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

by V. K. Ludwig

  Then it happened.

  Like an endless flow of light, my bond poured bright warmth into my chest, driving out the darkness. It was like nothing I’d ever experience before.

  I left the embrace of her arms and searched for her eyes. “How did you do this?”

  “Do what?” Her blinks came slower than before, and her freckles were more visible with how her face had gone pale. “I just hugged you.”

  No, she hadn’t just hugged me.

  She’d sent strength through our bond.

  Which explained why my spine straightened while hers rounded, my mate unaware of what she’d just done. Zovazay was nothing but a pathway between souls, Uresha had once told me, the energy within in constant motion. I’d found relief in her strength.

  By the looks of it, she’d suffered my pain, and still, she said, “Those kits Katedo gave you, do they carry medication?”

  I nodded. “Fifty units of medical nanites to combat all sorts of injuries and diseases.”

  “Empire manufactured,” she said, eyes going to Mayala, who groaned in pain each time she inhaled, and her aching chest expanded against the nabu. “They’re safe for children, but not pregnant females. How many are with child?”

  “Four. Those females have to be isolated from the tribe and each other. Jal’zar ice fever can be fatal to an unborn.” My stomach clenched at that. Had I seeded Ceangal, chances were our child could have caught the virus in her womb, considering how close she was with the uiri. While Ceangal was immune, there was no telling if a hybrid carried antibodies.

  “Then I’ll tend to those females since someone vaccinated to immunity tested negative as a potential host on Earth, and the virus is direct contact transmission only.”

  I stared at her for an overlong moment. “How do you know all this?”

  “Mom was one of the first ones who got vaccinated during the invasion. When I was born, they tested me for a bunch of stuff, including antibodies, until I was fourteen or so. Lots of trips to the research facilities. Dad always explained everything to me.” Her gaze wandered to the highest branches. “We’ll put them up there with about five feet between them, at least until we know if they caught it. What’s the incubation period for Jal’zar?”

  “No more than two suns, and they’re contagious from the latent period until body temperatures reach normal values, about five suns after they get infected.”

  A hum resonated from somewhere between leaves.

  Sure enough, Yelim pulled himself onto the branch and balanced to Mayala’s side. “When Nafir told me, I prayed to Mekara that it wasn’t true. She should have rested more, braided less.”

  “We have to consolidate those with symptoms,” I said, throat narrowing at what I had to say next. “Our supply of medical nanites is limited. Uresha has not yet recovered from her vision. Some will die.”

  An inevitable truth, and yet it didn’t prepare me for how Yelim said, “Two elders and Tjala have gone to Mekara. Nafir found them on the opposite side of the tree, their bodies still stiff in their nabus.” His orange eyes sought out mine, wrinkles forming deep craters between his brows. “Will she receive a dose of the nanites, urizayo?”

  I looked at Mayala, the skin around her nostrils already peeling from something so essential as breathing. “Yeki, she will. We wouldn’t even have made it to this tree without her, but know that medical nanites do not cure it, only lessen symptoms. Let Nafir give you one of the injections, so you can—”

  “Nansi,” Mayala groaned, her voice so faint all three of us leaned in closer. “Kunasi, ku…kunosi, vi… vi zo-zovazay.”

  Ceangal shook her head, tortured eyes searching for mine. “Girls, boys, and?”

  “Those pairs connected by zovazay,” I explained. “She refuses the medicine.”

  Yelim scoffed and sunk his forehead into his palm. “This female is more stubborn than a yuleshi cub.”

  When my mate’s eyes glistened, sorrow manifesting itself in pouting lips and how she blinked rapidly, I took her into my arms and hummed. “The symptoms are cruel, kunazay, but Mayala might pull through. For sun cycles, she had regular boosters, good nutrition. She has enough strength.”

  Beside us, Yelim rasped, “And if she doesn’t, then I will give her mine.”

  Through zovazay, much like Ceangal had done for me. Already my mate lifted a brow, no doubt pondering on Yelim’s words. I’d promised myself I would tell her the truth, but when? Between burning the dead and handing out nanites?

  “Urizayo,” Nafir called from the bottom of the tree.

  Ceangal gave me a nod. “I’ll stay with Mayala if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course.”

  Even before I reached the ground, I spotted Nafir’s slack expression, red rimming his eyes as he said, “I estimate a little over one-hundred are showing symptoms. Warriors are taking counts right now, and already they have reported seventy with no end in sight. It is far worse than the last time. Far worse.”

  Limbs numb, my foot shoved over the ground, and I stumbled a step before I found my footing. “A third of the tribe?”

  Reality ceased to exist for one glorious breath before it slammed back into me full force, sucking all air from my lungs. A hundred sick. Given the incubation period, it could be double that in two suns. Fifty fucking doses of medical nanites. Limited water. No food variety.

  Some deaths, I could burden.

  Almost my entire tribe in peril?

  Vision blurry, I couldn’t see how Nafir bit his upper lip. Not that I needed to. That pop-pop-pop was all too familiar, calling the brutal facts without a single word spoken.

  “This is it,” I said and walked from the tree to the cliff beside it, Nafir’s stomps as sluggish as my heartbeat. “No decent warlord would subject his tribe to this kind of loss, grief, and utter misery.”

  Neither would I.

  Because I was no warlord.

  I was a bastard out of options.

  Nafir stepped toward the edge of the cliff, staring over the valley before us where the wind howled each time it cut along rock. “There is always the option of ransoming her out—” The moment I cut him a glare, he lifted his hand in an appeasing manner. “I did not say I favored it. As your advisor, it is my responsibility to consult with you on all options. The decision is yours.”

  “Aside from the fact that I’m just waiting for her to sneak off on her own, do you really believe I would send her away like my father did to my mother, now that this bond is an inconvenience?” Even knowing that I could not hold it against Nafir, I couldn’t help my scoff. “Perhaps this is the very moment where I repent to satisfy fate, paying for my father’s sins so they will die with me. Ransoming her out for medication will only delay the inevitable, and destroy that last bit of honor and pride I have. No, I won’t do it.”

  Nafir blew out a long breath. “So the time has come?”

  “Yeki.”

  His nod was slow but precise. “And the urizaya?”

  “Our bond is stronger than I thought.” And saying it out loud made my heart bleed. “She gave me her strength earlier, unknowingly but still… she will not allow me to hand myself over to Katedo. Not with how she’s plotting to save me. How many females acted on whatever came through the bond during the war? Thousands ran into their death. If Ceangal finds out I’m yielding, she might try to interfere and endanger herself or be exposed to my pain. You cannot let that happen.”

  “How much distance do you believe is required for her to sense nothing?”

  I shrugged because there was no telling. “We still know so little of zovazay between our kinds. The farther away she is, the better.”

  “I understand.”

  “Let her tend to the sick. She knows much about the fever and can help keep them comfortable until medicine arrives. No doubt she will keep preparing to ride for Katedo, which you will use to lure her away.” I turned away, my feet heavy, my soul crushed. “Next sun, once we’ve distributed the nanites, I will take my urizaya into th
e plains one last time. There, I will tell her that the bond can be broken, so she won’t be confused once it does.”

  Then, I would surrender to Katedo.

  Twenty-One

  Ceangal

  Eyes burning from lack of sleep, I reached a waterskin to Loah. “How’s the baby?”

  “Strong, urizaya.” Beneath the bone necklace that draped over her breasts, a foot or elbow put a small bump onto her swollen belly, which rippled along taut skin. “She might be kunasi, but she kicks like a warrior.”

  “How do you know it’s a girl?” I asked and handed her a bowl of bone broth Uresha had prepared for the sick, old, and pregnant.

  Loah tapped the tip of her nose. “We smell, urizaya. Kunasi smell like soil because they grow the seed. Kunosi, boy, smell like the rain season whirling up the ash.”

  All I smelled was that whiff of yeast that permeated the air, which crept from the pores of the sick. “I’ll come back later.”

  Since the other pregnant females were asleep, none of them exhibiting symptoms so far, I climbed back down. Back to where Mayala rested in her nabu, surrounded by pelts Yelim had trapped and fleshed for her as good as he could, but they reeked of sour meat. Or perhaps she did?

  Jal’zar ice fever caused one’s body temperature to drop. No matter how many furs we draped over her, she shivered. The more she shivered, the more her skin peeled.

  “It’s just me, Ceangal,” I said, moving carefully around her nabu so as not to shift it, pulling a small waterskin from where it dangled off my belt. “Uresha finally found some of those roots. Stuff smells like vomit, but she said you have to drink it.”

  Rather than lifting her head and causing her discomfort, I squeezed the neck of the waterskin, and lowered the spout to the corner of her lips. She groaned in pain, but at least it got her to open her mouth slightly. Drop after drop, I let it trickle down one corner of her lips.

  It drooled out the other side.

  A few hours ago, I’d asked Yelim to lift her head. She’d choked on the water and coughed up blood the back of her throat was so raw, but at least we got some down. Not anymore.

  Breaths shallow, purple stare abandoned, skin wrinkly and uneven... I’d seen all this before when the warrior stratum sent us on a support mission to Odheim, where Jal’zar ice fever had run rampant a few sun cycles ago. People of all races had died in the streets.

  They looked like Mayala.

  Defeat settled into my posture, and guilt gnawed on my conscience over how fucking useless I was in all this. Without access to medical facilities in Noja, no medication, the nanites all used-up… how was I supposed to save her? Zari? The entire tribe?

  I couldn’t.

  Not if I stayed here.

  Katedo was no cruel male, he’d proven as much when he gave Toagi supply kits. If I went to him, I had little doubt he would provide medication, saving dozens of people from a slow and painful death. Wasn’t that what an urizaya was supposed to do? Save my tribe even if it meant giving up my urizayo, being separated, suffering through the bond?

  Pure, undiluted pain clenched my heart.

  I stroked it away before Toagi would catch on to it, since he discussed something with Uresha beside the wind barrier. Even through this mess, my kunozay kept his spine straight, faking strength when I knew he had little left. I sensed it, that self-doubt swelling against his ribs, the despair thickening his throat.

  Canja stood bound to a nearby shrub, saddle resting between twigs. I’d waited as long as I could, hoping things would improve. They’d gotten worse instead. If I wanted to save these people, I had to ride for Katedo’s camp the moment the night settled, and I could free one of the scouts unnoticed.

  Yelim startled me out of my thoughts when he pulled himself beside me onto the branch, torturing his lips the moment his eyes landed on Mayala. “She is getting worse.”

  I nodded.

  A moment of silence, and then, “She is dying.”

  “I’m sorry, Yelim,” I said, clasping the waterskin tighter. “No matter how hard I try, I can’t get her to drink anything anymore.”

  His lips hinted a polite smile, which soon vanished behind trembles. Digging his fingers into the nabu, he carefully climbed into it, limbs quivering with how he fought against each sway, each shift, each bit of pain he might cause Mayala.

  He lifted his tail.

  His claw inched toward her ribs.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, pulse quickening. “She lost her bonded mate.”

  “I know.”

  Mayala didn’t move when he stabbed her, blood soaking her silk dress. She didn’t moan when he dislodged his claw to the sound of his hum. My uiri remained entirely still, unaware of how the universe pulled away from around us. No, from around me. And with it, everything I’d thought I’d known about zovazay.

  Memories flooded my mind in the shape of distorted pictures, snippets of words spoken, things I’d sensed but couldn’t really understand. Whatever Katedo had told me, a soulbond did not reach beyond death. Why else would Yelim do this? Why else would Njekata have demanded the death of Toagi’s mother?

  Because death broke the bond.

  That realization settled into my body as a never-ending shiver, which turned biting when the scout’s words forced themselves into my dizzying mind. Katedo will cut it out of you.

  From the moment Toagi had stung me, he’d signed his death sentence. Or had I done that by refusing to carry his child? Whichever it was, there was no coming back from this.

  Yelim’s hand settled gently on my wrist. “Urizaya…”

  I startled. “Hmm?”

  “The waterskin,” he said, pointing at the leather clasped between white-tipped fingers. “Will you see if she drinks now?”

  “Of course.”

  Squeezing the neck to throttle the flow, hands shaky, I brought it to Mayala’s lips. Drop after drop, I let it run along her mouth, watching how she suckled the glistening line of fluid from the gap of her reddened lips.

  “There,” Yelim whispered. “Throughout the sun and the moon, I will hum for you. Hum for you until you hiss and snarl, call me a brute for what I’ve done, and yet I would have chased you down on your next heat anyway.”

  I handed him the waterskin. “And if she dies? What will happen to you? Mayala once told me a mate can share in the death.”

  “Mmh, when death comes unexpected and sudden, yeki,” he said. “When I was thirteen sun cycles old, a freeraider cut off my mother’s head. My father dropped dead a few paces beside her just as he thrust his knife into another raider’s chest. But this is different. Sickness is slow, and a bond frays thread by thread as the soul returns to Mekara.”

  “How does it work? Bonding someone who has been bonded before?”

  “I am not certain.” He hinted a shrug, mindful of not moving Mayala or the nabu. “Her mate left a void in her soul. Good thing I have only one horn now. Takes less room. Easier to make myself fit into whatever mold he’s left behind, so I can fill her missing pieces.”

  “And your hum can heal her?”

  “No, urizaya, but dying is painful and lonely business. My hum eases her pain, and our bond will hopefully allow her to draw from my strength.” His orange eyes connected with mine. “When you fell ill when we took you, the urizayo hummed for you all night.”

  I gave a weak smile. “Of course, he did.”

  Because he was everything I’d ever wanted.

  Everything I couldn’t have.

  As if on cue, Toagi lead Canja up underneath us, glancing at me through the gaps in the nabu. “Does my kunazay have time for her mate to take her into the plains?”

  “Don’t worry,” Yelim said. “I will stay and take care of my mate.”

  I climbed down and faced Toagi, my muscles stiffening more with each step I took toward him. Everything from his tense jawline over his pinched lips, to the jitter in his left foot was wrong. Add to it that unease whirling between our bond, dark and unsettling, and it wasn’t har
d to figure out he had something to tell me.

  Likely what I’d finally figured out myself.

  All this time, I’d hoped I could somehow save Toagi. How gloriously naive I’d been, thinking the return to Katedo was an option to keep him alive. The warlord was a proud male; Mayala and Toagi had said so. One who’d lost an urizaya before. He wouldn’t go easy on the one who’d made it happen a second time. That wasn’t a question of affections but honor.

  “The oddest thing happened.” Toagi lifted me onto Canja’s back and swung up behind me. “I found my yuleshi bound to a shrub, her saddle hidden between twigs.”

  I said nothing when he took the reins, wordlessly riding us along the cliff, down a narrow path, and onto the familiar plains. What once held the comforting scents of baked earth and warm rocks now had a static taint to it, like ozone and old electronics. Where rides like this usually offered a sense of freedom, the rock walls we followed along crept up on me.

  “The storms calmed,” he finally said, turning my fingers in his hand as if counting popped blisters. “How is Mayala?”

  “She drank some.” Uncomfortable silence expanded in that sliver of air between our bodies, my back as stiff as his front. “Where are we going?”

  He pointed at the fissure in the stone. “The water’s too salty to drink but good for bathing. We had few moments to ourselves ever since the solar flare, and I wanted to spend time with my urizaya.”

  Once Canja stopped, he slipped off her back and pulled me down. Fingers intertwined, he led me through the gap in the rock, into a yoni like none I’d ever seen before. Salt crusted the rock in shades of white. Stalagmites grew from the ground, also white but with fine lines of azure woven through them.

  Toagi didn’t hesitate, dropped his loincloth, and climbed into water that almost appeared blue underneath the billows of steam. Cones of light reflected on the surface where thick roots had made their way through the rock, leaving cracks here and there on the ceiling.

  When he gestured me to him, I slipped out of my dress and panties, then lowered myself into the water under gasps. Not only did it prickle my skin, but it was hot, forcing my muscles to relax.