by Erin Raegan
Tahk had said his fear would drive him. And I saw it do it in that moment. I knew he would get me out of this.
But he never had the chance. Two more lion-man charged through the balcony and said not a word as they shoved Tahk to his knees.
Then.
Then I was afraid.
Chapter 21
Chyn
Chyn watched from the shadows.
He watched the human females eyes fill with terror as she dangled in the Xixin’s grip.
He watched the Dahk Commander fall to his knees. He watched as his eyes filled with acceptance. His arms drop in submission. He watched as the Commander surrendered to his fate for the survival of his mate.
Chyn watched and felt his cold lips form a grin.
Chapter 22
Tahk
My mate watched me fall in terror. A terror I felt all the way to my bones.
The Xixin King was not as the Guhuvin King led me to believe.
We had been betrayed. Again.
None could access Home World without having been granted entry. And a pack of Xixin had been granted access to Home World and to my House. And I could do nothing.
I failed my mate. But I would not welcome this death.
I roared my fury to the skies.
Chapter 23
Peyton
Tahk roared and spun, grabbing his sword and impaling the lion-man beside him. The other ducked his next blow and roared back. I had thought Tahk was going to die. He had been about to surrender. I saw it in his eyes, but then a determination filled them. I gasped as claws pierced the skin of my neck and trembled as the lion-man holding me roared above me.
Tahk snarled and charged towards me, but the other lion-man flew at him, and they tumbled to the ground. I gasped as the claws were ripped from my body and I dropped to the ground, my knees smacking against the stone.
I cried out as a warm liquid splashed against my back. I rolled and had to roll again to avoid being crushed by what was left of the lion-man that had held me falling in pieces to the floor.
I gaped at the sight above me, my chest heaving in relief, but also snagging in a rush of new terror. The Juldo were here. I flopped to my belly and crawled towards the bed. I heard Tahk snarling and the gurgling of his attacker as he died. I screwed my eyes shut tight as black boots thumped into my line of sight. I braced for the blow, but it didn’t come. Widening my eyes on the boots, I didn’t dare look up at the Juldo man standing above me. I had never seen anything like him. He was terrifying and there was something ver disturbing about his emotionless gaze.
The boots stopped an inch from my face. An eerie calm surrounded the room, and I squinted my eyes shut. I could barely hear Tahk’s furious huffs over my own gasping breaths.
Nobody moved. I peeked and could see Tahk’s crouched position out of the corner of my eye. He had a severed head in one hand, and a bloody sword in the other as he crouched in a puddle of blood. The Juldo still stood an inch from my face. My hands lay flat against the stone floor on either side of my head. I hated how helpless I felt in that moment.
“You,” Tahk snarled. I had never heard him sound so menacing.
A raspy chuckle answered him from above me.
“Leave her,” Tahk snarled again, his muscles bunching tight. He didn’t look away from the Juldo, and I didn’t take my eyes off him. “I said LEAVE HER!”
Another raspy chuckle. The voice that answered him was so harsh and broken it rattled my bones. It was otherworldly. One voice, echoing thousands. “How will you stop me?” The voices boomed throughout the room.
“LEAVE HER!” Tahk stood and roared, shaking the floor as the lion-man had. I winced and stilled my hands. Something instinctive told me not to make any sudden movements. This was not an ordinary Juldo. Something was very, very wrong with this one.
“I am not here for the female.”
I sagged into the floor as the black boots stepped back and away from me. Tahk stepped slowly, circling me from behind. The boots backed away to the far side of the room, only then did Tahk grab for me. He pulled me up and against his chest. His hands too tight, his breathing too heavy. I grabbed him just as tight.
A sagged in his arms, but I knew we weren’t safe yet. Tahk was too stiff. His sword arm crossed in front of me, forming a barrier. It was then I dared to look up.
The Juldo had backed into the far wall by the bathing room. He leaned against the wall casually, his booted feet crossed in front of him, his arms crossed against his barrel chest just as casually. His eyes were a complete obsidian orb. Not a speck of color.
Not Juldo eyes.
Something else.
He wore leather pants and a black cotton-type long sleeve shirt. Leather holsters wrapped around his shoulders. Steel gleamed from the holsters. Two black handles crossed behind his head. Swords. He had not a single weapon in his red hands. Nano-tech spread up his arms, and his neck, but he had by far the most visible red flesh I had seen on any of the Juldo that had attacked before. Long black hair fell in his face, human-like hair. It parted when he tilted his head, revealing a face that was carved and scarred, his features nearly unrecognizable. A thick slash bulged clear across his neck. How had he not lost his head from an injury like that?
The Juldo grinned a cruel smile, running his thumb along the scar softly.
I gulped and looked away. I had thought I had known fear. I had thought there was not a thing scarier than being underneath a lion-man moments ago. But how wrong I was. Violent survival instincts were telling me there was not one thing, not one thing, more dangerous than the Juldo in the room now. I trembled against Tahk, peeking out the balcony opening. Where were Borv and Syn?
“They are preoccupied at the moment.”
I shuddered violently at the layered voice. It echoed around me. Whispering and shouting at once.
“How many?” Tahk snarled.
The Juldo chuckled again. “A dozen or so.”
A dozen? Tahk barely fought off three of them. I glanced back at the opening worriedly, were they okay?
“They live.”
I shuddered again. How did he keep guessing my thoughts? Was this Mantu all over again. I wrapped my arms around myself.
“Who sent you?” Tahk wrapped his free hand around my waist, and slowly pulled me behind him. I gulped and shook. I trusted my guy, he was the toughest and all that, but this other guy? He scared the absolute shit out of me. I did not want Tahk fighting him.
The Juldo didn’t answer Tahk. Instead he studied him, something working behind his black eyes. The rooms glow gleamed off the black orbs as they rolled up and down Tahk’s threatening stance.
“I am not here for you either.”
“Who then?” Tahk took a step forward.
The Juldo looked down at the dead lion-men, he smiled again, slow, sadistically. “Not you.”
“You killed my King, Shadow Born. I cannot let you leave here.” Tahk pulled a dagger free, bending his thick thighs. Shadow born?
“I did.”
Tahk snarled but didn’t attack. “Why?”
“Why not?”
Tahk roared. And still, the Juldo remained completely at ease. Not an ounce of concern facing nearly three-hundred pounds of a furious Dahk Commander.
“Who hired you?”
This was the assassin? The assassin that killed King Aryx?
The Juldo chuckled again, his creepy thousand-toned chuckle. “Who hired them?”
Tahk scrunched his brow but didn’t look at the dead aliens.
“Your kingdom is falling apart from the inside, Commander.”
Tahk shook his head. “The Council then?”
“Where is your Queen, Commander of Dahk?”
Tahk stiffened. “You took her?”
The Juldo shook his head. Slowly. Back and forth. Eerily human-like.
“Who?”
“Not my kin.” The Juldo gritted his teeth as the voices blared out of his throat, growing in volume. I winced and covered m
y ears. Even Tahk’s eye twitched from the horrible sound.
“You lie.” Tahk took another step forward, his brows scrunching with indecision.
“WE DO NOT.” The Juldo growled and bared his fangs. Grasping his throat. His voice shook the room, its power shaking the chipped stone from the fight.
“THE QUEEN THAT BETRAYS. QUEEN OF LIES. QUEEN OF DECEPTION. QUEEN OF ORDER.”
I clawed at my ears, willing the voices to leave my head. They pummeled me from all sides. Tahk stepped back, alarm crowding his face. He glanced between me and the Juldo growing agitated and restless.
“THE LORD SENT US. COMMANDER OF DAHK. COMMANDER OF CORRUPTION.”
“The Kilbus Lord?” Tahk choked and staggered.
The Juldo and his hideous voices chuckled sadistically. “LORD OF MANY. LORD OF HUMANS. LORD OF VICTORIES.”
The Juldo roared and clawed at his throat. “PROTECT THE KING. KING OF REDEMPTION. KING OF FALLEN KINGDOMS. KING OF RECLAMATION.”
“Uthyf?” Tahk’s eyes roamed the Juldo wildly. “Who are you? Why have you come?”
The voices cackled. The Juldo’s eyes were crazed, bleeding solid white. I backed away, bumping into the bed behind me.
“Why? Who comes for him?”
“ALL COME FOR HIM.”
“WHO!?” Tahk roared, “WHO COMES FOR THE KING!?”
“WE WILL. WE WILL COME FOR YOUR KING.” The voiced cackled, again and again, slowly bleeding away. The Juldo gasped, his eyes bleeding back to solid black. He gasped, slowly releasing his throat.
“Shadow born?” Tahk backed away, blocking me.
The Juldo chuckled grimly. The voices muffled to a lower pitch, still eerie, but somehow less so. “Protect your King, Commander. They are never wrong.”
I gasped when the Juldo spun in a circle, vanishing into shadow. The dark spread out encompassing the room. Not leaving a single trace of him behind.
Chapter 24
Peyton
“Tahk,” I called him for the third time. My voice raw, the pain starting to penetrate. He stood still, staring at the wall the Juldo disappeared in front of.
Borv and Syn were the ones to break him out of his stunned daze. They gasped as they fell into the room. “You did not.” Borv chuckled, falling flat on his back on the floor.
“I speak truth. You did not see the one that clawed its way into the top cavern. I took him down from above you.” Syn sagged against the floor, blood and gore dripping off him and onto the ground.
“No, I caught the one from above. I had seven. Your count is still six.” Borv punched Syn in the chest, glancing up and over to me. He gaped at my neck. “Little human, what happened?”
My hand shook as it reached up. I touched wet, pulling it away I saw it was coated in blood. I weaved on my feet. Only then did Tahk snap out of it. I was up and his arms before I saw him move.
“Only four, Commander?” Syn gasped, glancing around the room. A slow grin morphed his face. “I have not lost after all.”
Borv smacked his head. “The human is injured.”
Syn looked to me and his face transformed from jovial exhaustion to surprise.
“Tahk?” I glanced up at him worriedly. He was frantically patting my neck with an end of the sheet wrapped around me.
“The Shadow Born was here.”
Borv paled. Syn looked between them. “Here?” He asked. Shocked.
Tahk nodded once. “Ready the transport. I must see Uthyf immediately. Comm Haytu. Tell him it is urgent but give no details.”
Borv nodded and left the room. Syn flew out the balcony.
“Tahk?” I was whispering now, my fear causing me to shake. My neck hurt, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The lion-man could have ripped out my throat. But somehow, for some reason, the Juldo assassin had stopped him.
“My sweet, fragile yula. I must tell you a truth.”
I nodded. “Okay.” He needed this from me. His face was grave and worried.
“I have not shared all I should have with you.” He placed me on the bed reverently. “I wished to wait, to ease you into it, but I fear after becoming so close to losing you, I cannot wait a moment longer.”
I blinked at him, trying not to stiffen or show any of the alarm I was starting to feel.
“Dahk live long lives. Far longer than your short life.” He bent and licked my neck slowly. I suspected, but it still scared me to hear it.
“How much longer?”
“Long,” he said gravely into the skin of my sore neck. He fingered the sheet at my breast and slowly loosened it. I let him. “You will age far faster than I. You will die far sooner than I.”
“How old are you?” I barely got the words out.
“Young.”
I gulped. It was sad, but I had always known I wouldn’t live past, sixty? Seventy? Eighty? Who knew. Even that was rare for some humans. But it hurt to hear it from him, hurt to know he would continue to live so long without me. I hurt for him.
“You must know, I cannot allow this.” He bent and kissed the tip of my pebbled nipple tenderly.
“What?” Allow it? He was distracting me. He licked a circle around my nipple.
“There is a part of the ceremony we have not completed. I had hoped to do it properly, but I will not leave this room until it is done.” He took my nipple into his mouth and sucked. My back bowed off the bed. He growled and ripped the sheet from the rest of my body, baring me to his sweltering gaze.
“What?” I couldn’t think. Shouldn’t we be leaving?
He ran his hand down my body. Cupping me between my legs possessively. “We will exchange blood as a true Pythen mating and become one.” He growled and circled my entrance with a folded knuckle. “You will live as long as I. You will breathe as I do. You will share your heart with me. And we will be one.”
“I-I don’t understand.”
“You will be mine always, Pehytohn. As I will be yours.” He spread my legs wide, coming down on top of me. His arm bent, holding his weight. His finger moved up, his knuckle now circling a better, far more sensitive part of me. I whined. “You must agree to this, Pehytohn.” He took his hardness into his hand, running it up and down my slick entrance. I squirmed underneath him. “I will not continue to wander this universe without you tied to me in all ways.” He licked my neck, humming. He sucked my injuries. I felt not a single ounce of pain.
“Tahk.” I gripped his shoulders tight, my hips shifting, trying to nudge him inside.
“Answer me,” he snarled into my neck.
“Tahk, I don’t understand.”
“We will exchange blood. I do not know all that may occur, Gryo has hopes it will strengthen your body. Keep you from sickness as the Dahk. But it will not harm you. I know this. I would never risk you, my lovely.”
“What will happen?”
“Your aging will slow, your heart beating in time with mine. You will live as long as I do. Our life will be tied together. If you should pass from this life, I shall too. We will meet in the great after and be united in the next life. I will not live one moment without you.”
Wow, that sounded terribly romantic, but also totally insane.
“You can’t be serious.” I squirmed as he nudged inside. “Stop that.”
Tahk grinned. “Pehytohn, I have tasted your blood at our first mating,” I remembered. It hurt. A lot. Well after it did. “Are you so disgusted by mine?”
“Tahk.” I pushed his chest. “Are you trying to tell me you’re a vampire?” I asked one-hundred percent seriously. He sounded like a bloodsucker right now.
“What is this, vahmpyeer?”
I laughed despite the totally ridiculous conversation. He was so adorable sometimes.
“A fable. A tale. A human that drinks blood.” What the hell were we talking about this for again?
“Humans do this? Good. Then you agree?”
I laughed again. His face was just so serious. Like blood-sucking was totally normal, and he had no qualms that I might
drink blood when the desire struck my fancy. “No, Tahk!”
“No?” He looked heartsick. I hugged him.
“Is this that important to you?”
He nodded, licking the blood from my neck again.
“You know, you’ve been inside me,” I told him in case, ya know, he didn’t know. He grinned arrogantly. “You’ve spilled your seed inside me.” His smile grew impossibly smug. “I’ll lick it, but I’m not drinking it,” I warned him. This alien was mine. I had already accepted every part of him. The good, the bad, the strange, and the amazing. I had almost died.
Several times in the last month.
If licking a little of his blood would make him feel better, so be it. I wasn’t an idiot. It could change me. It could change me drastically. But if that hadn’t happened already, then I doubted a little blood would do more than his spunk did. And if I was already changing? Then it was too late. So, I would play the vampire for this alien man that loved me with wild abandon. I would throw myself head first into every little bit of this terrifyingly amazing life he gave me every day. I was mated to an alien. It didn’t get much crazier than that.
Tahk sagged against me, and I rubbed his back, up and down between his wings. Soothing him. “I will never let you go, my Pehytohn.” He surged inside me. I gasped and arched against him. “My Pythe.” He pulled out and surged inside again. “My yula.” Again, and again he surged inside me. “My lovely,” he purred, licking down my neck. My legs curled around him, my hands stopped soothing and started clawing.
“I won’t let you go either.” I gasped as he ground down against my pelvis. “My Pythe.” I nipped at his shoulder. He shuddered. “My Tahk, if we’re going to be together forever, you better never even think about touching another female.” I strained against him to suck the base of his neck.
“Never. I want no other but my alluring, teasing, beautiful mate,” he rumbled and thrust into me. His hand drifted behind me, grasping my ass, driving me against him. “I will slaughter any other who touch you.” They weren’t the most romantic vows, but they would do. Tahk was romantic every moment he was with me. Somehow it suited us that we fuse our lives together swearing fidelity. It was the only area in our mating I truly ever felt any doubt.