by V. K. Ludwig
“Mmh…” I moaned within the embrace of his chest as a storm wrecked through me. My pussy clenched in time to each massive spurt of seed he spilled across my stomach, like a second orgasm but… different.
Toagi still jerked, chest heaving, as he took my hand and wrapped my fingers tightly around the base of his shaft. “Stroke the seed from my knot, kunazay. You have to grip hard.”
He closed his hand around mine and stroked upward, guiding my hand along, until a final swell of seed pooled from his tip. Toagi whimpered a little but it quickly changed into a hum.
And while he hummed for me, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this strange sensation might have been an orgasm.
Just not mine.
Fourteen
Toagi
I handed Ceangal Canja’s wool saddle. “Make sure her shoulders have room to move.”
A nod was the only answer I got when she took it, and draped it over my yuleshi’s back. Canja snorted, and Ceangal gave her a little pat before she fastened the girth. Next came the mouthpiece, and she competently tied the reins to the saddle… in utter silence.
I had distanced myself from her for a few suns so as not to fall into a full-blown rut during her heat, giving her too much time to think. Ever since we’d found pleasure together on the plateau, Ceangal had become very quiet.
I blamed my peak.
She must have sensed it, just like I’d felt every hot flare of hers, bringing her face-to-face with reality. One she desperately ignored — but not much longer.
As much as I’d tried to give her time and let her figure this out on her own, ease her into the fact that we shared a soulbond, progress had come to a standstill on that very sun.
I couldn’t take it anymore.
Could no longer pretend that I had any patience left when every fiber of my being called for her, screamed, begged, but received no answer. I wanted my mate, if only for a little while. Needed my kunazay more than I needed my next breath.
Because it might be my last one.
My mate’s heat was over.
Her womb was empty.
A scout had returned dead, corpse tied to the saddle.
“Up with you.” I grabbed her calf and helped her onto Canja.
She grabbed the reins. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
I walked over to Nafir, keeping my voice low. “Is everyone in position?”
“As requested,” he said with a nod. “Warriors in the shrubs along the valley. Archers along the plateau. No harm will come to our urizaya. If she strays off-course, I will collect her.”
“That won’t happen.”
I gave a pat on his back and turned to Ceangal, where Yelim strung the last few items to Canja’s saddle. Would she hate me for what I was about to do? Probably, but she left me no choice.
“We ride south,” I said to Ceangal as I swung myself behind her.
She clicked Canja into a trot. “How far?”
“Far.”
“Armor practice?”
“I hope not.” When I pressed my lips to her shoulder, gently sucking her skin between them, she tilted her head, giving me access to her neck. “How does this feel?”
She answered with a moan, and so, encouraged by it, I trailed kisses up along her neck as she said, “You owe me a story, considering you’ve kissed me many times now.”
About my brother.
When I said nothing, she glanced over her shoulder, and I captured her mouth. I clasped her chin, moaning at the way she nibbled on my lower lip. Dull incisors pressed into my flesh, sending a delicious pain across my lips, from where it tingled into my groin.
Canja’s heaving caught her attention. “Why is she breathing like this?”
“She has windpipes along her neck, which filter moisture from the air for hydration.”
She turned her attention back to the horizon. “You teach me so much, Toagi, I wish I could return the favor.”
“You teach me plenty of things. Patience. How to listen. Consideration…” I opened up her braid, letting my fingers weave through her soft, beautiful strands, their color so unlike anything I’d ever seen before. “That it is wrong to use our child as political leverage.”
Something I hadn’t spared a single thought on, just like my father hadn’t spared a single thought on what my life would look like when he stung my mother. It was Ceangal who showed me that, no matter how I tried to undo my father’s sin, seeding her in our circumstances would have been nothing but a twisted extension.
What if she carried my child before we made it known, and some freeraider would slit my throat when I was on patrol? Then she would be on her own with a rebel’s hybrid, and other warlords would likely turn her down for that reason alone. Or perhaps Katedo would claim it as his. If not, what future would my child have on Earth, a planet Ceangal desperately wanted to leave behind? What if negotiations for Noja access went on and on, and she had complications while she carried out my son? Only one hybrid existed, Zerim, and much was unknown about his mother’s pregnancy.
“We’ll figure something out,” she said after we’d ridden for an eternity.
She said that three times a sun now.
For the daughter of a male who’d brought wars to nations, my mate was blissfully ignorant of how I’d sealed my fate. Without a child, there would be no negotiations, no title, no tribe. I was a rebel on the run, who’d failed his goal and likely signed his death sentence. And along the way, he’d started to fall in love with the female he’d stolen.
“Your brother, Toagi,” she said with a pat against my thigh. When my chest tightened, she placed her hand onto her sternum. “There’s that bubbling again.”
“Heartburn, probably.”
“Shut up.”
I placed a kiss onto her head. “My brother’s name was Telkem. We played together when I was very young. As he grew older, watching the dismay my very existence caused between his parents, he stopped speaking to me. It hurt since he’d been the only one close to me. As much as my father looked after my training and education, he kept himself emotionally distant so as not to further strain his bond with Njekata.”
Ceangal said nothing but instead grabbed behind her, leading my hand to rest on her belly.
“Njekata spoiled him with her love, her attention, and not a sun went by when she didn’t tell him how he was destined for greatness. Telkem grew too confident, too focused on his own ego he disassociated with the needs of the tribe. He would not have led them well, so I prepared myself to do it in his stead. When the trials came, he only lifted a disgusted lip when I showed up.” A heavy weight settled onto my posture. “There was no love left between him and me. He made that clear when he attacked me during the trial.”
“So you killed him in self-defense.”
“Did I?” I stroked her stomach. “He rammed me off a cliff where dozens of unutej swirled below. One struck me across my stomach. Still, I climbed back up with the stench of my burnt flesh in my nostrils.”
“And stung him?”
“Not quite. I caught up with him in the plains, where solar flares thundered and struck the ground, the trees, young warriors. When I wrestled him to the ground… by Mekara, his deafening screams haunt me still. It took me a while to realize that he’d fallen into embers, badly burning one side of his face and body. Spit ran from his mouth. Pain trembled his bones. Ash clung to his weeping, charred flesh.”
Ceangal placed her hand onto mine and squeezed. “You punctured his brain to put him out of his misery.”
“It’s what I tell myself to this sun.” Telling myself, I had only meant to stop him, not kill. “But truly, I could have shouldered him and carried him home and could still have claimed myself the winner.”
“He would have suffered.”
My breathing turned choppy, as if my ribcage shrank to contain the pain sitting there, the guilt, the shame. “But he might have lived.”
“Or he might have died. He attacked you first,
Toagi, and I think it’s safe to say he wouldn’t have thought twice about carrying you home.”
She must have caught on to that pressure in my chest with the way she panted for a moment, and her hand trembled atop mine. Just as I thought she would pull away from my touch, my ears pricked at a faint sound. Delicate at first, it reverberated from Ceangal’s throat in a gentle up and down, forming a melody… almost like…
I swung my other arm around her and gripped her tightly, pressing my face into her hair. “Are you humming for me?”
“You’re sad.”
“How do you know?”
“I just… I just know.” She shrugged. “It’s an old lullaby my mom sang for me. It’s not that good.”
And yet, it filled the deepest, darkest parts of my soul with a flicker of light. “Nobody ever hummed for me. Perhaps my mother right after I was born, but I wouldn’t remember. I’ve never attempted to hum for any female until I saw you, knowing you would be my mate. I, um, I know my hum is not as rich as those of others.”
“I like your hum the way it is,” she said and glanced around the burnt plains, wafts of heat and smoke still rising here and there, the air dry and depleted. “I don’t have the slightest idea where we are.”
That had been the entire purpose of riding this far out, weaving through valleys and around walls of rock. “See that tree over there? It is small now but will grow into a mother tree within moons. That’s where we’ll stop.”
She stirred Canja toward it. “But mother trees are huge.”
“Tribes collect their seeds and plant them across Solgad. Whenever the sun sends solar flares across the planet, these seeds germinate and grow rapidly, nourished by the heat.”
Even before Canja stopped, I dismounted. Waterskins, pouch with dried meat, harness with knives… I hung it all on a low branch. “I need you to climb up there.”
She gave me a wary glance but let me help her onto the second branch since the bark was too young and smooth for her to make it up alone. Or make it down fast…
“Are we going camping or something?”
I sat beside her on the branch, one hand clasping her chin to let my eyes lock with hers, the other tapping a knuckle to her sternum. “My soul calls to yours. Right in here. Listen to it, follow it, and find me.”
Her brows bunched together. “Huh?”
“You’ll figure it out.” At that, I jumped toward the trunk and climbed down, then mounted Canja. “You have plenty of water, knives, some meat.”
The moment I clicked Canja into a trot, she yelled behind me from the tree. “Whoa… where are you going? You are not leaving me here, are you?”
I grinned back over my shoulder. “Find me, kunazay.”
Fifteen
Ceangal
That jerk dumped and left me.
The thunder of my heart continued even as the one of Canja’s paws faded away. Toagi shrank with each beat until he disappeared into the horizon, abandoning me along with my despair.
In the middle of nowhere.
I waited for about ten minutes. After fifteen, he still hadn’t returned. Twenty minutes in, my ass hurt from sitting on the branch, so I climbed down under curses. What was I supposed to do?
Find me, kunazay.
Each echo of his words chased a shudder across my skin. Not only did I have no clue how to find him, but I also didn’t want to. Didn’t want to admit that my chest had ached when he’d told me about his brother. Didn’t want to accept that something bright had expanded within me when I’d hummed a melody for him.
All strong emotions.
None of them mine.
But most of all, I didn’t want proof that Toagi was in grave danger, and I’d put him there. If there was a bond… Fuck, how was I supposed to return to Katedo? How could I possibly convince the warlords to accept Toagi’s claim?
I put on his chest holster and tied the waterskins and meat to it, making sure the weight was evenly distributed. Then I started marching toward where we’d come from: an endless ocean of drought-cracked soil, woven with smaller inclines, ashy ledges, and rocky plateaus.
Beside me, the sun played around the sparse treetops, while the first colorful glimmers of the red moon painted the horizon. It had taken us about an hour to get here. On Canja. Mainly at a trot. Walking back to the tree would likely take me about four hours, including several detours. Too long, considering I only had about an hour of light left… because Toagi didn’t want me to walk back to the tree.
Of course, he’d thought this through, dumping me at a place and a time that would discourage me from finding the tribe and encourage me to find him instead. Which meant he had to be somewhere out there within an hour’s walk. But where?
Less than fifteen minutes of wandering aimlessly, and grit chafed between my toes. My left heel burned from where I’d likely rubbed up a blister, and the occasional gust needled my skin with debris. Just as I took a swallow from the waterskin, something shifted at the edge of my vision, black, and big and—
Yuleshi!
Right there by a patch of shrubs, three yuleshis rested in the dirt, while two more tore away on a carcass, purple feathers clinging to dark gray flesh that drifted sour on the wind.
I headed toward them with renewed lightness in my steps. If one of them carried a nick on its ear, I could ride to… to where? Back to the tribe? Back to pretending I wanted to leave them? Back to telling myself that there was no bond, and Toagi didn’t feel like where I belonged?
Three of the yuleshis watched me warily when I stepped closer, and another retreated into the shrubs. Only one stared at me, likely because he or she had been handled before, but how did one convince a roaming yuleshi to drag your ass across Solgad?
“Hey…” I kept my voice soft as I approached it, spoke to it, inched toward it. “It’s alright. Let me just see if you… oh, you have a nick on your ear. So, here’s the deal. I’m going to somehow climb onto your back, and you will—”
Phwt.
All yuleshis tensed at a whistle.
Phwt. Phwt. Phwt.
Arrows pierced the ground.
Clumps of caked dirt dislodged from the ground on impact and flung through the air. The yuleshis jumped, panic rimming the white of their eyes. My muscles tensed when they roared, but they slackened with defeat the moment the black cats sprinted off.
I sighed when I stared at the arrows, four of them, all spread so far apart there was no way this was done by one archer. Of course, Toagi had thought of the possibility that I might come across a yuleshi. He was a strategic jerk, after all, leaving little to chance.
He also kept me safe.
My skin itched from all this desperate heat boiling underneath it. The moment I let myself collapse to the ground, something tugged underneath my sternum, and it sure as fuck wasn’t heartburn. It was zovazay. The more I told myself it wasn’t true, the harder it pulled, urging me toward the warrior who’d stolen half my soul.
My soulmate.
The male who hummed for me when I grew anxious, gifted me the silence of the plains, and challenged me to grow. I needed to fix this. How, I didn’t know, but denying our bond was no longer an option.
So I got up, brushed the dirt off me, and tossed my sandals into the wind. With each step, that tug underneath my sternum strengthened, almost as if someone had tied an invisible thread to my breastbone.
I closed my eyes and kept walking for what felt like forever, sensing nothing but hard, rough soil underneath me, the whirl of grit around my ankles, and an invisible string. It guided me toward a formation of wind-worn rock, the air full of traces of wildflowers that grew between stones warmed by the sun.
When pebbles poked my soles, I opened my eyes. A massive rock wall loomed before me, scattered with dead, brittle shrubs. I squatted down, brushed the ash away, and rubbed my fingers through the dirt underneath. Moisture settled against my fingertips — a yoni!
That tugging beneath my sternum turned frantic as I climbed up ravines, down ledg
es, around shale and compacted ash. I’d passed the same spot twice when, by the third time, a whiff of mildew and algae climbed into my nostrils. I followed it toward a fissure in the rock, hidden behind dark purple vines.
I squeezed through.
Water splashed around my toe.
Several puddles glistened on the stone ground, reflecting the blue sheen from flower petals that grew from cracks along the rocky walls. Water dripped and splashed where Toagi sat submerged at the edge of the yoni, scooping it across his shoulders. His back was toward me, one arm draped along the stone, his dark skin contrasting the greenish-blue shimmer of the water.
My next step sent an echo into the cave, but Toagi didn’t move. He’d known that I’d found him minutes ago, hadn’t he? He probably sensed the throb of my pulse, the tension in my muscles, and the fear in my veins.
I wanted to tell him that he’d been right but, when my lips finally parted, it sounded more like, “You ass just left me out there.”
He turned, presenting me his dirtiest smirk yet, and climbed out of the water. Rivulets streamed down his naked body. Determined steps carried him toward me. His eyes locked with mine, dark and raw, stirring lust in me like never before.
He fisted the cotton of my shirt and hauled me against his hard body. The air quivered. Because he growled low as his lips brushed over mine.
Instead of claiming them, he seized my neck between his fangs. Sharp tips dug into my skin until nerve endings prickled. He nibbled his way toward my earlobe, accompanied by slow, unhurried strokes of his tongue.
When all strength left me, I wrapped my arms around him, fingers digging into his muscled back. Heat liquified between my legs as I clung to his rock-hard frame. His scent climbed into my nostrils, sweet and irresistible.
“You are mine, Ceangal,” he rasped as he undid my shorts and let them slip to the ground.
His fangs abandoned their assault when he pulled my shirt over my head. The fabric hadn’t hit the ground yet when his lips claimed mine in a furious kiss, plundering my mouth while his hands ransacked the rest of me. Fingers twirled around my nipples, kneaded my breasts, my ass. All the while, his tail stroked between my legs.