“You and I both know that is not true,” she said.
He spread his hands, separating his fingers in a show of helplessness. Even just as silhouettes against the dimly-lit cave entrance, they looked strong and capable, and I wanted nothing more than to feel those fingers around my wrists as they pulled me into his safe embrace. “Ola, if your request was to have charges dropped against you for an outstanding crime or something of that nature, I could do that for you. Instantly. I cannot force Mother, Father, or Zuran to trust you again.”
“What angers me most about that response is not the lies within it but the lack of promise to even try,” she told him snappishly.
“Venan.” Compared to theirs, my voice sounded pathetic and whiny and small, but I had to speak. “You need to at least consider what she’s asking from you. She’s asking you just to talk to them, that’s all.”
“And I am trying to impress upon her how little influence I have over their emotional decisions!” Venan fired back. His response was to me, and it was angry, but I didn’t take it personally. I knew he wasn’t mad at me no matter how he was speaking to me at the moment. If the situations were reversed and it was he who was being held at knifepoint, I probably would’ve been more than a little riled myself.
As calmly as I could manage under the constraints of my fear, I said, “Think about what it would have meant to you just to have someone on your side when you became an Elder. You’ve dealt with being considered untrustworthy. Worse, you’ve dealt with being considered a murderer, and not by only four people but by an entire kingdom. Realistically, you’re still dealing with it. Because of an accidental mistake, you have been branded a demon despite all else you’ve done to prove otherwise. If someone had come forward and spoken up on your behalf, wouldn’t you have appreciated it? Even if nothing came of it?”
His breathing was slow and shaky, but it was so loud I could hear it more clearly than I heard Ola’s. She wasn’t moving a centimeter. In fact, she’d become as rigid as a stone statue behind me. I wished I could see Venan’s face and gauge what he was thinking so I could figure out if I needed to continue convincing him or not. However, the darkness was unrelenting, and I was blind to everything except the part of Venan’s outline visible from the backlight.
“Think carefully, brother,” Ola whispered. It was hardly audible, but all else was still enough to hear her.
Finally, Venan expelled a rush of breath. “Fine,” he agreed. It was clear he begrudged the word and its meaning, but it was enough to bring back the balloon of hope to my heart. “I will speak to them. I can make no promises, though, Ola. All I can do is try.”
“Thank you,” she said, and it was the calmest she’d been since she had first shown up at the salon. She actually sounded somewhat normal, and she definitely could’ve passed for sane.
She released me, and I fell flat on my back with the sudden lack of support. I heard a smattering of boot scrapes, and then felt fingers curling around my wrists just as I’d imagined. Venan’s scent burst into my senses, overtaking me, and I collapsed against his chest. He walked backward without letting me go, separating me from Ola and holding me to him so tightly I lost the ability to breathe properly, but I didn’t care. I was in his arms. I was safe.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Venan
“Are you terribly hurt?” I asked, running my hands up and down Octavia’s back in search of any mortal wounds.
She shook her head, the top of her hair brushing my chin. “No, I’m okay,” she murmured faintly. She was muffled against my chest, but I could hear her clearly enough to feel a sliver of relief for her condition. I reached between us to pinch her chin in my thumb and forefinger and lifted her face to mine, examining it for any signs of bruising like I had seen on Edie. There seemed to be none, but I noticed the shallow slit on her neck and the dribble of blood draining down from it. Angry bile rose from my gut to my throat.
“Can you stand on your own?” I questioned gently.
“Yes,” she claimed. I unraveled my arms from around her figure and took a step back to test her contention. She wavered slightly on the spot, but she kept her balance and remained standing.
“Very good,” I praised. “Now, I want you to stay here.”
Her eyes flew open, and she blindly looked in my direction. I was sure she was unable to make out anything in the pitch darkness of the cave because, even with A’li-uud vision, I was only able to see shadowed versions of everything around us. “Where are you going?” she whimpered.
I opted not to answer her and instead turned on my heel to face Ola. She was on her feet with the knife hanging loosely in her fingers by her side, and she was watching the interaction between Octavia and me with an expression I could only compare to deep yearning. It did nothing to soften the contempt boiling inside me. Before she could anticipate my movements, I shot toward her and pummeled her to the ground.
Octavia was screaming instantly with the sounds of the brawl, a high-pitched and blood-curdling scream that made even the Novain language seem pleasant to hear. My head urged me to return to her, scoop her up into my arms and take her back to Ka-lik’et, but my heart was in a battle of its own between my undying love for Octavia and my nuclear hatred for Ola. I slammed my forearm into her throat, sending her head flying back against the stone ground, and a repugnant crack interrupted Octavia’s wails.
Ola was hardier than she looked, though, and her frail form allowed her to snake out from under me and crouch on all fours like a predator before I realized what had happened. I spun to face her and attack again, but she catapulted herself at me first. This time, it was I who collided with the ground. Stars popped behind my eyelids, and I wondered if I had met her knife rather than the ground for the intensity of the stabbing pain. She seized my head by the hair and started banging my skull against the floor over and over again.
“Help!” Octavia was shrieking. “Help us!” Her cries were useless as there were no villages nearby and Ka-lik’et was at least fifteen minutes out of earshot, but worse yet was the incessant ringing they caused in my head, which only added to the pain I was feeling from Ola’s assault.
I pulled my knees up under Ola’s body and shoved upward with force. She was thrown from me as easily as a slip of fabric, and I heard her crumple somewhere nearby before I saw her. To prevent her from regaining her strength, I hopped to my feet and darted to her, pressing my boot down on her belly.
“How dare you,” I growled. Every inch of my body was throbbing, but the massive dose of adrenaline spiking my blood numbed me enough not to care. “How dare you lay a finger on her? How dare you use her for blackmail?”
“I had no other choice.” Ola’s response was weak and trembling, but I was sure she was playing a game with me and trying to evoke sympathy, so I added a fraction of pressure with my boot.
“You had no choice but to kidnap an innocent woman?” I shook my head in furious disbelief. “You believed taking someone I care for is the way back into the good graces of your family?”
She yowled, and I realized she was not playing a game. The murderous black in her soul had dissipated like smoke, and in its wake was left the remnants of who she had become in our years apart. She was broken. When she claimed to have lost everything, she had not been exaggerating. Not only was her love gone, her family gone, but her health appeared to be wasting away into nothingness, and her sanity was clear not far behind.
I took my boot off her stomach but continued to tower over her, intentionally placing my body between hers and Octavia’s to shield Octavia from view completely. I did not want my sister ever laying eyes on Octavia again. “You are going to come back to Ka-lik’et,” I said, barely moving my lips as I spoke. “There, you will be arrested for kidnapping and conspiracy to commit murder, and the Council will decide what to do with you.”
“You were lying to me,” she whispered. A’li-uud did not cry, but I was certain if they did she would have had streams of tears pouring down her face in
rivers. “You did not mean it when you said you would talk to Mother and Father, did you?”
“The only thing I intend to talk about with Mother and Father in which your name will arise is what you have done here tonight. They will know what a disgrace you truly are, and they will finally be able to release themselves of the burden they carry in continuing to love you. I will see to that much.”
She drew her legs up to her chest and curled into a ball. Rocking back and forth, she said into her knees, “Then, you may as well kill me now, brother. There is nothing left for me.”
I watched her rock, and I would have been lying to myself if I believed I did not consider killing her. Had she performed her assault and threats on anyone else, I likely would have never imagined doing such a thing. Knowing she had taken Octavia, however, and seeing the blood on Octavia’s throat was more than enough to vividly imagine taking Ola’s face in my hands and snapping her neck in one quick jerk. Witnessing one death of someone important in my life was enough, though. I was incapable of doing any more physical harm to Ola.
“Get up,” I grunted. When she failed to comply, I reached down and snagged her by the arm to wrench her to her feet myself. She stumbled a bit but did not fight me, and I pulled her unceremoniously toward the mouth of the cave. I was careful to keep myself positioned between the two females, but, as the light of the outdoors started to wash over me, I took Octavia’s hand in my free one and led her along as well—much more gently than I did Ola, of course.
Beneath the moonlight, I was able to properly see the damage done to Octavia’s person, and another bout of fury seized me. The knees of her pants had been shredded, and the skin beneath was stained with smeared blood. Her elbows were pink and raw, and there was a patch under her chin where she likely slid across the cave floor an inch or two. A finger-sized bruise was starting to form with purplish tinge around her wrist. Her face still looked flawless, though she had an inordinate amount of dust and sand caked into her hair, but her eyes were visibly terrified, and she seemed unable to stop trembling.
I released my hold on Ola out of disgust and turned my attention to Octavia. “We need to have someone look at you,” I murmured, brushing her cheek softly with my knuckles.
She leaned into my touch and shook her head as she insisted, “No, really, I’m fine.”
“You are bleeding,” I said. I gestured to her neck, and then down to her knees.
“It’s mostly just scrapes. No big deal. I’ll just—”
She was cut off by a loud, long, droning howl. I spun to find Ola on the ground with her knees up to her chest again and her face tilted up to the sky. Her mouth was open wide, and from it poured the agonizing wail of an A’li-uud with a broken heart.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Octavia
I wanted to hate her. I wanted to look at her and feel nothing but disgust for her very existence. But I couldn’t. Seeing her like that, curled up into herself on the sand with the most excruciating cry I had ever heard draining from her soul and ripping through the peaceful landscape, grazed the softest part of my heart, and I couldn’t take it.
“Is it necessary to have her arrested when we get back?” I asked Venan softly. I didn’t look at him as I asked, so riveted was I by the scene before me.
He didn’t answer me right away. It wasn’t until I tore my fixation from Ola and refocused it on him that he formed words. “You believe she who took you from your place of work at knifepoint, brought you to a cave in the middle of the desert, manhandled you enough to draw blood, and threatened to kill you if I failed to comply with her demands should not be arrested?” The disbelief was scrawled across his features so dramatically I would’ve believed it if his face never returned to normal.
“I don’t know,” I answered uncertainly. “When you put it that way, yes, definitely. In the heat of the moment, I would’ve said yes then too, but… I don’t know, Venan. Look at her. I’m not sure she’s as evil as she seems. I think she’s just really, really desperate.”
“Desperation is by no means justification for the crimes she has committed tonight,” he sharply declared.
“No, of course it isn’t,” I agreed. “But can’t you understand why she did it? Not that it makes it right, but can’t you understand her reasons at least a little bit?”
He frowned deeply and closed his eyes, pressing the heels of his hands into the sockets with frustration. I glanced back to Ola. Her single, seemingly endless wail had crumbled apart into a series of dry, rickety sobs. I knew where Venan was coming from and why he was treating her so severely, but watching her fall to pieces over something as important as the love of her family tugged at the place deep inside me I’d tried so hard to keep tucked away since my mother died. Watching Ola was like watching that part of myself personified. All of the guilt, all of the sorrow, all of the longing I had preserved manifested from my own heart and reincarnated in the withering body of the A’li-uud, and I felt a strong urge to go to her and draw her into an embrace to soothe her aching soul and mine.
“Octavia.” Venan was shaking his head now while continuing to massage his eye sockets with more force than could’ve possibly been healthy. “It is not I who is failing to understand.”
I bristled slightly at his cavalier tone and grabbed one of his wrists to pull a hand away from his face. He removed the other as well and looked down at me, and I could see the emotional exhaustion beginning to set into his countenance. “No, I think it is you,” I snipped. “I think you’re being a warrior and an Elder right now, and that’s all well and good, but you could at least take a second to look at this woman and be a brother. Just for a second.” My demeanor came out more aggressively than I wanted, especially considering he’d just rescued me from what could’ve been my death. I didn’t want to appear ungrateful, but I couldn’t help taking his indifference to his shattering sibling personally.
“The erosion of my family relative to Ola is a direct result of her actions,” he retorted. “It does not matter if I handle this situation as a warrior, as an Elder, or as a brother. The response is the same because every single one of those titles has been betrayed at her hand.”
“Because she cheated on her boyfriend?” I cried incredulously. “That’s not a betrayal to you; that’s a betrayal to him! And, I might add, while adultery is far from praiseworthy, it hardly warrants a complete exile from the family!”
“And therein lies proof you do not understand.” He refused to look in Ola’s direction, instead glaring off into the distance when he wasn’t looking at me.
I shook my head, lifting my arms and bringing them clapping back down to my sides in defeat. “How?”
“Adultery is a capital sin in our culture, Octavia,” he explained, softening his tone just enough to be noticeable but still sounding stern. “It is not an act only against the forsaken lover. It is an act against existence, against the Grand Circle and its design. Love is the greatest power in the universe. It is the bringer of life and the persistence for happiness. Sometimes it fades to rebloom elsewhere, but when it is ripped away like a leaf from a bough, it tears a hole in all the very essence of our being.”
It was so poetic an explanation I almost forgot we were in an argument about his sister, and I gaped at him for several long seconds before remembering we were in contention about Ola’s fate.
“Okay,” I conceded. I, too, softened my voice. “It’s your business how you react to what happened with her in the past. I think what happened with her tonight is kind of my business though, seeing as I was the one she kidnapped and everything.”
“What would you have me do?” The tension between us dissipated as he asked the question in earnest, genuinely interested and willing to listen to my response.
I shook my head and offered a small shrug. “I don’t know, Venan. I just wish you wouldn’t throw her away so easily.”
Finally, he looked at her. I turned too to glimpse her again. She was still tucked up into a ball, but her chin was now res
ting on her knees, and she wasn’t hollering with grief anymore. Her shoulders shook a bit, and I heard her shaking breaths, but she was otherwise quiet. Venan pursed his lips, let a stream of air slip through the opening, and then nodded his head once like he was confirming something inside his own mind.
“We need to bring her back to Ka-lik’et,” he said slowly. “And she needs to pay penance for what she has done this evening.”
“I agree,” I conveyed tentatively. “But—”
“I will have her arrested on the lesser charge of assault. It holds a significantly shorter sentence than the other two charges I intended to put upon her.” He walked past me without waiting to hear my thoughts on his amended decision and approached Ola’s slumped form. She didn’t address him, but he started talking to her anyway. “I cannot let what you have done to Octavia go unpunished, Ola. If I were nothing more than a warrior, I perhaps could have looked the other way, but my role in the Elderhood means I have a commitment to see justice through. Do you understand?”
She didn’t move at first. Then, I saw her head nod almost imperceptibly. Several loose flyaway strands of platinum hair fluffed across her forehead from the motion.
“I can assure you that you will spend time imprisoned, but, as I told Octavia, it will not be nearly as long a sentence as kidnapping or conspiracy,” he went on. “Once you are released, I will consider helping you make amends with our family. Whether I choose to do so or not will be fully dependent on the changes you have made within yourself and for others.”
Ola stared raising her head slowly, bit by bit until she was looking up at him. Her eyes shone in the moonlight, and her lips were parted in a silent gasp. It was as if she was seeing the Holy Ghost. Tears welled up in my eyes at the sight, and I was so moved by the vision of her gratitude that I couldn’t help but smile. She didn’t look terrifying anymore. She was beautiful.
Venan: A Paranormal Sci-Fi Alien Romance: Albaterra Mates Book 7 (The End) Page 23
