but he disliked the Kamani. For he had offered his heart to one, the most beautiful of the Kamani, Aisha.”
“It’s always over a woman.”
“Love is a strong emotion. When it isn’t returned, it can fester, becoming the deepest sickness in all Aman.”
“And Fana had it?”
“Yes. Fana had it. And it made him bitter. He watched as Aisha gave herself to another. And it made his dark heart grow darker. He turned away from the Kamani, going off on his own and living inside of an ice cave for many years. And then, the Ak-hal came.”
“Ah,” I prompted. “Are you skipping a lot?”
“Well, yes. Fana lived in the cave on his own for centuries. During that time, the Kamani did much. A child was born to Aisha,” he paused and coughed. “It only made Fana more bitter, as he believed that her happiness should have been his to share in.”
“The Ak-hal first approached the Kamani. They asked the Kamani for their help. They had just lost their planet, and all their women with it. They weren’t ever clear on how that had happened. They were… I don’t the word…”
“Evasive?” I supplied. He nodded.
“Yes. Evasive. They seemed sad, but it didn’t reach their eyes. It was as though they were playing at grief. Nothing touched them, not the beauty of Aman nor the kindness of the Kamani, and the Kamani, although wary, let the Ak-hal know how to grow things on Aman, as well as how to find unfrozen water.”
“After all this, the Ak-hal asked the Kamani for a gift of their women, so that they could rebuild their race. The Kamani refused, saying that mating was a choice, and a shared destiny. We don’t view our women as objects to be gifted, and the chief of the Kamani foresaw that the Ak-hal wouldn’t ever treat our women as equals. This was when the Ak-hal turned from the Kamani in anger.”
“When the Kamani didn’t wish to make such an alliance with the Ak-hal and their cold eyes, Fana did. He left his ice cave and went to live with them, helping them to build their castle of metal and ice. They asked Fana about the Kamani and Aman. He told them everything—everything that the Kamani owned.”
“The mithrim?”
“Yes. Mithrim comes from the ground.” That was surprising. “They didn’t show you their mines?” He seemed shocked. I shook my head. Mithrim seemed to be a part of the Ak-hal—like another limb. They depended upon it for so much. I couldn’t believe that they hadn’t had it prior to their appearance on Aman. “They are proud of their mines.”
“I imagine that they are quite ugly,” I supposed.
“A deep scar in the land,” he agreed.
“What was their ship made of before?” I asked. “The one that brought them here?”
“Dark metal. It glistened in the light of the sun. I don’t know what it was,” he frowned. “I’ve never seen it before. Maggie says that she thinks it was something called ‘steel.’”
“Ah,” I nodded. “But they have never come to Earth.”
“They have. Or you wouldn’t be here.” He had a point. They just hadn’t made their presence known to anyone but their prey. Clearly, they had learned from their experience with the Kamani—women weren’t always given as gifts by other races, so they found it more expedient to take in secret.
“What happened with Fana?” I wanted him to get back to the story. There was a point, or he wouldn’t be telling me this. I hardly needed to know how dangerous the Ak-hal were. I had a pretty good firsthand knowledge of the fact.
“He made a bargain with the Ak-hal. He promised them all the resources on the planet if the Ak-hal would give him Aisha and their light in his eyes. He wanted to be like them. He wanted to be a dragon instead of a bear. He told them about the Kamani’s weaknesses. He told them about the Sky Jewel.”
“Where did it all go bad?” I asked quietly.
“They gave him Aisha. They killed her mate and used his blood in their mating ritual. Fana liked that they used the other male’s blood. He liked the idea that he was taking in something of his in order to take his mate for his own. Aisha, seeing her mate killed, and being forced to knowingly drink his blood, waited until Fana slept. She killed herself by jumping off the Ak-hal’s tallest tower.”
“Heartbroken, Fana begged for her return. None of the Kamani had ever died before.”
“Never before?”
“No. The gods gifted the firstborn of the Kamani with eternal life. Since the Kamani are peaceful and rarely had confrontation, there had been no loss of lives before this.” I realized that the Kamani didn’t have a fully developed sense of the afterlife.
“Do you think that when the Kamani are worn as skins, they are still there?” I asked.
“Perhaps,” he shrugged. “Perhaps not.”
“So where do you think they go when they die?” I asked. Khofti shrugged, looking up at the cave ceiling.
“They stay with us,” he replied vaguely before returning to his story. Clearly, this was uncomfortable territory. “Fana was angry with the Ak-hal. He confronted them, but one doesn’t confront the Ak-hal and live. They killed him while he was in bear form. He had outlived his necessity to them. Their king wore his pelt when he walked onto the Kamani lands. He told us that in order for them to stop killing the Kamani, we would need to give them access to the resources.”
“What did
you do?” I began to recall—he had been there.
“The chieftain refused them.” There was a sad, faraway look in his eye. “With the deaths, he wouldn’t stand down. We may be kind, but that doesn’t mean that we are weak and without honor.” His voice was heavy with emotion, his face angry.
“You knew Aisha,” I said softly. He looked at me.
“She was my mother,” he confirmed. My heart broke for him.
“Oh.” The word came out without my being able to hold it in. “She killed herself instead of coming back to you?” I realized that this statement might skewer him emotionally. It didn’t. He merely shook his head.
“The Ak-hal broke her—when they made her drink my father’s blood.” He paused, drawing a feather-light circle around my belly button with his finger. “If she had come back to me, she wouldn’t have been herself.”
“And you were just a kid?”
“What’s a kid?” He looked confused. Maggie had taught them much, but not all.
“A cub.”
“Yes. I was taken care of by the tribe.” I leaned into him.
“Why did you tell me a sad story?”
“Because it’s true. Whatever the Ak-hal touch, they hurt. I worried for you.” He looked at me pointedly. I shook my head, telling him that I was fine.
“And then what happened? To you?” I asked.
“I lived. I grew. I did all that I could to protect the Kamani from the Ak-hal. All the while, I waited for my mate.” He wrapped an arm around me.
“And when you saw me? With the Ak-hal crown prince?”
“I heard you.”
“That was all?”
“No. I needed to get you away from them,” he replied. “There was no time to think.”
“You just knew?”
“The only reason that a Kamani has ever been able to speak to a human is because they are mates.”
“Are you talking about Maggie?” I asked in surprise. She was the only human who he could be referring to.
“Yes. When she was rescued, her mate was the one who found her. He heard her, calling out to him in the snow. They were rarely seen apart. Her Kamani mate was killed by the Ak-hal many years ago now,” he explained. “Their queen wears him.”
“Does anything good ever happen to her?” I wondered aloud.
“She is a free woman. The grief didn’t break her. She is stronger than most.” He said it like one would a koan—calmly, firmly in the right. I nodded.
“So, how does the Kamani mating ritual go?” I asked. He looked at me, eyes wide.
“We’ve just done it,” he said, surprised. “The joining of two souls is only between the two mates.”
“So, just us?”
“Just you and me.”
“No fanfare? No shaman?”
“Did you want any?”
“Not really.”
“Good.”
“So we are mated?”
“Yes. Did you not feel it?” he asked. I nodded.
“For forever?” I needed him to confirm.
“For forever.” We sat in the silence of the cave. It was a comfortable silence—one shared between two beings who need nothing more than the other. He covered me with one of the blankets, drawing it up and over himself. I lay back, and he lay down beside me. I turned onto my side, wrapping my arm over his wide, muscular chest, my head rested on his rounded shoulder. I felt myself drifting off to sleep. I could feel him smiling against my hair.
“Are you always happy?” I asked him.
“No. Only when I’m near you.” Content, I fell into a deep sleep beside him. I had strange dreams—white dragons flew through the sky. I was running through the snow. All that I could hear was a violent scraping noise—as loud and insistent as a heartbeat. I looked about me. The sun was rising—it couldn’t rise. I didn’t know why, but if the sun rose, then it would all be over.
Chapter 10
I awoke with a start. Khofti sat, tense beside me, listening to something going on outside the cave. I could feel fear coming from Khofti—strange since he feared little; I had seen it within him. I could hear that violent scraping noise from my dreams, and the sound of feet making their way through large drifts of snow. I sat up, touching him lightly on the shoulder. He turned to me, his eyes wide, like a rabbit, caught in a trap.
“What is it?” I whispered. “Has someone come?”
“The Ak-hal,” he said, his voice full of dread. My stomach sank. I couldn’t believe that they had found us. I should have known better. Two Ak-hal in their human form entered the cave. They carried long, sword-like weapons in hand. Behind them, the face of a large white dragon hovered by the mouth of the cave, looking inside with its bright ice-blue eyes. Smoke came out as he breathed out. I could feel the flames gathering within him. I tensed and waited for the dragon to exhale, burning us away to ash in a fiery inferno. I grasped Khofti’s thickly muscled bicep with my hand.
“You have murdered our crown prince,” one of the humanoid Ak-hal accused. “You are to come with us.”
“No,” I snapped. “I’m never going back.” In one fluid motion, Khofti jumped up from the pile of blankets and shifted, his large form springing forward and barreling straight for the Ak-hal. The Ak-hal pulled out their swords with characteristic precision, their blades making a loud metallic ring as they came free.
“Khofti! No!” I yelled in desperation. The Ak-hal held their swords at his throat. With a great roar, he slapped them away with his large paw. One of the swords clattered to the ground several feet away. The disarmed Ak-hal danced to the side, trying to get to his sword. As he did so, Khofti made another swipe with his great paw, and the Ak-hal crumpled to the ground in a bloody, nerveless heap. The dragon at the cave’s mouth reached in, taking Khofti in his great, taloned claw. Khofti struggled against it, stopping when the dragon let out a threatening gout of flames.
“You have stolen a woman from the Ak-hal,” the one of the humanoid Ak-hal said to Khofti. “You will both face justice.”
“The Ak-hal have no concept of justice,” I spat.
“You have both committed crimes against our race,” he said darkly, turning to me. “It’s time that you face your punishment.” My long-held sense of doom returned to me like an old frenemy. I knew at once that there would be no trial. True justice wasn’t something that the Ak-hal did—if there were scales, they were always weighted in the Ak-hal’s favor. He walked toward me briskly, confidently. The injured Ak-hal was left behind, seemingly without a thought. As he pulled me out of the cave, wrapped only in one of the blankets, I glanced up at Khofti, who looked down at me mournfully from where the dragon held him aloft.
I am sorry, little one.
At least you tried. The Ak-hal owned us. They had owned me the whole time, I realized. They had sunk their fingers into my skin and held on. I might run, but no matter how far I got, they would never release their hold.
I had never seen the dungeons of the Ak-hal. They were likely considered unseemly, and not polite viewing for their captives, like the mines. It was bright, like the room in their ship where I had woken up. It was built entirely from mithrim: white floor, white walls, white, rounded bars on the cells. It had a strange smell—like unwashed bodies, fear, death. It was utter ugliness—just like the hearts of the Ak-hal. Khofti had been placed in the cell across from mine. We both sat, looking at the other across the room. My body was exhausted already.
“When do you think they will kill us?” I asked him, although I knew the answer.
“First light, most likely.”
“I love you,” I whispered as I clutched at my shorn hair. They had roughly chopped it short so that it wouldn’t be in the way of the executioner’s blade. I had never worn my hair short, and I felt like someone other than myself again. I was dressed in a simple slip in white silk, and my feet were bare on the cold white floor.
“And I, you.” His voice was small, faraway. The Ak-hal guards had given him a pair of their tawny-colored breeches t
o wear. It was strange to see him in something other than his Kamani garb. They had given him no shirt, and his perfect, deliciously muscular chest was out for me to see. I ached to have him wrap his arms about me. Not only would that be warmer, I’d feel comforted.
It wasn’t long before Sarita entered. Her face was livid—eyes glittering angrily, brows furrowed in rage. Her arms were crossed over her chest. She was dressed in her customary blood red silk, her golden crown bright, sun-like. I wasn’t afraid of her. I had hit her where it hurt. I had taken that which had been most important to her. Her eldest son had been her meal ticket. Although she had others, he had been the first, the dearest. Standing and walking over to the bars of my cell, I looked her right in the eyes, my chin raised in defiance. She ignored Khofti, her glare and her anger was meant for me only.
“You look ugly,” she snapped cattily, trying her best to wound me. It didn’t work. Her words bounced off me like a bread knife against plate armor.
“I feel beautiful,” I replied evenly.
“I told you that you would be disposed of if he died. Look at where you are now. At dawn, you die, and you will serve Moranen forever in the afterlife.” I hadn’t known that the Ak-hal believed in the afterlife. They never spoke about death, since they all seemed to assume that they would never die. I wondered if that was all that Sarita had retained of her humanity—a belief in life beyond mortality.
“I don’t belong to him. I never did. I lived a human, and I die a Kamani,” I said it with pride. She studied my eyes.
“Yes. I see the gold.” She saw my shocked look and smiled. She had unnerved me.
“Maggie’s eyes—” I began, but she interrupted me.
“Maggie?” It was her turn to be surprised. Evidently, her ploy had worked. There was no gold in my eyes. The Kamani weren’t as invasive as the Ak-hal. I gazed upon her defiantly.
“She survived. She beat you.”
Hero's Bride (Alien SciFi Romance) (Celestial Mates Book 7) Page 20
