Stolen by the Warlord: A Sci-Fi Alien Warrior Romance (Ash Planet Warriors Book 1)

by V. K. Ludwig

  He smacked his tongue. “A storm the goddess might very well use to bury us in an ashy grave if we get caught up at the center of it. We should have gathered the warriors and bought entrance to Noja with blood and blades.”

  I turned the leaves, fangs gnashing when Ceangal showed no improvement, even worsening as her body went limp and jostled in my arms. “I would rather hand myself over to Katedo’s judgment than risk a single of my warriors, potentially driving Solgad into another civil war. No matter the flaws I inherited from my father, acting on thoughtless whims is not one of them.”

  Given my… history, the statement left something bitter on my tongue. I’d just bound the soul of a woman not mine to claim, so high above my station I was nothing but dirt in comparison — just a young Jal’zar clasping to what little remained of his pride.

  “Uresha!” I shouted when we approached camp, where the shaman of my tribe already waited beside a tent as I reined up. “I suspect a heatstroke, though the pain of her wound might contribute to her current state. She’s unconscious now.”

  The old female reached mottled hands toward us, her white hair running in a long braid down to her hip. “Have you splintered ribs?”

  Holding Ceangal tightly against me, I slipped off my yuleshi. “I aimed carefully, but she struggled, so I cannot say for certain.”

  “Bring her inside so I can look upon her spirit.”

  I carried her toward the makeshift tent as I shouted over my shoulder, “Unbind the uiri so she can serve her urizaya.”

  Leather flapped around me as I entered the tent, where the purple sheen of fire illuminated a simple cot, dozens of flasks, and pouches lining the bottom. Herbs scented the air, but the zap of static swirling around us as the storm approached was undeniable.

  The moment I lowered Ceangal onto the white ushti furs, Uresha swatted me away and investigated the wound, the blood visible even against the black fabric. “You have neither broken nor chipped bone, but yes, she is suffering the sun’s wrath. I will give her something for the fever, but she is also severely dehydrated.”

  “How long until I can safely bring her home?”

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  Uresha glanced back at me with the untroubled expression all shimids carried. “On Mekara, of course. Only the goddess decides when and if she will recover.”

  A pinch beneath my rib. “If?”

  The ground shook, and something rattled.

  No, not the ground.

  My chest quaked, the hum resonating from there so loud and violent it ached my throat and sucked my gums dry. “By Mekara, is there no controlling this sound?”

  It was the second time that I’d hummed with seemingly no rule over it, almost like a reflex to the thought of Ceangal’s death. When I’d done the same in front of Katedo, I’d feared it would expose my intentions, but her distress at my temper had caused me almost nauseating unease.

  “Being generous with your hum will help your mate overcome the fever,” she said, my toes curling at the word mate. “Zovazay is nothing but a pathway between souls, the energy within in constant motion. You will suffer her pain as much as she will find relief in your strength.”

  “Is it true then?” I asked and sat beside Ceangal, stroking her hair back before I twirled it by her side. “Have I claimed half her soul and bound her to me even though she is not Jal’zar?”

  The old female squinted at the faded labels on her flasks, one hand blindly grabbing for one of the mugs stacked on a wooden stool. Corks popped, and she poured a variety of bitter herbs into it, which she steeped with a ladle of water from the bucket sitting beside the metal urn holding the fire.

  “Oh yes, Toagi, I sense it,” she said, spoon-feeding Ceangal the tincture, frowning at each spilled drop running down pale lips. “You ought to nourish it, for it is faint and brittle.”

  “Nourish it how?”

  “Gain her trust,” she said as though I hadn’t just stolen this woman, but I cringed when she added, “Be a good mate.”

  The arguments between my father and his urizaya, the fingers pointing at me, the faraway branch on the mother tree I was given to sleep underneath… my entire childhood played before my eyes and put a clench into my stomach. What did I know of how to be a mate, let alone a good one?

  “I will make certain she is fed, clothed, and protected.” That had to be enough because my priorities lay elsewhere. “Is she hale? Is the bond strong enough she will receive my seed and grow my heir from it?”

  Uresha picked up a woven grass mat that held more soaked monhu leaves, her tailclaw casually flicking at Ceangal. “Her womb is healthy and readying itself to be seeded.”

  “So they didn’t put her on that heat suppressant yet they developed at Noja?” Something I was certain Katedo had planned on doing, so he wouldn’t accidentally slip into a rut and sting her. It was no secret that the warlord had no interest in claiming another female after the violent death of his mate.

  Uresha shook her head. "Now undress your mate.”

  My tailclaw made quick work of it, slicing the fabric open from crotch to sternum, the sight it revealed sending a new rush of blood into my cock. Nature couldn’t help it, no matter her concerning state.

  Lean muscle, toned form, a slim built but not frail… Ceangal had the form of a fighter. No wonder she’d proven a bit of a challenge. She’d never stood a chance, but I admired how she’d tried fighting me off, nonetheless. Why wasn’t she able to will her nano armor?

  Uresha stripped off the fabric, save for a tiny piece of undergarment, and layered fresh monhu leaves all over her body. “These need replacing each time the edges curl from her heat.”

  Yelim poked his head through the flaps, shoving the uiri inside. “Her name is Mayala.”

  Even before I managed to dismiss him with a nod, Mayala swatted her hands at him, shooing him out the tent under curses. “Out with you! How dare you step in here while my urizaya is this exposed. And you!” She stabbed a finger in my direction, gray lips curling over an impressive set of fangs for a female. “How dare you… outlaw steal away the mate of my warlord? Have you no honor? Step away from her!”

  I lifted my finger, slowly, waiting until her eyes locked on it. Then I gently tapped the frayed edges of the wound gracing Ceangal’s side. “She is as much my urizaya as she is yours.”

  “No.” The corners of Mayala’s lips dropped lower with each slow shake of her head, blue eyes taking in the wound before they stiffened on me. “What have you done?”

  I had secured the survival of my tribe. “We are bonded before Mekara. Has Katedo sworn you in as her uiri?”

  “You are not my warlord!” she snapped. “You’re no warlord at all.”

  I bit back that wave of anger rippling in my stomach. “Have you sworn to serve her?”

  Her voice dropped into a mumble. “Yes.”

  “That’s settled then. You will come to our mother tree with us, where you will help her settle into her new life.” With that established, I turned my attention back to Uresha. “What can I do to help?”

  The old female gifted me a sincere smile and a pat on my arm. “Hum for her, Toagi.”

  I stared at her for a moment, not liking how this hum had tugged on something beneath my sternum earlier. “Perhaps she should rest in silence.”

  Uresha lifted a brow at me. “Will you truly deny your mate your hum?”

  Mate. Urizaya.

  Before all else, Ceangal was a means to an end.

  Still, I lowered myself down beside her, trailing a dark gray finger over skin so fair it showed every imperfection, every discoloration, every faint bruise from our struggle. Against the rumble of the approaching storm and the ache in my chest from straining an organ I’d never used before this sun, I hummed.

  Hummed all damn night.

  Four

  Ceangal

  There was that hum again.

  Like a gentle caress, it stroked across my entire body before it s
eeped into my skin, burrowing its way into my core, where it manifested as calmness and serenity. It seemed more potent than before as it roused me from a restless sleep. That didn’t make this tranquility any less fake.

  “Stop that sound,” I snarled.

  It died away right then, replaced by Toagi’s hoarse voice. “It is how we calm females and children.”

  “I don’t want to be calm.”

  Because I was angry.

  Shaky arms pushed me up to sit, and pain throbbed between my ribs to the rhythm of my pulse. Some sort of room spun around me, dizzying my mind to a degree bile soured the back of my throat. Coldness crept over my breast before something slimy slipped along my belly.

  I glanced down at myself…

  …and flinched.

  By the heat of Heliar, I was naked.

  Save for my panties, and those moss green leaves wrapped around my body, like layers of seaweed covered in a white film of something that reeked of sour milk. Where was I? What happened?

  “Oh, urizaya!” Mayala pushed through leather flaps, which meant this had to be a tent, and hurried over to kneel beside the cot I rested on. “All night, I have prayed to Mekara, begging her to take your fever away.” The moment I turned toward her, she grabbed my arms and held me still. “No, urizaya, you need to rest while I call the shimid. Your wekhja has stopped bleeding only a while ago. Move too much too soon, and the flesh will tear open once more.”

  “My what?”

  She pointed at the gaping hole between my ribs, saying, “Wekhja. It is what we call the sting that brings about your zovazay.”

  The blood in my veins cooled to such degree, a new layer of sweat tickled the fine hair at the nape of my neck. Memories flooded my mind. A strong prick, excruciating pain, that humming sound, and…Toagi’s voice, whispering, you are mine now.

  I glanced over my shoulder back at him, where he rested with one arm propped underneath his head. Long fingers scratched over an old scar that cut across the defined ridges of his abdomen, the puckered skin a light pinkish gray.

  He stared up at me, his features unapologetic, his purple gaze ungiving. Red rimmed the edges, his face somewhat ashen, although it could have been a trick of the light.

  Anger flooded my system, rinsing out that false calm. “How could you?”

  “How could I not?” The arrogance of his words didn’t infuriate me nearly as much as how another purr smoothed their edges. “It is done, Ceangal. As soon as my shimid—”

  “Stop humming!”

  Once again, the sound died away just as Mayala startled straight at my shout, bowing slightly as she turned toward the tent flaps. “I will tell Uresha that you are awake.”

  I pulled a fur from the cot and draped it over my front. “You will return me to Noja this instant.”

  He trailed a dark red tongue along his upper fangs before he smacked it and said, “No. As an urizaya, your place is with your warlord.”

  According to everyone, he was no warlord. And even if he was… “You are the wrong one!”

  He climbed off the cot, joints cracking as he stretched limbs and tail. “No matter how this might seem, I did not act on impulse. I planned this carefully, assessing all potential risks and ramifications, along with their likelihood. As soon as Uresha says you are fit to travel, we will return to our mother tree.”

  I blinked up at him. Blinked again.

  I’d been kidnapped by a Jal’zar rebel, had no idea where I was, no communication, and I’d passed out somehow. The only thing I could do was keep my shit together, contain the damage, and wait until either Katedo or the Empire interfered and set this right.

  “What is all this stuff?” I asked, peeling the seaweed off me with one hand while the other grabbed another fur to cover myself. “I lost consciousness, didn’t I?”

  “Heatstroke.” From a stool beside the cot, he handed me a clay mug. “For your fever. Drink.”

  Stiff fingers grabbed the mug, the liquid bitter enough my nose scrunched up. I drank it anyway. Nothing could be done as long as my muscles shook from exhaustion, my mind nothing but foggy.

  The leather flapped, and an old Jal’zar female stepped inside, her snow-white hair decorated with golden clasps and wooden beads. “Urizaya, lie down so I can look upon your spirit.”

  Nothing but a wide necklace covered her breasts, and an almost black nipple poked from between rows of beads and bone chips. They clanked when she sat down beside me, age-wrinkled hands gently prodding me back onto the cot.

  I lay down and tried to relax.

  It lasted until she snatched both furs and tossed them onto the ground, ripping a bunch of seaweed right with them. “Are your thoughts clearing?”

  Humid air licked around my exposed body, and warmth crept into my earlobes. Of course, Toagi had seen me like this, considering he’d likely slept beside me all night, but this was different. I was conscious. Aware of how his eyes roamed over my body, leaving a trail of tingles in their wake.

  Breathing against the shame in my chest, I lifted my gaze, letting it lock with a set of purple irises. “Please turn around.”

  To my surprise, he nodded and turned his back to me. “Urizaya gam nekta’a kash?”

  “Nansi,” Uresha said as her shaky hands hovered over my body, the calm in her eyes driving the strain from my muscles. “No. The wrath of our sun has calmed, but it has not yet left her spirit. We cannot ride like this.”

  “Shigut…” Toagi rolled his shoulders, and the tension trapped between walls of leather turned palpable. “How much longer? Nafir spotted scouting parties too close for comfort.”

  “It is up to—”

  “Mekara,” Toagi said on a sigh that faded into long silence as he stared at the wall, arms folding in front of his chest. “Then you will return with the others to the tribe while you can still travel under the cover of the storm. I will remain here with her until she is better.”

  Uresha peeled the last bit of seaweed off me before she wiped me down with a wet rag from the bucket beside the cot. “Katedo will capture and kill you.”

  “A risk we are all aware of,” he said, and some of his straightness disappeared from his posture. “If she doesn’t recover quickly enough and Katedo comes, so be it. I’d rather die knowing I’ve tried than with the death of innocents on my conscience.”

  His words took me aback. For someone who’d supposedly killed his brother to claim himself warlord over a tribe that somehow wasn’t his to lead, those words carried a lot of honor.

  “Take her to Mekara.” Uresha gestured to lift my hands before she slipped some sort of white cotton tunic over me. “Her fever is much improved, and allowing her to heal inside the yoni might drive out whatever is left.”

  Yoni. I’d read about those cenotes scattered across the planet, their cave-like structure collecting precious water. Jal’zar believed their goddess Mekara was the land itself, the mineral-rich water collected in the yoni’s her tears of joy.

  When Toagi came over and reached his arms for me, I shook my head and pushed myself up. “I can walk on my own.”

  Except that I couldn’t.

  The moment I rose, my knees first trembled, then caved, and the dirt floor pulled out from underneath me. Toagi caught me under curses, wrapping my arm around his shoulder while he slung his around my middle.

  “It’s not far,” he said, lifting the leathers for me as we exited the tent.

  Grit collected between my toes when we walked between a sparse copse of trees, where Jal’zar males hunkered down at the bottom. Swirls of dirt and dust danced over the ashen ground, gusting around the edges of wind-worn rock while birds screeched overhead.

  “The outreaches of a storm.” He jutted his chin toward the plains of Solgad, little of it visible underneath this veil of dust. “Here, touch this.” Guiding my hand, he helped me to lean over and brushed my fingers over the ground until moisture collected on my tips. “Where there is rock, there is likely a yoni. If the ground is wet, the water you fi
nd within is good for drinking.”

  “Even if I get better and we move on, both Katedo and the Empire will search for me. They won’t rest until I’m returned.”

  My leg gave in underneath me, and Toagi picked me up, turning my face away from the wind and against his sternum as he said, “Solar flares destabilize magnetic fields, making most of the technology the Empire employs quite useless. If they want to find us, they have no other choice but to do it with mounted scouts for now. The current storms make it difficult, and the plains are vast.”

  He carried me through a fissure in the rock, where droplets of water ran down the dark stone. Traces of mildew climbed into my nostrils, and the sudden chill of the cave pebbled my skin. Toagi’s naked soles slapped against the glistening ground, stopping at the edge of a pool of greenish-blue water.

  Just as he lowered my feet to the damp stone, I wrapped my arms around the tunic Uresha had given me. “You can wait outside.”

  “The stone is slick with algae. You can barely walk on your own, and you are of no use to me drowned.”

  Perhaps his words made sense, but my mind reeled the moment his fingers tugged on his loincloth. “What are you doing?”

  A devious smirk played around his lips. “Getting in there with you.”

  My fingers dug into the fabric barely covering my thighs. “I’m not taking this off. It’s cotton. It’ll dry in no time.”

  “I expected no different, but this is leather.” Thud. His loincloth hit the ground, revealing his half-hard cock. “It takes forever to dry, and when it does, it turns stiff and uncomfortable. Considering the ride we have ahead of us, it would chafe my cock raw.”

  I averted my gaze, but I’d already seen too much, and violent heat crept into my earlobes. Aside from those ridges along his shaft, his cock had looked rather thick during that glance. Perhaps it only seemed that way, with Jal’zar being all smooth skin down there?

  “What exactly is your plan for me? Nobody will make you a warlord simply because you kidnapped and mutilated me.”