Wrax

by Starr Huntress

  My hatchet is molded perfectly to fit my hand and I twist it expertly between my fingers, twirling and catching it to get a scream from the audience. I want them to get their money’s worth, after all. Too many people will demand their credits back if the match is over in a matter of seconds.

  Anaxis is making no move to come to me. I focus my bionic eye on his muscle twitches and find nothing. He is not about to rush me, or feint, or run away. Nothing. He is standing there, feet apart, arms folded over his chest and a wide, cocky grin on his face.

  Bastard hasn’t even drawn his sword yet.

  But … why?

  The sword is going to be covered with a rare, expensive poison. Szillik. One moment of contact with my skin and it will seep through and taint my blood. When that taint spreads and the blood reaches my heart … that’s it. I’d be dead. It’d happen in moments. The crowd would be confused but perhaps while I was panicked and struggling against death, Anaxis would get in an actual killing blow, making it look like he had won honorably.

  I don’t understand why he isn’t even moving.

  Something niggles at me. My bionic eye notices several things that tug at my gut: his eyes are the only things moving. Micromovements, up towards the stands. Behind me.

  Where my Cara is.

  Cold fear clutches at my bones and I rush at the Eroder, whose eyes fly wide open and he steps backwards, staring openly behind me now. As the crowd roars, I masterfully feint backwards and double back, launching myself at full speed towards the stands now.

  Three hundred purple faces look at me, astonished, as I leap up past them, gaining more ground every second. I knew it. I knew something was off.

  And as I grit my teeth and take in the sight before me, I realize that, this whole time, I have been completely wrong.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Cara

  I watch as the two thick, burly men circle each other in the ring below, and I frown slightly. Wrax’s foe should have at least drawn that poison-covered sword by now, right? All it takes is a touch, according to the sparse research I managed to do on Firosan poisons.

  Something crawls under my skin, and with a jolt I understand something. This was exactly what Aphrodite was talking about. I have noticed that something is off about my surroundings, but my brain hasn’t quite yet translated it to the forefront of my brain.

  But there are no two ways about it. Paxia is calling to me from under the dirt and rock.

  Danger. Something is wrong here.

  The Eroder has no intention of drawing his sword yet. He knows that Wrax will not kill him if he doesn’t fight back. So … he’s stalling.

  With a small gasp I notice the strange shuffling of the man sitting right beside me, and just as Kivak draws a tiny dagger I lurch out of his reach.

  Riven and Fello are not quick enough; neither of them has even realized fully that something is actually going on up here in the stands. But there is no way out for me. I am blocked in every direction by enormous purple legs. I am hemmed in. Trapped like an animal.

  Kivak snarls and brandishes his dagger at Fello who rises to his feet with his eyes wide and hands out. “Kivak, my brother; my friend,” he says gently. “Let us talk about this. I know that you—”

  “Back!” the ambassador spits, very nearly poking Fello’s robes with the tip of his dagger. I understand with all I know that his dagger is covered in deadly poison. He is pale and drawn, seeing me inch further away, and knowing that his assassination attempt is going to be far more tricky and public than he had intended. “You … human!” he cries. “Humans, on this planet? Over my dead body!”

  Just then there is the sound of a dozen Mahdfel grunting as my enormous warlord climbs up the stands and growls ominously at the ambassador.

  Kivak panics and lunges for me. I take a step back and trip over a gasping Mahdfel behind me, and Kivak snatches me up and hovers the tip of the dagger half an inch from my throat. My pulse kicks up and I will myself not to move, not to breathe.

  “Kivak, why?” Fello is demanding to know, sweat beading on his forehead. I can see that Wrax is almost blinded with fury but he knows that he can’t tackle Kivak to the ground because someone — probably me — will come into contact with this deadly poison.

  “The Suhlik wanted to come here and reap our resources for their own. At first I was as against that as you all were, but then I came across one and I … I understood her. Her reasoning. It was perfect. The strong continue and the weak shall fall. I convinced the fleet that I was the strong, and that if I gave them information that I would be able to live.” He gives a mad cackle and I will him with everything I have not to move or even twitch.

  “What is more Mahdfel than that? Than the strong surviving? We have been softened here by Paxian nonsense and Firosan garbage! We can not call ourselves Mahdfel here!” He is screaming now. I try to angle myself away from the juddering tip of his blade, panic surging through me, and Wrax is inching forward ever closer during the madman’s tirade.

  I realize suddenly that I always felt something weird and off about Kivak. Could that be Paxia’s influence from day one, or my simple human instincts?

  “Why the human?” Riven demands to know, his feet also shuffling further while the ambassador is busy talking.

  “I cannot have there be a next generation,” Kivak spits. “When Earth knows that this is a hostile place they will stop sending humans through. Then in the meantime the Suhlik are rebuilding their army to take Paxia while the Mahdfel wither and age! The lizard people can bide their time. They can wait. Then with Wrax gone … Paxia falls into chaos until we find a new strongest.” He bears his teeth and I can feel the heat of his sour breaths. He sounds so incredibly proud of his own plan. All he has to do is move the dagger just … one … inch.

  So why isn’t he?

  “But you know you’ll die if you kill me,” I choke out. Kivak growls and tightens his grip on my neck and I cough. “They’ll kill you. Wrax will give you a slow death! And you won’t be able to kill him, and finish your plan.”

  I know I’m right about the slow death by the fire in my lifemate’s eyes. The clenching and unclenching of his fists. Then I notice the small nod in the direction of Riven. An almost unnoticeable movement.

  Riven slowly brings his hands up to his mouth while Kivak is focused on Wrax and suddenly a low, smooth melody drifts towards us. The song of a mating tousorin. Slowly it becomes harsher, and louder, and then Kivak loosens his grip on me ever so slightly to flinch away from the source of the sound.

  A mating tousorin can get incredibly aggressive and territorial … I remember learning that. Kivak is worried about getting divebombed.

  I use the slight give in his arm to clamp my teeth down hard and as he screams, Wrax slams the full weight of his hatchet’s blunt end straight into Kivak’s nose with a deafening roar, straight from the gut.

  Kivak falls, mercifully, straight back, the dagger slipping from his hands. “Nobody touch that!” I cry, spreading my arms wide. “It’s poisoned!”

  “How do you know?” Fello asks, his eyes glittering now that his panic has subsided. I know what he wants me to say, so I grant his wish.

  I smile at everyone who is listening. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of open-mouthed Mahdfel. I can hear Paxia’s winds whoosh through my hair and I raise my arms up to get everyone’s attention. Fello looks giddy with excitement, and Wrax looks down at me with adoration. I can tell he wants to whisk me away from the danger, but he will let me say my piece first.

  “Mahdfel of Paxia,” I say, and my voice sounds different to me … deeper, perhaps; older. Wiser. I can hear Paxia herself in it, in a way. “I am your new Catalyst.”

  There is a pause, and then Fello begins to clap. Wrax joins in, a half-smirk on his face.

  “No … really?” Riven gasps. Soon dozens of purple men are clapping and cheering, then roaring, and clapping Wrax on the back.

  “I have an announcement too,” Wrax roars, and the crowd silences.
My warlord steps next to me and eyes his audience before wrapping an arm around me. “I feel, with everything I have, that Cara, my lifemate, is pregnant with our first child. Heir to the Kingdom of Paxia.” The crowd begins to scream, but Wrax raises a hand. “I will hereby be retiring from the arena; it is no place for a King.” He looks down at me and presses a kiss to my temple while I reel from the news. “Or a father.”

  Now that I think about it — really think about it — I can feel it too. There is a light inside me. Now that I know it’s there, it’s almost all I can see.

  “I will be taking back the Palace of Varrasque,” he roars, “where the rightful King should live. I must shy away from ruling no longer.” He pulls me close. “The arena will henceforth be purely for sport — now that the Catalyst, lifemate of the King, is back, we will try people for their guilt again. Now that the Catalyst is back, my fellow Mahdfel, we can have access to all the things the Firosans left behind that we cannot work.”

  The crowd cheers deafeningly. And I feel a little overwhelmed by it. But I feel alright, like everything is going to be fine.

  “That means spaceflight, for all who have had to leave their military or spacecraft jobs.” More cheering. I feel my face become almost sore from how much I am smiling up at my lifemate. “That means repair for all devices and objects that no longer work, including cybernetic implants.” He gestures to his own eye.

  I decide to speak up, and to my surprise everyone looks to me patiently, no screaming over my decidedly small voice. “Paxia and I have decided that she will no longer condescend the Mahdfel by hiding technological secrets. She will trust you to repair and maintain and even build Firosan tech. She will teach you — teach all of us — the same things that she originally taught the Firosans, before you all arrived on this planet.”

  “This will be a time of great change,” Wrax says, placing his hand over my stomach. I feel a surge of love, of connection, that I have never felt before with anyone, or anything. I almost cannot stand it. It’s so powerful and intense. I love this man more than I ever imagined I could. “I appreciate any and all help my mate — my wife — and I can get.” He nods once and turns and strides out of the arena, leading me by the hand. I wave at everyone as we go, face turning a little pink at all the awed eyes on me.

  I never was one to be in the limelight, but now I am. With Wrax by my side — my mighty, powerful warrior King. And I’ve never been happier.

  Epilogue

  “And how are we just to believe that she is the Catalyst?” a bony senator asks, jabbing a thin purple finger in my direction.

  Wrax is seated in the chamber that houses the Tree of Varrasque, and I sit next to him, feeling more serene than ever in the presence of Paxia’s voice. Together we have been working on repairing important technology that has fallen into disrepair, and I am training a team of a dozen technologically-inclined Mahdfel as I go along. Soon we will have their spacecraft fleet up and running again, and the Firosan Mahdfel can join the war against the Suhlik.

  Now with Kivak behind bars — or under them, as here on Paxia jail cells are underground — the Suhlik have no contacts, no lead. I will send my message back to Earth that everything is great on Paxia and more and more women will be tested and then matched with the Mahdfel here. With a new generation, access to spacecrafts and weaponry and bionic implants, the Firosan Mahdfel will be almost literally unstoppable.

  I can’t wait.

  My King cannot wait either. For years he has itched to rejoin the fight up there in space. But the Firosans implemented a failsafe that did not allow anyone to enter a spacecraft without the proper matching cybernetic tech. Paxia is slowly teaching us how to do this, and it is going wonderfully. Wrax will take me to visit the moons soon, he says. Visit the settlements up there who have been stranded with only minimal voice communication for over five years.

  I look to the bony senator and I smile calmly up at him from my chair of warm, twisted wood.

  “Would you like proof?” I ask.

  All dignitaries have been invited to celebrate our naming day — the traditional day at the start of the second trimester where the parents decide on the name for their baby, surrounded by the peers who will help to raise the child at birth — by coming to wish us congratulations and give us gifts of clothes and rich foods. We have also permitted them to ask us questions as they approach us. This elderly senator is the only one who has said what they were all thinking.

  He nods, eyes not malicious but still fixed firmly on me.

  I close my eyes and reach out to touch the now-warm wood of the enormous Tree of Varrasque. Almost instantly I can hear a deep breath, echoing among the branches, and then a strong wind. There is a rustling and a gentle rumbling and then, before everyone’s eyes, bright green leaves sprout all over the branches. Moss and mushrooms spring to life on the trunk, and the air in the cavern smells wonderfully of exotic but subtle flowers.

  Still smiling calmly, I retract my hand and the leaves shrink and dull again. The mushrooms on the trunk stop glowing, and the smell of fresh flowers slowly fades.

  “I am the Catalyst. Paxia speaks through me,” I say to him. “Any more questions?”

  “No,” he mutters. Before he leaves, he presses his hand against his forehead, palm out. I return the gesture. Queen, Catalyst, whatever I am here. I’ll always be Cara really.

  “We have decided on the name Vaelor,” Wrax tells everyone as he stands up, holding up a big glass of prosek. I don’t want to try something that looks so green and deadly while I am pregnant, so I hold up a big glass of fresh fruit juice in a traditional Earth ‘cheers’ that I taught everybody. We clink glasses and drink and eat until we are full.

  “And I have one more thing to say. I know it is not traditional for the father to give the mother a gift during her naming ceremony … but let this perhaps be the start of a new tradition. Ambassador?” Wrax looks proud, a cocky smirk on his face. I look around, confused.

  Fello approaches with a wide grin and something in his arms that almost makes me pass out, it’s so cute.

  A baby quibbin. “Oh, look at you!” I squeal, picking up the sweet, striped creature from the ambassador’s arms and thanking him, lifting up my new pet.

  “She is a girl,” Fello says, and then adds quietly, “I thought you might have had enough of males.” I laugh and cuddle the quibbin the way the pet store owner taught me to. Firm but gentle.

  “I love her,” I express. “Thank you, Wrax.” I turn to him, but his name is barely out of my mouth when he sweeps my face up to his and closes my lips with a tender kiss.

  When the celebrations are over and we have chatted, mingled and laughed with everyone — including Fello and Riven, who I’m very glad could make it — we retire up to the palace. It’s named rather excitingly for what it is … the palace really isn’t an old English castle or anything, with turrets and a moat, but it is an enormous home with winding secret passageways and a beautiful sun-dappled grove for our children to grow up in. And since it is right above the Tree, I can pop down and ask questions from the planet itself whenever I want to.

  It’s perfect.

  “Where is my wife?” Wrax demands, striding through the spacious kitchen and living room area. I laugh. Since first learning that word, he has loved to use it. He comes up behind me as I clean a counter and wraps his arm around me. “You should be resting,” he murmurs into my ear.

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” I chide. “I’m barely pregnant at all. I can scrub a counter.”

  “No!” he barks, spinning me around and around until I fall into his chest, giggling. He nuzzles my hair with his nose and kisses my head over and over. “You smell … divine.” That’s another English word he finds that he loves to use. He has been trying to learn as much about my culture as he can, now that I have immersed myself in his.

  I trail my hand down his chest, feeling the fine layer of fuzz and then the swells of his abs, and I bite my lower lip. “I can think of one thing I’d
rather do than clean,” I tell him. He grins wide, showing perfect teeth, and effortlessly lifts me by the waist to sit on the counter I just cleaned. I tut playfully, but he is already leaning in, and I feel his presence — his heat — as he licks and sucks on my neck, collarbone, and then the sensitive flesh of my breasts.

  I moan and arch my back — Wrax really knows exactly how to get to me. He knows where all of my buttons are and he is fully aware of just how to push them, and when. I am the luckiest person in the world. I thought that coming here might be the worst thing to ever happen to me … but I can’t imagine being even close to this happy anywhere else in the universe.

  I yank down his tan leather pants and expose his cock immediately. I love how they don’t wear underwear here. He expertly tugs on the fastening to my favorite Firosan robe — a gentle light purple just like his skin — and the folds fall all around me, instantly leaving me completely naked on the kitchen counter. I mock gasp and he grins devilishly as the precum-tipped head of his cock brushes enticingly against my inner thigh.

  I scoot forwards just a little to give him easier access and he presses his lips against mine, driving his tongue into my mouth just as he drives his thick, perfect purple cock inside my ready, aching entrance...

  He slides out again and nips at my lower lip and then at the skin on my neck, making me shudder. I am completely his, and as I wrap my legs around his waist and feel the rumbling of his own pleasure escape his throat, I know for a fact that he is equally mine.

  “I love you,” he whispers in my ear, his breath tickling my skin and making me hot and breathless. Before I can fully get the words out to say it back to him, he is pumping. Fucking me until my eyes roll back and I can do nothing but melt in his arms and take it, my legs still wrapped tight around him. He fucks me harder and faster until a high-pitched moan leaves my lips and I clamp around his pumping cock. He grunts and grips me hard as the aftershocks from my climax ripple against his manhood. Wrax leans against me and releases everything he has inside of me, filling me up until it begins to slide scandalously down my inner thighs.