by Isabel Wroth
His lips peeled back from his teeth in a feral grimace, but he gave a jerky nod and vowed to her that if she allowed herself to be harmed, he would spank her until she couldn’t sit down for a month. Promises. She rolled up on her toes to touch a kiss to his cheek, hearing curious titters roll through the crowd. T’mai looked strained, furious, vibrating with tension, but he looked down at her with confidence and she asked, “You have exposed the truth, will you trust me to do the same for you?” A momentary look of confusion pulled his brows together, but then understanding dawned and she saw how his eyes flicked to Elenna and back to her. The yearning was there, and so great that she could hardly bear it. “Yes.”
Thirty Two
She picked up the skirt of her dress, wondering where the woman had gone who studied flowers and made no contact with anyone on regular basis, terrified to lead anyone anywhere. Here she was, about to throw down in front of an audience of fifteen thousand. The human part of her was quaking, but the Sarazen part of her, the beast, was snickering with amusement that this inferior female thought she could best her. Eager to prove her worthiness. She faced the other female, who had yet to come down from her dais and was thinking that the height, being above her, would intimidate her. Ha! She bowed respectfully, knowing that how she met this challenge would set the bar for any and all others. “Asho’na, I accept your challenge. As I understand it, it is my right to choose the manner in which we battle, yes?” Niora’s face twisted in annoyance and fury. Thought she was stupid, huh? Bitch. Her cat purred in agreement. “Yes.”
“Very well. We have a custom on my world, called Truth, or Dare.”
She heard squeaks of laughter behind her, from her human crew, but didn’t turn around to look at anyone. She didn’t acknowledge anyone, but Niora. “How is this custom of yours possibly enough to prove your worth?” Niora’s black eyes flamed, the ring of gold around her iris flashing brightly in all that inky darkness. It looked unnatural, evil even. “You can decline, admit I am superior and forfeit,” She swept her hand to the large square of space in front of the dais, still raised enough for everyone in the hall to see, and smiled easily to allow Niora time to choose whether or not she would go through with the challenge. “Superior?” Niora drawled, laughing as she stepped down the stairs to face her on that square of stone. “I will never admit such a thing, you are a mutant.” Tarek’s coughing roar made Niora flinch, but she didn’t back down. “I’m sorry you feel that way. I have accepted your challenge,”
“But you will not honor our custom of combat, is that right? Or is it that your mate thinks you too weak to best me?”
“You are posturing for more time. You challenged me, I choose the manner in which we battle. You will have two attempts to best me, if that makes you feel any better. If you choose Truth, I will ask you a question, and you will answer it, no matter what. If you choose Dare, I will dare you to do something, barring harm to yourself or harm to others. For instance to hop on one foot for six hours, only I will choose nothing so childish and no matter what, you complete the dare. If the council is satisfied with your completion of the Truth or the Dare, you may then challenge me to the same. Truth, asking me anything you wish, or Dare, commanding me to do anything you wish, barring physical harm to myself or others.”
Niora laughed incredulously and kicked the heavily, heavily, embroidered train of her blood red gown out of her way, the snick of her claws releasing into her hands audible within the cavern. Tarek rumbled an unhappy sound, pacing behind her, but she ignored him. “Very well, I will play your silly game, and then you will play mine.” She inclined her head and waited patiently for the other female to choose. “Dare.” She proclaimed loudly, and she arched a brow, “Are you certain?”
“Now who postures for more time?”
“Very well.”
Something in her smile must have startled Niora, because her arrogant sneer slipped a little when she leaned forward and spoke clearly. “You are known, Asho’na, for your ability to call the beast from inside any pride member. I dare you, to call my beast, without touching me.” Tarek hissed again, but Niora had already tried this game and failed before. She would fail now, and the rage on the other female’s face told her that she knew it. She tried valiantly, and she was pretty sure that every member of the pride could feel the power that surged off of her, slashing and batting at her, demanding her beast rise to her command. She waited patiently, and after a few moments, she lifted her hand to pick at her fingernails, picked at a thread on her sleeve. And then asked, “I don’t intend to be here all night, have you even started?”
Gasps were drawn in from the entire hall, and she felt Tarek’s grudging admiration, his amusement at the screech Niora gave and how she spun away to pace off the ragged energy that had built inside her, with nowhere to go. “Council members?” She looked directly at them, pleased to see more than just the ones she’d already met, staring at her in blatant shock. “Ah, fail.” T’farro announced, and a wave of murmurs filled the hall. “Your turn then, Asho’na. Do you choose Truth, or Dare for me?”
“Dare. If you think you are so superior, I dare you to call my beast.”
“You are certain?”
“Dare” Niora hissed, and she almost lost her composure and screamed, ‘gotcha bitch!’
“Very well.”
Niora had blasted the entire hall with her power, making several members present struggle to control themselves, flinching in pain because there was no focus to her intent, just blind rage. She coaxed her cat to go easy, like she was stalking Niora’s beast through the grass, slowly coaxing her into making a fatal mistake. She let her rise, focusing all that energy on the other female, whispering and purring enticement to the weaker beast, giving her a chance to come willingly. “You call yourself superior? I feel nothing but-“ Clary let her have it then, felt the power of her beast charge from inside her, pouncing on Niora and physically took her down to the floor despite the ten foot space between them.
Niora fought, screaming and thrashing to throw Clary’s energy off of her, her cat giving a valiant effort, but before long Niora’s beautiful red dress ripped as her body bulged and morphed, her face and snout elongating, fur spreading down the bare stripe of her spine now bared, over her shoulders, tufting from along the outer line of her arms. Muscles strengthened, her hands curled into vicious claws and dripping fangs filled her mouth. She crouched there on the floor, looking like a thing out of nightmares, and Clary pushed just a little harder to see if there was any more beast to be had. But when Niora started to writhe and scream, she backed off and drew that energy back with a deep, calm breath, hands still folded in front of her.
She looked to the council and lifted her brows in question, T’farro was forced to claim her win, and she saw him brace for her to brag and rub it in his face. “Do you need a moment to gather yourself?” She asked Niora, wondering idly how fast Tarek could put himself between them if Niora acted on the rage burning bright in her hideous, animalistic face. But it seemed Niora needed to save what little face she had left, and stood up to a height two feet taller than her previous stature. A few heaving breaths and she began to shift back, shrinking while the fur receded, clutching the remains of her torn gown to her body with a proud lift of her chin. “Truth or dare?” She asked the bitch, with as much kindness as she could manage, and thinking it was the lesser of two evils, as she had anticipated she would, Niora demanded, “Truth. And yes, I am certain,” She spat viciously.
Clary inclined her head and moved to clasp her hands behind her back, rocking back on her heels while she pretended to think about the question. Ne’tare appeared with what looked like a sheet, bowing to her as he offered it, “Thank you,” She murmured, taking it to offer to Niora so she could cover up. She held it up in the air between them with a questioning tilt of her chin, and Niora hissed softly but caught the sheet and whipped it around her body, letting her blood red dress fall to the floor with a slap, kicking away what she knew was a very costly garm
ent, like it was trash. “Ask your question,” She snapped, and Clary nodded. “Of course.” She turned to look over her shoulder, asking Ga’rae if he had the tablet he seemed to always carry with him. He brought it to Tarek, and Tarek handed it to her, relinquishing his wrist unit to her as well when she asked.
She set the tablet down on the stone floor and activated the holographic protocol to put a 3-D image of a vibrant red moss, growing on a dull black tree that grew only at certain altitudes on S6. “Do you know what function I had aboard my starship, Asho’na?” Niora snorted derisively, “From the body modifications you’ve made to yourself, I could only conclude that perhaps you were a pleasure slave.” She wanted to laugh, but from the shocked sounds made by the people closest to them, the sounds Tarek’s warriors made, she gathered that Niora had just dealt her a very cruel insult. “My function, was to catalogue new plants and flowers on the worlds we might discover. After I overheard the intent to poison my bond with my mate, I began to research just exactly what plants among the Sarazen homeworlds could do that. Poison a bond, or create a false one. This moss was among those toxic plants I eliminated, but not because to touch it would burn or cause pain, but because when ingested by a female on a regular basis, it makes the body produce pheromones that drive males insane with lust, mimicking mating heat, while giving the added benefit of infertility in the female.”
Now she had everyone’s attention, and not only was Niora looking a little nervous, so were several council members, and Tarek’s father was looking at her like any moment he would leap from his seat and drag her to the ground. “As you answered incorrectly, and rudely, I get another question. Did you come up with the scheme to make T’mai your mate by deception, or did someone help you do it?” Niora spluttered, guffawed, but because she was caught so off guard, the scent of her guilt was unmistakable, “Will you honestly stand there and let this mutant speak to your mate this way?” She demanded of T’mai, and from the corner of her eye she saw T’mai cross his arms over his chest and grunt, “You claimed right of challenge, answer the question or forfeit your claim,”
“I will not answer such a ludicrous question, obviously meant to dishonor and discredit me! I am the mate of the Asho.”
“Answer, or forfeit.” Tarek repeated, and now Niora was in a tough spot, fighting to remain stone faced and infuriated, when the scent of fear was wafting from her in rancid waves.
Her reaction was enough for the pride to doubt her, question her, for speculation to run rampant through the hall, and no one was leaping to her defense. Her question had done its damage, and with her refusal to answer, with the scent of her guilt and fear, she set herself up for one hell of a fall. “I will kill you for this,” She hissed, the words a promise and before anyone could respond, she heard a whisper of sound and was flinching back when a clawed arm plowed through Niora’s back and punched out the other side.
She stared at the muscular arm covered in gore, the clawed fingers holding what looked like Niora’s heart. She watched the shock, the pain that flashed over Niora’s face, the way her body jerked when the arm impaling her disappeared, leaving Niora to fall in a heap at the feet of Tarek’s father. The expression on his face chilled her to the soul, not even Tarek’s arm banding around her middle to jerk her back out of the way, not even the feeling of him turning to put his body between hers while still holding her, couldn’t warm her. The older male was looking dispassionately down at the heart in his hand, crimson spread up to his bicep like a gory glove. “What have you done?” Tarek boomed, voice so loud that it echoed to every corner of the cavern. His father opened his hand, and the heart that he’d ripped from Niora’s chest rolled off his fingers to splat on the stone floor beside her body. “No threat of death against the Asho’na is to be tolerated.” He said simply, unapologetically, and looked at her with eyes every bit as cold and black as Niora’s had been, and pressed his bloody fingertips to his chest. That look…it was so horrifying that she got lost in that blackness.
She must have checked out after that, because the next thing she heard was Tarek shouting and roaring at someone, while she sat on something soft, arms hugging her from either side. She blinked and drew in a shaky breath, licking her lips as things came back into focus. They were back in the citadel proper, in the main hall where the two stone thrones sat. Gwen and Cassie were on either side of her, supporting her while she got her shit together. Tarek seemed to be giving the council and his father, the ass chewing of a lifetime, “Where’s T’mai?” She murmured, making Cassie jump in surprise, “He’s with Ga’rae getting an exam. He seems to be okay so far.” Gwen murmured, both of them pale and wide eyed, “Your guy, not so much. He’s um, he’s out of his mind. I thought he was going to murder his father when you checked out. The um, Niora…She made her threat in view of the whole pride, so legally it’s sanctioned.” She took another breath and caught the tail end of Tarek’s tirade, the rage he fought to contain, his beast so close to the surface it was clawing at his skin from the inside, thrashing to be unleashed. He was raging at them all, at his father for putting his own son at risk, for risking T’mai’s sanity and for daring to begin his rule of this pride in such a blood bath, on a day that was to have been a celebration. “You chastise me for an irrelevant matter. T’mai has not succumbed to madness, proof enough that his mating was false. Which proves his weakness, and gives reason enough why traitors have permeated our pride and threaten its survival.”
She could feel him getting ready to explode and reached out without thinking. She let her cat rise enough to soothe, to bleed away some of that rage to better be able retain his control. His head whipped around to where she sat, his hair flying wild around his body, and despite the situation, arousal kicked her hard in the gut. Followed by a dizzying rush of Tarek’s relief. His need to touch her was strong enough that she was up and moving towards him before any other thought permeated, lifting her hand to meet his, taking strength and heat from the scrape of his rougher palm against hers. ‘I’m fine,’ she murmured silently before he could ask, and despite the way her stomach churned, she looked at the cold, expressionless face of his father. “You haven’t spoken two words to me since I arrived, and yet you leapt over the table to drive your hand through Niora’s body, ripped her heart out, for voicing a verbal threat to me.”
Those cold black eyes stared back at her, making her cat rise further in reaction to fill her with resolve and power. Confidence enough to make her lift her chin to meet that spine chilling stare. “As I said, it is now irrelevant-“ She got him to blink when she interrupted him, the only outward appearance he gave to show his reaction. No scent, no change in his pulse, nothing to say if it was surprise or annoyance or anger. He was like a robot. “It is very relevant. You’ve been aware of the false mating for some time now, and the relevance of Niora’s death is that perhaps you are the one responsible for it in the first place, and her death benefits you to keep her silent. It is relevant, because no one fucking asked you to interfere, and yet there you were, the first to react. Overreact. Risking your son, on a maybe.” A tiny tic of his jaw was all she got before he answered, his tone flat and unconcerned. Bored even. “Better my son, than you and your cub. I like her.” He said to Tarek, dismissing her just like that.
Tarek’s rage had unfortunately fed hers, and at his dismissal, her cat surged, and all around her she heard the ripping of material and the startled shrieks and yeowls of cats, got the first true reaction out of Tarek’s father that she’d seen yet. His eyes flew wide in surprise, the twelve council members uncontrollably shifting from man to beast, while she held Tarek’s father…whose name she didn’t even know…suspended between his change, and she could tell that it was painful. She didn’t even know how she was doing it, but for now she didn’t care. “No half answers, no deflection, why did you interfere?” He grimaced and rolled his head on his shoulders, shuddering while his muscles jerked with the need to change. “There was no reason before to upset the pride and leave them without a s
trong Asho to lead them, T’mai was the best option, he did well, and the alternative was to expose his weakness and invite civil war at a time when our armada was focused and fighting to protect our territory. When you returned beside my son, things changed. Will change. The pride will be stronger than ever now,”
She didn’t look away, asking Tarek if he was satisfied by his sire’s answer, and her mate gave a nod, his thumb brushing up and down the fine bones in her wrist. Her cat eased back into her fleshy prison, noticing now that every single Sarazen in the room was on four paws, Cassie and Gwen included. All of them lay flat, save for a few on their sides to expose their bellies. T’farro and two other council members, included. “Perfect,” Tarek’s sire grunted, rubbing the heel of his hand into his sternum, beads of sweat dotting his upper lip. He had the same dark hair as T’mai, though it was liberally shot with silver now, she could tell that he was the one to have passed on the dimple she loved so much, as well as his remarkably intimidating presence. “What is?” Tarek snapped, “Your mate. Perfect for you, in every way. It brings a small measure of relief to know she and her kind were found as a result of my mistake.” His black eyes moved around the room and his brow, briefly jumping up, “Impressive,” He stated, and she looked down when Gwen came to bump her hand with her cool nose. Tarek squeezed her hand and looked down at the furry council members, “Do I hear any contest that my mate is not fit to be Asho’na?”