The Artistry of Love

by C. J. Scarlett

  “It’s nothing,” I said quickly, as I certainly wasn’t prepared to discuss the problem with her of all people, but she wouldn’t let it go that easily.

  “Tell me.” She looked into my eyes, as if she could somehow root out the secrets my looking within them.

  And then… “I can’t.” At first, I thought I was saying that I couldn’t speak to her, but then the words spilled out of me. “I can’t do it again. I thought that I was in love before, but I was wrong. I made a mistake, and it was the biggest mistake of my life. Even if the Kamani are nothing like the Ak-hal, what if I end up mated to someone I don’t love? What if this feeling is just temporary? I probably shouldn’t be talking to you about this. You’re his sister.”

  I laughed hollowly, feeling foolish that she of all people was the one I had decided to divulge all these crazed thoughts to, but Nuna simply nodded at me, continuing to look into my eyes as she did so without breaking contact.

  “I understand. You have been through so much. You are confused.”

  “Confused and… scared,” I admitted, for the first time, even to myself. “This whole thing is terrifying.” I brushed my free hand through my hair and let out a tremendous sigh. “Do you have a mate, Nuna? Have you ever had a mate?”

  She shook her head. “No. I have not found a mate yet,” she said.

  “Then you don’t—you can’t—know how frightening it is. To give yourself over to someone. To even think about the possibility of giving your life to someone.”

  Nuna frowned. “That is not the way with the Kamani, though,” she said. “Why do you think that Atik would want you to give your life to him? He does not want a slave. He wants a partner.”

  Her words struck me. Hard. I hadn’t realized it, but perhaps my years with Kypher really had twisted the way that I thought about mates. It didn’t immediately change the way I felt, but a spark of something grew inside me in that moment. A spark of possibility.

  I didn’t know what else to say to Nuna right then, but I needed time to think after that. “Thank you for speaking with me,” I told her.

  “Thank you for being here,” she said. “And I hope you are soon over your confusion,” she added as she finally walked away. I watched her for a while as she disappeared over the ice, and then finally decided to walk back to my own room in the compound where I could sit and think for a while.

  What Nuna had said wouldn’t change everything for me automatically—it wouldn’t immediately make me ready to be Atik’s mate. However, what she had said did make me realize how my time as Kypher’s mate had warped my sense of what it meant to be a mate to someone. I really had come to equate the idea of being someone’s ‘mate’ with being someone’s ‘slave,’ and perhaps my hesitation was because I was afraid of going through that again. After all, that was what I had been fleeing from in the first place when I left Earth—and it was what I had fled right into when I had come into the grips of the Ak-hal.

  However, a part of me still was afraid I couldn’t truly love Atik, and this was the part of me that still held back, despite the feelings that rose up whenever I thought about him. It was maddening. Deep down, I knew that I wanted to have that—that I wanted what Shay had, what Maggie had with her mate once long ago. It was the thing that I had dreamed of having with Kypher when I first met him, before his true character had been revealed to me.

  And that was the problem, wasn’t it? I didn’t feel as if I could have that sort of love—that passion. Something would inevitably go wrong, just as it always did.

  “I need to stop this,” I told myself all at once, as these thoughts circled back through my head for the thousandth time. I was driving myself crazy. What I needed to do was just… make a decision. Would I try to make things work with Atik or not?

  Atik. Just the thought of him made a sensual warmth run through me. I thought of him—I pictured his body, his bronzed skin, and his taut muscles. But more importantly, I remembered the way he had spoken to me when he had helped me escape from the Ak-hal, how I had felt comforted in those moments when I had thought that all had been lost. I remembered that he had been just as driven to help rescue the other women as I had been, and that he hadn’t let me give up hope even when everything seemed hopeless. And as I sat in my room, thinking of him, I was overcome by his presence.

  Looking up toward the entrance of my room, I saw him standing there, his golden eyes gleaming as he looked toward me. There was something gentle about his gaze, and yet there was also something fierce about him. I was reminded of the animal that resided inside his soul as he took a step toward me, and despite my reservations about our mating, not a single part of me felt the desire to protest as he came to sit beside me.

  “Clara. I couldn’t wait any longer to come and see you.”

  I bit my lip, thinking of him as he thought of me… imagining his anticipation. Again, I could sense that heat inside me, impossible to quell even if I told myself I needed to control my feelings.

  “Atik…”

  My words were cut off by the touch of his hand on mine. It was like he had sent a flash of lightning racing through me, right into my belly and taking my breath away. I was certain I had never felt this way before, and he had done this with just a simple touch.

  “Oh…” I murmured, letting my eyes flit up to his face, and taking in the shape of it once more, amazed by his well-sculpted features—the golden crescent of his cheekbones and his full lips which, in that instant, I felt compelled to kiss despite my continued hesitation. And then compulsion turned into action. I moved forward as Atik leaned down toward me, and those lips closed down over mine.

  For just a second, I let all my worries go and decided to live in the moment. I let myself simply give in to desire as I relished the taste of him as he slipped his tongue over mine in a pleasure-filled dance, the hand that had been over mine now making its way up and to my shoulder, then to the back of my head to tangle through my curls. He continued kissing me, long and hard, at one point biting my lip gently—teasing me—at that point of connection between us. I reached out and touched him without even thinking, my hands running up his arms and feeling their strength, holding on to him. For all the confusion that I had been through up to that point, I didn’t want this instant between us to end.

  But it did. At long last, he finally pulled away from me, and when our eyes met, I felt transported back into my own reality. Shaken, I took a deep, steadying breath.

  “Atik…”

  “You say you don’t know if you will choose me. But I want you, Clara. I need you.”

  Nuna must have talked to him. I suppose I knew that would happen, and yet, I had spoken to her anyway. Maybe that was a clue about how I really felt, I mused. Or maybe I was just caught up in the sensations that were going through me, with him sitting right there and staring at me with those golden eyes. It was difficult to think reasonably when Atik was so close. It was difficult to think, period.

  “I know what you want,” I managed after a long few seconds. “But I’ve been through a lot. Give me time.”

  “I will give you time,” he said. “But you must know we were meant to find each other. I will not give up on you.”

  He leaned forward again and kissed me once more before finally standing and leaving me alone in my room to think about what he had said. I will not give up on you. If Kypher had said it, I would have been frightened. It would have seemed like a threat. But from Atik, it was different. It was a promise, and it resonated with me. I felt comforted by it somehow. I was still nervous, and I still didn’t know what the future would bring. But I did know that Atik would be waiting for me if I decided that it—he—was something that I wanted. Atik was a Kamani, a Barbearian, and he didn’t make promises lightly.

  I could count on him to be there for me if I decided that I was ready to open myself up to the possibility of love. The only thing that I needed to figure out was if I would ever be ready for that.

  Chapter 9

  I was worried a
fter Atik’s promise that he couldn’t leave me alone. But in the days that followed our kiss, I ended up worrying more that I didn’t see him, no matter where I went around the Kamani compound. I told myself that I wasn’t looking for him—that it didn’t matter whether I saw him or not—even though a part of me was very aware that I did have a desire to see him again. And of course, it was far beyond me to ask anybody who might know where he might be, so I did my best to get on with the chores that I had always done.

  Maggie accepted my presence back by her side without a word, though I could tell she still had things she wanted to say. For now, though, it seemed that she would leave those things be—perhaps until I asked for her advice, or until a little more time had passed.

  But while the matter of my love life was up in the air, for the time being, everybody was still fixated on what needed to be done about the women still being held captive back at the Ak-hal base. Nobody had forgotten them, or that every minute counted where their lives were concerned. In fact, when I thought of them, I felt ashamed that I had been so fixated on my personal life when their lives were at stake. Had I really become so selfish?

  And yet, I still worried about what could possibly be done to free them. Everything that Kypher had said had led me to believe that the Ak-hal had some sort of trap laying in wait for the Kamani if they came after the women at their base, and yet, it wasn’t as if they could just do nothing, especially when there were executions planned for those women who had admitted to being Kamani mates. I trembled as I thought about Jessica, so radiant and kind, and so undeserving of the treatment that she was certainly receiving right now… that was, if she was even still alive…

  I banished the thought from my mind. She had to be alive. Ak-hal executions were grand displays full of pomp and ceremony, and it took time to plan them. Because of me, the last one had been disrupted, so surely it would be at least a little while before the next.

  “What’s on your mind now, Clara?”

  I practically jumped out of my skin, having been caught in the middle of all these thoughts. Maggie looked at me intently, and I realized that I had drifted off in the middle of cooking beside her.

  “Oh.” I looked over, supposing I might as well tell her. “Well… it’s about the women who were captured. I’m just so worried about them. And I guess I feel a bit guilty. That I got away and they didn’t.”

  “It doesn’t do you any good to feel guilty,” she said. “Though I know what you’re going through.” She smiled wistfully, and I wondered then what it must have been like for her in those years after she escaped the Ak-hal, knowing that I—and others like me—was still imprisoned among them.

  “I suppose I just wonder… did I deserve freedom?”

  “That’s the most foolish thing I’ve ever heard, Clara.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Just think back to all the things you’ve done. You stayed strong for all the years that you were held captive. You kept your own mind when you could have lost it. You helped Shay escape by giving her a weapon to use against her captor. And Atik has already told everybody about what you did for him when he was going to be executed. You stood up against an army of Ak-hal to save someone who didn’t deserve to be killed. If there is anybody who deserves freedom, Clara, it’s you.”

  I was shaken by what Maggie said. I had never realized that anybody could think about me that way, with so much respect—especially someone like her, who I respected so much in turn.

  “And don’t think that Atik doesn’t know all these things about you,” she added quickly, “and that he doesn’t feel the same way because of them.”

  Now I was caught off guard.

  “Atik?”

  “He’s been talking to people. Wanting to know as much as he can about you, since you’re still too shy to spend much time with him yourself. And you can be sure that Shay gave him an earful when he asked her for stories.”

  Feeling the heat rising to my face, I wondered just what Shay had told him about me. After all, there were plenty of things she could have said, given our history together. I decided not to think too much about it, otherwise I might actually faint on the spot. It would be a very bad time for me to suddenly revert back into a Victorian lady after having run from that life so very long ago.

  I supposed that explained why I hadn’t seen him though. He hadn’t forgotten about me. He had just decided to go about getting to know me in other ways—more subtle ways than I would have expected of a Barbearian. Then again, they had learned at least a little bit of tact in the time since us humans had come to live among them, so perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised. Still, it did take me aback to know just how much I was on his mind—as much as he was on my mind, it seemed.

  One way or another, I would have to confront him again, and soon. For now, though, I did want to know more about the Kamani’s plans regarding the women who were trapped with the Ak-hal, and I decided that my first priority was scouting out Shay, who might know a bit more about that.

  She was a busy woman, and finding her wasn’t the easiest task. When I finally did locate her, she was with Khofti and several other Kamani, and it looked like I had walked right into discussions of what to do about the women who were still being held among the Ak-hal. It made me a little apprehensive when I stepped in and suddenly all eyes were on me, especially given my recent history with them. But I steeled myself and tried to remember that I wanted what was best for the women, for the Kamani, for everyone involved, and that was why I had come to find Shay—that was why I was here.

  “I’m so glad to see you.” Shay stood up immediately and crossed the short space between us, gripping my hands between her own and smiling brightly. “Are you okay? How are you doing?”

  I shook my head. That was the last thing I wanted to talk about right now, and seeming to pick up on this, she gave me a slight nod before leading me over to a space on the floor so that we could sit together for this meeting of minds with the Kamani who had gotten together to discuss… well, whatever it was that was being discussed.

  “We need to act quickly,” said an older Kamani I recognized as Toki, seeming to pick up where he had left off before I entered. “We don’t want anything to happen to the women, and the more time we waste the more things we leave to chance.”

  “But we know that the Ak-hal have something planned,” said Khofti, who sat on the other side of Shay. “And we wouldn’t just be putting ourselves in danger, but the women as well. This is something we cannot do.”

  There was a murmur among the Kamani as they all discussed this point. Glancing over at Shay, I saw that she seemed deep in thought about something. I wondered what she was thinking. She probably felt driven to come up with a solution. For a fact, this was a complicated matter, and the Kamani weren’t a complicated people. As the ‘savior’ of the women in the past, it no doubt felt like she had to do something now. I knew that I felt it too, having been the one to escape when all the others were still being held captive back at the Ak-hal base, and the one to hear that they might have some plans at work.

  “There is no use for it. We will go, and face whatever danger waits for us,” said Toki. Again, there was a murmur among the Kamani, but it was a murmur of assent. I felt my heart jump up into my chest. Would they really do this? Even if it meant putting so many lives in danger?

  “Wait…”

  They all turned to look at me. I hadn’t really prepared anything to say, and I froze the moment I drew their attention. Feeling a blush come over my cheeks, I bit my lip. Fortunately, Shay did seem to have something to say, and spoke in my place.

  “I still think you should wait just a little while longer,” she said. “Just a couple of days. Some of the women who were with the Ak-hal for some time think that they won’t perform the executions for a while yet. Isn’t that right, Clara?”

  I managed to nod, despite feeling a bit foolish with their eyes on me.

  “So,” Shay continued, “take a little more time, j
ust to be careful, and figure out a plan that can keep everyone safe. The women and you.”

  It took a bit more convincing on Shay’s part, but they finally seemed to agree to this. I felt a great sense of relief when they did… but I didn’t know why until Shay cornered me afterward.

  “Hey,” she said. “Clara. I need to tell you something. Khofti let me know… Atik plans to go back to the Ak-hal base with the others, to rescue the women. It makes sense. He’s been there before. He can lead the group right to them. And I know you say you aren’t sure about things with him, but—”

  “What?” Suddenly, my head felt like it was spinning. Like I would drop right down to the ground. Atik was going back there, when they almost executed him? “Ah… Shay. Do you know where he is right now?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  And with that, all my reservations were gone. I just wanted to see him—to speak to him. I didn’t know what I would say, and it didn’t even matter. All that mattered in my world was him, and making sure he knew…

  He knew what? The words had popped into my head, but I had stopped them before I could finish the thought. I still wasn’t ready for that. But still, I wanted to see him, now, and so I followed Shay’s directions across the Kamani compound with a single-minded focus, Atik on my mind. I could still feel his lips on mine, as if the kiss had only happened moments ago. I could still feel my heart beating in my breast. I could still feel his heart beating underneath my fingertips as I touched his muscled chest. And as I drew nearer, and nearer, the pull of him like a magnet, it became more and more obvious to me that our meeting had been fate and I became less and less afraid of what that meant in the grand scheme of things.

  Chapter 10

  I couldn’t help going to find Atik after everything that I had heard in the meeting of the Kamani council. It ate away at me to think of him going back to the Ak-hal when he had come so close to being executed by them just a little while earlier. Images of him bound up kept coming into my mind. I wondered over and over again what would have happened had fate not intervened—had I not been there to keep him from being killed.