Aduun soared over her, a shadow amidst deeper darkness, and splashed into the water. The thing around her leg tightened painfully for the space of a heartbeat, and then the backward pull relented.
With no opposing force to resist, Balir fell into the mud, and Nina slid forward into his abdomen. He pulled her into his arms without pause, holding her tightly. His body was tense and trembling.
“I thought we lost you,” he rasped.
“Go back to the tree, Nina,” Vortok commanded.
But her attention was drawn instead to the violent splashes behind her. She turned in Balir’s arms to see dark shapes writhing in the water, to see Aduun battling something.
“Nina, now!” Vortok roared before charging into the water.
Balir twisted, sweeping her behind him. “Back to shelter.”
Another flash of lit the night. It illuminated Aduun and Vortok, set the droplets on their fur aglow. Thick, tentacle-like vines with leafy growths were thrashing around the two, curling around their limbs.
Balir darted forward to join his companions. They tore at the vines with claws and teeth, but more and more of the tendrils surfaced. For a moment, Nina was paralyzed with helplessness.
I will not let anything have my mates.
Nina forced her awareness outward, seeking the creature that was attacking them. She picked up the rage and protectiveness of her valos first, flaring like beacons in the night, brighter than the lightning, and then…nothing. She desperately sought the connection, sought a way to break past whatever mental barriers the creature must’ve possessed, but her mind brushed against nothing. There were no thoughts, no emotions, no instincts. Just deathly silence.
Her ability would be of no use to her here. Whatever that thing was, it didn’t possess a mind she could sense, much less connect with.
She turned and ran back toward the shelter, eyes narrowed, blindly seeking the large trunk and exposed roots. Her feet sank into soft mud with every step, slowing her down, but she refused to let it stop her.
When the dark shape of the tree came into view, Nina quickened her pace. Wiping rainwater and hair from her face, she dove into their shelter and frantically pawed at the ground, searching for her bag. Her fingers brushed over the strap, and she yanked it toward her. She worked it open and thrust a hand inside, searching for her knife.
I need to help them!
Her fingertips brushed over cool metal. Shifting her hand, she grasped the handle and pulled the knife free. She shoved the bag aside, crawled out from beneath the tree, and scrambled to her feet, following the connection she had with her mates back toward the water. Their growls and roars rose over the din of splashing water and falling rain, gaining clarity as she drew nearer to them.
Lightning illuminated her valos for a split second as they fought against the tendrils. For a moment, she was blinded, the image of their battle emblazoned in her mind until her eyes adjusted again and focused on the moving shadows ahead. The thunder that followed the lightning was deafening.
Rage — her own and her valos’ at once — flooded her. She entered the wildly rippling water and surged forward, ducking to avoid a flailing vine as she made her way to Balir. His fury blasted into her, laced with frustration and a hint of panic; though he fought with all his being, he was struggling. The torrential rain blinded him as much as the darkness blinded her. He was vicious, swiping with his claws and snapping his teeth, but still, the tentacles were overtaking him.
Nina dove forward, throwing herself upon the vines. She grasped them tightly, holding fast against their thrashing, and raised her knife to saw them apart one at a time. Something warm, sticky, and foul, splattered her hands and face. She gritted her teeth and continued her work, not stopping until every one of the tendrils around Balir had been severed.
“Nina, you—” he began.
“I’m with you! Just fight!” she yelled, slashing at the tentacles that whipped at her. She sliced several more before she shifted her gaze to seek the other valos.
Vortok was nearby, a bundle of vines wrapped around his chest. He grasped them on either side and pulled outward. Even over the cacophony of rain and splashing water, she heard the tendrils snapping, unable to withstand his immense strength.
A shadow of something passed in front of her and Nina flinched back, reflexively swiping out at it. She grunted as a vine wrapped around her middle and yanked her deeper into the water. It squeezed the air out of her, making her reel; her ichor-covered hands nearly lost hold of her knife.
Aduun and Balir were suddenly beside her, grabbing onto her arms to battle the vine’s pull, keeping her head and shoulders above the surface as the monster tried to drag her under. Another pulse of lightning revealed vines clinging to both valos, casting deep shadows over their straining muscles as they fought to keep not only Nina up, but themselves. She clenched her jaw. Her inability to take a breath threatened to unleash panic in her mind, the burning in her chest and throat threatened to overcome her power of thought, but she wouldn’t give in.
Tightening her grip on the knife, she struggled to lower the blade to the vines around her middle, but Aduun and Balir’s hold on her arms prevented her from reaching it. She couldn’t call out to them, couldn’t scream, couldn’t so much as whimper, but she still refused to panic.
Vortok. Can’t breathe. Help!
Vortok’s roar boomed behind her, louder and more terrifying than the thunder. Her body jerked despite the other valos holding her as something grasped the vine at her back. The pressure around her middle increased the point at which she thought her chest would collapse in on itself. Darkness, deeper than anything she’d ever seen, flowed in from the edges of her vision, and her head lolled. She refused to relinquish her weapon.
Then Vortok growled, and the vines were shredded apart.
Nina fell forward with a splash, water closing over her for a split second before she fought to the surface. Once her head emerged, she gasped for air, taking in several desperate lungfuls. The blackness in her vision receded, but her hair obscured much of her view.
A thick arm looped around her waist and lifted her out of the water. The pressure it caused on her middle was painful after the crushing force of the vine, but his hold released her a moment later, depositing her on relatively solid ground.
Her legs wobbled. She pressed a hand against a hard abdomen — Vortok’s abdomen — to steady herself and raised her knife, ready to keep fighting despite being winded and effectively blind.
“Easy,” Aduun said, placing his hand over hers.
Swallowing, she removed her hand from Vortok, hesitating until she knew wouldn’t lose her balance, and swept her hair out of her face. Aduun stood immediately in front of her, shoulders rising and falling with ragged breaths. Balir was a slightly leaner shadow beside him.
At the next burst of lightning, her eyes flicked between Aduun and Balir. Limp, severed vines clung to them, no longer posing a threat. It was the water that caught her attention; it was made pale by the flash — save for the pool of black ichor floating on its surface. The ripples from falling raindrops and the slow dissipation of the ichor were the only things disturbing the water.
The vine monster was gone.
“Is it over?” she asked.
“For now,” Balir said, “but we cannot say if it will strike again.”
“Are you all right, Nina?” Vortok asked from behind her. “I told you—”
“I wasn’t going to leave you,” she said over her shoulder before turning back to Aduun and Balir. “Any of you. You are my tribe, my mates, and I stand with you.”
“That was a foolish thing to do,” Aduun said, but there wasn’t much admonishment in his voice.
“Not anymore foolish than you three jumping in blindly,” she said.
Aduun stepped forward and lifted his hands, settling one on her cheek and slipping the fingers of the other into her hair. Tugging her head back, he leaned down and slanted his mouth over hers. She closed her eyes;
there was no rain, no mud, no pain, only Aduun. His kiss was deep, commanding, and punishing, consuming more of her with every press of his lips and swipe of his tongue. When he raised his head, his eyes — dark but for the faint reflections in their depths — bore into hers.
“Do not ever endanger yourself like that again,” he growled.
Nina closed her hand over his wrist. “I’ll do what I must to protect what’s mine.”
They stared at each other for several seconds, Nina’s heart thumping in her chest. Finally, one corner of his mouth lifted, barely visible in the shadows, and he took a step away from her, breaking their physical contact.
Balir placed a hand on her lower back. “We should not linger this close to the water.” A thought — his thought — flitted through his mind and into hers.
—saved me, Nina, thank you—
Nina turned her face toward Balir. His hold on her shifted, his palm sliding to her waist as he curled his long fingers around her side. She sent a gentle psychic pulse toward him, silently acknowledging his gratitude and offering her own.
“Let’s get out of the rain,” Vortok grumbled.
They turned and followed Vortok’s heavy steps back to the hollow. Now that the excitement was over, and her blood was cooling, she couldn’t help but shiver; the air was cool, and she was soaked. Nina and her valos crawled under the tree and huddled in its shelter. Though they were all wet, their shared body heat went a long way in warming her.
No one slept. Nina found herself starting at every noise she heard above the storm, expecting to feel something slither around her ankle at any moment. She guessed her valos were in a similar state, their senses on high alert; their conversation was minimal and terse throughout the remainder of the night.
Despite their relative silence, Nina could feel the relief and love flowing from each of them, and she clung to it through the darkness, projecting it back in turn.
Vortok grasped one of the thick roots nearby and grunted as he pulled himself out from beneath the tree. His muscles ached. He was still sore in a few places where the vines had constricted with crushing force, and his damp fur was caked with partially-dried muck and ichor in places he wasn’t even sure he could reach. They’d eaten when the first hints of dawn had finally brightened the sky, intending to set out once there was enough light. The food had been as soggy as the ground around them and tasted like soured water. It had seemed a fitting meal, considering they’d be wading through a swamp all day in the rain.
Surprisingly, though, the rain had stopped sometime shortly after sunrise. It seemed too good to be true, but Vortok wouldn’t complain. The break in the weather was welcome, but more uplifting was that Nina was all right. There was some faint bruising around her leg and torso, but she’d suffered no serious injury.
His hooves sank in the muddy ground as he went to join the others. All his companions were disheveled and splattered with muck, looking exactly how Vortok felt.
“Um…can you turn around, Aduun?” Nina asked.
Though his brows knitted in confusion, Aduun turned for her. Nina raised a hand and plucked a chunk of severed vine from Aduun’s quills. It was covered in the dark, sticky goo the tendrils had gushed when damaged.
She tossed the vine aside. It landed in the water with a soft splash and bobbed on the surface. Other pieces of various sizes were scattered around the shoreline, each a reminder of the fierce battle that had taken place. But it was the deep grooves in the mud, now filled with water, that rekindled some of the fear and fury Vortok had experienced the night before; they were the spots where Nina had dug her hands into the ground in a desperate attempt to stop herself from being dragged into the water.
They’d almost lost her.
A gentle hand touched his bicep, drawing him out of his thoughts. He shifted his gaze to see Nina standing before him, smiling. She was so small, so beautiful, so precious…
“You didn’t lose me.” She reached up, twined her fingers in his mane, and tugged his head down into a kiss.
The warmth of that contact with her spread from his lips to suffuse his entire body. It eased his worries and soothed the rage simmering in his chest. Despite her appearance, Nina was anything but delicate. She’d shown as much courage, tenacity, and toughness as anyone he knew — even more so because she wasn’t physically enhanced like he and his brothers had been.
Though they were not invulnerable, Vortok, Balir, and Aduun had been able to rely on their supernatural healing speed and resistance to damage since their change. Even wounds that would’ve guaranteed death in their old lives would heal in a matter of hours. Paired with their immense strength and speed, they were nearly unstoppable when facing most natural flesh-and-blood foes, and Vortok recognized that they’d grown reckless because of it.
Nina didn’t have that luxury. Her physical limitations were much closer to what those of Vortok’s people had been before Kelsharn altered them; every battle placed her in mortal danger. Floodwater, treeclaws, a fall from a great height, cold and frost, the desert heat and the creatures that had pursued them — any of those dangers could easily have been her end, where the valos could struggle through most and survive despite the agony and hardship they would’ve endured along the way.
When she finally broke the kiss, dropped her hand, and stepped back, Vortok nearly threw an arm around her to draw her against him. He wanted more of her, needed more, and that need made the warmth she’d instilled in him grow. But she’d had it hard during this trip, especially last night; if he was aching, she had to be in pain.
He contented himself with cupping her cheek with one hand. She paused and leaned into his palm, closing her eyes for a moment as she covered his hand with both of her own.
“You are so beautiful, Nina,” he said in a low voice. His chest tightened, and his throat constricted, making speech suddenly difficult; a wave of emotion swept through him, powerful and overwhelming. His heartstone resonated with it, but it was not the primary source. “You are more than I deserve, even if I must share you.”
Nina stepped closer and smiled, her eyes bright with a sudden sheen of tears. “Oh, Vortok,” she said softly. She reached up and gently grasped his mane again. “You deserve everything. And though you are sharing me, you still have all of me.” She guided his hand to settle on her chest before placing her own hand over his heart. “You are my heart as much as I am yours. I love you.”
She turned her head and looked at Aduun and Balir who had drawn closer. “I love all of you. You are equal in my eyes.”
The tightness he’d felt in his chest and throat intensified as the powerful emotions inside him swelled and blossomed. That was the word for it, that simple word that somehow embodied so massive and consuming a concept — love. Nina projected her love freely, and it swept through him, easing his aching muscles and lending him renewed strength.
“And I love you, Nina,” Balir said, moving closer.
“I love you, too,” Vortok rumbled.
Aduun stepped nearer as well. “We all love you, Nina.”
“I know,” she whispered, tears rolling down her cheeks.
Vortok spread his arms and drew her into a hug. She put her hands on his shoulders and nuzzled against him as Aduun and Balir joined the embrace.
They remained like that for a while, the four of them locked together, secure and comfortable with each other and the dynamics of their relationship, which was unlike anything any of them had ever experienced. Vortok knew he would always have his flares of jealousy and possessiveness, but when Nina said she was theirs, said she loved them equally, it was nothing but truth.
“Let’s find your people,” she said against him, pressing her lips to his chest before turning her head and kissing both Balir and Aduun in turn. “Our people.”
Vortok hadn’t forgotten their purpose, hadn’t forgotten their people, but he was still reluctant to release her. It required a considerable amount of effort to open his arms and step back. He’d rather have held her f
orever than continued through this swamp.
“Which way, Nina?” Aduun asked.
She pointed without hesitation. “They’re louder now. Much louder.”
They set out single file with Aduun in the lead and Vortok, bags slung over one shoulder, in the rear.
The lack of rain was a massive improvement over the prior day, but their progress remained slow. No one was safe from the hungry muck beneath the murky water. Even land offered little respite; the heavy rainfall had left most of the ground soft and muddy, in some places even more difficult to traverse than the water.
Vortok couldn’t contain his grumbling as they trudged onward, especially when his weight worked against him, sometimes sinking him up to his knees. It took Aduun and Balir together to pull him out at one point, and both of them nearly became stuck in the process.
His fur bristled every time something brushed against his leg underwater, and he found himself in a heightened state of awareness throughout. The attack during the night had rattled them all. He couldn’t be the only one imagining lashing vines rising out of the water at every little splash. Fortunately, Nina’s presence provided a welcome counterbalance.
Vortok’s eyes wandered to her often, admiring not just her body, but her fortitude. She walked, stumbled, and clawed her way forward without complaint, and when they’d stop to rest or refill the waterskins with run-off caught by the large leaves, she was usually the first to suggest they move on again.
It was difficult to mark the passage of time thanks to the overcast sky, but he guessed it was around midday when Aduun sighted something ahead. They hurried — relative to their sluggish pace, anyway — to the next piece of land and narrowed their eyes, peering toward the thing in the distance.
“Stone,” Aduun said. “It’s stone. A cliffside, just like in the forest.”
“Another artificial border?” Balir asked.
“Most likely.”
“Doubtful we’ll be in any condition to climb when we get to it,” Vortok said. He could only just make out the stone through the haze of distance and sprouts of vegetation, but he trusted Aduun’s judgment.
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