by V. K. Ludwig
Yes, this was promising.
A step in the right direction.
And yet it took effort to stop my fangs from grinding before I said, “Of course, Takay is young and impressed by the otherworldly. He’s never left Solgad. This might only be a short-lived curiosity.”
“Maybe.” Sevja’s nod eased the tension in my jaws, but only until she added, “But there are many others wanting to court her.”
My next inhale caught in my throat. “What?”
“Takay is one of many, from what I’ve overheard,” she clarified. “Until she mingles more with the general population, he has the best access to her since they work together.”
Rogon’s reins dampened in my clasp. “Who assigned him anyway?”
“I did.” She frowned at me. “You don’t agree with my choice?”
I shrugged. “I would have preferred someone more… more…”
She lifted a brow at me. “Experienced?”
Female, but she would undoubtedly lift another brow at me if I said that. I inwardly frowned at myself. Who was I to object to this courtship? No, Takay was a perfectly reasonable choice. Honorable, strong, capable, and trained in—
Jessica’s scream disabled my lungs.
“I knew he’d fuck it up.” I kicked Rogon straight into a sprint, eyes fixed on where Jessica lay sprawled on the ground, surrounded by a cloud of ash. “Jessica!”
I jumped out of the saddle, unconcerned with how Rogon kept sprinting without me as my soles hit the ground. Liquid, undiluted fear pumped through my veins as I fell to my knees, and reached my hand toward her unmoving body.
“Jessica,” I said, no, whimpered. “Healer! I need a healer!”
Takay reined his yuleshi up beside us. “I’m a healer.”
“A different healer, you fool. Get out of my sight!” He might have mumbled a yes, my urizayo as I leaned over Jessica’s body, ears pricking at a weird choking sound. “Don’t move, Jessica.”
But Jessica did move.
Her entire body vibrated, and several choked gargles resonated from her ash-smeared face as she pushed herself onto all fours. They continued until, after she spit out whatever grit had made it into her mouth, it changed into… laughter.
A deep, rolling laughter that infected everyone around us as she said, “Not sure what hurts more, my forehead or my pride.”
Insane woman. She had no sense of self-preservation whatsoever, and the way everyone howled and laughed around us wasn’t helping. I should have intervened.
“What were you thinking?” I rose, grabbed her arms, and pulled her onto her feet. “I shouldn’t have allowed Takay to take you.”
But Jessica only smiled her ash-smeared smile, teeth filthed with sand and grit, and brushed her uniform off. “It wasn’t his fault. He asked me to hold on and I let go.”
“Why would you let go?”
“To feel the wind?” She frowned at the bloody scuff mark on her palm, but shrugged it off and wiped it on her uniform pants. “Alright. I probably won’t try that one again.”
“I hope not.” My heart wouldn’t be able to take it a second time with how it punched my ribs. “Are you hurt? Do you need medical attention?”
“I am the medical attention,” she said jokingly but, the moment her eyes finally found mine, she held my gaze and shook her head. “Katedo. I’m okay. Really.”
I nodded and waved the warrior who’d caught Rogon over to me. “Good. You’ll ride with me now.”
“Wha—”
I gripped her by the waist and lifted her onto Rogon, then swung up behind her. “This way, your foolish ideas are contained.”
Between my legs.
Pressed closely against me.
She nervously grappled at a tuft of Rogon’s black mane. “There’s nothing to hold onto.”
“You don’t have to hold onto anything.” I braced my thighs around hers and slung my hand around her middle, pinning her against me until I sensed her warmth mingle with mine. “I’ll hold you.”
Jessica squealed as I kicked Rogon into a sprint. I steered him up the dry ravines until the rocks dislodged and clanked downhill. I thundered him across the western field of ghost grass, catching a glimpse of Jessica’s smile as the blades burst hundreds of silver sparkling particles into the air.
For a moment, worry, duty and responsibility melted away as I held Jessica close.
For a moment, I relished the bliss of life.
“Can you feel the wind now?” I asked, finding way too much joy in how it swept around us, fresh and unbridled.
“Y-ye-yes.” Her giggles distorted the word, and her curls brushed across my face. “This is freaking awesome.”
“Most boring pony ride in the world?”
More giggling. “No.”
“Can we cross this off your bucket list now before you get yourself killed?” For a moment, I considered jumping a log, but that would have been reckless, so I slowed my yuleshi into a walk. “Because Rogon needs time to recover.”
“Rogon,” she repeated, stroking her hands along his withers. “A male?”
“Yes, and quite old. He still enjoys his sprints now and then, but his endurance is declining rapidly. I doubt he will last through more than another cold season, perhaps two.”
She glanced over her shoulder up at me, grinning when I wiped ash from her face. “Shouldn’t a warlord have the fastest and strongest mount?”
“What a warlord should have is the loyalty of his tribe, and I can’t expect that if I don’t offer my yuleshi the same,” I said. “Rogon was my first mount. You don’t just replace a loyal companion. From the moment I tamed him, I made a promise to look after him until he goes to Mekara.”
Her gaze drifted to the plains stretching before us again, where the sun slowly sunk toward the distorted horizon. “I like your sense of loyalty. Not something you find often these days.”
Far behind us, warriors disassembled the lab. “We’re several samples short and might have to do this a second time.”
She gave a swat at the air. “I’ll just draw the rest of the samples from your tribe and make it a small parallel group. We can work around that. Takay told me it takes a lot of planning and resources to get the freeraiders to cooperate.” When that name lured a grunt from my throat, she looked up at me again. “It really wasn’t his fault. He rode carefully.”
“He could have gotten you killed.” But then again, so could I with how I held her in my arms, distressingly pleased with how she molded herself against my chest so perfectly. “You do understand that he tried to claim you that sun, don’t you?”
“It’s rather obvious since you beat him up good.”
Too bad I didn’t remember a shred of it. “You have to be careful. Female Jal’zar are dominant. Our males even more so. Even without heat, a male can be provoked into a rut if you refuse him submission and he’s trained to your scent. Which he is.” As was I. “Would you like him to claim you?”
She scoffed. “I know nothing about him yet.”
Yet.
Such a small word at the end, but its meaning carried enough weight my muscles twitched. “But you want a mate, correct?”
“I do.”
“Why Jal’zar? Ever since the Vetusians invaded Earth, there are thousands of them in desperate search of a woman.” No sooner had I pointed it out, did something click at the back of my mind. “You don’t share a gaia link with any of them, do you? You have no fated mate?”
Her spine rounded against my diaphragm in answer. “Three percent of women don’t have one for whatever reason. I’m one of them.”
Which made zovazay, the soulbond a Jal’zar male could create with a sting of his tailclaw, all the more desirable. Something we weren’t certain was possible between our races until Warlord Toagi created one with Ceangal. News of this possibility had taken the universe like a storm. Jessica was the first woman to seek a Jal’zar mate, but many more might follow.
I steered Rogon toward Noja’s western gat
e. “Earth reported many happy unions between non-fated couples.”
“Yeah, I’m not on that list either,” she said. “I tried but… it didn’t work out.”
The sorrow in her voice matched the one that resonated within my chest. “You had a… man? A mate of some sort?”
“A husband.”
“What happened?”
“He just up and left one day, passing me with two bags but not a single word spoken. Loyalty and commitment weren’t his strengths.” Both things I valued greatly, which made it easy to understand why she longed for it. “Even fated mates need to work hard to make their relationships work. Ours took some extra effort. One day, he suddenly didn’t want to put it in anymore.”
Suddenly? Just up and left?
Her heartbreak over it manifested in the silence that followed which was so unlike her. I hadn’t known her for long, but Jessica was an energetic person. She went with the flow, as they said on Earth, and adapted quickly, though never seemed to shy away from voicing her thoughts.
“Would you tell me how your parents died?”
She paused for a moment. “They were part of a resistance group, hiding in some sort of ruin. I saw something sparkly and ran toward it, giving away their hideout. No idea who shot first or how all that went down. It wiped out my entire family. I was six.”
My muscles tensed.
This woman was no stranger to loss.
She’d seen life, and life had seen to her.
In that regard, we were similar.
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“When I was old enough to have myself tested for my fated mate, I was so excited. Finally someone I belonged to. My own family, no matter how small. The results… wow… they slapped me in the face for sure.” She turned heavier in my arms. “Not gonna lie, I spent an entire year telling myself that I probably didn’t deserve a family, considering I got my own killed.”
I stiffened behind her. “It wasn’t your fault. You were a child, Jessica, unaware of the danger.”
“I know.” She shrugged. “Took a few buckets of ice cream and some ugly crying, but I figured it out. I deserve my happily ever after, and it’s called zovazay.”
Her words touched deeper than I wanted them to. “A soulbond requires just as much effort. If not more.”
She twisted in the saddle and placed one hand on my thigh in support, seemingly unaffected by that jagged scar underneath. I wasn’t a vain person, but I understood her concept of beauty was different than that of Jal’zar.
I’d been handsome once but not anymore. My body carried more scars than my hands carried digits, but not once had she remarked on them or even paid them much attention. There was no hesitation in her touch, no disgust in her eyes as she blinked up at me, as if they were just broken tissue — not necessarily signs of a broken male.
It sent a warmth into my chest.
One I didn’t deserve.
“But zovazay urges you to be together, doesn’t it?” she asked and, when I nodded, she smiled. “And you feel each other’s pain? Emotions? Happiness?”
“Yeki.” Right along with the crippling terror when your mate faces certain death, and you can do nothing to stop it. “There are no secrets in zovazay, no lies. You fully bare your soul to your mate.”
She stared at me with those dark brown eyes of hers, a color that fascinated me since Jal’zar didn’t have it. “That’s just what I want.”
And I couldn’t offer it.
No matter how this woman tempted me, or how I’d enjoyed this breeze across the plains free of past regrets, it wouldn’t last. It never did. Not for me. So I kept Rogon at a walk and retreated back into familiar silence.
Back into familiar pain.
Eight
Jessica
Automated metal arms moved around me, and each time the hydraulics adjusted the angle, the robotic joints let out a deafening tsss. White beams of laser penetrated me down to each gap between skin cells until, with a beep, the decontamination chamber deemed me sterile.
I entered the lab, relieved when movement over at the bioreactors told me Takay was already checking on the overnight results. “Why by the Three Suns would you guys classify coffee as a tier two drug substance? When I asked the merchant for it this morning, he looked at me as if I was some sort of addict… whoa… who are you?”
A Jal’zar female I’d never seen before in my life stood beside the workstation, her wide smile framed by hundreds of silver braids. “I’m your new assistant, Solai.”
“What was wrong with my old one?” Her shrug made my toes curl inside my white boots. “Don’t get me wrong, but Takay and I worked on these samples together, and we had a very systemic approach to this.”
“Yes, I’ve been here for almost three argos to familiarize myself with it,” she said with a wave toward the analytical boards hovering above each activated sample. “Rest assured that I understand your system. I’ve worked at the Odheim lab for viral research for nearly three solar cycles. I already took notes on the results. The pathogen exposed to the test antiviral JIF2delta shows promising results.”
My fingers tingled with excitement. “It does?”
Solai’s white fangs sparkled as her smile widened, and she pointed at the three-dimensional hologram of the virus’ cell level. “It has weakened drastically overnight.”
“Wow!” Arms slung around my belly, I rounded the hologram while my brain came up with a million different ideas on how to optimize this data. “It used barely any cells to multiply, which is hindering its growth significantly. Not a candidate for a possible vaccine, but it could help those infected to slow down the disease, making recovery more likely.”
“And lower the fatality rate.”
I nodded in agreement. “Warlord Katedo will be excited to hear this.”
She jutted toward the side door. “You can tell him right now.”
Because he once more came through the side door, balancing a box on one arm while the other disabled the alarm before he gave me a curt nod. “Jessica.”
“Katedo,” I said, and gave a dismissive swat toward the decontamination chamber. “There’s a reason the lab has this thing, you know.”
“I’m not so much concerned about what enters this lab, but what might escape.” Box placed onto the workstation, he gave it a pat. “As per the technician, the other centrifuge was beyond repair. Cargo bay just handed me this new one, so I figured I’d bring it over.”
“Perfect timing, because we might be onto something here. Give me two more suns, and we might be able to have the other lab produce first units of a medication to lower the fatality rate of this virus.”
He nodded. “We could send a batch to Warlord Toagi. After the ordeals his tribe went through, people are still falling ill with the virus.”
Solai opened one of the flaps and peeked inside. “A Regalon model.”
I sighed. “That won’t fit our containers.”
“The centralized storage administration will have them. I will go down there and hand in a request for retrieval.”
When I searched for Katedo’s gaze, he said, “The CSA is like a massive warehouse that holds the personal belongings of tribe members, warlords, and shared equipment. Since we rotate the occupation of Noja, it’s an essential part of this city.”
“Urizayo Katedo.” Solai dipped her head and turned away.
I stared after her until she disappeared behind the door of the decontamination chamber. “Why didn’t she call you her urizayo?”
“Because I’m not.” Arms crossed in front of his chest, he leaned against the edge of the workstation. “Solai belongs to Warlord Razgar’s tribe, but he was kind enough to send her here until he occupies Noja at the end of the cold season. She is highly qualified.”
Overqualified, which made me worry that this was because of the yuleshi incident. “Takay was doing his job just fine. Why was he removed?”
His gaze dropped to where he repeatedly brushed over the black fabric
of his pants as if battling the world’s most stubborn crumb. “You would need to ask Sevja, my advisor. I have nothing to do with this particular assignment.”
I wasn’t sure if I could believe that, if only because he kept fussing with his pants. “Well, the end result is the only thing that counts. I still need to collect the samples for the parallel group, but not a single volunteer showed up this far.”
A small chuckle let his shoulders bob. “Word might have spread about how violent you are with a needle.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, come on, Jessica,” he said with a downright taunting undertone. “Every child that came out the other end of the portable lab cried. Even their warriors had unshed tears in their eyes.”
My lips parted in something between shock and amusement, the corners not quite daring to lift while my cheeks tingled. “Did you just make a joke?”
It wasn’t until he laughed, a sound so preciously rare but all the more alluring, did I sense my mouth quirk into a grin. Who would have thought this grim warlord had humor?
“So your tribe is scared of me now,” I said.
He rubbed his palm over his smooth chin, and his thumb tapped against an upper fang. “If they’re wise.”
I stepped closer, and the antiseptic smell of the lab took on the faint traces of him, like soap and something similar to mint, but smoother. “And you? Are you scared?”
The tapping against his fang stopped, and his thumb instead moved toward the scar on his cheek, gently moving along the purple-gray creases. “Terrified.”
He must have meant it as a joke. After all, one corner of his mouth twitched. But there was something else, almost like sincere concern, that hushed across his stiffening jawline just as he drew in a stuttering breath.
Clearing his throat, he pushed himself off the metal edge. “If it’s of any help, feel free to draw my blood.”
“And you’ll tell the others I was gentle?”
A smirk played around his lips. “If it’s true.”