by V. K. Ludwig
Her hand wandered to her mother’s necklace, the small core vibrating inside. “How large is that?”
“About the size of your head,” he said, because, of course, the size of her necklace would have been way too convenient. “Five questions. Five answers. As per the bargain we struck, I’ve done my part, and now I expect you to honor your end of it.”
She let out a huff. “Half of those questions had nothing to do with Osacore.”
“Perhaps you should have asked seven stupid ones two days ago.”
Ada stood unmoving once more. Insolent smartass, but he had a point. They’d struck a deal, and she wouldn’t let him call her a liar again. “Let’s get on with it then.”
With all the royal grace in this universe, he stepped aside and waved her along. “This way, heiress.”
He lead her back to where she’d come from, and the Aurani once more shifted their attention. Where they dipped their heads toward their Varac, coldness entered their gazes the moment eyes landed on her. Not necessarily hostile, but not welcoming either.
“My people are wary of humans,” the Varac said, as if he’d caught on to that unease clasping her chest. “We’ve lost a great many warriors when the soldiers attacked, and many females wept the loss of their mates.”
He said it so matter-of-factly, almost as if his words had been established as the truth between them. And perhaps they had. What reason did she truly have to doubt him?
Her lungs tightened at the question. All he wanted was a core for his ship, so why go through the trouble of manipulating her?
A beep reverberated through the chamber, and Aurani lowered their wicker baskets and brushed dirt off their hands. On each terrace, groups of them clustered together, simple wooden bowls resting in their palms. Females brought large pots, pouring a gooey, greenish substance from ladle to bowl. One scoop each. Whoever remained with the bowl outstretched got swatted away.
Rations. Vohri had mentioned it.
How could a word so harmless run such a shiver across her arms? She watched them sip their breakfast, her heart growing heavier. While none of them looked emaciated, they didn’t carry any extra fat on their bones either.
Ada grimaced at the potential reason behind it. Things weren’t going so well for the Aurani, and that disgusting puddle she’d bathed in yesterday only offered more proof.
“You’re limiting your water and food,” she said, and the Varac did a poor job at hiding the way his next footfall stalled mid-air for the fraction of a second. “Why is that?”
He pointed toward the stairs leading up and away from the agridome, saying only one thing. “Because we’re not on Axxiar Five.”
Another punch, this one straight in the guts.
She’d wanted answers.
She’d gotten answers.
The Varac was right. All Gral offered lately were pitiful smiles and silence. If she dismissed the Varac’s words now, what would that make her?
Pathetic, probably.
She didn’t know what to feel, what to think. Dad might have failed in parts of her upbringing, but certainly not over lack of care. How could a man, who almost suffocated her in love, be the same guy who caused Aurani children to grow up with rations?
“Let Thuran know the heiress is ready for the call,” the Varac said to his guard.
Ada’s stomach bottomed out right there. What if they called Gral, and he turned negotiations down right in the spot? The Varac wasn’t nearly as dangerous as he’d first pretended to be, but Ada didn’t want to push her luck with him either. She needed more time. More answers.
“Wouldn’t it be better if we did a recording instead?” She smoothed her voice into something innocent while they entered the same room she’d eaten in yesterday. Her shoulders slumped at the sight of her untouched breakfast. The Varac probably thought her spoiled. “I’m trained to smile, not cry. If we do a live call, I might not be able to bring it across realistically enough. A recording, we could always repeat until it’s perfect.”
Ada held her breath underneath the Varac’s doubtful stare, but only until Thuran carried the communication hub clasped between claws, saying, “I like her idea.”
The Varac gave a dismissive wave. “Just take her recording and get done with this once and for all.”
Posture easing, Ada rubbed strands of hair between her palms until they matted and knotted, then turned her attention to the Varac. “Do I look like the Aurani Varac kidnapped me?”
He rubbed his hand over his chin. “I wouldn’t know. As you pointed out, I’ve never done this before.”
“Right, you’re usually preoccupied playing hide and seek, or giving swimming lessons to the children.”
Did he snarl or smile?
Impossible to say with that scar.
“Blood would certainly improve the picture.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “What?”
Unhurried steps carried him over to her. Digging the tip of a claw into his upper arm, he pressed down hard until his skin gave way to flesh. One smooth swipe downward, and the wound gashed open, a thin rivulet of blood running down to his elbow.
He rubbed the back of his hand over the wound, tainting knuckles crimson, reaching them for her.
Ada shrank back.
“Considering how you’ve called me out yesterday, I didn’t expect you to jerk like this, woman.” His nostrils somehow flared, voice a husky whisper. “I will not hurt you.”
No, he wouldn’t.
What had been a safe assumption before, now turned into a solid fact, so why did her heart beat faster?
She nodded.
Movements slow, gentle even, the Varac brushed blood-smeared knuckles over her sternum from where they swiped up along her neck. He held his claws curled inward toward his palm as he painted her in his blood. It felt… intimate.
Thuran cleared his throat. “We’re ready.”
Looking like a tortured captive, Ada positioned herself in front of the hub. “Anything specific you want me to say?”
The Varac shook his head. “Tears and desperation will do.”
Ada scrunched up her face. She’d faked smiles and control all her life. How difficult could it be to fake tears and chaos?
Not very, as it turned out.
Ada sniffed and snorted, cried and begged. A performance unlike any other, powered by doubt and the onslaught of an existential crisis. When your dad massacred an entire species, tears roll with little effort.
When the recording ended, she wiped her face and pointed at the breakfast going stale on the table. “There’s no need for that. From now on, I want to eat the same rations everyone else does.”
Bargain satisfied, she turned away to her room, but the Varac’s hand took hers ever so slightly, making her turn to him as he said, “You would not like it.”
“There are many things I don’t like.” The way she would inherit a stolen planet, for example. “I’ll deal with it.”
Six
Kerien leaned against the hessa stable at the far end of the agridome, arms crossed in front of his chest. He watched the heiress kneel in front of dried hessa droppings, picking up the dung with movements void of any hesitation.
“Is she aware that she’s collecting shit?”
“She is, my Varac,” Mariad said, her gray hair braided around her horns in the old fashion. “The woman came this morning and asked how she can help.”
His eyes narrowed at that. “Help?”
Mariad confirmed with a dip of her head. “She is asking many questions, my Varac.”
He glanced over to the human female once more, nostrils flaring uncontrollably, that odd scent of hers stronger than just yesterday. “What sort of questions?”
Mariad stretched a spine crooked from wear and years of hard work. “About the day men came and painted Xaleon red. Where the mines are. How many people we lost.”
A huff blew from his nostrils. Of course she hadn’t offered help from the goodness of her heart. Merely to further her
own agenda in seeing her questions answered. “She’s trying to find a way to discredit my words.”
“The more confirmation she finds, the less questions she asks.”
The bucket rattled.
Behind the fence, which consisted of vines woven around posts, the heiress wiped fingers over her pants. For someone who’d just accidentally kneeled in excrement, her demeanor was surprisingly unaffected by it. If she wasn’t a princess either, what was she then?
“Did she eat her morning ration?”
“Yes, my Varac.” And yet a smirk came over Mariad’s mouth. “The face of a human cannot hide disgust, but she ate half of it.”
“Half?” He would rather have her finish meat and berries than waste half of the stew. “Then she will only receive half a ladle full tonight.”
Mariad stared up at him from a shaking head. “No, my Varac. She only ate half and offered the rest to Vohri.”
“Vohri? Why Vohri?”
“She did not say,” Mariad mumbled, grabbing a bale of dried flaskwheat before she turned away. “And I did not ask.”
Kerien stood rooted for a minute longer. His juketar had told him the girl traded away her morning rations so she could tend to the woman. Surely, the heiress wouldn’t share her breakfast for that reason?
Unwilling to accept selflessness and generosity as an explanation, he turned away and headed toward the fields. Vohri would tell him that the woman was unaware, the way the heiress shared her ration merely a brief deviation from an otherwise poor character.
He parted the stalks and strolled along between a row of the crop, the giggles of children soon warming his heart. “Vohri.”
Another giggle, this one high-pitched. “You have to find me.”
A smile tugged on the corners of his lips. How he missed the endless fields of Xaleon reaching to the horizon, where scenting proved a challenge. In here? All it took was a flare of his nostrils, and Kerien caught Vohri’s scent, sweeter than his own, as was the case with all ureshi.
Kerien ducked and stalked around the plants, tracking the child down within seconds. “Found you!”
She screamed when he wrapped his hand around her ankle but burst into a laugh the moment he picked her up and dangled her upside down. He better not let the heiress see him like this, or his shame would be complete.
“You’re too fast for me, Kerien.”
At the sound of his name, all the weight of being a Varac fell from his shoulders. In here, hiding between stalks of flaskwheat and sheltered away from his people’s expectations, he could allow himself to be just another Aurani male.
“Your scent is too distinct,” he said. “And I’ve been trained in scenting all my childhood.” As he was in combat and politics, though not to the extent his older brother had been, may Drana keep his soul.
He turned the girl and lifted her higher, her smile showing off a gap where she must have shed a youngling fang. But that wasn’t what roiled his stomach.
“Vohri…” He brushed his thumb over lips stained purple, the color refusing to wipe away. “You cannot take what isn’t yours.”
The moment he lowered her to the ground, the girl rolled onto all fours and jumped back to her feet. She tilted her head until one ear pressed against her shoulder, wide eyes staring up at him.
“Did you take the woman’s argoy berries?”
The question came with a ripple of nausea. Kerien shared as much of his food as he could with the children, and yet it wasn’t enough for their growing bodies. He loathed the fact that he wasn’t adequately providing for his people, but none of it justified stealing. They hadn’t reached that level of desperation yet. Had they?
“I didn’t,” she said, fumbling her hands in front of her tummy. “Ada took the berries to her chamber yesterday and gave them to me. I swear I didn’t steal them. When we spoke, I told her they’re my favorite and… I… I didn’t steal.”
Her voice turned frail, and Kerien dropped down to one knee. “Hush. I hear the truth in your voice.”
And that truth stirred confusion where he usually harbored deep contempt for humans. Kerien ignored that sinking feeling at his core. Yesterday, he’d called the woman truthful but greedy. What was he to call her now? Truthful and generous?
“Vohri,” he said, his voice heavy with expectations he needed met. “Does the woman know you traded away your morning rations?”
“Yes.”
Kerien rose and clawed at his braid, his body tense as years of hard-earned hate for humans faded, all because of a woman who made him question everything that was true and right to him. He didn’t like it. Hated the way she twisted his perception of her.
“Ada!” Vohri shouted, voice restored, sending a shiver down his neck. “Do you have time to play with me?”
The heiress approached, head barely reaching the tip of the crops, but her steps faltered to a halt when she spotted him.
She dipped her head. “Varac.”
“Heiress,” he said in response, his nostrils catching on her heady scent growing thicker by the minute.
Vohri looked back and forth between them, the young girl so blissfully ignorant to that tension prickling the air. “Hey, I have an idea. Ada can hide, and Ker… the Varac can help me track her down.”
The heiress cleared her throat, putting on a smile that might have fooled many, but not Kerien. How he loathed her fake smile. “You found me just fine earlier. I’m sure you can do it again.”
“But it took so long,” Vohri groaned.
“Well… why not?” The woman’s lackluster voice matched the dullness spreading across Kerien’s limbs. He was in no mood for games with a woman he struggled to figure out. “How about you give me a minute while I try to find a hiding spot, hmm?”
Vohri bounced on her feet, excitement coming off her in waves. Saying no would have drowned her in disappointment.
“Very well,” Kerien said. “One minute.”
At that, the heiress pivoted on her heel and sprinted off, and her scent rode on the draft of her movement.
Kerien would have found her with miles between them it was so intense. Not the sweetness of a female, but something heavier, more provoking. Something so ominous it ran a lightning strike into his groin.
Vohri put her arms behind her back and tugged on the end of her braid, her reddish hair so unlike most Aurani who had black hair. “She is sooo beautiful.”
“On the outside,” Kerien said, barely recognizing the statement in his own voice it sounded so much more like a reminder to himself.
“Is the minute over?”
“Yes, you may try to scent her now.”
Vohri dug her heels into the soil and ran off, her giggles probably making it impossible for her to smell a thing. The girl ran in all directions but the right one. How could she not catch that tang? It tainted the entire damn agridome, so strong Kerien’s lips parted as if to rub it between tongue and gums.
“Over here.” He waved her toward the orchard, eager to finish this game and go about his business. “Stop laughing and start scenting.”
“I don’t smell as good as you do.”
For once, he regretted it. “It’s a matter of practice. Not a matter of birth. Focus.”
Vohri strained her neck toward the line of na’di trees. Finally. Not much longer, and Kerien would have called the search off, the way her scent affected him… indecent. Plain wrong.
“Ha!” Vohri pointed up at the tree, where the woman sat snug between two thick branches. “I found you!”
“And so fast this time around,” the heiress said, useless nails clawing into the branch as she turned around, a shaky leg dangling from the tree in search for grip on the trunk.
Her sole kept slipping, and thin arms soon trembled from the exhaustion of holding herself in place. “I think I’m stuck.”
“Let yourself drop,” Kerien said. “It’s a mere six feet.”
“Well, it looks a lot higher from here.”
Vohri stared at him with
enough concern wrinkles formed between her young eyes. “You have to help her down.”
Kerien grunted and made his way over to the tree. After all, he’d accidentally injured her. Now he would help her down and call it even.
At his height, all he needed to do was reach out, and he clasped his hands around a narrow waist. “Slip down onto my shoulder.”
She did as she was told, and where her obedience should have pleased him, he cursed the moment her hip pressed against his sternum. Warm and thick, that scent of hers turned palpable, almost like…
No, that couldn’t be.
But then his pulse quickened, beating so hard he sensed it all the way into the tip of his penis. By Drana, this female was either in heat or quickly approaching it. Unfamiliar with women, he couldn’t be certain. Aurani females never smelled this… eager.
He let her slip down along his body, cursing every inch of her pleasing shape that pressed against him. “Are all humans such terrible climbers?”
“Only the ones who were never allowed to climb anything as a kid,” she said, brushing dirt from a scrape on her palm. “Ouch. Why is this burning?”
Kerien turned to Vohri. “Go run to Mariad and tell her to give you kere salve.”
The child ran off, and he took her hand, using his claw to scrape the dirt from the wound. “Your father was very protective?”
“If he could have wrapped me in bubble wrap, he would have done it. He was overprotective, and I’m sure it started when he lost my mom and got worse when… over the years.”
“Going so far as to protect you from the truth?” Kerien asked. “And the dealings of Osacore?”
“Just for your information, I believe you.” That surprised him, but the tension coming off her posture indicated she truly did. “Look, I know what you think of me, okay? In your eyes, I’m just a spoiled little girl with more money than she has sense, completely clueless and naive.”
“Considering I expected to kidnap a woman full of deceit and greed, clueless and naive is certainly an improvement.” One he had troubles coming to terms with.