Out of the Ashes

by L. A. Casey

  “I’m human, remember? I don’t have the same views on PDA as Maji.”

  Kol furrowed his brows. “PDA?”

  “Public displays of affection,” I explained. “I like our kissing and touching to happen in private.”

  Kol’s eyes burned with passion, but he nodded once before he lifted his head and refocused on his brothers.

  “I missed you,” he said.

  I practically melted into a puddle at his sudden declaration.

  “And us you,” the brother farthest right said with a smile. “I am shocked you have mated, brother, but I am overjoyed for you.”

  “I thank you.” Kol smiled.

  “The male who just spoke is Arli,” he then said to me. “In the middle is Arvi, and next to him is Killi. These are three of my many older brothers, the ones from the same pregnancy.”

  “Triplets,” I murmured. “They’re triplets.”

  “Tripe-lets?” Arvi blinked. “What does that mean?”

  “Triplet,” Kol corrected. “It is a word they use for three infants born in the same pregnancy. They use the term ‘twins’ for two infant pregnancies.”

  “Huh,” Arli said with a tilt of his head. “We should adapt these terms. It is much shorter than saying three offspring from the same pregnancy.”

  “Why have we not thought of a word like that before?” Arvi asked Arli. “I like the human words; they are clever.”

  That made me giggle, and I knew Kol was smiling without having to look up at him.

  You can speak directly with them, he said to me. I am calm.

  I swallowed down my nerves and exhaled a deep breath.

  “Hello.” I smiled. “I am Nova, and I am very happy to meet you.”

  I froze when the three princes placed their hands over their chests and bowed their heads to me.

  They are giving you the most formal and most rare greeting a royal can give to another. This does not happen very often, Shiva. Apart from Surkah, no royal has ever bowed to me.

  I gulped.

  “Sister-in-mate,” Killi said as he rose back to his full height. “Welcome to Ealra, and to our family.”

  “Yes, Princess,” Arvi chimed it. “You’re a most welcome addition to our homestead.”

  Alri cleared his throat, and after a long moment of silence, he said, “Hello.”

  Killi and Avri snapped their attention to him and growled. Alri didn’t seem bothered by the scary noises. He simply shrugged his shoulders.

  “You both took the good greetings so hello was all I could think of.”

  Nero snorted, and that made Kol chuckle. I smiled, too.

  “It is a fine greeting, Prince Arli,” I said.

  He beamed at me after giving his brothers a told-you-so grin.

  “Just Arli, Princess. Royals never use our titles with one another, only when addressing our sister… when she is behaving.”

  Surkah scoffed, and to Kol, she said, “Killi made me cry.”

  A growl tore free of Kol’s throat, as he focused on his older brother who rolled his eyes. “I was addressing her stowing away aboard the Ebony. It was her guilt that forced her tears, not my words.”

  Kol relaxed and looked at his sister with a brow raised in question.

  She shrugged. “I wasn’t crying until he made me feel bad.”

  Kol grunted. “What you did was wrong, so if you feel bad because of your actions, then it is rightly deserved.”

  Surkah tucked her chin against her neck, and she looked down at the ground.

  “Kol!” I scowled. “She has been punished for stowing away and has apologised. Do not upset her by making her feel guilty.”

  “She has to be—”

  “Kol,” I cut him off, glaring up at him. “Leave her alone.”

  Kol held eye contact with me before he sighed and let the argument go with a brief shake of his head.

  “Thank you,” I said before looking at Surkah and winking.

  She smiled, though she tried to hide it.

  “I cannot believe my eyes,” Arli murmured. “He was just bested by a female.”

  “I was not!” Kol all but snarled; the vibrations started in his chest then continued to rattle outwards.

  “You were,” Arvi agreed, wide-eyed. “I saw and heard it. You backed down from a female because she ordered you to do so. Wait till I tell Ezah!”

  Kol snarled again.

  “When he attacks you, do not blame anyone but yourselves,” Killi commented, looking bored with the situation unravelling before him. “You know males pick their battles with their females. Father has submitted to Mother for less. He says that sometimes, it’s just not worth a female’s wrath… They can say no to sex just to punish their mate.”

  Arli had considered this before he laughed. “I would never submit, no matter what, because we can seduce females easily enough. Kol was bested by a female, and that is that.”

  Killi facepalmed himself while I barely registered the moment Kol let go of me and lunged for Arli. I wasn’t certain, but it looked like Arli grinned a second before Kol punched him in the face, and that led me to believe something was seriously wrong with him.

  He enjoyed the fighting. The sick freak.

  Arli, though he had moments ago been laughing, was now in offensive mode and was growling and snarling. Both he and Kol punched, kicked, and headbutted the crap out of one another.

  “Kol!” I screamed. “Stop!”

  I moved without thinking and gasped when I was suddenly grabbed from behind and hoisted up into the air.

  “No, Princess,” Nero’s voice said firmly. “You will get hurt.”

  Please, I reached out to Kol. Please, stop. I’m begging you.

  “Enough!” Kol snarled. “This is upsetting my mate!”

  He punched Arli one more time before he stood, turned to me, and then snarled at Nero, revealing his sharp gold-capped fangs. Nero quickly released me and stood back away from me like I was on fire. A glance over my shoulder told me he had his hands in the air in front of his chest in surrender.

  “She was going to intervene in the brawl,” he explained cautiously. “I didn’t want her to get hurt.”

  Kol quit snarling and jerked his head in a nod. He closed the space between us and had the audacity to looked surprised when I slapped his hands away when he reached for me.

  “Don’t touch me!” I snapped, sniffling. “You know the fighting scares me.”

  Kol frowned. “Sometimes, it cannot be helped, shiva. I’d never fight my brothers in anything other than jest or annoyance. Alri annoyed me, and my instinct was to hit him… We do this a lot when he gets bored.”

  “It’s true, Princess,” Arli added. “I goad him into fights to entertain myself. I apologise for causing you fear. I did not realise humans were scared of brawls.”

  “More like terrified,” I corrected.

  “I’m sorry,” Arli repeated.

  I nodded to him in acknowledgment of his apology then focused on Kol.

  “Are you okay?” I murmured as I noted his right eye was swelling a little.

  Kol winked. “In an hour, any marks will be healed.”

  I frowned. “I don’t know if I can get used to the fighting thing. The thought of you being hurt makes me sick.”

  Kol embraced me, pulling my body flush against his. “I will… work on it. Okay?”

  “Okay.” I nodded and put my arms around him, hugging him tightly.

  “My shiva,” he murmured.

  I smiled against his chest. “Can we go and see my new home now? I’m ready to be off the Ebony.”

  “Can I lead her, Kol?” Surkah asked excitedly. “Oh, please? Can I, brother?”

  Kol chuckled at Surkah but nodded his head to her request. Surkah squealed, bounced over to my side, grabbed my hand, and tugged me down the huge ramp of the Ebony alongside her.

  “I am so excited to see your face when you see Ealra for the first time. I have been thinking about it since I awoke.”

&nbs
p; I went with Surkah happily, though she did cast me a worried looked when I inhaled deeply as a gust of fresh air rolled up the ramp and slammed into me.

  “I can almost taste how clean the air is,” I said, taking deep breaths. “No pollution.”

  “There is none. The Ebony, other spacecrafts, and ground vehicles are fuelled by natural resources. Pollution has never been a problem on Ealra.”

  It was nothing but a problem on Earth.

  When we neared the end of the ramp, I had to lift my hand to shield my eyes from the glare of the sun. Instead of the painful burning I felt back on Earth during the daytime, I felt the delicious heat on my skin. I squinted my eyes almost shut as we disembarked the craft, and when my eyes adjusted to the lighting, I lowered my hand and sucked in a startled breath.

  “Almighty!”

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  Beautiful didn’t begin to cover it.

  Colour and life were everywhere. I had no idea what kind of landscape to expect from Ealra, but the backdrop was of green and bright red enriched forests, lakes of vibrant purple water, and vibrant green and brown mountains so high in the distance they disappeared in blue clouds and into the white sky. My mouth hung open, and my eyes widened to the point of stinging pain.

  “This is too good to be true,” I whispered to no one.

  Far away, on the left side, I could see tall buildings that I assumed to be Royal City. They weren’t like the destroyed ones on Earth. They were, well, perfectly erect and untouched by war… Everywhere I looked was untouched by war. To the far left of the city was a gigantic building that looked almost gold from where I was standing.

  I wondered what it was, and I was about to ask Kol until I glanced down and froze when I spotted something a couple of metres away. I stared at the green blanket that coated the ground, and I felt my heart begin to pound.

  I heard Kol saying my name, but it sounded like he was far away, and I didn’t have any intention of answering him or giving him any attention because my focus was solely on view before me. I took a few tentative steps forward, and when my bare feet stepped onto the light green grass, I laughed as the soft blades tickled my toes. I dropped to my knees, and I spread my fingers apart and pressed them to the surface, running my hands along the bed of grass with a huge smile on my face.

  “Brother,” Arli murmured. “Your female is smiling at the grass.”

  Shiva, are you okay?

  Tears filled my eyes as I nodded my head. “Everywhere was dead back home. If you had no money, you were living in poverty. I saw grass once in my life behind a huge security fence of a wealthy man, but I never got to smell it, to see it up close… to touch it. I’ve never touched grass before. I’ve never felt it on my skin. It’s wonderful.”

  I heard many voices, female voices, human female voices, but my normal reaction of being cautious was placed on the back burner. Instead, I sat back on my heels as a few males led a large group of human women towards a section of road that had large ground vehicles of some kind. Nearly all the women hustled after the males, too scared to stop and stare, but two women broke away from the group and made a beeline straight for the grass that had captured my attention. I felt Kol tense, even though he wasn’t that close to me, but I relaxed even more and pushed that relaxation towards him to show him that the two women, Echo and Envi, didn’t worry me.

  “It’s grass!” Envi squealed as she dropped to her knees a few metres from me. “Real freakin’ grass!”

  “It feels so soft!” Echo stated.

  The sisters laughed, and before I knew it, I was smiling again, too. When I caught their attention, though, they tensed, and the smiles fled from their faces. Echo moved closer to her sister and put herself slightly in front of her. The stance was defensive, and I didn’t blame her for it, since the last time we encountered one another, it ended badly.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” I said, running my hand over the soft blades of grass.

  Echo nodded, and Envi licked her lips.

  “I was just telling the Maji behind me that I had never touched grass before. They thought it was weird it has excited me so much.”

  Envi giggled, and even Echo cracked a smile.

  “I guess we do look pretty weird, gushing over something that they have everywhere.”

  I continued to smile.

  “You look… different,” Envi commented before a blush rose to her cheeks. “Not a bad different or anything, a pretty kind of different. I like your outfit is what I mean, and your hair is really cool and pretty and, um, okay, I’ll shut up now.”

  I smiled at Envi’s word vomit, and how easily embarrassed she was… It was sweet.

  Echo flicked her eyes from me to the Maji behind me a couple of times before she cleared her throat and said, “I’m sorry about our fight, and I’m not just saying that because you married the shipmaster—congrats, by the way. My sister brought to my attention that while we were scared of you, we posed a greater threat because there are two of us and one of you, and you had the right to put distance between us.”

  “Thank you for your congratulations, and I appreciate that, Echo, but to be honest, everything that happened was my fault.”

  The twins frowned.

  “What do you mean?” Envi asked, her forehead creased with confusion.

  “I’m stubborn,” I said with a teasing grin. “Very stubborn. I was fighting my rescue and the Maji for the simple reason I did not trust them. Trust is an issue for me, and when I met you both, I didn’t trust you. I expected the worse from you because I’ve always experienced the worst back home with other people. I pushed you guys, knowing what it would lead to, so for that, I am sorry.”

  The twins shared a look then looked back to me, and in unison, they said, “Apology accepted.”

  “Thank you,” I said, feeling a sense of relief. “I know the three of us have our own issues, but we have a new start in a new world, so I hope that means we can start over, too?”

  Envi beamed. “We’d love that, Nova.”

  “Yeah.” Echo nodded. “We would.”

  Well done, my little human.

  I smiled widely at the praise from Kol.

  “Crap.” Envi suddenly gasped as she jumped to her feet. “Our group… They’re gone!”

  “Oh, hell.” Echo winced as she got to her feet and looked around frantically.

  I stood too and turned to my mate and his family.

  “Can you make sure they get to their housing without trouble?” I asked Kol.

  He nodded, but before he could speak, Alri and Arvi practically jumped forward and offered to take the twins to their homestead. Kol shared a look with Killi, who shrugged his shoulders while behind them, Surkah grinned, and Nero rolled his eyes, muttering, “Here we go again.”

  “It would be our honour to escort you lovely females to your homestead,” Alri said, his eyes trained on Envi, who was trying and failing to hide behind Echo.

  I looked at Echo and found she was staring at me. I walked towards her when she nodded for me to do so.

  “Um,” she whispered. “Do you know those guys?”

  I grinned. “They’re Kol’s older brothers. The three of them are triplets, not identical as you can see. Alri and Avri are the males who have offered to escort you to your new homestead. They are royal princes, and members of the Guard, a company of the fiercest Maji warriors on all of Ealra. You won’t be in safer hands.”

  “I adore your female, brother,” Avri whispered, earning a growl from Kol, and a chuckle from Surkah and Nero.

  Echo turned to her sister. “What do you think?” she asked in a low tone.

  “Nova trusts them, and she is married to their brother,” Envi whispered back. “They’re part of that Guard thing we’ve heard about as well, and from what I can tell, only the bravest and most honourable guys are a part of that, so I say yes. After all… it’s only them escorting us.”

  Echo nodded then turned back to the brothers who hadn’t moved an
inch or taken their eyes off the sisters.

  “You’ll… you’ll just escort us, right? You won’t expect… payment or anything?”

  When the brothers blinked when confusion, Kol murmured something to them that hardened their features.

  “No, female, you will not have to do a single thing to receive our escort,” Alri said with a firmness in his tone. “We just wish to see you safely to your homestead. If you wish for different males to escort you, that can be arranged with no problem.”

  Envi, who was still behind Echo, smiled softly, and it caused Alri to gulp, and that made me smile wide.

  Alri likes Envi.

  And Avri likes Echo, but could the sisters return that interest?

  I glanced at the twins before looking back at my mate.

  I think so; I don’t think it’ll be a whirlwind mating like ours was, though. We’re on Ealra now, and even though all my women have to take husbands, your males will have to prove themselves to the women and build a relationship before any claiming takes place. We’re the exception to that rule.

  Kol was silent for a moment then he said, I have relayed your instructions to my brothers.

  How do you know they’re interested in mating the twins?

  They feel a pull towards them, a pull they’ve never felt towards a female. It feels like more than a simple attraction to them.

  I hummed. That will be interesting.

  Indeed.

  I looked at Echo when she turned to me. “How can we contact you? You’ve the only woman who we’re somewhat close to.”

  I looked at Kol. “How do you guys contact each other?”

  “Our comms,” he replied.

  I frowned. “Humans don’t have them, though, so how are we supposed to contact one another?”

  Surkah stepped forward. “Humans will receive comms of their own once they are finished being designed. It won’t take very long, over technicians are working on it.”

  I nodded and turned back to the sisters. “Until we all receive comms of our own, I can come by your homestead—”

  “Shiva, you’re a princess.” Kol cut me off. “Remember, there are rules for princesses.”

  Oh yeah, how could I forget?