“Now”—Queen Revna raised the tall goblet in front of her—“we drink to friendship with Earth and the humans we now call friends. May our alliance last until the last star fades.”
Riot reached for the mug in front of her. It was filled with a slick, brown liquor that smelled like wood varnish. Riot raised the glass with the rest of those gathered, but just set the edge to her lips without taking a drink. She had a long, messy history with alcohol, and this was neither the place nor time to test her resolve.
Riot waited for everyone to lower their drinks before she did the same.
“Now, let the games and feasting begin!” The queen lifted her hands with a smile.
The rest of the night passed with everyone gorging themselves on steaming plates of mystery meat, soft breads, and a variety of alien vegetables, and stuff that tasted like cheese but looked like play dough.
“Whatever this is, it’s amazing.” Riot shoveled another forkful of brown meat into her mouth. “It tastes like a combination of beef and pork.”
“That’s bowvine.” The queen leaned in with a wink. “There, that’s what the animal looks like.”
The queen pointed to under one of the tables, where an animal that looked like a dog waited for scraps. It was stocky, with four legs and wide paws. A canine face ended in a long snout like a wolf’s. Riot shrugged and nodded along, continuing to enjoy her meal. Beside her, Deborah opened her mouth, letting her own bowvine drop to her plate.
“We’re eating dogs?” Deborah whispered to herself as she practically turned green at the thought. “I can’t eat dog.”
“Easy, Bubbles.” Riot nudged Deborah in the ribs. “You don’t want to be impolite to our new friends.”
“Owie.” Deborah rubbed her ribs for the second time that day. “What’s with you people and the poking today?”
Riot stuffed her stomach until she thought she would burst, and then ate dessert. As the night progressed, there was entertainment ranging from knife throwing skills to wrestling matches.
Wang impressed everyone with his ability with the blade, only coming second place to Hemming, who used a massive blade shaped like a boomerang that hit the bull’s-eye every single time.
Ketrick took first place in wrestling. It was truly amazing how fast his leg had healed; in twenty-four hours, he had gone from his death bed to maneuvering around on the ground and body slamming his opponents.
I’m going to have to remember to get shot up with those healing nanites before our next battle, Riot thought around a mouthful of some delicious dessert called “nutbutter,” which didn’t taste like peanut butter at all, but rather a mix between thick cream and strawberries. These aliens know how to eat.
As the evening’s festivities began to wind down, Ketrick approached Riot’s chair. He grinned and offered her his hand.
“Will you accompany me for a walk?” Ketrick didn’t seem embarrassed at all as he asked the question loud enough for everyone at the table to hear. “I would talk with you if you have a moment.”
Wang was off with Rizzo and Hemming, practicing with the boomerang blade. Vet was engaged in a conversation with a group of warriors, explaining to them how their ship worked. Deborah was still poking at her food, trying to figure out what she would eat and what might have looked like a dog or a cat before it was cooked.
“All right.” Riot moved from her seat and followed Ketrick. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a smile pass over the queen’s face. “But just a walk. No funny business. I—”
Riot was about to say more, when a massive form moved in the shadows, and she had to blink twice to comprehend what she was seeing. To the east and away from the celebration where their craft rested, a form nearly as large as their ship itself waited in the shadows.
38
The illumination from the fire pits that had been dug and now burned with a crackling delight did not extend this far out from the celebration.
“Easy,” Ketrick reassured her. “She’s a friend.”
“She?” Riot understood what she was seeing now. A large, silverish grey dragon waited next to the ship. It sniffed the craft in long, drawn out breaths as if it were getting high from the scent. “Oh yeah, you have that whole thing going on where you can speak to them.”
“Yes, I’m a judge, and ‘speak’ is a strong word. More like we can sense each others’ thoughts.” Ketrick smiled through the dark. The dim light caught his white teeth. “Judges only appear to our people when we need them the most. The last judge to come was over a hundred years ago, during a conflict with our enemies.”
Riot examined the gigantic dragon in front of her. Wings folded across its back, and four legs as large as tree trunks supported a thick, scaly body. On one end was a long tail with spikes down the entirety of its spine. On the other end was a thick neck topped with a head as large as a midsize sedan.
The dragon blinked serpent-like eyes at Riot. Although it made no aggressive move, Riot couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable around a beast that could swallow her whole.
“Her name is Vikta.” Ketrick motioned for Riot to keep on following him. “Don’t be scared. She won’t harm you.”
“I’m not scared,” Riot lied. “I’m just cautious around things that can step on me and flatten me like a pancake.”
“Vikta is a special fire serpent.” Ketrick stood next to the dragon now. It lowered its giant head so he could scratch the right side of her jaw. “She can change her size from what you see to something as small as an oxenheim. She’s one of only a few fire serpents able to perform this.”
“She can shrink?” Riot shook her head, trying to wrap her mind around this. “And you’re calling me a sorceress?”
“You don’t have creatures that can change their size on your world?”
“No, not at all. Not even close.”
“Interesting. Come and touch her. She says you’re being a baby.” Ketrick grabbed Riot’s hand before she could protest and pressed it against the dragon’s snout. “There, not so bad, right?”
Riot swallowed hard. Under her right hand, the scales felt like thick, uneven stones. The warmth coming from the beast was pleasant in a strange way. The dragon looked at her through red eyes that reminded Riot of a book she once read called Lord of the Rings, where a single eye could see everything.
“She likes you.” Ketrick left his hand over Riot’s, sending a tingle down her arm. “She likes you a lot.”
“What is she saying?” Riot asked, aware that Ketrick was still holding her hand, but finding comfort in the fact. Comfort she had refused herself for so many years. “Is she rethinking her stance on taking a bite out of me?”
“No, she says you have a strong heartbeat, like a warrior’s.” Ketrick moved his hand down her arm and turned Riot to look at him. “She sees what I see, that you are different from any other.”
“Listen, listen…” Riot shook her head. She pulled her hand away from Vikta and Ketrick. Her emotions were beginning to get the best of her. She felt light-headed. She could feel the warmth Ketrick’s body promised, and all she had to do was go along. She wouldn’t—couldn’t. “You’re a nice kid, and a prince, and you have a great body. Any girl in her right mind would be all over you right now, but I’m not just any girl. I have a mission to finish and—”
“Is that what’s going on?” Ketrick didn’t move to embrace her again. Instead, he gave her her space. A look in his eye said he was just trying to understand. “You’re afraid we’d ruin your mission?”
“No.” Riot shook her head again, trying to calm her racing heart. “I just don’t get involved in these types of situations.”
“I see.” Ketrick stood up straight, nodding along as if he’d suddenly figured out why Riot was pushing him away. “You are promised to another.”
“No, I mean, unless you call the Marine Corps ‘another,’ but no.”
“What then? What happened to you to make you push people away like this?”
All Riot wanted to do in
that moment was to walk back onto her ship, pop a few of Wang’s pills, maybe throw back a bottle of Jack Daniels or two, and call it a night. But that would mean taking steps backwards from the person she was trying to become.
“It’s your typical sob story.” Riot rolled her eyes. She massaged her temples with the pointer finger and thumb of her right hand. “God, am I really going to have a heart-to-heart with you right now? I don’t do feelings, as a general rule.”
Vikta cocked her head as if she sensed a very serious moment was about to take place. The dragon went down on all fours and rested her head on the ground between her front claws. Her eyes never left Riot.
“If something haunts your past, you should deal with it.” Ketrick leaned against the craft, giving Riot even more space. “Deal with what is in front of you now. Worry tomorrow for what tomorrow will bring.”
“Yeah, well, that’s easier said than done.”
“I agree, but it can be a way of life. Look at the celebration we just took part in. Those same Savages may be in for the fight of their lives tomorrow if the talks do not turn out well. Tonight, they have forgotten their worries and live in the moment.”
“You’re really going to make me do this, aren’t you?” Riot felt a wave of unease pass over her as she realized she was about to talk about her past. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
“Nope, not at all.” Ketrick waited for her to continue. His eyes never strayed from hers. “I’ve been told I’m a good listener, and if it helps, I’ll lay my past in the clearing, as well. My father died at an early age. I’m known to be dog-headed, I act first and think later, and I owe my life to an alien from another planet.”
“You don’t owe me anything.” Riot waved away the words as she grappled with the idea that she was, in fact, an alien to Ketrick. “I did it for the mission, if that makes you feel any better.”
“You still saved me.” Ketrick shrugged his massive shoulders. “Your turn.”
Riot took a deep breath.
Why is this so hard? She wrestled with the idea in her head. There was some kind of mental block that made speaking about her past beyond difficult. Just start, just get it over with.
When Riot started talking, she couldn’t stop. It was like looking—no, more like reliving her past. With each sentence, memories long buried pushed their way to the surface.
39
My childhood wasn’t the worst, I wasn’t bounced around from foster home to foster home or anything like that. Compared to a lot of people, I actually had a happy childhood. My mother loved me, that I know from the few memories I have of her. She died in a car accident when I was still young.” Riot paused in her story to see if Ketrick was tracking along with her. There was no way he knew what a car accident was, but he didn’t interrupt her story. “A car accident is a when two vehicles we use for transportation collide. It was no one’s fault.”
“I see.” Ketrick remained quiet as if he were afraid more words from him would derail Riot’s resolve to tell her story. “Please, continue.”
“After my mom died, my dad was never the same. I know he loved me, but he buried himself in work. I can remember seeing him a few hours at night and a few hours over the weekend before he went back to work. I was raised by a handful of babysitters, rather than my own parents.”
Again Riot paused, this time to take a deep breath before she continued. The truly painful part of her story was still to come.
“When I was in my early twenties, I fell in love—correction, I fell in what I thought was love. I didn’t understand the meaning of the word at the time. I still don’t. Long story short, I was engaged, and he cheated on me. When I called him out on the fact, he hit me. Nothing crazy; only once. He begged for forgiveness after, but as you can probably imagine, I’m not the forgiving type. I went through a dark time where I dealt with my pain by finding the bottom of a lot of bottles.
“When I finally sobered up, I joined the Corps, and from then on, I promised myself I wouldn’t let anyone hurt me like that again, either physically, mentally, or emotionally. Looking back on it now, he didn’t even hit me that hard. The person I am now would have curb-stomped that prick up and down the street.”
Riot expected Ketrick to say something, but he didn’t. Instead, the two stood in a comfortable silence. Vikta breathed a heavy sigh of smoke from nostrils the size of dinner plates.
Riot hugged herself, removing her gaze from Ketrick to the giant moon in the sky that orbited Hoydren. Why had she opened herself up to those memories, those feelings?
“I’m sorry you had to go through all of this on your journey.” Ketrick moved to stand beside her and, as if he could sense she didn’t want to be touched, he did not offer. “But the sorceress who is named Riot, the one I have come to know is better for it. You’re like a piece of iron.”
“That’s a new one on me.” Riot let out a long sigh. “No one has ever called me a piece of iron before.”
“The very toughest iron is forged in the hottest fires,” Ketrick continued. He remained quiet for a moment longer, then placed a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, sorceress. Maybe I shouldn’t have pressed the issue.”
“I’m not a sorceress.” Riot shrugged off his touch. “And you should be sorry. I hate talking about my feelings.”
“I know you’re not a sorceress.” Ketrick smiled. If he took offense at having his hand brushed off, he didn’t show it. “But it’s funny, and it makes you smile. Well, at least the edges of your lips twitch.”
“Like I said before”—Riot shook her head, heading for the cargo ramp of her ship—“I’m not the kind of girl you’re looking for.”
Riot walked away from Ketrick, hating herself for not being the type of woman who would entertain Ketrick’s advances. Even hating him a little for having to relive her past.
“Evonne, open the cargo ramp,” Riot said in a low voice to the AI that communicated with her via the nanites that lived in her body.
“Immediately,” Evonne’s voice said in her ears. “Riot, are you all right?”
Riot ignored the AI as she walked through the ship to the mess hall. Already she was silencing the voice in her head that said what she was about to do was a very bad idea.
The ship was still empty and would remain so, until the rest of the crew either decided to sleep on the ship or stay in the pyramid in the rooms Queen Revna had prepared for them. Either way, Riot wouldn’t see them in her own room.
Riot pressed the display on one of the screens and ordered a Jack Daniels. Why alcohol was available at all in the mess hall was something that must have been overlooked, but at the moment, Riot wasn’t complaining.
She grabbed the cold, glass bottle around the container, ripped off the cap, and began to drown the memories. The fiery liquid coursed down her throat, threatening to make her gag. Riot refused to cough, and she took another long swig.
This doesn’t mean anything. Riot thought. You’re choosing to drink because you want to. You don’t need to.
Riot stopped trying to justify her actions to herself, and instead, continued to pound the bottle. She stumbled to her room. The ship suddenly felt as though it were slanting from side to side like a boat on the ocean.
“Riot?” Evonne’s voice quietly came over the ship’s comms, almost like a whisper. “Riot, are you all right?”
“I’m fine … fine.” Riot stumbled into her room and made it onto her bed, the weight of responsibility, her duty as a leader forgotten for the time being. There was only this blissful feeling of letting go. “I don’t need him. I don’t need anyone. I’m fine by myself.”
Riot’s vision began to blur. Anger took over a moment later as she remembered why she had begun to drink in the first place. She stumbled into the bathroom, taking another swig of the alcohol.
A look in the mirror gave her a twisted view of herself as she stumbled and hit her head on the counter. Blood poured into her eyes from a cut just above her hairline.
A
moment later, she felt like she was floating. She opened her eyes to see Ketrick looking down at her. He carried her in both arms to her bed.
“What … what are you doing?” Riot blinked in and out of consciousness. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“Sometimes, when you bury memories too deep and then dig them up, they pack a serious punch.” Ketrick placed Riot onto her bed and took away her bottle. “Shhh, sleep now.”
“Why do I have to be this way?” Riot slurred, her grasp on consciousness fading with every heartbeat. “Why can’t I just be free of this?”
“Because this is your fight.” Ketrick covered her with the sheets from her bed. “Because this is your burden to bear in this life, and you will be stronger for it.”
The last thing Riot remembered was Ketrick pressing a cloth to the cut on her head. His red eyes distant, he hummed a tune that sounded only vaguely familiar, then everything went black.
40
I’m never drinking again,” Riot mumbled to herself as she stumbled out of bed. She barely made it to the toilet before she threw up. Her stomach convulsed and the hot liquid shot up her throat, splashing into the toilet under her so ferociously, it sent the toilet water back up into her face. “Great.”
Memories of the night before, of the conversation that had triggered her actions, flooded back. Riot looked into her room through the open bathroom door. The first good thing met her eyes. Ketrick was gone. Or had he even been there at all? Did she just imagine his presence?
“Evonne.” Riot hurled into the toilet again, this time managing to get some of her hair into the toilet water. “Was Ketrick here last night?”
“Yes, I was going to deny him access to the ship, but you didn’t seem well.” Evonne paused like she was trying to think of the right way to put it. “I would have notified the other members of the squad but … I didn’t imagine you wanted them to see you like that. You know, if I had a physical body, I could have aided you.”
War Wolves: Boxset 1-3 Page 15
