by V. K. Ludwig
Tasting the air like he had once before, Kerien swung around the corner, the corridor behind it crammed with warriors and guards.
“Varac!” one of his warriors said, jutting his chin toward the staircase across. “The juketar escaped to the roof with the woman.”
There was no time fighting through to the other side. Kerien didn’t bother turning a knob, and instead kicked in the door to his right, hurrying to the window of the empty office.
He crashed his elbow against the window. Glass rained down in an orchestra of clinks and clanks. Digging his claws into the stone exterior, he climbed up the wall, thick veins protruding along his arms.
Underneath him, warriors did the same, and he barked down. “Second level. Help them clear the hallway, then join me on the roof.”
When the wall ended in a rounded ledge, Kerien scratched across the stone in search of grip. Once he had a secure hold, he struggled the bulk of his body up and over the edge.
He rolled onto the rooftop with a groan but immediately pushed himself up, his legs steady, his mind calm.
The first guard came at him with a taser.
Kerien barely felt the discharge. He pierced his claws upward into the man’s jaw, lifting him up, and tossing him onto the asphalt to choke on his blood.
Phwet!
An old-fashioned bullet grazed his upper arm, and everything around him slowed as if he watched thick treeblood dripping from a jar.
Thuran sat slumped on the ground, scooting himself behind an engine block with jerky movements. One leg dragged behind him, brushing the rooftop red from where white bone protruded surrounded by torn flesh. His gun pointed at Gral who’d taken cover behind a raised heli-pad along with a guard.
Clasped underneath Thuran’s arm, Ada dug her fingers into it with such force Kerien could see the yellowish white around her tense knuckles. Her gaze ambled across the rooftop from half-lidded eyes, not focusing on anything, and rivulets of blood trailed from a wound on her forehead.
Every single muscle in Kerien’s body contracted, ready to do what Aurani were built for: protect and kill. A primal need for violence surged through him at the look of his injured mate, so all-consuming he barely noticed the warm spray of blood against his neck. Until his shoulder flared up with painful heat.
Kerien ducked and rolled, clawing at whatever black uniform dared to stand in his way. He sliced through throats and rammed his horns into stomachs with a twist of his neck, enjoying each howl and scream he tore from them.
Hands bloody, he pulled his blade from its sheath, the handle slippery against his fingers. Taking a wide stance, he pulled his arm back, then thew the blade. The guard beside Gral jerked, spine overarched, his shaky hand clasping the handle protruding from between ribs. He sunk to his knees, revealing Kerien’s target.
“Gral,” he snarled, and blasts came flying, imprecise but not less deadly.
Everything moved in slow motion as Kerien sprinted in a half-circle around the Klaxian, guiding the barrel of his gun away from Thuran and Ada. When Gral dropped the power cartridge and fumbled for a new one, Kerien saw his chance.
Bracing against the asphalt, Kerien rushed forward. He lowered his head, watching from the upper corner of his vision how Gral’s gun powered up once more.
A shaky barrel pointed at him.
Gral pulled the trigger.
Kerien ducked lower, but the bang of the gun came instantly, followed by a pop and a crackle. A stabbing pain drove into his skull and straight down his brainstem, but he kept on staggering forward.
Where his horns sunk into the Klaxian’s body he couldn’t say. Straight into the guts, probably, given the stench of bile and methane. Kerien rose tall, legs swaying, the weight of the Klaxian speared by his horns putting a massive strain on his neck.
Turning, he yanked his head sideways until Gral’s body dislodged, hit the ground, and slid across the ground. The Klaxian hit the edge of the roof with a guttural groan, already coughing up blood.
And yet, it wasn’t enough.
Not for the male who’d dared to harm his female.
Kerien dug his fangs into Gral’s throat and clasped down. He braced his hands against the Klaxian’s shoulder and, with one tug, pulled back and ripped the esophagus from his throat only to spit it off the roof.
“Ada,” he breathed and turned around, just now noticing the Aurani warriors gathered around him at a safe distance.
“Varac,” one of them said. “Your horn.”
Kerien hurried over to where Ada lay cradled in his juketar’s arms. He halfheartedly ran a hand up his horn, the one which ached, not at all surprised when it stopped a few inches short. Gral had shot a significant part of the tip off, and he sensed the blood pool at the base.
Kerien kneeled beside Ada, finding her eyes closed and her body unresponsive. “What happened?”
“My Varac, she fainted,” Thuran said.
“It might be for the best.” And, secretly, Kerien hoped she hadn’t seen the savage in him. “We have to get off this forsaken planet before it swarms with soldiers.”
But his juketar shook his head, a hand pressed to a bullet wound to the side of his stomach. “Leave me behind. I disgraced myself by willfully giving wrong counsel. Look at the damage I’ve caused. What might have been if you wouldn’t have come.”
“And make my favorite ureshi an orphan?” With a scoff, Kerien carefully reached for Ada and draped her over his arms, assessing her for injuries. “No, juketar. You have guided me through an important lesson.”
Thuran stared at him, the male barely able to keep his eyes open. “That you should ignore your juketar’s counsel from time to time?”
“No, Thuran,” Kerien said. “You made me realize that I can’t let the distrust rooted in my past allow to spread into my future.”
“Kerien,” a weak voice sounded from below.
Ada stared up at him, eyes red-rimmed and filled with the same panic Kerien scented from her pores. Her pupils flitted across his features as if she was taking in an entirely new person.
He must have looked truly beastly, the taste of iron spreading across his gums confirming as much. “Let me bring you home.”
“Home,” she repeated with no inflection.
“Yes, home to Aura Station. To the Aurani.” With a glance over his shoulder, he ordered, “Make sure to bring that core they prepared. We might need it.”
Nineteen
Ada’s entire head throbbed like a toothache, and something burned right above her eyebrow. She fought her eyes open, blinking herself out of darkness while something squeezed her hand.
A white cotton ball stood in stark contrast to those onyx claws that clasped it, growing bigger before it disappeared from her vision. Another sting on her forehead.
“Ouch,” she winced.
“That will leave a scar,” Kerien said, brows furrowed, his eyes focused on whatever was going on up there. “Not big enough to lift that curse of your beauty, I’m afraid.”
With one hand, he brushed something astringent onto her forehead. The other held her hand, squeezing slightly, the back of a claw gently scraping the inside of her palm.
“Thuran,” she said and thrust herself up to sit, only for the room to go crooked around her.
“And the first thing she does is worry for others.” Strong arms wrapped her tight and lowered her back into soft furs. “My juketar is alive and doing well enough. A few broken ribs. A broken leg. No internal injuries. Mostly suffering from guilt and shame, but it will pass. Vohri is with him right now, and his leg is already set.”
“Did I pass out?”
“You did. Twice.” Kerien took both her hands into his and brought them to his face, rubbing his cheek over them. “You have a slight concussion, so we darkened the room. Mariad gave you something for the pain.”
Sighing, he placed the now red-speckled cotton ball onto the little table beside him. “I’m so sorry that I let this happen to you, Ada.”
She closed
her eyes, distorted frames of memories flicking before them. Aurani horns pulling intestines from stomach cavities. Guards chasing them to the roof. Thuran shielding her from blasts, bullets, and tasers.
“But you came,” she whispered.
She remembered it so clearly, even if her mind seemed so clouded at that moment. The broadness of his back, the straightness in his spine, and the frenzied look on his blood-smeared face. Ada couldn’t have looked away if she’d wanted to. For the first time, she’d seen the beast within the male, and yet she’d felt safer for it.
“It was wrong of me to send you away.” He cupped her cheek, guiding her eyes to meet his. “Even worse doing so after negotiating with Gral behind your back, instead of hearing your opinion on it.”
Ada gasped, and a part of her betrayed heart warmed at his words. “You hurt me.”
“I did, and you will never know how sorry I am,” he said, clearing his voice as if he wanted to rid his tone of the roughened qualities. “I let myself fall into old patterns of deep-rooted anger and distrust.”
Her heart thudded so hard it almost distracted from the pounding in her head. There was one thing Ada new for certain: she’d forgiven him the moment he lifted her from Thuran’s arms, his fangs red. Without him, Ada would have been put back into her bubble, or might very well have died.
Brows furrowing, he rasped quietly. “Instead of standing by your side and helping you navigate through it, I abandoned you.”
She lifted her hand to his face, small, pink cuts scattered randomly across his gray skin. “You did what was best for your people.”
“That’s not entirely true, I’m afraid. Justifying my decision with my position as a Varac was only a convenient excuse to hide behind.” He shook his head, his eyes tortured all over again. “I’m ashamed to say that I might have questioned your feelings for me. Considered the possibility that you deceived me from the start.”
Ada opened her heart to his words, the urge to pull him against her strong. “You felt rejected because I denied you on so many accounts.”
He nodded. “Whatever Aurani do, they don’t do it gently. We love deeply. We claim what we love fiercely. But you are not Aurani. You did right by not allowing me to push you into something you are not ready for yet.”
But that wasn’t the case, was it?
She was ready for him.
Loved him with every cell of her heart.
“Maybe we were both cowards,” she said. “I was so fixated on standing up for myself. It blindsided me, because I should have stood up to them with you by my side. You and I, together.”
He sucked in a staggering breath and lay down next to her, his face scrunching up as he placed a hand onto her stomach. “Can we heal from this? Can you see it in your heart to forgive how I sent you away? You, Ada, are my Vekoshi. I want no other, because you belong by my side, and I belong to yours.”
His words poured into her and forced the breath from her lungs, her heart clattering against her throat. The Aurani prince and the Osacore heiress. It sounded so odd, but it felt so right. An unlikely pair that shared one fucked up past, but together, they could make a great future.
She stroked her hand over his handsome face, the simple touch alone filling her with longing to be held by her beast. Curl up against his strong chest and hide from the world, only to come out of his embrace stronger.
“Let’s make a deal,” she said.
His smile came slow. “Another bargain?”
“I will become your Vekoshi as soon as you can arrange it, but the child will wait.”
He flared his nostrils, and Ada knew full well he took in the scent of her heat. “Very well. No child until you change history.”
“Until we change history, my Vekosh.”
“My Vekoshi,” Kerien rasped. “We will forge a new alliance between Aurani and humans, and many ureshi’s will be born again.”
Ada didn’t hesitate.
She wrapped her hand around his neck and caught his lips with hers, kissing him the way she liked it best. Passionate and fiercely, with no consideration to fangs. She felt his hands roaming her body, claws she knew had killed stroking so gently and carefully across her body.
“I love you, Kerien,” she moaned against his mouth.
“I know that now,” he rasped, and broke the kiss to pin her down with golden irises. “And I won’t ever doubt it again. You, Ada, are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever encountered in all my life.”
A smile tugged on her lips, and she melted underneath that stare of his she now so easily recognized. Beauty wasn’t a curse with Kerien, because he saw what lay underneath.
Ada stared up at him and blinked once. Twice. Her chest tightened. Green eyes caught on his right horn, a good portion of the tip missing, the end wrapped in blood-soaked gauze.
“Oh my god…” Her stomach turned upside down, and bile burned along her esophagus. “You’re hurt!”
“It looks worse than it is. Lots of blood vessels inside horns.” A sly smile came over his lips, and his voice darkened. “Give it a day or two to recover, and you can yank as much as you want. Assure yourself that they still hold your writhing and tossing body just fine. Now my shoulder…” Her gaze followed his to where another gauze covered the joint. “Aurani heal faster than humans, but it will still take several weeks.”
Ada shifted away from his injured shoulder, trailing her hand over the ridges on his stomach. “And the core?”
“We have the core,” he said with a curt nod, his voice filling with pride as he added, “My warriors left a mess behind. Intimidating enough I doubt the remaining shareholders will dare to question you much.”
Which meant Gral was dead, and as if Kerien had caught on to that brief unease clasping at her, he held her hand. “You require a new president.”
“What I require, is a new plan, and we only have a few days to come up with it.”
“My warriors will be at your disposal,” he said. “Thuran and I already worked out a statement which we sent to the UFG, explaining exactly what has occurred on Xaleon. They will require you to confirm it.”
Ada took a deep breath. “There’s something you have to know.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “What is it?”
“Gral told me that his father was behind the kidnapping attempt when I was eleven,” she explained, and another deep inhale was needed before she continued. “They blamed it on your father since, apparently, my dad considered scaling back mining at the time. It interfered with the promises the senator had made to shareholders who probably supported his campaign.”
Kerien turned pale, mostly visible where his temples turned a lighter shade of gray. “Which outraged your father, so he remained on course.”
“Which in turn outraged yours.”
“And my father attacked the mines,” Kerien mumbled. “Consequently causing yours to call in the UFG for military support, which ended in the slaughter of my people.”
Kerien rolled onto his back and sighed deeply, prodding and tugging on Ada until she carefully placed her head onto his chest, mindful of his shoulder.
“Now I understand how your father could have produced such a creature as you,” he whispered as he stared out of the cupola, where green and blue nebulae swirled together. “I assume the senator is still a board member?”
“Uh-huh.” Ada pressed a kiss to his chest. “But he won’t be for much longer. I doubt I will find proof of how he orchestrated the kidnapping, but I only require sixteen percent of the other board members to vote him out since I will hold fifty percent of the stock.”
“Cunning woman,” Kerien said, wrapping his good arm around her to hold her tight, whispering, “Will-always-be-mine woman.”
Twenty
6 months later…
Kerien kneeled at the foot of Yelkut mountain, black soil caking around his fingers after the rain. Swaths of warmed moisture rose into the air, carrying the scent of decomposing leaves and fungal spores.
He d
ug his claws into the dirt while Ada brushed the excavate into a pile beside them. When the hole was deep enough, he gave Vohri a nod.
Taking a deep breath, the girl took the simple vessel from Thuran’s lap and handed it to Ada. “She will like this place.”
“You found her a beautiful spot, Vohri,” Ada said and opened the lid, upper body shifting back a bit as she slowly poured the ashes into the hole. “Did you bring the seeds as well?”
“Father has them.”
His juketar fumbled hands into pockets, which he retrieved as a tight fist. “I met her sitting underneath na’di blossoms with her lunch clasped between her fingers. Drana revealed her to me with how she let our sun filter through the foliage, light and shadow painting the sign of unity on her face.”
Thuran leaned over, his leg still causing enough pain he scrunched up his face and dotted the ground with seeds. “May Drana make your spirit become one with the soils of Xaleon.”
When Ada tilted her head toward Thuran in a questioning manner, he pressed his lips together and answered with a nod.
She brushed the soil to cover the resting place of Vohri’s mother, saying, “So you may nourish those who stay behind.”
Pride swelled in Kerien’s chest over his choice of Vekoshi. Every day, his mate dedicated several hours laying souls to rest underneath the soils of Yelkut mountain, no matter how her back ached, or her feet swelled.
“I thank you for this honor, Vekoshi,” Thuran said with a shaky voice, his palm resting on Ada’s shoulder for long moments. “I’ve held on to her ashes for so long, I worried she would never find peace with the people.”
Vohri rose and grabbed the bucket of water, carefully pouring it over the loose soil until saturated and onyx black. “She will nourish the trees soon, and the hessa will grow fat on the fruits.”
Kerien reached a hand out to his juketar, who pulled himself onto his walking stick. “If we can keep them away from the saplings.”
“They delivered the flaskwheat earlier,” Ada said and got up. “Five tons loaded on three containers, paid for by the Osacore Restoration Fund. As long as they have that to munch on, I doubt they’ll bother the saplings much.”