by V. K. Ludwig
“Sounds fair.” A pump from the dispenser disinfected my hands, and I grabbed a fresh syringe and needle from one of the overhead containers. “Roll up your left sleeve and sit down in that recliner chair over there.”
He obeyed but, no matter how he fussed with his uniform shirt, the cuff didn’t make it above the corded muscles of his underarm. “Is this good enough?”
“Not even close. Take your shirt off.” I pulled a hover stool underneath me and inched closer, but Katedo stilled, his eyes flicking between me and the buttons of his shirt. “Seriously? You wore nothing but a loincloth the last time I saw you. Why go all shy over your shirt when we both know I’ve seen your gray ass cheeks?”
They’d been firm and muscled, just like the rest of this magnificent male. Katedo might be a tad past his prime, but his body didn’t look it. The memory alone brought an inexcusable flare of heat to my neck, which intensified when his fingers went to the first button.
Katedo scoffed, and I swear he blushed a little. “How bold of you to point it out.”
Starting at the top, he slowly opened one black button after another, and each one seemed to make room for a deeper inhale. Many guys had undressed before me. As a trained healer, this should have been mundane.
Far from it.
I only knew when a button opened by the tk that resonated between us. The way his eyes held mine hostage, how he rubbed the tip of his tongue along the corner of his upper fangs, the tension zapping the air between us… this was intimate.
The muscles on his stomach tightened as he shifted and brushed his shirt off, which he draped over his lap. “Go ahead.”
I hyperextended the arm he offered me, cleaned it, and wrapped a tourniquet around it. “In my defense, Jal’zar veins are difficult to work with.”
His thick, dark gray skin made it no easier to spot the greenish lines, but I eventually felt a good vein since they were rather raised and pronounced on him. Still, this big warrior flinched when the needle went in.
“Guess it’s settled then,” I said. “I’m not gentle.”
Not even the overhead lights could keep his pupils from dilating, which darkened his blue eyes just as they wandered to where he’d bit my jaw. “Neither am I.”
Weakness claimed my muscles, and a slight jitter settled onto my fingers when I removed the needle and pressed down with gauze. No, Katedo wasn’t gentle. Each time he’d come close to rutting, he’d turned into a biter who loved to restrain. And my body had responded in ways I hadn’t experienced before, surrendering to it all.
“All done,” I said and placed everything on the hover tray beside me.
He pressed down the gauze while I removed the tourniquet, and the way he angled his arm invited his thumb to brush over the scar on his cheek again. “You are rough, Jessica.”
“That’s why I’m not a pediatrician but a virologist,” I said, and pointed at his face. “Do you want me to put something on there for the itch?”
His thumb stalled and he frowned. “Is it that obvious?”
“Whenever your blood flow increases, it puts a tingle into those severed veins around the scar tissue. I’ve got a cream that’ll help. Yes?”
He frowned more, but nodded.
I retrieved the tube from one of the drawers that held the stuff I’d brought with me, and sat back down. Gray in color, the cream blended nicely with his skin as I carefully brushed it over his scars. Raised and rubbery, they guided me from his temple down to his cheek, from there to his upper lip.
Katedo held my gaze throughout, and more than once did his mouth press against my knuckles as if trying to deepen my touch. Why? I wasn’t in heat, so what was going on here?
I dabbed some more onto the center of the scar, right where it split. “Kam told me a warrior carries his scars with pride.”
“If he carries them upright and breathing, they can serve as a reminder of his victories,” he rasped, his voice rougher than only moments ago. “The worst of mine are nothing but mementos of my greatest failures.”
It wasn’t so much his words that tormented me, but this tone of defeat. His severe scarring had to cause significant discomfort, but I had a feeling that he carried the worst of it on the inside. Like me, this male had gone through terrible loss, giving us a sense of connection.
I continued applying the cream on those smaller scars down his corded arm, across his broad chest, until I reached the one that started beside his navel. “Does this one hurt?”
His eyes followed where my finger trailed down the jagged line. “When storms approach.”
“Very common,” I said, running the cream down, down—
His hand clasped my wrist when I reached the waistband of his pants with such speed I startled. Strong and ungiving, his hold burned my skin, but eased with each flat, rapid inhale through his parted lips.
I held his gaze. “Would you rather apply it yourself?”
The veins on his arms bulged with tension as if those muscles underneath fought an invisible war. He could easily remove my hand, get up, and leave. We could keep on pretending that I didn’t know the size of his cock, the sting of his bites, the taste of his demanding kisses.
Instead, he lowered his other hand to his pants. It moved at the bottom edge of my vision as he unbuttoned them, but I held his gaze. Until said gaze slowly shifted toward the scar. Mine followed, and my heart thudded in my chest as I watched how he guided my finger over his bare pubic bone.
The scar started thinning around the base of his cock, but continued like that for a few inches. It changed into smooth skin, light gray with a pinkish shimmer to it that stretched tightly around his ava, his knot, swollen thick with seed.
A faint pulse throbbed to life somewhere around my clit, but it intensified when Katedo weaved his fingers through my hair. Hand cupping the back of my head, he pulled my mouth down to his. He kissed me, hesitantly at first, but his lips grew bolder when I let my tongue search for his.
When I wrapped my fingers around his ava, he gave a buck into my hand and groaned as if in agony. Wet warmth spread across my knuckles. A drop of his seed?
“Have mercy on me,” he rasped against the corner of my mouth while his hand wandered to knead my breast. “It’s been a long time.”
When his voice drowned on a whimper, I asked, “How long?”
“Solar cycles.”
And I’d thought I’d suffered a dry spell. “Since you’ve been with any female?”
He nodded and let his palms trail down my sides, where he gripped my waist and prodded me to sit astride his lap. “The scent of your heat is branded into my memory. I smell it even now.”
He pushed me down onto his hard cock, letting me feel the rigidness of his shaft, the strength of his grip, the desire in his kisses.
What an impressive male.
I wanted this.
Needed to taste the hunger on his lips and feel the guiding grip as he set pace and intensity each time he moved my pussy to rub against him.
He shook his head, lips peeling over his fangs as if he meant to hiss. “I can’t give you what you want.”
And yet I couldn’t keep myself from wanting at least this. “What can you give me right this moment?”
“That’s not the kind of male I am.” He suckled my lower lip between his, running his fangs along the inside until it prickled. “I don’t mate a female only once or a handful of times. I give a female nothing at all or I give her everything I have, everything I am.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said, and cupped his marred cheek.
As if the taut skin had split open at my touch, he reared his head out of reach. “We can’t do this, Jessica.”
I rolled my hips and suckled on his lower lip. “Yes, we can.”
“No.”
Another roll of my hip. “I want you.”
“You shouldn’t. Whatever you see in me, I am much, much less.” With one swift move, he wrapped his arms around me, rose, and lowered me onto the chair. “I’m sorry, I�
��”
He stepped away from me, quickly buttoned his pants, and grabbed his shirt which had fallen to the ground. “You’re not to blame for this, Jessica. I shouldn’t have done this. Shouldn’t have let it get this far. I…” His face scrunched up as he punched his fists into the sleeves of his black uniform shirt. “I shouldn’t have come here.”
“Kate—”
“No.” Fumbling with his buttons, he shook his head. “I won’t fail a third time.”
At that, he stormed off.
Again.
Nine
Jessica
Nick pulled a steaming flake from that yeasty bun he’d bought at some sort of bakery, and flicked it into his mouth. “I can’t believe I’ll be stuck here until March.”
I turned into bekta’ki, a narrow alley carved into the black rock of Noja, which connected the west wing with the main gathering areas. Veins of water ran down the smooth walls and disappeared into the gutters lining each side. It lent the air a hint of moisture, salt, and minerals, along with traces of marigold from those dark purple blossoms that grew overhead and illuminated it all.
“Stuck? Have you looked at this place?” I ran my fingertips along the stone, angling my hips away when I had to dodge a girl who’d had the same idea and passed us with a giggle. “Noja is fascinating. The guide the Empire gave us says the city is centuries old, and was carved into the mountain by the first warlord. Can you imagine the infrastructural challenges?”
He raked a hand through his short, blond hair and rolled his eyes. “It’s a cave, Jess.”
“With stores, a skyport, markets, a medical bay, a shipyard, factories, two mines.”
“A big cave, then. I’m going claustrophobic down here. And no sun? Those broad-spectrum lights they installed in the quarters aren’t cutting it.”
“Did you know that only around a hundred people stay permanently here? All essential, like surgeons, farmers, teachers, and those working the mines since it’s where most of their revenue comes from. I love Noja.” And I liked the Jal’zar’s close-knit society, and how everyone looked out for one another. “But the plains? I’ve only been on the surface once, but I totally get why everyone is giddy to leave. Not a single building out there since the sun would blow it up. No electronics. No rush hour. Only nature and the people of your tribe.”
Like family.
Something I wanted so badly.
We stepped out of bekta’ki and into the overwhelming echo of water gushing from the cliffs at the far end of the chamber. Naked Jal’zar bustled about; a sight that had me choking on my spit when I’d first stepped in here. Life in the plains offered little privacy and, as such, Jal’zar were relaxed about nudity.
I pointed toward the ledge of the highest waterfall, where a Jal’zar jumped fearlessly into the depth. “See how she uses her tail to keep herself steady? It’s absolutely—”
“Jessica!” Before I managed to spin around, Kam threw himself against my arm and gleamed up at me. “Did adi give you the yuleshi I made?”
“Are you kidding me? It’s hanging above my desk, and I look at it whenever I need a break!”
I breathed against the nervous tingle in my chest as I scanned the crowd. Considering our last encounter, the last person I wanted to run into here was Katedo — especially not naked. But even though he usually stood out with his damaged horn, I couldn’t find him anywhere.
I brushed my hand over Kam’s raven hair. “Is, um… is your dad here as well?”
He shook his head and pointed at Neshta, Katedo’s mom, who sat on some sort of wicker lounger. “Amimi picked me up from school.”
I waited for an exhale of relief.
It never came.
If anything, I held my breath as if clasping to that anxious anticipation that shouldn’t be there. What was wrong with me? I’d come to Solgad with a promise to myself that I would never settle for a guy again who would just walk out on me without an explanation.
Katedo had walked out on me.
Without an explanation.
Not once but twice.
That kind of behavior had been easy to explain when I was in heat and he’d been compelled to rut. But when he’d come to the lab? I wasn’t in heat then, and still he’d kissed me deeper and hungrier than before. That male was so confusing.
“Can you swim with me?” Kam asked.
“I’ll see you around,” I said to Nick before I surrendered to Kam tugging me toward his grandma. “Buddy, I haven’t quite racked up the courage yet to strip down before the entire tribe.”
“Amimi, look!” Kam said. “I found Jessica.”
The wooden beads and tiny polished stones embroidered on her red dress clanked as she turned and smiled at me. “And will she sit with me for a while?”
“Sure.” I weaved through the couches and chairs—their bases made with thin, brown rods, and all topped with white pillows—and sat beside her. “It’s only my second time in this chamber. Noja is big and I’m still learning my way around.”
“We call this chamber teka koshi, lifeblood.” Her hand gave a gentle wave toward the many waterfalls that cascaded down the black rock wall, and collected into a yoni large enough to hold hundreds of people. “Water is Mekara’s precious gift, especially when in the plains, so we come here to thank her for it and rejoice in her generosity.”
“Amimi, can I swim?” Kam asked, probably already knowing what Neshta would answer since he was suddenly naked.
A nod from the old woman. “Do not climb the cliffs. If your father learns of it, we will both be in trouble.”
Kam ran off to where the stone disappeared under a shallow layer of water. Luminescent flowers bobbed on the surface in different shades of green and purple, and their glowing roots veined toward the bottom.
When the water reached halfway up Kam’s calves, he stopped, scooped up some with both hands, held them up, and mumbled something. A prayer perhaps, the boy still for long seconds before he joined a group of children to the far right.
Neshta reached for the clay kettle that stood on the wooden table before us, poured its reddish content into a mug, and reached it to me. “Sweetened vasani tea. Helps with all sorts of problems.”
“Thank you.” At the first sip, my tongue curled around the tartness, but the sweet aftertaste was delicious. “Do you always take him here after school?”
“Only when his father is kept from him by the many obligations of a warlord.” Even though I watched Kam splash water at a squealing girl, I sensed Neshta’s eyes on me. “For four suns in a row, I brought Kam to the yoni.”
And for four days, Katedo hadn’t showed his face. “Sounds like Katedo’s very busy at the moment.”
“Yeki, very busy to make it appear so.” There was a thin layer of amusement on her undertone. “My son has a talent for hiding behind the responsibilities of a father and the duties of a warlord whenever his personal longings scare him into retreat.”
I scratched a nail over the gray clay mug, not knowing what to say. At the core, Katedo was a loving father, a dutiful warlord, and an honorable male who understood loyalty and commitment. He also had this annoying habit of luring me in with all that, and making my mind spin with his passionate kisses before pushing me away.
I took another sip of the tea, something Neshta had said helped with all sorts of problems, but apparently not when it came to growing affection for the wrong Jal’zar. “I read that it’s very painful to the surviving mate when a soulbond breaks.”
“Especially with how Katedo clings to the pain.” There was a moment of silence, and only when my eyes found hers, did she continue. “The punishing ache he believes he deserves for his failings.”
A sharp stab dug into my chest until my spine curled against the back cushion. “Failings?”
“Katedo grew up during a time of war, famine, and hardship. Protecting those under his care was expected of him from a very young age, Jessica. It is… imprinted into his soul. More so than is healthy, perhaps, and I gues
s the way we brought him up is to blame for it.”
Her eyes squeezed shut for a moment, deepening the wrinkles around her lids. “When he was fourteen, he met a girl he vowed to claim when he became of age. Katedo’s love does not bloom easily. But when it does, it is strong and deep. War came. Ice fever swept across Solgad since warlords could no longer supply us with medicine. When the war ended, he kept his promise and searched the plains for her. With him, he had medicine from Noja.” She sighed and shook her head. “He found her two days after the fever took her.”
So he’d lost someone he loved even before his mate. “But it wasn’t his fault.”
“To Katedo, it was,” she said. “He blamed himself for allowing Rogon to slow, for stopping to sleep, for filling his waterskins in a yoni.”
I’d told myself I would stay out of Katedo’s personal stuff, but I needed to know. Needed to understand. “And Kam’s mother?”
A pained expression tightened her face. “He sent her to a nearby plateau so she might save herself while he fought off the attackers, not knowing that freeraiders already waited up there. Only through Mekara’s kindness, Kam survived.” Her finger brushed over the back of her head, first circling there before she tapped. “Kam never wants his hair braided so others cannot see the scar on his scalp from where he must have hit a rock during the chaos.”
My chest squeezed painfully, and yet it would never measure up to what Katedo must have felt when he lost his mate, and almost his son. No wonder he was so overprotective when it came to Kam, and had lashed out at me when I’d brought it up.
“Ada am arit, beshaka ada tekar tanahek,” she said. “I am unworthy, my son keeps saying, every female I touch dies.”
Time froze.
Go to your room before I get you killed.
Katedo’s words, cold and biting, crept into my skin and chilled me to the bone. In the chaos of the moment, I’d dismissed those words as rut-crazed nonsense.
But he’d meant it.
This male blamed himself for the death of two females, thinking himself undeserving of a mate. Twice, he’d failed at protecting them, something I knew meant a lot to males of his kind.
