by V. K. Ludwig
Pressing a hand to her forehead, Mother let out an exasperated sigh before she turned away and paced before us. “And how much longer are you planning to keep up with this lie? Once she comes into heat, her scent will draw in males, exposing the truth.”
As if I didn’t smell it already, that heady sweetness that played around my nostrils whenever I held her at night.
The words which followed were heavy on my tongue. “Before her scent becomes too intense, I will sting her again and complete the bond.”
Mother’s brows furrowed. “Why not sting her right now?”
“By Mekara, ami, her current wekhja is barely healed,” I ground out. “Once she’s in heat, it’ll be easier for her to believe that I fell into a rut again. I’m not proud of this, but honor and honesty will only cause her heartbreak. All will be set right, and she’ll never have to know.” When she said nothing, only scolded me with silence, I stepped up to her. “She will never have to know, yes?”
Zerim cleared his throat, arms clasped behind his back. “From what shimids discuss amongst themselves, we believe zovazay might be slow to develop for women. That might be different if bonded during ovulation. I’d appreciate a message with the results.”
“Of course,” I said with a dip of my head, and Zerim quickly took the hint and excused himself.
I rubbed my hand along my cheek, the scar tissue itchy for the first time in a while. “Say something.”
Pulse-quickening silence.
“I will fix this,” I said, my voice strangely thin. “Her scent is already intensifying again. Not much longer, and she’ll be in estrous.”
“And you will sting her then?”
“Yes.”
“And hum?”
“With all the richness I can produce.”
“You said you were not ready then, a mere couple of suns ago.” Her age-dulled eyes bore into me as she finally faced me. “After learning all this, I cannot help but wonder if you will ever be ready, or if you’ll continue to live in fear.”
Nineteen
Jessica
Chants, hollers, and shrieks resonated the entire city. No matter which pathway Katedo led me along, males stomped their feet, females sang, and children clapped while they giggled and danced in circles.
Seya i bekta, the sun feast, stretched across all of Noja: from the flower-decorated coves that served as stores, over the markets where large urns held powdered paints, to the cooking pits where special meals sizzled on large slabs of stone. The air zapped with energy, so contagious my skin wouldn’t stop prickling.
“Urizaya!”
That word echoed from everywhere, usually followed by people wiping their hands over my forehead, my cheeks, my shoulders, down along my arms. Stained with the same colors Neshta had used the night she’d cooked for us, their dusty fingers left purple, ochre, and dark red handprints on me.
As did mine when I wiped some of the color off me and painted the people with it. Something Katedo had told me was tradition, marking the tribe as being one before we would leave for the plains.
He walked beside me in his loincloth, painted from the tip of his good horn down to his toe. Arm wrapped around my shoulder, his fingers toyed with the wooden beads decorating my gold-colored bandeau: an outfit Neshta had ordered from a seamstress for me, along with the silk skirt that wafted around my calves.
“This is absolutely beautiful.” I wiped the back of my hand over my eye where some of the powdery paint clung to my lashes. “Jal’zar sure know how to party, huh?”
Katedo pressed a kiss to my temple and smiled. “Noja is impenetrable, shut away from all the dangers of the plains. Even during the occupation, not once did Empire troops dare attack it. Down here, we can celebrate without worrying about freeraiders or beasts.”
“Urizaya.” An old female bowed her head, her dark gray braids twirled into a nest between her horns, and pressed her red-stained hands to my cheeks. “May Mekara bless you with… with kachan tekar.”
When my eyes flicked to Katedo, a smirk played around his face. “Kachan tekar. Two-blooded child. A hybrid.”
“Oh.” Ohhh…
He must have sensed that gush of heat creeping into my earlobes, because his smirk tugged higher. “You carry my wekhja, and your heat is quickly approaching.”
Right. Of course I’d known that, but between settling into this life with Katedo while readying myself for the plains, I hadn’t thought about the baby part, though the idea warmed me from within.
I let him lead me up a spiraling set of stairs chiseled into the rock. “What do you do when you don’t want children yet, or not anymore?”
“Conception rate among Jal’zar is naturally low. My parents have been together for decades and only ever produced me. It’s a rare sight for a couple to have more than two children. If a bonded pair doesn’t wish for a child, they abstain during the heat.” A low chuckle. “If they can.”
“Jal’zar males go nuts during that time, don’t they?”
His fingers brushed down along my waist before they tingled across my ass, no doubt leaving handprints on the silk for all to see. “Your heat is only just approaching, but your scent is doing a mighty good job at keeping me awake at night.”
The string curtain he brushed aside clanked when the hundreds of small beads, pebbles, and bone splinters tied to it hit against each other. It led onto some sort of plateau that sprawled with people. A handful of fires burned across the area, all surrounded by piles of white furs, pillows, and little trays that held flasks, mugs, and edibles. Neshta sat cross-legged beside one of them, stroking through Kam’s hair who lazily tilted his head back, visibly enjoying it as his upper body swayed to the rhythm of music.
My mouth fell open at the sight of the massive chamber that opened up before us when Katedo ushered me toward the edge. Drums and something similar to percussions echoed from a good twenty feet below. Hundreds of tribespeople reached around baskets with food, clanked mugs together, laughed, danced, and...
New heat flared on my face.
A Jal’zar male thrust inside a female from behind, his grip tight on her braid. Hidden by a boulder, yes, everything going on waist-down out of sight, but his movements made it obvious. Maybe ten steps away from it, a bunch of males played some sort of card game.
Nobody cared.
“Anywhere,” Katedo rasped against the shell of my ear, sending a delicious tingle between my legs as if he’d caught me doing something naughty. “Does it arouse you? Watching them?”
I glanced over my shoulder until our eyes locked. “What if it does?”
“Then I want you to keep watching.” Streaks of purple blended so nicely with his gray skin, and he shared the nutty taste of the paint with me as his lips connected with mine, stroking his tongue along their insides. “Tonight is all about your pleasure, because there won’t be much of it once we travel to the plains. Not until we settle the tribe. Now come. Let’s sit down.”
We lowered ourselves onto the furs, and Neshta was quick to pour and hand us two mugs, saying, “Vasani tea.”
Katedo smacked his tongue. “I don’t believe that for a second, ami.”
And my first sip explained why, because it burned twice: once when the hot brew reached my lips, a second time when the mokhot it also contained seared down my throat and ripped a cough from me.
“I told you she likes her mokhot.”
She tsked. “As does everyone else during a celebration.”
“My urizayo.” Sevja stepped up beside us, her hair beautifully braided into dozens of loops that formed a flower on top of her head, and with a chunky baby propped against her hip. “Mind if we sit with you?”
“I’d be insulted if you didn’t,” Katedo said, gesturing her and Faruk, her mate, to the piles of furs.
We all gathered around the fire, but Katedo was quick to plant me between his legs again. That was where he wanted me most of the time, always massaging my shoulders, kissing the nape of my neck, whispering sweet thing
s into my ear. He was incredibly affectionate.
Sevja folded her legs beside her. Tail wrapped around her child, she kept the little cutie from toddling too close to the fire, the child’s steps still unsteady no matter her meaty build.
Guess I stared too hard, because Sevja’s eyes found mine. “Would you like to hold her, my urizaya?”
“I’d love to.” No sooner did I say the words, and Sevja plopped the girl onto my lap, her eyes a stunning seafoam color. “Feoni turned a solar cycle old before you arrived.”
“I’ve never seen a Jal’zar child this young before. Most mothers seem to group together during the day, without roaming Noja much.”
“Everyone helps when raising a child,” Neshta said. “Mothers come together to support each other.”
Feoni’s eyes widened, and she threw her head back as she stared at me with a cocktail of unease and curiosity, seemingly as fascinated with my hair as Katedo. She pinched a curl between her fingers, pulled it down, let it go and—
“Boing,” I said.
The girl laughed and, stripped of all reluctance, repeated the process while my eyes caught on her tailclaw. “What’s that milky stuff around it?”
“Babies are born with a clear, soft layer around their flexible claw so as not to injure their mother or themselves during gestation or birth.” There was something very tender in Katedo’s voice, and I sensed his stare on us from behind as Feoni rubbed her head against my upper arm, her horns not yet emerged but the raised bumps of dry skin told me they wanted to. “It hardens some once exposed to air, then dries out and flakes off as they grow older.”
“So you won’t accidentally scratch that little nose, hmm?”
Her gaze went cross-eyed when I stroked from the bridge of her nose to the tip, and she reached a hand for her mother. “Ami… shosho… shoshooo.”
“She wants to nurse.” Sevja took the girl, cradled her and, with a quick tug on her bandeau and a slight hiss, let Feoni latch on.
“Teething?”
She nodded. “Twice, she bit me.”
“And smiled when you squealed,” Faruk said, grabbed a small piece of syrup-covered pastry from the tray, and fed it to his mate. “Eat. Your hunger roils even my stomach.”
My eyes flicked back and forth between them, and how Faruk fed Sevja with ardent focus while she nursed Feoni. “You feel that she’s hungry?”
Faruk’s hand slapped against the little pouch on his stomach. “See this? It’s all her fault. All sun, she’s so busy with our preparations for the plains, she forgets to eat. So I eat for her.”
Sevja gave a playful swat at his thigh. “No matter how often I eat, it never lasts with how your daughter suckles me—”
She hissed and flinched at the same time, but it was Faruk who pressed a palm to his chest saying, “Those little fangs are torture.”
Sevja gave Feoni a stern look. “Nansi yeviga! No biting.”
A devious little smirk crept onto the girl’s lips, curling them enough a drop of milk escaped from the corner and ran down Sevja’s breast. Then, she rooted for her mother’s nipple with renewed vigor, nose pushing against the engorged flesh, and kept suckling.
Her little gulps echoed everywhere at once, giving me a bad case of baby fever as I watched them. It wasn’t until my eyes wandered to Faruk, who brushed across his own nipple as if wanting to soothe the pain, did said fever somehow turn into a chill.
“Kunazay,” Faruk whispered, which had to be a word of endearment or something. “The two of you are my world.”
An intense longing for Katedo’s touch crept into my muscles, so I took his arms and wrapped them around me just as I peeked back at him. “Do you feel when I’m hungry?”
The hint of a frown wrinkled his forehead before he softened his gaze. “Our shimids believe zovazay is developing much slower between mixed race couples.”
Clank.
A mug hit the stone, and a few droplets of mokhot lured hisses from the flame. Neshta must have dropped it, who quickly picked it up and sighed at the vertical crack in the clay, her posture suddenly stiff.
I placed my hand onto her wrist, her arm too shaky for comfort. “Are you okay?”
Even from her lowered eyes, I could tell they flicked to Katedo for a second before she said, “Old age makes for unreliable hands.”
Behind me, Katedo shifted abruptly. “Kam, how’s Dinale coming along?”
My lungs stalled mid-inhale. Did I hear wrong, or did he just say Kam?
He must have, because Kam crawled around the fire toward us, then bounced on his knees. “She’s so fast, adi! All I have to do is click my tongue and she, like, leaps into a sprint.”
“Huh.” Katedo took a sip of his spiked vasani tea. “The female I caught two suns ago might be faster.”
“Uh-uh.”
“No? Seems like we’ll have to race them and see who has the faster yuleshi now.”
Kam sucked his cheeks in, eyes narrowing. “At a trot?”
“Full sprint from one tree to another.” Just when Kam perked up at that, Katedo added, “However, the loser has to patrol our tree for the first ten nights once we’re in the plains.”
Kam frowned. “But I wanna go on patrol.”
“Guess that settles who has the faster yuleshi.” Katedo winked, which lured a giggle from Kam, but it only lasted until his dad cleared his throat. “I watched you jump her over boulders and dead tree trunks earlier, when you thought no one was looking.”
Kam sunk his gaze, squeezing his hands between his knees at the slight tension stretching the air thinner. “Which is dangerous.”
“It is,” Katedo said but, when I placed my hand onto his knee, he covered it with his and squeezed. “It’s dangerous, so I want you to take one of your friends with you when you do that. If something happens, at least someone can go and get help. Yes?”
Kam’s gaze returned to his dad, slowly, the depth of his orange irises bright. “I promise.”
“And I believe you.” Katedo waved him closer and lowered his head, his entire body softening behind me when Kam pressed his forehead against his without hesitation. “Now go and play with your friends. Don’t do anything stupid. If you do, don’t get caught.”
With a fat grin on his face, Kam shot up and skipped away, tugging a girl’s braid before he let her hear the clickety-clacks of his elbow.
I glanced up at Katedo. “Not trying to be a patronizing female again, because we both know that tickles your rut, but I’m so proud of you right now.”
“I’m trying,” he said on a scoff, which he drowned with a swallow of mokhot. “I was a daredevil at his age. Got into trouble from the time I took my first step.”
Beside us, Neshta emptied her mug, but it clearly hadn’t been her first considering the faint pink shimmer on her cheeks. “Oh, you were awful, Katedo. You drove an entire leap of yuleshis through our camp that trampled all the clay.”
“You whipped me across camp for it.”
Neshta swatted at him. “As I should have when you crossed by Warlord Wenjo’s funeral pyre, naked, shouting—”
“There we go.” With one rapid move, Katedo rose, pulled me up, wrapped his arms around me and said, “Dance with me.”
“What?”
But my feet had already left the ground as he swung me away from the fire. “I said, dance with me.”
“Yeah, I heard that, but I have no clue how you dance to this—”
His kiss swallowed the rest as he groaned into my mouth. With his arm slung around the small of my back, he pulled me against him, piloting my hips to the sway of his. Smooth muscle glided up and down my calf as his tail guided my legs into something resembling a two-step, but I got even those mixed up.
Probably because he kept kissing me, something Katedo seemed to enjoy a great deal, sending my mind into ecstasy. He loved to rake his fangs over my lips, hard enough it prickled but he’d never nicked me.
Eventually, he saved me from embarrassment and simply swayed with me,
kissing along my neck before he rasped, “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Goddess, I love your unruly hair.” Which seemed to distract him for a moment as he let his fingers dig through the curls, straightening a strand before it twirled back into its kinky state. “Can you have children?” The moment my lips parted, he quickly added, “Your answer has no influence over how much I want you.”
He would have surprised me if it did. “I can.”
The corners of his mouth twitched as if he tried to subdue a smile. “And do you want them? Because I might be wrong but… I have a feeling that couplings with women are rather fruitful.”
I pressed my head against his strong chest and nodded. “Always did.”
A deep, satisfied growl rumbled beneath his ribs. He wanted them too, didn’t he? His subdued smile had told me as much. He’d given me an entire family. Maybe we’d make it bigger.
“So faint and yet so sweet.” He brushed his nose along my neck and smelled me. “You’ll have a hard time keeping me away from you during this heat if you wish to wait.”
I grinned up at him. “Worse than the last time?”
“Oh, so much worse, my urizaya.”
“What does kunazay mean?”
His fingers curled into the fabric of my bandeau. “It means soulmate. A term of endearment.”
“That’s what I figured,” I said. “You’ve never called me that.”
“I call you my urizaya. Gam leken derim kuna. My wild-haired female. Gam zahim. My love.” He dipped down for another kiss as we swayed and moved in a circle. “Because I love you.”
Brightness weaved through me as if those roots this male had planted at my core grew offshoots, grounding me deeper into this new reality of mine. It was wonderful, intoxicating, and everything I’d always longed for.
“I love you, too,” I whispered, letting the paints on our bodies mix with how tightly I held him.
“Do I make you happy?”
“Yes.” Every waking hour, he treated me as if I was special. “Please be careful when you ride out to the plateau tomorrow.”
