by V. K. Ludwig
“My Varac.” Somewhere beside Kerien, Thuran cleared his throat. “The hub is already trying to make a connection to his personal com.”
“Excellent.” Kerien dug his claws into soft, brown strands, and yanked the heiress onto feet surprisingly steady. “I will expose every single of your lies, heiress.”
He dragged her over to Thuran and positioned her right in front of the lens, pulling her to the left and pushing her to the right. She barely flinched.
The heiress once more refused to show much of a reaction. Except for her ragged breathing, probably for the way he strained her neck, she seemed… focused?
That headache intensified.
Didn’t this woman know he could tear her aorta out with one bite? Peel skin off her body with one swipe of his claw?
Kerien’s heart pounded faster with each second it took the old hub to form the hologram. He needed this negotiation to conclude quickly, so he could rid himself of this woman who confused him. Messed with his thinking.
The hub beeped.
The hologram lit up.
A distorted female voice resonated from the little machine. “The personal communication system you are trying to reach has been deactivated.”
The hologram dissipated.
Silence settled over the room.
Kerien’s core froze once more, rock solid, turning so heavy it fell out from his chest and bottomed out right next to his shattered plan.
“I’m not a liar,” the heiress snarled, the fact that she had spoken the truth only adding another level of defeat.
He spun her around and placed his other hand to her throat, tips of his claws lining up with green veins running along alabaster skin. “What is this?”
No matter how her lips trembled, her voice came without wavering. “My father got infected with Kuneshi brain worms almost a year ago. He’s completely mush in the head. The entire universe knows it. How come you don’t?”
“Because the UFG are interfering with our intel and blocking transmissions,” he snarled. “It took us months of planning and a heavy bribe to get to you.”
“Yeah, well, my dad hasn’t been acting CEO ever since because he doesn’t even remember that he has a company.” She sucked in a sad little breath. “As a matter of fact, he doesn’t even remember me.”
Kerien wanted to shout ‘lie’, but the sadness was written in her eyes, nothing about her scent betraying deceit. He couldn’t begin to guess at her emotional turmoil — and he wouldn’t.
“You are still a month away from inheriting Osacore,” Kerien said, only slightly easing his grip on her. “Who is acting CEO?”
A swallow pushed past his palm. “Gral. He’s the son of —”
“I know who he is!” That Klaxian had watched Kerien’s father getting slaughtered. “Call him. Now!”
“I can help y—”
The heiress’ words choked underneath the force of Kerien’s clasp, his fingers trembling. “Didn’t we establish that I don’t care for your help?”
Her pitiful nails clasped around his wrist. “If you think I’m going to cry and beg, then you’re off your rocker.”
Kerien pulled her against his chest, her body flush with his. “I will make you cry. And I will make you beg. If I have to, I’ll make you bleed.”
Something taunting came over her features, green irises taking on the color of dried clumpleaf. She leaned into him, glancing up, her breath hushing over the side of his neck. “When you do, make sure you don’t go pale the way you did when you accidentally scratched me.”
All blood drained from Kerien’s veins, leaving him cold, and numb, and a number of other things too strong to be ignored. “What?”
“You heard me,” she whispered into his ear, and Thuran shifted his weight beside them.
His fingers slipped off her neck all on their own, and he took a step back, his determination deflating only to be replaced by utter defeat. He shouldn’t have shrunk back from her earlier. Shouldn’t have caught her from falling.
The heiress stroked a hand over her neck, her eyes drilling into his as if she wanted to get to the truth beneath his eyes. Uncover the lie he’d been telling himself, that he was capable of truly harming her.
“I’ll make you a deal,” she said.
“A deal?” Kerien scoffed. “Are you trying to bargain with a Varac?”
She crossed her arms in front of her chest and pointed at the communication hub. “You want me desperate? Convince Gral to give you whatever it is you want? I’ll deliver you a show you’ve never seen before. I’ll blink tears onto that lens. Shit, I’ll snort on it if that’s what it takes, saliva drooling and all.”
Kerien couldn’t help but cock his head, as if taking this creature in sideways would somehow help him figure her out the way she’d done with him. An odd woman indeed.
All it took was her whisper. One damn whisper, and she’d stripped him of all situational power. His toes itched inside his boots. No, he hadn’t overestimated her. Quite the opposite.
He mimicked her posture, crossing strong arms over a wide chest. “And in return you want…”
“Answers.”
“Answers?” He exchanged a confused glance with Thuran, who had the luxury of standing flabbergasted while Kerien had to pretend that this woman hadn’t called him out on his weakness. “Answers to what questions?”
“Everything I need to know about Osacore.”
But wasn’t she supposed to know everything already?
Kerien folded his hands behind his head and stared up through the glass cupola where Xaleon, his birthright, glowed from afar. How could this woman act so oblivious one moment, and negotiate with a Varac the very next? He better watch himself around this cunning female.
“What are your orders, my Varac?” Thuran asked.
Kerien straightened his neck and let his arms drop by his sides. At least a dozen methods of torture came to mind, each one growing his chest tight. If an accidental scratch had disabled his heart in such a way earlier, how was he supposed to bite her finger off? Peel skin from flesh? She’d called his bluff even before he’d realized he had one.
“I will allow you five questions,” he said. “Ask them now and I will answer them truthfully to the best of my knowledge. Then we will call Gral.”
The heiress rubbed over her sternum and pressed her lips together. “In two days. If I only get five questions, then I’ll need time to come up with them.”
“Seven questions then.”
“Five,” the cunning woman said. “There’s no benefit for me if I ask seven stupid questions. I’d rather think this through and ask five important ones in two days.”
Her answer pleased him more than it should have. Smart woman. Perhaps even an honest woman? He tamped that irrational thought back down. “Very well.”
She dipped her head and pointed over at the table. “Are those argoy berries?”
He nodded.
“Can I take them to my room?”
Greedy woman. “You may. Nobody shall say we’re not feeding our guest.”
With a dip of her head, she turned for the table, took the plate of berries, and disappeared into the dark hallway leading toward his old chamber.
Thuran placed the hub onto the table with a sigh. “She spoke the truth. Twice.”
“Perhaps she has less deceit in her than her father,” Kerien said, an odd flutter coming over his chest. “Truthful but greedy.”
Five
Ada hurried along the hallways, dry vines covering the walls brushing along her palm.
Behind her, a bare-chested guard held his arms crossed, finger tapping an anxious beat against his biceps. “Our Varac will not approve of your wandering about.”
“Didn’t your Varac say I’m his guest?” she asked, hurried steps resonating from mildew-stained walls where leaves must have once covered them. “Your Varac owes me answers. And if I can’t leave my room, one might think I’m a captive.”
He made an annoyed sound at the
back of his throat but said nothing else, following three steps behind wherever Ada went. Around corners. Up stairs. Down others.
This ship was extensive, and she eventually stopped and turned toward her chaperon. “Where is everyone?”
“At the agridome.” As if that meant something to Ada, he just stared at her for an overlong moment, until he let out a huff of annoyance. “This way, heiress.”
“My name is Ada.”
A shrug was offered in response.
She followed him down three sets of spiral stairs and along a long corridor, which opened up into a massive, light-flooded chamber. What was this place?
Raised terraces framed the outline where dozens of Aurani loosened dark soil around plants with their claws. Children carefully placed long spouts hanging from leather bladders into pipes protruding from the dirt.
“I’ve never seen something like this before.” She strolled along the stone path which lead through the chamber. “So this isn’t just a transportation vessel. You grow food here?”
“Yes.”
That made no sense. Why not on Axxiar Five? The planet Dad had given them when they’d relocated? She’d seen pictures of that planet. Green, lush, and certainly with enough resources to sustain the Aurani. So why grow food in space?
Ada took a deep breath, taking in the scents of moist soil and foreign herbs. “Do you have livestock?”
“Very few.”
All around her, Aurani shifted their attention from plants to her, eyes cold enough she sensed them prick up and down her spine as steps faltered into uncertainty underneath her. Whatever sweetness she’d found with Vohri, the chamber held none of it. Perhaps she shouldn’t have come here?
Grunts resonating from somewhere nearby offered a welcome distraction, along with pock-pock-pocks, like wood swords clashing. But what Ada found around the corner, right behind a crop of tall stalks, were neither swords nor wood.
At least twenty Aurani warriors sparred in the dirt of what must have been a recently tilled field. Their torsos glistened with sweat wherever mud hadn’t streaked their gray skin near black, chests expanding wide underneath heaves.
To the far right, the Varac grabbed the horns of his opponent and pulled him over his shoulder with little effort. The warrior hit the mud with a slap and a groan, but quickly rolled onto all fours and stood.
“My Varac, the woman,” he said and jutted his chin toward her, wiping mud-caked strands from his face.
The Varac turned, his breathing heavy, muscles fed by protruding veins. He was a beast of strength and power, almost barbaric looking yet strangely appealing.
Golden eyes narrowed on her, sending an unexpected ripple through her chest. “What are you doing here, woman?”
“You owe me five answers,” she informed him, refusing to shrink from his stare. “Since you didn’t call for me, I figured I’d come looking for you instead.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw, and he haphazardly wiped some mud off him before he gestured her back toward the path. “Have you eaten the things I had laid out on the table for you?”
“Not yet.” Which earned her another grunt.
Side by side, they walked along the stone path, past females who dug tubers from the soil and placed them in wicker baskets. Horns much smaller than those of the males curled back and down, as opposed to how the Varac’s curled back and up at the tips.
“Your first question?” he asked.
Ada breathed through the onset of a nervous tingle at the bottom of her stomach. All night, she’d pondered over what to ask as much as she’d worried about what would happen after. She would cry into the camera, alright, but she doubted Gral would care. All this would blow over soon. And then what?
She stopped and turned to him, spine straight like a metal rod. “I know our cores bring power to even the most remote, underdeveloped planets. But my father regularly met with the defense secretary, so there have to be military applications for osanium.”
A frown came and went from his features, his balance shifting away from her with an examining stare. Ada could read his pity for her from the wrinkles on his forehead. Naive little girl; knows nothing about anything.
“You’re very observant. Smart, even.” He mocked her, didn’t he? Nobody had ever called her that before. “The United First Galaxies use osanium to power technologically advanced weaponry, and mineral-based defense systems. It can do great damage in the hands of power-crazed politicians and ruthless businessmen.”
So he mocked her and called Dad ruthless? Ada didn’t hide her huff of annoyance. “Are you saying you consider Osacore in the wrong hands?”
“Is that your second question?”
She sobered up right there at how she’d blurted that out with no consideration. “Merely an extension of the first one, I guess.”
“Our deal made no mention of extensions.”
Ada’s gaze kept flicking upward toward his horns. Until yesterday, she’d never seen an Aurani in person before. Not that she remembered. Scales, tails, fangs… she’d seen it all. But not horns, and her fingers itched to brush over the ridges. Were they rough?
When his eyes sought out hers, she immediately dropped her gaze, a wave of embarrassment washing over her. She didn’t want him to think she admired his beastly features.
“Xaleon, the very planet where you mine osanium, is powered by the mineral itself,” he said, his voice hard and guttural. “Osacore has over-mined Xaleon for over a decade now, throwing the planet out of balance. Lakes and riverbeds dried up. Heat flares burnt down entire landscapes of forests, and your father’s greed is to blame.”
Ada’s insides pinched. Greed? “My dad donated millions of financial aid to underdeveloped planets and displaced species.”
“And you believe that?” His scoff rattled her bones, amplified by the way he curled frayed lips over sharp fangs. “My people are displaced, driven off their own planet, and your father has done nothing to make amends.”
“Driven off?” That pinch harboring in her core festered, expanding into a full-blown convulsion that urged her to step up in front of him. “You attacked our mines.”
Spine straight, chin lifting, he built himself up in front of her until broad shoulders blocked out the view behind him. “After you continued to mine in areas not outlined by the contract, making the earth collapse, swallowing our shrines and sacred places of worship. Making herds of hessa die of starvation, leaving my people hungry. Making springs of clean water disappear, leaving our throats dry.”
His filthy lies turned her stomach upside down. That wasn’t what had happened. Was it? “Your father attacked our miners and their families!”
He tortured his upper lip and ripped his gaze from her, his voice heavy. “That, he did.”
The Varac stared over one of the terraces where females, children, and the occasional male watched them under their brows. With a deep sigh, he brought his eyes back to hers.
“And I have to live with my father’s sin.” His voice dropped deeper as he added, “As you have to live with how yours answered the attack with the slaughter of my people, wiping out generations of families. We had to flee our own planet. Now, we’re circling its orbit on this ship.”
“Permanently?”
He leaned over, grabbed a handful of dirt, and let it run through his fist. “We brought in soil. Planted trees. Tilled fields. It doesn’t get more permanent than that.”
Ada’s breath hitched, and yet she thrust a snarl forward. “My dad offered peace in exchange for your relocation to Axxiar Five.”
“And are we on Axxiar Five?” He lifted up his arms, chin held so high he patronized her like everyone else, but what followed came like a punch to the face. “You really are oblivious, aren’t you? A naive little princess, completely misinformed as to how she came to be the heiress of a dying planet. I’m not sure what upsets me more: your honesty, or your ignorance.”
A sudden freeze hit Ada at the core, spreading into limbs until her entire body
went numb, paralyzed. Two answers into this deal, and she now questioned her entire fucking life. This couldn’t be true. And yet, deep down at her core, something told her it probably was.
She struggled against the foreboding twitch at the corner of her lips but failed. That trained smile came anyway, followed by, “Excuse me, but I need fresh air.”
A standard line, polite and socially accepted across galaxies, delivered with such mastery the only thing betraying her confusion the way muddy soles slipped over slick cobblestone.
“Heiress…” The Varac quickly caught up with her, a smug smile lining his lips. Of course he just loved this. She’d called him out yesterday. Now he returned the favor. “I’ve only counted three questions.”
“Two. Both answered with lies.”
“Most definitely three.” The moment he jumped in front of her, Ada slammed against a chest that could just have been a wall. A wall refusing to let her pass. “You wanted answers, and now you dismiss them as lies? Whereas the people around you clearly kept you in the dark, and you take their silence as truth?”
That made so much fucking sense Ada clenched her teeth. “You’re trying to mess with my head.”
“Me? Messing with your head?” Those scarred lips clenched. “For what purpose?”
“I have no idea.” And she struggled coming up with one.
She shifted from one leg to the other, but the wall of muscle and mud shifted right along with her. Why had Dad done that? A new question fogging her head, and nobody to answer it.
It wasn’t like she could go and ask him.
And even if she could, who said she would get a factual answer? Nobody ever told her shit. Nobody but the Varac…
Nausea licked at the back of her throat. Who wanted to inherit an empire built on bloodshed and suffering? Shit, every inhale turned into a struggle. She needed space to think.
Since there was no getting around this guy, she took a step back and folded her arms in front of her chest. “What do you want from Gral in exchange for me?”
He ground his fangs with enough force they gnashed, his head tilting from one side to the other as if he considered not answering at first. “A power core large enough to supply this ship for another couple of decades.”