Chasing Violet

by Rena Marks

  Talpin grinned. “You are not a bad leader at all. Shall we get back to Docadia?”

  “Talpin,” Dahlia whispered, her voice broken.

  Talpin’s face changed in an instant, reaching for Dahlia and holding her close. He leaned in to her neck, kissing it and then whispering into her ear. “You are my heart, my precious flower. I want you to be safe here, waiting for me. I will be back as soon as I can, and back in your arms.”

  Dahlia threw her arms around his neck, sobbing as she kissed every inch of his face.

  Chapter Twelve

  Cadoc hated medically induced comas. As soon as Dr Terjal mentioned it, he knew what lay in store for him. A body paralyzed still to heal, but a mind that wandered with activity. It was the dreams that were the worst. The memories that plagued an exhausted brain non-stop, from one scene to the next.

  “Do you know why you are weak?”

  “No, Father.”

  “Think about it, you damned fool.”

  Young Cadoc hung his head in shame. He had run into their domicile with wild abandon after spending two wonderful days with his mother in the domed area. Life in the dome was quiet and peaceful. He was allowed to play with other boys visiting their mothers and encouraged to interact with female children. A mother who had recently given birth let him hold the baby girl. Cadoc was amazed and dazzled at the tiny beauty. His mother told him that he had been as small. Cadoc smiled, but didn’t quite believe her.

  “Well?” his father’s tone deepened.

  Cadoc shuffled his feet, his mind racing. As his mother said, he was only a little boy, why was his father always so cross? As he grew older he would be required to spend less time with his mother and more time training with his father and the warriors. At the age of six his father and he spent three days after each visit going over tactical moves. Three grueling days, then back to his beloved mother, back to sweet treats, loving cuddles and back to being a boy.

  “Do you not see how you entered my home?” His father was furious, fists balled, teeth clenched. Cadoc cringed. He was always to be on alert. This was not a domed area, Berserkers roamed not far from his father’s home. Huge snakes could make a meal of him. The planet was raw and wild except for the women’s domed homes. His father had a right to be angry. Cadoc let him down again.

  “You are not three. You do not spend a mere three days with me while running back to be coddled like a babe from your mother and forget everything I have been teaching you. You are training to be a warrior leader. Not some stupid dais potato.”

  Cadoc’s head jerked up in stunned angry surprise. “Do not speak of my mother in such a manner.”

  The sound of the slap across his cheek resounded in the room. Cadoc stood his ground. He had been struck every time on his return, beginning when he was five. Each time the blow was harder. If it was his father’s attempt to rattle his brains, he wouldn’t succeed.

  “I’m not finished speaking, boy.” His father grabbed Cadoc by the shoulders and shoved him none too gently into a chair. “You must learn to protect your family at all costs. For that you need to harden. Did you tell your mommy I hit you?”

  The burn of a blush heated his cheeks. He was too old to call his mother mommy. The bruise from his last visit with his father was a dull purple. Cadoc sported a number of colorful marks, some of which occurred in mock battle with boys his own age.

  “Mother doesn’t ask, she knows.” Defiantly he gazed up. “She says she’d like to run you over in her dais.”

  “Wouldn’t she? Then she would be leader of Docadia and turn all our little warriors into wimps like she has with you. Well, I have news for you.” Glaring, his father took Cadoc’s chin into his hand, his fingers squeezing. “I will make a warrior out of you yet. You will be mine in two years. After you turn eight, you will no longer spend overnight visits with your mother.”

  Cadoc cringed at the memory, reliving it over in his mind while in the medically induced coma. He should have been allowed an overnight visit with his mother until he became a warrior. His mother demanded her maternal rights only once after Cadoc had returned to her so bruised and battered from his father. Instead, she told Cadoc they would meet in secret. As long as his father thought Cadoc stayed away from his mother, he left him alone. Once Cadoc became a warrior, he visited his mother more often. His father didn’t dare lay a hand on him. Over time, Cadoc realized the lessons he learned from his father weren’t like those of the other boys. There was no companionship. Try as he might, he never remembered laughing with his father the way he and his mother had. In fact, he never saw his father smile. He often wondered why his mother mated with his father.

  Now he knew. Warriors could control a female with their mating hormones. Their pheromones, which is how he controlled Violet, according to his father. Until impregnated. Shame hardened in his gut.

  More memories came to mind, whizzing across his clenched eyelids like unwanted movies.

  “You fight like a wounded female,” his father shouted. Now they were training in a field. Only when alone, away from the other warriors, did his father denounce anything his son did.

  Cadoc drew up short. He held a wooden sword in his eight year-old hands, and narrowed his eyes. “Females don’t fight, Father. One should never be wounded. The idea of your words don’t cause me embarrassment—they make me angry you have witnessed such a disgusting thing as a wounded female who has to fight to protect herself.”

  His father strode over and with the flat of his sword smacked him across the ass. Cadoc didn’t cry out, he didn’t flinch. The image of a wounded female was in his thoughts, making his heart hurt. He didn’t understand his father. Cadoc and the other boys were taught they must protect the females of their planet at all cost. He didn’t understand his father’s contempt, the man seemed to war within himself. He was a contradiction, but at that age, Cadoc didn’t even know what the word meant.

  “You’ve become an insolent brat,” his father sneered.

  “I am becoming what you’re training me for, leadership. Teach me how to think, not what to think, Father.”

  The years in his thoughts raced ahead to collide and once more Cadoc stood in an arena beside a cage. Only he was a grown man this time in his memory, not a boy of almost twelve. He knelt down knowing the child would be inside, he would open the cage and take her home where it was safe. No Berserker would touch this little one.

  When Cadoc looked inside, Violet stared back, a grown woman. His heart pounded when he heard the cry of a Berserker. The huge female came at him and he was unprepared. As the Berserker smashed into his head, Cadoc fell, his cheek to the ground, helpless as the cage door swung open. Only it was his father who walked out as Cadoc struggled to right his tired body.

  “You killed me, your own father, an unarmed man, because you hated me. Yet you deny that, trying to make yourself believe it was some sense of duty.” His father’s words rolled within his thoughts.

  “I executed you. As mercifully as was allowed. I saved you from further embarrassment of a trial and impending conviction. The old files you locked away would have been brought into the open. The records show you almost had a sanctioned being killed, a human female. Death would be the verdict. You would have hung in front of all of the warriors in the arena. You would have witnessed the shame in their eyes. Their contempt. Their old leader, a deceiver. Then what of betrayal? The warriors would wonder about what I inherited from you. You would have sown the seeds of mistrust. Our planet would be long in recovering. Now we are at war. If we war amongst ourselves, we will lose. You and you alone brought this on yourself.” Cadoc could feel his emotions taking a stand against his father. “You would have killed my mate and my children. You were a traitor, a liar, and you took without asking then tried to cover your mistake. Deceiver of your own, you make me sick to be your son. You gave those bracelets to the Lenthrils. By doing so, you placed your own people into danger. The only guilt I harbor is by not ordering your death the moment I took command. My me
rcy might be our undoing.”

  “You admit to being a coward.” His father’s tone was smug and filled with disgust.

  Cadoc could feel the smile on his face. “This coming from a man who had to beat his own son to make himself feel like a man. When you called me weak, mother would ask me what makes a man weak? Is it his inability to kill when another approach can be taken, or is it when he is so filled with fear he can’t think and takes a life that could be spared?”

  “Your mother was a bad influence.”

  “Mother was brilliant. She told me of my grandfather and how my grandmother died when you were a child of four. You treated me like he treated you, only you didn’t have a mother you could go to. Mother was everything you’re not. She was strong. I am courageous because of her, not you. I can love because of her, not you.”

  “Love is for the infirm, she didn’t love me. I didn’t need her to. She could not battle,” his father raged. “The human females are weak, they will destroy us.”

  A trigger in his mind gave him a glimpse of Violet. She was fighting and Draconis fell. Cadoc realized he was dreaming. The words his father said weren’t Cadoc’s, he was remembering his father’s cruelty. Every sentence, every lie, every hurt. His father taught him how not to be a father. His father was right, though, all of his mother’s love was lavished onto Cadoc. Perhaps in her wisdom, she knew Cadoc could be saved from becoming as cruel. She taught him a leader doesn’t command respect, he earns it.

  “You have no right to haunt my dreams,” Cadoc said, his tone that of ice now that he was through with this nonsense. “You taught me a warrior needs to fight. Sometimes a warrior needs to war in his thoughts before going to the battle field. Am I feeling guilty for your death? No. Did I kill you out of spite? No. I will not grieve for you while trapped in my thoughts. I will thank you for the skills you taught me when you are buried, nothing more. In the end I remembered your most important lesson—kill those who would cause your mate harm, no matter what you feel for her. For some twisted reason, you thought Violet would make mother less of a female with her ability to have multiple births. Did you think a human would bring shame to our females? That will never be the case. While my mother is dead, she can’t be harmed. Violet is alive. You would have found a way to kill Violet and any child we have. You will never be a danger to my family again. Nor will any other warrior.”

  “Can he hear me?”

  Violet? Cadoc was immediately aware he wasn’t alone. The voice wasn’t a dream or a memory.

  “I think so,” said the voice of Doctor Terjal.

  “Do all these warriors have to be in here with us?”

  My little love, you sound so annoyed.

  “I’m afraid so,” Talpin said.

  “We’re crammed in like sardines. Twelve warriors including you, Talpin and the doctor. How am I supposed to say anything to him? ”

  She has a point. But at least she is well protected.

  It occurred to Cadoc with him being incapacitated, it made Violet leader. There had never in their history been a female leader. He pondered the thought further. His father mentioned if he were to die Cadoc’s mother would become leader. Was this his father’s biggest fear? A human in charge of Docadia? Or a female leader? There was now a female human leader. Cadoc would have laughed if he was able.

  “Cadoc, I hope you can hear me,” Talpin said. “Earth is demanding the females be returned. There’s a bounty on our heads, and a bigger one on yours, cracked as it is. They will take you however they can get you, dead or alive.”

  With Violet as leader, she could counter and declare war on Earth. Since Earth is claiming the humans were kidnapped and one of the ‘kidnapped’ humans was running the planet, wouldn’t that be embarrassing? You can’t put a price on a world leader’s head and expect a hiccup in return. His injury could be a boon—unless he died.

  With every fiber of his being, Cadoc concentrated. There was a single tattoo which formed after he mated Violet. It was the mating symbol. Surprise like no other overwhelmed him as it formed. His mother explained to him long ago the tattoo was the rarest gift a mother could give her son. If Cadoc could use it he could speak to Violet.

  “Doctor, he’s so still,” Violet said.

  “Except his eyes. Look at his eyelid.”

  There was a shuffle and Cadoc knew everyone was staring at him. How embarrassing. Laid out in vulnerability, a kickass warrior wondering if they had at least draped a towel across his hips. His one eye was bandaged and he reverently hoped he wouldn’t lose it. A warrior needed his sight. Damn the induced coma for quieting his body while allowing his emotions to run amok. Violet was so close he could scent her flavor on his tongue. How he wished she would kiss him. To his surprise her warm wet mouth was on his. There was a clearing of a throat.

  “He may not hear you, Violet,” Talpin said. “But he sure as hell feels you.”

  A few snickers from the men.

  Cadoc’s cock was throbbing. An unconscious boner was the last thing he needed. He felt the sensation of a warm blanket pulled higher on his waist. Someone was tucking him in. Violet carefully stretched out beside him, talking softly and stroking his skin. Loving on him. Locking her hand in his she whispered in his ear he was safe. That she would keep him safe. She snuggled closer. Her bare flesh met his. Cadoc could feel his mating tattoo come to life. His mind searched for her until…

  “There you are,” Cadoc said as Violet came into his line of vision.

  Violet squealed and was gone from his side. He was pretty certain she hit the floor when a thunk resounded.

  That went well.

  “What’s wrong?” Talpin shouted.

  “He was here. Didn’t you see him?” Violet shrieked, she sounded further from him, he guessed his warriors closed the ranks.

  “See who, where?” Talpin asked.

  “Cadoc! He was standing…”

  My poor love, come back to my side and I can explain.

  “I swear I saw Cadoc.” Violet was adamant.

  “You saw him? Violet, we all see him, lying there,” Talpin said.

  “No, no. I saw him standing up and uninjured, he spoke to me. I heard his words.”

  “The mating tattoo,” Doctor Terjal said.

  Finally a voice of reason.

  “I’ve heard of warriors being able to connect with a mate if she is loved. Not all warriors are gifted with the tattoo. It is that rare, though they do feel affection for their mate a true honest unbending love creates the scarcity. Let me look.”

  Cadoc felt fingers roam his body.

  “Yes, here, see, at his side. The red mark. I’ve only ever seen one in my life. Remarkable. Your bare arm must have touched it when you lay beside him. You are joined,” the doctor said.

  “Where the red fern grows,” Violet muttered as she touched the tattoo. Cadoc tingled under her fingers.

  “What?” Talpin asked.

  “There is an old Native legend of a boy and a girl who were lost in a blizzard. They were found later, frozen to death holding hands in friendship, and a red fern grew between them. It’s said an angel plants the seed of everlasting love and the fern will never die. I don’t know about legends and myths but the red fern has meaning for many cultures,” Violet said. “One thing is certain, a red fern is a gift.”

  “Our legend is much the same, and the red fern is sacred to us,” the doctor said. “We believe a mother’s love can be so strong she teaches a warrior what his mate needs. We warriors can be hard, we need to be, but a mother can temper with emotion. Our tattoos are said to be the gifts of our mother’s, our angels who keep us safe.”

  Cadoc was immersed in Violet’s scent as she lay beside him again. He concentrated. As she appeared, he held out his hands not wanting to startle her again. He then remained motionless.

  “Don’t be afraid,” Cadoc said.

  “I’m not afraid of you, never of you. What happened shocked me. Are you real?” she whispered.

  “Yes. I am ver
y real, my love. When you lay beside me and we touch, I can come to you in your thoughts.”

  “That might get annoying,” she muttered, but her cheeky grin made him smile. “I suppose it’s a good thing the only one I dream of is you.”

  In two steps she was in his arms. “Don’t worry, my sweet Violet. I won’t die. I just need a little longer to heal.”

  “There’s a bounty on our heads.”

  “Yes, I heard Talpin. You are acting as leader. What would your Earth say if you planned on attacking for their world leader or placed a bounty on their head?”

  “They’d be pissed.” Violet placed her chin on his chest and gazed up at him. “If I made all the other ladies advisors it would make Earth’s demands stupid.”

  “Yes.”

  “The Berserkers are no longer waging war. The one who hurt you is caged. All she does is cry. We don’t know what to do with her. I’m told female Berserkers are never in the arena. The warriors are baffled.”

  “They were there to protect their offspring. Release her to her family. I killed her son that day in the forest with you. It was within my right, but she was also within hers—there are no rules when it comes to motherhood. Send a message to Earth and tell them to call off the bounty hunters or you will wage war with them. They’ll back down.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t want to ever let you go.”

  “Violet, I should have told you sooner that we are mated. Something always seemed to come up. Thank you for saving my life.”

  “I wasn’t going to let some reptile kill you when you’re down. Speaking of reptiles, do you need to talk about what happened to your father?”

  “My father would have killed you.”

  “Oh.”

  “He would have destroyed any children we have.”

  “I see.”

  Cadoc was worried she didn’t see. It was in her tone and the way she avoided looking at him. If he was to tell her his father was afraid she would gain leadership she might be unsure what to do. Violet was strong, she would be good for their planet. It didn’t mean she was safe. The strongest was leader in his world and many others. Until Cadoc recovered, every other planet would offer to challenge her. She didn’t have Cadoc’s arsenal at her disposal.