The Artistry of Love

by C. J. Scarlett

  “Indeed. Why wouldn’t they?”

  “Wh—what? What are you planning?” My heart leapt up into my chest then, as I realized the initial attack on the compound hadn’t been the end all, be all of the Ak-hal’s plan. But of course, Kypher wouldn’t tell me anything more. Instead, he would leave me to obsess about this as he forced me out of the tower and across the base, where I would soon see that I wasn’t the only captured woman to enact a quiet rebellion.

  As I walked, I saw a familiar redhead walking behind an Ak-hal, also wearing a jumpsuit very similar to my own. I looked up at her and our eyes met across the snowed plain of the base. She nodded at me in greeting, the only acknowledgement we could give one another as Kypher and the other Ak-hal moved in opposite directions. However, toward the end of the day, I came across her again as Kypher brought me to a larger tower where we would have dinner with a crowd of gathered soldiers. I just sat down when I felt someone nudge me in the arm, and turned to see the woman. The Ak-hal who had been leading her earlier stood a few feet away, but engaged in conversation, giving her a moment to lean down and speak with me.

  “It’s Clara, right?” she whispered.

  “And you’re Jessica?”

  “This is insane.” She closed her eyes. “I keep listening for Kali’s voice but he’s too far away.”

  That was right. This woman, Jessica, had found a Kamani mate a few years earlier. I felt a sudden stab of pain at thinking of what she must be going through being separated from him. I wanted to say something to her, but before I could get a word out, she was pulled away by the Ak-hal at her side, and Kypher returned to my side. I forced a blank expression on my face and turned to the meal in front of me.

  I had realized something. If I would survive until the Kamani came to rescue me—us—I would need to remain impassive, as cold as the ice that covered this planet. While I wouldn’t play into their games—let myself be dressed up like a doll and play the part of Kypher’s mate—that didn’t mean I could be myself around the Ak-hal either. Survival meant emptying myself of any and all emotion.

  However, doing that was more difficult than I thought it would be, especially as I saw just how many women had been recaptured in the attack on the compound. I saw more and more of them every day in the brief amount of time I was allowed out of my tower. Like Jessica and me, some of them refused to wear the dresses the other Ak-hal mates wore, but others had already given in. These women had a certain air of hopelessness about them that brought sadness to my heart. Did they really have so little faith in the Kamani? Or did they just fear the Ak-hal that much?

  Day in and day out, I was reabsorbed into the routines of daily life with them. This wasn’t so bad. They didn’t expect so much of me, and I was quickly shuttled into the kitchens to work. It at least felt good to keep busy, and as this had been my task for all those long years when I had been mated to Kypher before, it wasn’t difficult to adapt to the work.

  Far worse were the nights; here I was expected to share a bed with Kypher. Though he didn’t touch me—I suspect he was repulsed by the way I looked, as I still hadn’t allowed myself to be groomed ‘appropriately’ as was fitting an Ak-hal mate—it was horrible to feel his presence so close to me. Most of the time I couldn’t sleep, and all I could do was lie there hoping against hope that there would be no contact, accidental or otherwise, between us.

  In reality, it hadn’t been that long since I had left the Kamani—a week, perhaps. But I already felt myself slipping, no matter how hard I tried to hold onto hope. The only thing that kept me strong was thinking of all my friends back at the compound, and the fact that I knew they wouldn’t just let me stay here. However, I was still afraid of the subtle implication that Kypher had given me that something else was at work—some plan of the Ak-hal’s in motion that could possibly spell danger for the Kamani if they did try to rescue me and the other girls.

  “Clara!”

  I was in the kitchen working when I heard my voice whispered at me and turned to see Libba at my side. Looking around to be certain that nobody nearby could—or would—be a danger to us, I paused in what I was doing and stole away to speak to her for a moment.

  “What’s going on?”

  Libba had always looked crestfallen in the time since I had become reacquainted with her, a far cry from the bold and haughty woman that had come to Gorodrim along with Shay. But now she looked even more dejected than usual. With her voice barely audible, she spoke to me in a hurried whisper. “They’re holding executions tonight. Several of the women have admitted they mated with the Kamani in their time away and…”

  “Executions?” My head spun. I hadn’t even considered the fact that the Ak-hal might do this, but I realized that I should have known. They might have accepted some ‘impurity’ out of necessity among their mates if they’d had another Ak-hal partner, but they would never accept a woman who had mated with a Kamani. My stomach roiled as I remembered the redheaded woman, Jessica, who I had seen earlier. “There has to be something we can do. To help them.”

  Libba shook her head. “N—no,” she stammered. “I was just… I was thinking that, while they were busy with the executions… I mean… you might know the way back to the Kamani…”

  I stared at the woman and suddenly, her thoughts became clear to me. While everyone was preoccupied with the executions, it might just be possible to make an escape. It was similar to what Maggie had done. And for a moment, I felt myself swayed to the possibility. But no. I wouldn’t—couldn’t—betray the others like that.

  I shook my head. “I can’t,” I said. “Not without the others.”

  And so it was, that the day of the executions rolled around, and I found myself ushered to the center of the Ak-hal base. The few women that had stayed with the Ak-hal as loyal mates from the very beginning stood at the front and were dressed the most regally, apart from Libba, who stood at the back beside her mate with her head ducked down. I was beside Kypher and still in my jumpsuit, though he had demanded my presence in formal attire throughout the entirety of that morning. This was my silent protest, and all I could do to continue fighting despite that I felt like I was growing weaker by the moment in the presence of the Ak-hal.

  Once the entirety of the base gathered around, about a dozen women were ushered out from a nearby tower. Their hair had been shorn and they were dressed in white gowns—a ritualistic gesture I recognized from my many long years with the Ak-hal, and one that made my blood run cold. Jessica stood at the forefront of the group, standing tall with a defiant look on her face. However, before they assembled the women at the front of the group, it seemed that the Ak-hal had something else planned.

  “Bring out the Kamani,” called the executioner, and the crowd murmured softly, many—including me—craning our necks to see what was happening as those in charge moved to allow several Ak-hal to bring out a Kamani covered in mithrim chains.

  My first thought was, he is beautiful. I don’t know why this was my thought. I had seen many Kamani before. But something was different about this one. He was tall, with dark hair shorn close. His golden eyes scanned the crowd as if searching for something. He had been stripped down to nothing but a pair of woven pants, so that his broad, golden-skinned chest was on display. I could see that he had been beaten recently, and it brought out an uncharacteristic feeling of absolute hatred within me for the Ak-hal. Not that I didn’t already dislike them, but the intensity of this feeling was deeper than anything I had felt before.

  The executioner reached up to take off the mithrim chains, and several other Ak-hal converged on him, drawing weapons. My heart leapt up into my chest. The Kamani were strong, it was true, but one Kamani by himself was no match for several armed Ak-hal. I had heard the stories many times before, and knew that this was the way they had taken the pelts of the Kamani in the past. The Kamani would have to shift to defend himself, but if he did…

  Don’t shift, I thought wildly, thinking of my own passive resistance. It was what they wanted
.

  The Kamani’s eyes slid through the crowd and settled on me. It felt like they burned a hole right into the core of my being.

  Why shouldn’t I? Came a voice directly into my head, warm and soft. Confused, I felt like jumping out of my skin. What… how…? But I responded anyway.

  It’s what they want. They’ll kill you, I replied.

  They will kill me anyway. I will at least fight, he said.

  No, I urged. And then, without even realizing that I had begun moving, I had parted from Kypher’s side and slid through the crowd of Ak-hal. I had never moved so fast in my life, and I could sense the confusion around me as I raced through, all the way to the front of the assembly and up to the semi-circle of armed Ak-hal. Then, without a second thought as to what I was doing, I threw myself at the Kamani, placing myself between him and his captors.

  What are you doing? They will kill both of us, said the voice. And sure enough the Ak-hal were preparing their weapons, turning them toward me without any seeming second thoughts about using them against me.

  Then, “Clara!” a voice called out—Kypher. “Do not harm her. She belongs to me,” he demanded of the assembled Ak-hal, who with some regret and a great deal more confusion lowered their weapons as he came up to face me and the Kamani, who now stood only a couple of feet behind me. “What are you doing?” he demanded of me.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” I said. “I’m saving someone who doesn’t deserve to die.”

  “Get down,” he hissed. “Or else—”

  “Or else what?” I asked. “You’ll let them kill me too? Go ahead,” I said. “I’d rather die than live another moment under your control. I won’t be your slave after I’ve been free.” Having finally found my courage, everything that I had wanted to say in the time since I’d come back to the Ak-hal base came spilling out of me, all at once. “Allowing myself to become your mate was the worst mistake I ever made. I won’t let it happen a second time.”

  Anger flared in his eyes. He came toward me—and was immediately pushed back by the Kamani who now stood at my side. The surrounding Ak-hal sprang into action, which led to a flurry of activity. But somehow, in the resulting fray, the Kamani grabbed hold of me and pulled me through. With so much going on, he was able to shift, and I watched, mesmerized as I always was.

  Come with me, he said, once he was no longer man but a large, gray bear. I haltingly pulled myself astride his back, holding tight to his fur. And then, together, we fled to the edge of the Ak-hal base, into the sunlight, away from captivity and back toward freedom.

  Chapter 6

  “We need to help those women.”

  The Kamani I had fled with looked back at the spot that glimmered on the horizon—the Ak-hal base—his face betraying his feelings. It was obvious that he wanted to help them as much as I did, but he shook his head. “We cannot. There are only two of us. We are outnumbered.”

  “But surely there’s something we can do. They were going to execute them. And the others… they deserve to be free. Even Libba, she—”

  Turning, he caught me up in his gaze. I was momentarily dumbfounded by its intensity, unable to speak. Then I remembered the way his voice had resounded in my head back at the base, and what that meant. Mates, I thought. According to the Kamani, this meant that we were mates. But I wasn’t sure that this was something I wanted. Not after everything that I had been through. My heart pounded in my chest out of sheer nerves from standing this close to him, wondering what was going through his head in this exact moment.

  But I would find out very soon. As I stood there, I saw him begin to reach out, and the feeling in my chest intensified as his hand neared my face. I felt his fingertips brush my cheek, softly, and they lingered there for a long moment before he finally pulled away. “Clara,” he said in his deep, resounding voice, a voice that seemed to envelop me with its warmth as we stood there on that cold outcropping of ice under the blaring sun.

  “Wh—what is your name?” I asked, more than aware of the anxious tone in my voice.

  “I am Atik,” he said, and then, “Do not worry, Clara. We will find a way to help the others. I promise you this.”

  Though my worries weren’t completely assuaged, I did feel a little more confident with Atik there by my side. It was a strange thing. He was a stranger to me, and yet somehow, it was as if I knew him already—as if we were reunited after a long separation. Again, though, I tried to put these thoughts out of my head. The last thing I wanted or needed was to partner with a man, Kamani or not. Even if that man sent sensations racing through me that I had never experienced before.

  “We can get the others. We can work together to save them,” said Atik. “If we move quickly.”

  However, as he said that, I suddenly remembered everything that had just happened before the rescue. “But… Kypher said something. I think they want the Kamani to come to the Ak-hal base. I think they have something planned.”

  Atik furrowed his brow. “Yes. It is possible. But we cannot wait around and do nothing if there are lives at risk. Especially the lives of Kamani mates.”

  I watched his face—saw the frustration evident on those beautiful features—and thought on those words. Yes, what he said was true, and hadn’t I said much the same thing to Libba? But I also couldn’t fathom the idea of the Kamani being hurt, of any of them being killed. I had grown to love them as a people after my life spent among them. They were peaceful and kind, and they had given me the first true home I had ever known. However, it wasn’t my place to tell them what to do—to make decisions about how they should proceed.

  All I could do was relay what I had heard and what I knew, and I was fully aware that it wasn’t much. Once again, I felt helpless. Once again, I felt useless to do anything when it really mattered. I felt as though if someone else were here, someone like Shay, then perhaps something could really be done to get this problem resolved, or at the very least, that someone could come up with the start of a real solution. But all I could do was stand there and wring my hands and worry.

  “Clara.” I was startled out of my thoughts by the sound of Atik’s voice, and I looked up, into those golden eyes. It sent a sharp sensation shooting right through my chest, and I almost gasped at the intensity of it. Then he placed his hand on my shoulder. Almost instantaneously, I felt some of the pressure that had been building up inside me ease. “We will find a way,” he said. “I swear this to you.”

  And somehow, despite all of my doubt, worry, and apprehension, I believed him. It was impossible not to believe him. He was so confident and assured in the way that he spoke, in a way that I wasn’t—in a way that I had never felt. I wished instantly that in the same way he had transferred that feeling of pressure out of me, he could transfer some of his confidence into my soul. I wished that he could give me some of his strength.

  “We will return home,” he said, his hand still resting on my shoulder. I was more than aware of this fact, of his lingering touch. “There, we can speak with the others. We can decide how to act.”

  Still anxious, still hoping that I wasn’t making some mistake that would result in the deaths of people I cared about, I haltingly nodded my head. Atik finally pulled away, slightly. Then he began to shift. I watched mesmerized as the transformation of his body began to take place. I had seen many Kamani shift before, but somehow with Atik it was different. There was something vitally beautiful about the way his muscles stretched and pulled, about the way his pale-gray fur erupted along those muscles to cover his beautiful tawny skin. I watched mesmerized throughout the process until it was finished and an enormous gray bear stood before me.

  Come, Clara, came the voice in my head, as had happened before, and I was reminded once again of the strange connection between us. Feeling my heart jump in my chest, I edged forward and took a handhold of his fur, pulling myself up and onto his rippling back. Then once I was steady, he leapt out onto the frozen tundra, making great strides at an incredible pace that almost left me breat
hless.

  During the time that we rode back to the Kamani compound, I tried to think. I tried to make sense of everything that happened to me, but it was impossible to sort out my thoughts. All I could do was touch on the tumultuous feelings that whirled around inside of me.

  Again, I knew what it meant that I had this connection with the Kamani who had called himself Atik, but already I pulled back from it and everything that it meant. Though I had been drawn to him from the moment I had seen him back at the Ak-hal base, I tried to tell myself that it was only because I couldn’t stand to see someone die, especially a peaceful Kamani. The fact that I had felt so intensely about the man that I had seen that I had been driven to stand between him and the executioner… well, I tried to put that fact out of my mind.

  Remain calm, Clara, his voice resounded in my mind as we moved over the ice. I didn’t speak back, but he continued to offer me these reassurances as we continued on our way toward the Kamani compound, and in some strange way, these reassurances did make me feel at least a little bit more at ease. They made me feel that perhaps something could be done to help those women. After all, we had escaped when everything had seemed hopeless, so perhaps some light at the end of the tunnel remained for the others as well.

  “We’re here,” I gasped out when I finally saw the light of the sun shining down on the compound, people milling around in its center in a whirl of activity. They looked even busier than usual and I wondered if they weren’t in the middle of their own plans to fight back against the Ak-hal already. I wouldn’t be surprised, though it meant that it was a good thing that we had arrived when we did. I could relay the information that I had about the base and everything happening with them.

  Atik took us right up to the edge of the clearing, and as we approached, several other Kamani came near us. Then I slid off his back and he shifted back to man. As he did, I saw several people turn to look at us, a few crying out in recognition.