by Kamryn Hart
I decided it had to be because of biology after all. The need to mate encompassed all of these feelings, chemicals firing off in my brain. It was more than just a sex drive.
It was a nuisance.
I stopped soldering the computer chips I was working on, donned my beanie, and stepped outside of the Heart to a wide, empty space that made up the base of the tower. I leaned back against the bubble-glass shell. Then I shed my tinted goggles and squeezed my eyes shut. I wanted to rub the pressure away, but I knew doing that would make it worse, so I restrained myself.
“Princess, please return to your room.”
“I need to burn this!”
I opened my eyes to see the guards at the archway leading out into the rest of the castle. The Lost Princess was trying to push past them.
“Well, there’s no way to burn it in here,” one of the guards said uneasily.
I pushed off the glass, about to retreat back inside of the Heart when the Princess called, “Todd!” Shivers crawled up and down my spine. Slowly, I turned to face her. One of the guards was holding her back. Her dark eyes were wide open, staring at me. I wondered what that expression meant. Her brow was furrowed, but her lips were curved upward. I didn’t think this look passed for happy. But I wanted to know.
“I’ll take care of her,” I said. “Let her go.”
The guards let her pass, and she ran for me. She was holding her mother’s journal. Was that the thing she wanted to “burn”? She was crinkling the pages and digging her nails into it like it was a piece of garbage.
I felt uneasy when she didn’t slow her pace. I thought about moving out of the way, but she sped up and bulldozed into me. Since I was unprepared, my back hit the bubble-glass shell behind me. My arms went around her instinctively.
“I’m so happy to see you,” she said.
I gently pushed her away from me even though that was the last thing I wanted to do. She was so soft and comfortably warm, not borderline too hot like the Heart. That ache in my body got worse, particularly in my aroused dick. What a nuisance.
I glanced up at the guards who just passively watched whatever that whole exchange was.
“Can you help me?” she asked. Then she stepped around me and pressed her hand to the bubble-glass surface. “Is this the Heart?”
“Its shell.”
“It really is bright. Can I see inside?”
“If you wear these.” I pulled a spare pair of tinted goggles from my utility belt. She took them. Shrugging, I replaced my own goggles over my eyes and instructed the princess to do the same. “Don’t take them off,” I said. “You’ll burn up your retinas. And be careful where you step. I’m working.”
“Got it.”
I pressed my finger to an inconspicuous piece of glass and my fingerprint was scanned. The glass slid open and shut again once I did the same thing from the inside. To the untrained eye, the shell didn’t look like it could be opened at all. That was how seamlessly the glass slid into place. It was one of my many designs.
When I looked back at the princess, her goggles were pressed against the cylinder holding the Heart. The lightning stone sparked at its base, sending off little electrical sparks that bounced through the chamber. The glass making up the energy chamber was also tinted, but the goggles were extra protection. Maybe they weren’t strictly needed, but they were for long periods of time. The Heart was unbelievably powerful when charged this high. It wasn’t easy to contain, but Wolf Bridge practically had endless power because of it.
“It’s beautiful,” the princess whispered.
I said, “Sure.”
I stared at the back of her head, marveling at the thick curls of her hair. I wanted to reach out and feel them, to twirl them in my fingers. I tried not to look guilty when she turned to face me. Apparently, she had her fill of gawking at the Heart.
“Is there any way I can burn this?” she asked, holding up her mother’s journal.
“Why?”
“I don’t want it. It should have gone with the rest of Howling Sky, whatever happened to it.”
“It burned to the ground.”
“See? It’s the perfect solution.”
I shrugged. If she didn’t want to know her history, that was none of my business. In a way, I could relate. My parents escaped Howling Sky before it burned to the ground. We lived outside any kingdoms and wandered for a time. Then my parents were killed by vampires, and I was left on my own when I was eight years old. I didn’t remember them all that well. And all I remembered of Howling Sky was fire reaching up past the clouds.
I plucked a lighter from my utility belt and lit the flame. “I can burn it if you want.”
“I want to do it,” the princess said.
“Fine, over there, on the floor where nothing else can burn.”
I showed her how to use the lighter and left her to it while I resumed working on my tech inhibitors. It was quiet for a long time, and it wasn’t until the journal was good and burned that the princess moved. She stomped on it with her boot, crushing black pages into fine piece and reducing them to dust. The leather cover was much more stubborn, but it was good and ruined by the time she seemed to be satisfied. No one would ever know High Queen Alana’s last words aside from whatever the Lost Princess had read. It seemed somehow fitting.
I just finished piecing together a tech inhibitor and checked my work. Solid. As usual. In theory. I hadn’t ever made a tech inhibitor before. The idea was to cut off electricity since there was no telling when or where I’d need to use one and tuning a tech inhibitor to a specific kingdom’s system seemed like a roundabout way to go about it. The root of what powered every system was electricity.
I took an old pactputer I didn’t use much anymore, turned it on, and then tossed the tech inhibitor on it. It grew metal legs with sharp tips that dug into the device, eating electrical pulses. The screen blinked out. I couldn’t get it to turn back on until I removed the inhibitor. Another success. However, inhibiting something as big as the spires back in Paws Peak wouldn’t be quite so easy. I’d need stronger inhibitors or a concentration of them, and even then, it’d be best to be inside of the spire, at the control panel.
“What are you doing?” the princess asked.
“Working,” I murmured. Something had to be said about my mental fortitude. How I managed to work with the princess so close was an accomplishment.
She sat down on the floor next to me, brushing her arm against mine. She rolled up her already short sleeves after a while because of the heat that couldn’t be completely filtered out even with the excellent ventilation system. And now she was taking off her boots. When she settled back in place, touching her bare arm against mine, I shuddered. It was skin on skin. My tank top left my arms exposed. Why did she insist on being so close?
I blamed biology.
“Are you ready to return to your room?” I asked. The guards or the king himself could have called me. There was a comm system inside of the Heart, but they hadn’t. It seemed no one was too worried about her not being in her room. I was certain the guards reported she was with me. That only meant the king really was doing his best to win her over, to prove she had freedom here, freedom she didn’t have back in Paws Peak.
“No, I’ll stay with you,” she said. “Can I help?”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say.
“Do you want me to leave?”
“N-no.”
I flinched when she reached out for me. She brushed her hand against my forehead. “You won’t be so hot and sweaty if you take your beanie off,” she said quietly. “Why don’t you? I made you upset before.”
“I wasn’t upset.”
“You were uncomfortable. I think your red hair is beautiful.”
I shook my head. “The color of maneaters.”
“Maneaters have a color?”
“All the redheaded werewolves left after the Hellfire Strike were maneaters, and they lived in Howling Sky.”
Her
pretty lips curved downward. A tiny drop of sweat was beaded on her upper lip. I couldn’t stop staring at it or thinking about how I wanted to lick it off. Her pinkish red lips looked soft, tasty even.
“So we’re both from Howling Sky,” she said.
“Yep.”
“Maneater blood.”
“Yep.”
“Why do you hide, though? No one in Wolf Bridge has faulted me for that.”
“I don’t hide, and that’s because you’re the Moonlight Child.” I paused. “I just don’t like werewolves or humans staring.”
“I really do think it’s a beautiful color. If it’s just the two of us in here, do you mind?”
She wasn’t going to let it go. So I took off my beanie and ran my hand through my messy hair. It was nice to escape some of the uncomfortable heat.
She reached up and ran her hand through my hair too, giggling. It was probably sticking up in odd places, I supposed.
“It’s like fire,” she said.
“You’re staring,” I replied.
“I’m not a human or a werewolf. I’m exempt from your list. As everyone keeps reminding me, I’m a werea. Apparently, I have my own category.”
“I guess that’s kind of true.”
“So, what are you working on?”
“Tech inhibitors for infiltrating Paws Peak to assassinate Prince Charles.”
The princess frowned. I wondered why. “Can I help?” she asked again.
I supposed she could help me just fine if I showed her what to do. I was just assembling to the most part anyway, so I nodded my head. That made the frown go away. I showed the princess what I was doing and explained it to her. She caught on quickly and asked me more questions about tech, about the electrical lights in the castle, about monitors, about computers that read thumbprints and opened doors. She had a lot she was curious about, genuinely curious about. I liked how inquisitive she was. By the time we had assembled several more tech inhibitors, I felt like she knew more about tech than a lot of the werewolves living in Wolf Bridge. And she still wanted to know more.
“You want to shut down the entire system in Paws Peak,” she said.
“Plan B. Plan A is seizing control of their system from here, using a humongous tech field cast out by the Heart. I’m just preparing for more than one scenario,” I answered.
“Why take control?”
“To assimilate Paws Peak. King Philip doesn’t want to destroy them. There aren’t many werewolves left. He wants a complete and utter surrender.”
“This isn’t just about Charles.”
“The king believes in efficiency.”
“So do you.”
“Yes. The goal to assimilate Paws Peak is how we found out about you in the first place,” I informed. “It was all by chance. The right place doing the right thing at the right time.”
She smiled. “I’m glad you did.”
“If I can make a tech field that spans from Wolf Bridge to Paws Peak, I’ll be able to hack them from here. But I’m not too close to cracking that problem yet.”
“So it isn’t an assassination. Plan A or plan B.”
I paused to consider the weight of that statement. Caspian issued this mission on his own, infiltrating Paws Peak again specifically, and the king complied—but he didn’t offer his assistance. The king didn’t know about plan A. As far as I knew, this was a mission for Phantom Fangs alone just like retrieving the princess had been. Retrieving the princess made sense. We weren’t supposed to be seen. But we were. We caused an uproar and Paws Peak would be expecting an attack now. Infiltrating a second time would be a lot more dangerous. The king had to know that.
I never worried about these kinds of details because it was Caspian’s job. I was in charge of tech. As long as my tech did what it needed to do, I was good. It was the only thing I focused on. But now I wondered. I wondered if the king really wanted to assimilate Paws Peak or if it was said for show because sending an army with Phantom Fangs would have made the most sense.
Politics were always so convoluted with layer upon layer of deceit. How anyone could find any truth in them was beyond me.
“I don’t know what the king has planned. I just know what my task is,” I finally replied.
“Are you going alone?” she whispered, eyes wide.
“Probably.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t go back to Paws Peak.”
“It’s the only way to get rid of the incomplete Mate Claim. Killing Prince Charles, that is.”
“What if I don’t want a mate at all, Todd? What if I’m fine like this? I’m not hurt. The incomplete Mate Claim doesn’t have to go away. If I ever did choose a mate, it would probably go away anyway, right? That’s what Caspian said.” She growled. “Why is everyone outside of the woods fighting anyway? It’s stupid.”
The comm system sounded off, a persistent low beep and a blinking red light showing there was an incoming call. I got off the floor and grabbed the receiver.
“The princess is to return to her room. Her maid is on the way to prepare her for the Full Moon Banquet.”
“Understood,” I replied and replaced the receiver.
The princess stood up from the floor and stretched out her stiff muscles. She did an exaggerated side stretch, causing her shirt to ride up. A patch of bronze skin drew my eyes. The dip of her pelvis leading to her sex made my brain short-circuit. I wanted to grab her waist, slide my hand down her hips, finger the band of her pants. I wanted to know if the rest of her was as soft as her arms.
“I have to go back?” she asked.
I swallowed. “Yes.”
“You can keep working. I know the way.”
“I’ll escort you.”
“Afraid I won’t go?”
I stared at the ground, but I forced my eyes back up to her dark ones. They were almost red. A deep red. I wondered if that was because of the tint in the goggles. My gaze wavered. I wanted to look away. Caspian told me eye contact was important, which sucked because it was easier to look away. “I want to take you.”
She gave me a big smile and walked up to me, taking my hand in hers. “Okay, Todd. Walk me back to my room.”
My fingers were limp in her hand because I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. She laced her fingers in mine, holding our hands in place. I closed my eyes for a moment. I wanted to think only about her hand touching mine. I wanted to take in the sensation because it was different from anything I had felt before. And I wanted more. Much more.
“I want to touch,” I murmured.
She laughed. “I’m holding your hand. We are touching.”
I opened my eyes and reached out my free hand. I hesitated instead of moving her shirt up just high enough to grab her hip like I wanted to. The princess was very good at maintaining eye contact. Her fire-hot gaze made me sheepish. And I remembered she was off limits.
I shook my head and said, “Never mind.”
The princess let go of my hand, grabbed my beanie, and reached up to pull it onto my head. She pressed into me when she did, making it impossible not to feel her breasts squish against my chest. I lost my breath. Soft. Soft. Soft. So beautiful.
“Now I want to keep your hair to myself,” she said.
“Fine with me,” I replied.
She looped her arms around my neck. I gave in and grabbed both of her hips, moving her shirt up just high enough to touch warm skin moist with sweat. I had to close my eyes again. My dick was half hard, and I wanted to roll my hips forward. I didn’t. I let her go and unraveled her arms from around my neck.
Damn biology.
“Let’s go, Princess” I said.
“Todd.” She made a clicking sound behind her teeth. “Call me Sorissa.”
“Okay.” I shrugged. “Sorissa.” I liked the way her name felt coming off my tongue.
“Promise to teach me more about tech later. I still have a lot of questions.”
“Sure.”
“Promise.”
“I promise.�
�
She nodded her head, smiling again.
I realized then I would probably do anything she asked me to. I had never enjoyed being with anyone. Living things were complicated and most of them barely dealt with me and my tech. I didn’t mind Phantom Fangs. But Sorissa liked tech, and she seemed to like me.
I needed Sorissa. The thought of going back to my tech alone, shut away in the Heart, made me want to scream. The thought of being away from her made my chest hurt.
CHAPTER 25
SORISSA
I WAS DISAPPOINTED WHEN the door to my room was in sight and Todd took me inside. I didn’t want to get all dressed up again. I didn’t really care to go to the Full Moon Banquet, but at least Phantom Fangs would be there.
“Princess.” Trace was practically folded over in a bow.
“Hi, Trace,” I said warmly. “I guess you’re getting me ready for the banquet.”
“Yes, and the king provided you the most beautiful dress.” She straightened up and tentatively smiled at me. The smile wavered when she saw Todd was with me. I thought it was funny. Were smiles outlawed in certain situations?
“Are you going to stay?” I asked him.
“N-no,” he spat out. “I’ll see you at the banquet.” His pale face flushed. I hadn’t seen that look on him while I was alone in the Heart with him. When it was just the two of us, he didn’t seem as nervous.
He went to the door but hesitated. I walked up behind him and wrapped my arms around him. He tensed, then relaxed. He was nice to touch. Nice to hug. I liked that he softened for me. When I touched him, all the tension seemed to leave his body.
I closed my eyes and breathed him in, committing his smell to memory. I savored the little bit of saltiness caused by his perspiration. I hoped he’d teach me more about tech soon. At least I knew what many things were called now and the basics of how it all worked. It made me feel like less of an outsider, and I thought it was all fascinating. I still liked Babaga’s word for it, though. Technocraft. It may not have been magic, but it was magical.
