by V. K. Ludwig
“Not really. The other guys had a few days to settle in, but I’m still unpacking my stuff now that I finally have my own place to stay.”
He nodded, and his gaze somehow intensified. “How about I invite you out for a meal one of these suns? There’s a stand at the Kesja District that sells these little pastries filled with five different sorts of meat. We call them touril. Delicious.”
My hand stalled on the rim of the next glass, and a smile tugged on my lips. “Are you planning to invite the other healers as well?”
Another grin stole over his lips before his voice returned deeper. “Just you and me.”
I couldn’t help but grin back. “Like… like a date?”
“Like zoy’ati. Spending time together. Learning each other. Courting.” When I just stared at him, he laughed. “Earth women don’t do this?”
“Well, we usually don’t date our co-workers.”
“Jal’zar don’t care,” he said, pushed himself off the wall, and took a step closer. “Once a male catches the scent of a female worth killing for, he pursues her. Anywhere. Anytime.”
Even if it was the wrong time, as his black eye suggested.
As exciting as his invitation was, something in me hesitated. Perhaps because I couldn’t stop thinking about how Katedo had kissed me senseless, showing me the passionate male underneath the stiff uniform of a warlord.
“How about we focus on getting those blood samples in, and then we can talk about—”
The side door beeped, and the overhead speakers let out a warning that the decontamination area had been bypassed. With one swipe over the holographic ID panel, Katedo turned it off and closed the door behind him.
Takay bowed deep and, when Katedo tilted his head and did a double take on that black eye, he bowed even deeper. “My urizayo.”
Katedo’s eyes flicked between me and Takay, but ultimately landed on me as he dipped his head. “Jessica.”
I nodded. “Katedo.”
“I… came to speak with you about something.” He strolled over, glancing over all the boxes, wrapping paper, and inventory lists scattered across the room, then cut Takay a sideways glare. “You are dismissed.”
“Yes, my urizayo,” Takay mumbled and hurried out of the lab.
I returned to unpacking more stuff. “What’s up?”
Katedo stared at the automated door for long moments before his eyes found mine, his brows furrowed. “What was he doing here?”
“Someone assigned him as my lab assistant.”
“Who?”
“How would I know?” I asked with a shrug. “You’re his warlord, so I figured you did that.”
“If I had to concern myself with every trivial assignment in this tribe, I would never sleep.” Slow steps carried him along the workstation, where he looked over the funnels, containers, and scales. “You’ve been hard at work.”
“Yeah, I know it’s difficult to believe but, when I’m not busy seducing warlords, I actually do the job I was hired for.”
With a sigh, he sat on one of the hover stools and folded his arms in front of his chest, his uniform pristine. “That’s another thing I meant to discuss, because I also came to apologize.”
That gave me halt, and I turned to face him fully. “For?”
The tip of his black boot tapped the ribbed metal floor. “Accusing you of having planned this incident at med bay. It was rash and illogical of me to assume that, well…”
“That I purposely put myself at the risk of a bunch of Jal’zar males raping me?”
His nose wrinkled, and his head tilted from one side to the other as if considering that word. “The definition of rape is fundamentally different between our cultures. A Jal’zar female is perfectly capable of fighting off a male’s attention should she not want it, and the rut is a natural occurrence among my kind. Of course, none of it applies to a woman.”
“True,” I said, once more busying myself with getting the lab ready.
The tap-tap-tap of Katedo’s boot quickened. “I haven’t been this… tempted to rut in a long time, Jessica. So long, I forgot how I tend to be a bit… well, a…”
“A bit of a jerk?”
He stared at me open-mouthed, and only a thick swallow returned his voice. “A bit tense. Logical thinking isn’t our strength when faced with a female in heat. It made me impulsive, irrational, and contentious, and I am hoping you can accept my apology.”
Many lesser males would never apologize, whereas this warlord offered it freely, which did little to curb my curiosity about him. As argumentative as he’d been during my heat, I had no doubt Katedo was a decent guy. Those I’d met of his tribe called him honorable, dutiful, and caring.
“Water under the bridge,” I said. “I shouldn’t have gotten involved in your personal stuff. How’s Kam?”
“Kamenji.”
Gods, he was tight-assed sometimes. “Right.”
Katedo tortured his upper lip for a moment. “It’s not easy for him, I’m sure, having to deal with only me most of the time.”
One might think he expected me to ask about Kam’s mom with the way he wordlessly held my gaze for a while, but he’d been very clear that he valued his privacy. “Sure. Bet being a warlord and single dad isn’t easy either.”
The moment I turned to grab another of the boxes stacked behind me, he said, “His mother was slaughtered during a freeraider attack when he was three.”
All my joints locked up, and I stood rooted for long seconds, unable to look at him. Of course, I’d known that she had to be dead. Still, I hadn’t imagined the word slaughtered to be part of this.
“I grew up without parents since they died when the Vetusians invaded Earth.”
There was a time when I’d blamed myself for my parents death one distorted memory at a time, showing little Jessica skipping out of hiding toward something sparkly green.
I didn’t remember what it was.
Perhaps a toy buried in the ruins of Paris, where Mom and Dad had been part of the resistance, from what I’d been told. I’d been slightly younger than Kamenji when it had happened, but I still remembered the chaos, the screams, and how I’d drifted through life alone after.
“It’s painful when someone you love gets ripped away,” I said. “What was her name?”
“Yara. We don’t usually speak the name of the dead once we let them go,” he explained. “When they die and we grieve, we wail them often, so their spirit will be tethered to this realm a while longer. It helps them transition into Mekara more smoothly, while giving us the chance to come to terms with it. Once they’re with the goddess, it’s time to move on for us as well.”
So it wasn’t like he still grieved her death, which somehow eased the rigidness in my muscles. “I’m sorry you both had to go through that.”
“We manage.” He rose, grabbed the box in front of me, and carefully carried it to the workstation in unexpected but welcome assistance. “My tribe will occupy Noja for another moon, so I was hoping we could leave our differences behind. Pretend it never happened, the arguments and… all that.”
With all that being how we’d kissed and rubbed against each other with such passion, for a moment I might have hoped his interest went beyond a biological response. How silly of me.
“Yeah, we can do that.”
What was the point in bringing it up again anyway? I’d wasted two years of my life on a guy who’d never truly wanted me. I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. What had Katedo called it? Nothing but instincts.
I’d ovulated. He’d rutted.
A perfectly natural occurrence.
Nothing else to it.
Katedo handed me a rack of clanking test tubes. “So, Jessica, what does a virologist do?”
A smile hushed over my lips as I took the rack and found a good spot for it. “Well, for this assignment, I’ll mostly spin blood at y-force in a centrifuge, so I can separate the particulates and the virus. That way, I can get a good look at the pathogen and its chemic
al set-up before I expose it to different antivirals and observe its reaction to it.”
An unexpected smirk tugged on his scarred upper lip, reminding me that I’d never actually seen him smile before. “You lost me at centrifuge.”
That ripped a laugh from my chest, a reaction I hadn’t thought this male could lure from me. Or anyone, really. “You studied interstellar warfare?”
“How do you know?”
“Heard it somewhere,” I said and took the condenser he handed me. “I think the news mentioned it when they talked about those freeraiders who kidnapped Ceangal da taigh L’naghal before your wedding.”
He made a sound at the back of his throat. “That’s the official version anyway.”
“Are you saying it’s not what happened?”
He shook his head. “Warlord Toagi was the one who stole her.”
That wasn’t what the news had reported at all. “I thought he saved her, and they fell in love.”
“Oh, they did fall in love,” he said. “Ceangal is pregnant with their first child.”
Curiosity won the war against my brief silence. “Did you, like… have feelings for her?”
“I had never met that woman before in my life.” There was a moment’s hesitation before he added, “Toagi stole her away for political leverage, but we needed a scapegoat so nobody would lose face, and we blamed the freeraiders.” He sighed. “My father was the one who suggested these political marriages since he was convinced it would bring Empire and Jal’zar closer. And here we are, for the first time in history standing united behind the same lie. Guess my father was right.”
“Bet you were pissed at the other warlord.”
“At first,” he said. “He made me look weak and incompetent.”
“I doubt that. The entire universe has heard of Warlord Katedo, who decimated several Empire ships during the war when he was… what? Eighteen?”
“Sixteen.”
“You might be successful at keeping your personal life out of books, but there are entire collections on your political achievements.”
“I’m not this successful in all areas of my life.” A stroke of his thumb across the scar on his cheek. “In any case, Ceangal would have been miserable with me. She’s still so young, and Toagi will give her all the things she deserves, all the things I can’t give.”
My hands stilled on the box, inches away from his fingertips as our eyes locked. “And what would that be?”
“Happiness, a soulbond, children,” he rasped, and the way his eyes slipped to my lips for a second quickened my pulse. “Love.”
I stared up into those dark blue eyes of his that contained an odd calmness, almost too still to be sincere. “You can’t love anymore?”
A flinch shifted the taut, puckered skin of his scar. “My love is a dangerous thing, Jessica. It brings nothing but misery.”
His words reached deep into me, gripped my heart, and squeezed. Why would he say something so awful?
Before I managed to ask, he stepped away from the box and cleared his throat. His thumb went to the scar on his cheek. He often did that when he was tense, didn’t he? Rubbing it as if it served as a reminder of something.
“How did you get that scar?” I asked. “No need to answer if you don’t want to.”
“A freeraider cut his tailclaw across my face. I stumbled back and crashed against a solar panel, and the sharp edges of its broken frame added the rest to it.” He straightened his spine, grabbed a piece of paper from a chest pocket, and handed it to me. “Kamenji made this for you.”
I carefully unfolded the drawing which, of course, pictured a yuleshi. “That’s sweet of him.”
“He gets excited whenever he meets strangers, but he’s especially taken with you.”
“Thank you.” My heart fluttered. I’d always wanted children, but my ex-husband was sterile. A blessing, really. “That’ll go right above my workstation.”
He gave a curt nod. “In two suns, we’ll set up a medical camp in the east with a sealed, portable lab so you can take the samples.”
“I’ll get everything ready.”
“Good,” he said with a nod. “Have you ever ridden before?”
A bright energy bubbled beneath my ribs. “Do I get to ride a yuleshi? Please say yes. It’s on my bucket list.”
He frowned. “I take that as a no?”
“Nope, never even had a pony ride.” When he sighed, I asked, “So do I? Get to ride a yuleshi?”
A slight shake came over his head as he turned and walked toward the door. “I presume it can’t be avoided.”
Seven
Katedo
I let my eyes trail over the freeraiders that lined by the guarded entrance to the portable lab, their clothes mostly made of patchy hide and threadbare fabric. How I loathed these people and the grief they brought to so many.
Me included.
Sevja shifted on the woolen saddle of her yuleshi, donning the leather bandeau and wide cotton pants she preferred when in the plains. “Not many of their warriors showed.”
Because I would be tempted to cut them down, and they knew it. They’d mostly sent females and children, fully aware that I wasn’t someone who subjected innocents to my old grudge. Still, the crushing weight of old memories haunted me out here in the plains.
“Another warlord might have encouraged a higher participation rate,” she said.
“Probably.” My lungs expanded wide at each inhale of spicy kijaku blossoms drifting on the breeze. Kamenji loved them. “Nothing seeps slower into the ash than bad blood.”
Orange eyes stared back at me from the past, rimmed with white fear, searching, begging, pleading for my protection. I’d failed so thoroughly.
My fingers tightened around Rogon’s reins, who remained still and steady underneath me, ever so faithful. “What was the last count?”
“Seventy-three samples drawn.”
“Only eight are still waiting in line. Which means we’ll be nearly twenty samples short.”
“One female is in there right now, along with her young daughter. Jessica is making quick work of this.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Because she’s rough with the needle, stabbing arteries with such speed, watching it turns my stomach.”
Sevja let her gaze wander over my scars, all of them on display since I only wore a loincloth, and rolled her eyes. “I had no idea my urizayo is scared of needles.”
Only of the woman who wielded them.
Rather than returning to a state of sexual indifference, my body had remained alarmingly aware of Jessica even after her heat. My gaze had slipped to her lips more than once when I’d gone to see her at the lab, the memory of how hungry they’d been against mine like a brand that wouldn’t go away.
“Perhaps urizayo Toagi can provide additional samples,” Sevja said. “He could send those who’ve recovered from the new strain to Noja.”
“We know so little about this new ice fever strain, allowing them access to our entire population might have dire consequences. I hate to say it, but my tribe has grown too big.”
“As has the weight of the responsibility of leading it,” she added. “We require more quarters the next time we occupy the city. Many children will be born, considering our females will soon come in heat.”
As they usually did twice a solar cycle, if exposed to the sun. “I submitted the blueprints to the other warlords, but their tribes are too small to grasp the issues I’m dealing with. Drilling deeper into the mountain brings certain risks. We might hit a water vein that’ll flood the entire city.”
She offered a grunt in response before she jutted her chin toward the lab. “Seems she’s all done.”
My eyes wandered to those warriors who carefully loaded the metal boxes with cooled blood samples onto the dunewalker, a slow but reliable eight-legged transporter. Jessica watched them, dressed in the white uniform of an Empire healer, and fanned her face.
I clicked Rogon into a trot, guts going strang
ely tight when Takay stepped up to Jessica moments before I reached her. Handing her a waterskin, his waterskin, he gave her a gentle pat on the shoulder, and mumbled something I couldn’t catch but made Jessica laugh.
I loved the heartfelt sound of it.
I loathed how he’d inspired it.
The moment I reined up in front of them, she pursed her lips like she often did when something upset her. “Would you look at that! So they can go faster than a walk.”
That sneaked a little grin onto my face. Oh, how she’d yapped and complained when I’d put her on a yuleshi before we’d left, only to have two warriors lead her here at a walk, one positioned on each side in case she fell. Most boring pony ride in the world, she’d called it.
“Not for you,” I said.
She placed her hands onto her hips. “Maybe I’ll have more luck with the next warlord who comes to Noja.”
“I can take you for a spin,” Takay said as if I had invited him to join this conversation. “A fast sprint toward that mother tree over there and back.”
My lips parted for objection, but Jessica beat me to it and said, “Let’s do it!”
“You’ll have to hold on to me.” Takay ushered her away toward where his yuleshi rested in the shade of large ferns. “My mount is one of the fastest in the entire tribe.”
Sevja’s beast came to a halt beside me, the female’s gaze on how Takay helped Jessica onto the yuleshi. “This is—”
“Dangerous.”
“I’d meant to say promising.” Whatever she saw in my face when my eyes snapped to meet hers lured a gulp from her throat. “This is what the late urizayo wanted, isn’t it? The entire universe knows the marriages to warlords are arranged and many doubt their credibility. But this unity? It would send a message.”
My fangs ground together when Jessica moved closer to Takay, but they gnashed when she wrapped her arms around his unscathed torso from behind. “My father was a wise leader.”
This was exactly what he’d envisioned: Earth and Solgad united. For solar cycles, he’d worked toward unity, and I’d supported him each step of the way. It was the very reason why I’d agreed to marry a woman, to do my part, even though I’d made it clear I would never again establish a soulbond with any female. Had never planned to be intimate with Ceangal.
