Table of Contents

NOTICES

ALIEN VICTOR

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

TRIGGER WARNING

CHAPTER ONE | Jocelyn

CHAPTER TWO | Jocelyn

CHAPTER THREE | Jocelyn

CHAPTER FOUR | Razek

CHAPTER FIVE | Jocelyn

CHAPTER SIX | Razek

CHAPTER SEVEN | Jocelyn

CHAPTER EIGHT | Razek

CHAPTER NINE | Jocelyn

CHAPTER TEN | Razek

CHAPTER ELEVEN | Jocelyn

CHAPTER TWELVE | Razek

CHAPTER THIRTEEN | Jocelyn

CHAPTER FOURTEEN | Razek

CHAPTER FIFTEEN | Jocelyn

CHAPTER SIXTEEN | Razek

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN | Jocelyn

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN | Razek

CHAPTER NINETEEN | Jocelyn

CHAPTER TWENTY | Razek

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE | Jozelyn

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO | Razek

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE | Jocelyn

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR | Razek

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE | Jocelyn

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX | Razek

NOTICES

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be copied, used, transmitted, or shared via any means without express authorization from the author, except for small passages and quotations used for review and marketing purposes.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and incidents in this novel are fictitious and not to be construed as reality or fact.

Alien Victor Copyright © 2022 Veronica Doran

ALIEN VICTOR

Fated Mates of the Sea Sand Warlords

Book Seven

By Ursa Dax

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As always, huge thanks to my parents and husband for their truly unwavering support. And thank you to you, my readers, without whom I would not be writing these Sea Sand love stories.

TRIGGER WARNING

This novel contains graphic battle scenes with death described on-page. It includes a fight scene where the characters are trapped by tentacles. There is mention of birth control, pregnancy, pre-eclampsia, and the death of a family member. There is a scene where the hero chases the heroine (with consent).

CHAPTER ONE

Jocelyn

“Here you go, my lovelies.” I handed Cece and Theresa each a small jar of a concoction I’d freshly prepared for them. Valok gel steeped with a spiny herb, grix, that grew around here.

“You’re a lifesaver,” Theresa murmured with a small smile, taking a sip of hers. Cece heaved a sigh and did the same. The two of them were seated on the sand and I sat down cross-legged across from them. We were hanging out in the shelter of the tent Theresa shared with Gahn Baldor, its large hide structure providing some relief from the heat of the alien desert.

“What’s it taste like?” Serena inquired, sitting down next to me as well. Serena had been studying biology back home, and she was fascinated by the alien/human pregnancies unfolding in front of us. Where I was a botanist, working with the local herbs to try to calm the sensitive stomachs of our two pregnant friends, Serena was like a lab tech running an experiment, peppering them with questions.

“Well, it has that valok taste. But it’s extra strong. More herbal?” Theresa responded.

I nodded, feeling my tight curls bob and brush against my bare shoulders as I did so. I had stripped down to my human uniform tank top, my solar protection jacket abandoned in the corner of the tent.

“From what I can tell the grix is like the alien equivalent of some kind of cross between ginger and mint. Both of which are good for upset stomachs back on Earth,” I said.

I could feel Serena nodding beside me as she absorbed that information.

“I think it’s helping,” Theresa said, smiling again.

“Good,” I said, happy to help them during this time. I mean, not like anybody had any fucking clue how these first alien-human pregnancies were going to go, right? But I was glad I could make them both a little more comfortable. From what we could tell, Cece was about eleven weeks along, and Theresa seven. Both of them were knee-deep in first trimester morning sickness. Or, all-day-sickness, as they both liked to correct me. I didn’t fancy being in their position. Nausea, plus all this heat? Quite a nasty combo. Good thing I figured out some alien birth control… Not that I had a mate or anything, but still.

I pushed down the niggling worry that we were very quickly running low on that birth control herb, a black dandelion-looking thing called fallink, and focused on my two friends/patients in front of me.

“Can we close the tent flap?” Cece groaned, leaning forward and putting her forehead in her hands.

“Of course! You alright?” I asked, looking at her closely. Theresa may have not been feeling well this morning, hence why she’d asked for the grix concoction, but she looked pretty healthy and had some energy, at least at this point in her pregnancy. Cece, however, looked extra flushed. She was already starting to show, too. Which made sense, if the baby was going to be Sea Sand size.

“I’m getting a migraine,” Cece grumbled, pressing her palms into her eyes.

I jumped up, moving to the open tent-flap in question. It was mid-morning, some of the morning sun streaming into one end of the large, flat-topped tent. We’d had the flap pulled open to let in some natural light, but now that I knew it was bothering Cece we could definitely light a candle instead.

I stood at the tent’s opening, looking outside for a moment.

Things had changed a lot in the past few days. All of Baldor’s tribe had arrived, and the settlement was more crowded and bustling than ever, the tents of the four tribes all pressed together. I could tell that it was making some of the alien men uneasy, especially Baldor’s tribe since they were the newest additions to our camp, but slowly, it seemed that people were getting used to things. Which was a big fat relief. None of us were keen on seeing more bloodshed as these nutters battled it out with their big-ass swords. I smiled softly as I watched a group of nearby Sea Sand and human women chat with each other. Between their legs and under their feet, Sea Sand children whooped and ran. The children seemed the most at ease now. I couldn’t see any tribal divisions between their groups, all of them playing together.

Even this tent had changed substantially. At first, Baldor has been sharing a small two-person tent with Theresa. But as soon as she’d announced her pregnancy, he’d gotten his alien butt in gear and had worked, night and day, building this one. Now, this tent was on par with what the other Gahns were rocking – a big, open space with a high, flat ceiling, shelves, and cozy hides for bedding. It actually wasn’t too different from the big tent all us unmated human girls slept in, but because only Theresa and Baldor lived here, it felt a lot bigger than our tent.

I let the tent flap fall closed and turned back to the others, blinking and trying to adjust to the dimness after staring out into the sunlit settlement. Theresa leaned sideways towards a nearby shelf, not getting up, and grabbed a dried valok gel candle.

“Anybody up for lighting this bad boy? I still suck at banging those dang rocks together.”

“I got it,” I said, striding over. I took the candle from her, then two of the flinty stones from the shelf. Banging them together sharply and quickly, I lit the valok candle so that it wasn’t so dark in here.

Even with the shift in light, Cece still had her head pressed downwards into her hands.

“I’m going to go grab the blood pressure monitor,” Serena said suddenly, standing up and dusting off the back of her trousers.

“Oh. OK. Why?” I asked. I’d been working with the healers for a while and had been studying the herbs, but alien or human, I had absolutely no experience with pregnancy.

“It’s a routine thing to check. But I don’t like that Cece has a migraine. I want to check her blood pressure.”

Cece groaned something unintelligible from the ground.

“Gotcha. Is this something you learned during your degree?” I asked.

Serena shook her head.

“Nah, not really. But while I was doing my undergrad, I worked as a nanny to make some extra money during the summer. The mom of the family I was working with was pregnant and she had blood pressure issues and migraines. It ended up being pre-eclampsia and she had to be induced.”

Cece’s head shot up to look at us, her eyes wide. Then she winced from her sudden movement.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to worry you,” Serena said quickly. “I just want to check is all. I’ll be right back.”

She exited the tent hurriedly, and I sat back down with the other two, looking at Cece.

“Is there anything else I can do for you? I know of some herbs the Sea Sand healers use for pain relief, but I don’t know if they’re safe for pregnancy…”

“No,” Cece replied.

Theresa grimaced, rubbing a slow circle on Cece’s back.

“How are you feeling?” I said, swivelling my gaze to our blond Southern belle. “Any headaches or anything?”

“I’m not too bad. That drink you made is helping. So far so good. Besides, Baldor’s been doing everything he can to take care of me between helping Xyan get ready.”

“Get ready for what?” I asked. These alien guys were always up to something. It was hard to keep up.

“Oh, y’all didn’t hear? They’re getting ready to go back to the Death Plains. Try to contact the new Gahn of the fifth tribe,” Theresa replied.

“Oh, yeah, Buroudei mentioned something about that. I’d kind of forgotten. Pretty sure I had to stop to hurl in the middle of him telling me,” Cece said.

I mulled over what Theresa had said. About two weeks ago, a small party of four men had returned from a three-week-long journey to the Death Plains. I wasn’t exactly clear on the whole situation, but it seemed like they hadn’t been successful in what they’d been trying to do.

“Does that mean the new Gahn is decided on, or whatever?” I asked.

Theresa shrugged.

“Baldor isn’t sure. He thinks so. I guess this baklok, this tournament, can take a while. And I guess every tribe does it slightly differently, so they don’t know exactly when it will end or when the new Gahn will have taken his position. But they figure that by the time Xyan and the others get there, it should all be concluded and they can try negotiating again.”

“When are they leaving?” I asked, a sudden idea popping into my head.

“Tomorrow,” Theresa said.

At that moment, Serena returned, carting a portable blood pressure monitor.

“Hey,” she said, crouching down to Cece. “Can you sit up straight and hold up your arm for me?”

Cece did as instructed, though rather listlessly. I watched Serena, memorizing what she was doing in case I ever needed to use the machine on anybody. I remembered Serena saying something about knowing first aid, too. It was amazing having the healers around to help us, but it was good to have some of our own skills, too.

“130 over 90. I think that’s a little bit high. Lots of rest and no stress, OK?” Serena said.

Cece smiled wanly. “No arguments there. I’m literally going to go back to my tent and chill the rest of the day.”

“Here, let me try,” I said, reaching for the small machine. Serena handed it to me, and I knelt next to Theresa.

“Wrist, please!” I said, and she offered her arm up with a smile. I snapped the cuff onto her wrist, doing up the Velcro. All I had to do was push the button after that. Well, that’s not so hard.

“118 over 72. Pretty sure that’s good,” I said after looking at the numbers on the little screen.

Serena nodded her agreement.

“Cool,” I said. “Alright, then. If you loves are alright I’m going to go now.”

My spark of an idea from before was becoming a full-on plan, now. And if Xyan’s party was leaving tomorrow, I’d need to move fast to get everything ready.

“Me too,” Cece said. I stood, offering her my hand and helping her to her feet.

“Oof. Head rush,” she said, scrunching her eyes shut in pain.

“Oh, here,” Serena said, standing up as well. “I brought you this. It was with the blood pressure cuff and some of the other first aid stuff that got brought over from the ship. I remember Sandy – that was the mom I was telling you about – taking Tylenol. It’s supposed to be safe for pregnancy.” Serena handed Cece a small bottle of acetaminophen.

“Oh, thank God,” Cece said, opening the bottle. She popped a tablet, then took another swig from the grix drink I’d made her. “OK, now it’s time for me to crash.”

“Get some rest, honey,” Theresa said kindly, rising and seeing us to the tent’s exit.

Cece and I put on our solar protection jackets and popped on our sunglasses, then I opened the tent flap for her. We both stepped outside.

Just outside the tent, Gahn Baldor and Gahn Buroudei were standing together. I sucked in a breath. Between the two of them, I didn’t know how there was any testosterone left for anybody else around here. But obviously, there was plenty, because all four of the Gahns were like this – hulking, body-builder-type blokes that stood out even among their hard-as-fuck warrior armies. I wonder what the new Gahn is like… From what I’d heard, the Death Plains were deadly, even more deadly than here.

“My beloved, how do you feel?” Buroudei asked, catching Cece’s jaw between his huge clawed hands.

“She needs rest,” I told him.

His pulsing copper-coloured sight stars flashed over to me before settling once again on the face of his mate. “Then she shall have it.” Without warning, he scooped Cece up into his bulging arms, cradling her against his chest.

“Buroudei, I can walk! Our tent is not that far,” Cece complained weakly.

“Walking is not resting,” Buroudei growled back. He raised his tail to Gahn Baldor and me, then strode away, his long muscled legs carrying him quickly over the sands to the tent he and Cece shared.

Baldor grumbled some greeting to me, about to go into his tent to check on his own mate.

“Oh, wait a moment, Gahn Baldor. Please.”

He stopped and turned to me.

“What is it, Jozelyn?”

“Where’s Xyan? I want to talk to him.”

Gahn Baldor’s silver sight stars pulsed in surprise. He looked out over my head, scanning the settlement.

“There.” He raised his tail, gesturing to a nearby spot. In a shadowy place against the cliffs, slightly away from the tents, sat Xyan.

“Thanks,” I said, nodding and smiling at the Gahn before turning and jogging away.

Xyan was seated on a low stone, his strong legs bent. He held a long dark blade in one hand, and ran another dark stone, ablik, up and down the length of the weapon, sharpening it. He stopped as I stepped into his shadowy spot. Hands stilling, he tilted his head up to look at me.

Unlike Gahn Baldor, his sight stars were a warm golden-copper. I hadn’t interacted too much with this guy yet, but Theresa seemed to really like him. There was a stoic sort of steadiness to this quiet warrior. His sight stars didn’t seem to pulse and spin as quickly as some other people’s, almost as if he was taking his time observing everything. He looked a little older than some of the other warriors. Like Gahn Baldor, he had a few strands of silver running through his long, loose black hair. But apart from that, and a certain toughness to his skin, you’d never think he was anything but in his prime, Hell, he probably still was, if the burly, hard cut of his muscled body was anything to go by.

“Greetings,” the warrior said, standing and raising his tail. He sheathed his blade behind his back then placed the ablik sharpening stone down on the rock he’d been sitting on. He didn’t toss it down, didn’t throw it haphazardly, but rather gently placed it, exactly in the centre of the other stone.

I decided in that moment that I liked this guy, too.

“Hi. Xyan, right? I’m Jocelyn.”

“Yes. I know your name. You are close with the Gahnala Thereeza.”

Gahnala. I still wasn’t quite used to thinking of Theresa as the Gahnala. Right after the rest of Gahn Baldor’s tribe had arrived, they’d made it official with their royal alien wedding, the Gahnala-Kai.

“Yes, I’m very close with her.” I emphasized that part, hoping it would help my case. I knew what I was about to ask wasn’t going to be accepted lightly.

“What can I help you with?” Xyan said. I was about to open my mouth and tell him what I wanted, when I saw his sight stars flit up over my head, looking across the settlement behind me. There was an almost imperceptible tightening of the muscles in his jaw, and his sight stars pulled inwards, focusing on something behind me.

Something? Or someone?

I turned around, squinting. From where we were standing, and the angle of his head and eyes, there was only one place he could be looking.

Gahn Baldor’s tent.

Gahn Baldor was gone, presumably inside. Theresa wasn’t anywhere to be seen. The only one I could see there now was Serena. It looked like she’d just come from the tent.

Huh…

I turned back to Xyan, watching him closely as his eyes tracked Serena’s movements. Finally, when Serena was out of sight in the human tent, his gaze returned to me.

“A little distracted, are we?” I teased, giving him a smile.

“A good warrior does not get distracted,” Xyan grumbled, which made me laugh out loud. These blokes are something else…

Taking a deep breath, letting my laughter subside, I pushed back my hood. I pulled my sunglasses off, perching them on the top of my head. In this shady spot, I didn’t really need them, and I was getting damn hot and sweaty beneath the fabric of the hood and the thick dark lenses.

“You’re leading the group back to the Death Plains tomorrow, right?” I asked.

“I am not leading the group. I am simply acting as a representative for Gahn Baldor, as the other three warriors will be,” Xyan said, his voice deep and smooth.

“OK, well, I’d like to come with you.”

If Xyan was surprised, he didn’t show it.

“Why?” he asked, crossing his arms over his barrel chest.

“Us humans need a certain herb, the fallink. Do you know it?”

“Yes. ’Tis but a weed,” Xyan said, cocking his head and looking at me.

I nodded. The healer women had said something similar to me when I’d analyzed it. That it was useless desert scrub, nothing more.

“Well, it’s not just a weed for us. We need it for -” I cut myself off, reassessing what I should say. The Sea Sand people’s numbers had been dwindling before we arrived. The human women had been the answer to a generations-long prayer. The chance at more children. If I tell him we need this for birth control, is he even going to consider my request? “Well, we just need it,” I finally sputtered. “It’s very important to the health and happiness of some of the women here. And we’ll run out soon. Bokeelie told me that only a little bit of it grows around here, but that it’s native to the Death Plains.”

Xyan frowned. Once again, his gaze flicked to the human tent.

“It is very important to the health and happiness of the new women?” he asked, his gaze serious.

“Yes,” I said, relieved that he seemed to be at least considering the prospect.

His eyes found mine again.

“You do not need to come on the journey for this. We warriors can collect it for you on the way back to the settlement.”

I shook my head.

“No, that won’t work. I need to look at the plants myself before I harvest them.” I’d discovered after some meddling and finessing that the fallink plants had a very short period in which they could be harvested. If they weren’t ready to be picked, they’d be useless. And the differences in the plants that were ready and those that weren’t were very hard to spot.

“Hmm,” Xyan said, uncrossing his arms and running one hand along his strong jaw thoughtfully. “The Gahns will not like this. They will not like sending a new woman out into dangerous territory.”

“I’ll go ask them myself if it would help. Since you were the one actually going on the trip, I thought I should just ask you.”

He sighed. “It is not a question of asking. It is a question of good sense. But if what you say is true, and this is necessary, then I believe my Gahn will see the sense in this. The Gahns Taliok and Buroudei as well. Gahn Fallo I am less sure of…”

I snorted. That was a fucking euphemism if I’d ever heard one. Yeah, I also wasn’t sure if the totally off-his-rocker Gahn Fallo would see sense in, well, anything apart from whatever Chapman told him to do.

Chapman. Duh.

I’ll go talk to her first. If anyone understood strategic decisions, it was her. And as she was currently one of my most regular birth control customers, so to speak, I had a feeling she’d be interested in this particular mission of mine. And this way, she’d tell Gahn Fallo to approve my going with Xyan and the others as well. If Baldor and Fallo both agree, and the other two are OK with it, then they’ll pretty much have to let me go.

“Alright, thanks Xyan. You talk to Gahn Baldor about it, if you don’t mind. I’m going to go tell Chapman.”

I plastered my shades to my face, yanked my hood back up over my curls, then set off in search of our red-haired commander.

I didn’t exactly want to go out into bite-your-face-off dangerous territory, but this was important to me. Really important. After my parents’ deaths when I was a kid, I’d gone to live with my aunt. She was an herbalist, a true expert at natural remedies, working out of our rural Durham house. She’d always been so focused on helping people, especially women, find the things that would make their lives a little easier. It was a characteristic that she’d always instilled in me. That desire to help, and to use my skills to do it. I swallowed down a tight knot of grief forming in my throat – grief for her death not long before I got abducted, and grief for getting ripped out of the world she’d made so warm. I’d always thought that even after she died, I’d still have the house and her books and notes and… well.. all of it. Everything she’d touched and shaped and left for me.

But I still have this. Her legacy.

Hell, if Aunt Edie were there right now, she’d walk through the desert herself to find more fallink plants for the other women in need.

This had to be done. It had to.

And I would do it.

CHAPTER TWO

Jocelyn

It turned out Chapman was at the ship, so I wasn’t able to track her down until she’d returned later that night. I finally spotted her at the evening fire, sitting with her mate, Fallo, and his tribes-people.

When we’d first gotten here, we’d sat with Fallo and his people too. All the tribes had sat at separate fires, and since we’d been with Fallo’s tribe the longest, we naturally stayed with them. But lately, we’d all been sharing one big fire at night. I was glad for it. Glad that we were all together and slowly but surely making this work.

“Hey!” Chapman said, looking up and catching my eye as I approached.

“Alright?” I asked, sitting next to her. On her other side, Gahn Fallo looked at me. And I had to say, that look was somewhat suspicious. He’s so nutty he thinks anybody next to his mate is a threat. I rolled my eyes at the hulking weirdo and focused on Chapman.

Chapman had discarded her solar protection jacket now that the sun was down. The firelight danced across her freckled shoulders and cheeks and her red hair was pulled back in her signature neat military bun. Her grey eyes settled on me.

“Look, I’ll get right to it,” I said. “We’re almost out of the birth control stuff.”

Her ginger eyebrows shot upwards. She sighed, rubbing her forehead with her fingertips.

“What is it?” I asked, suddenly worried.

“No, it’s OK. It just feels like we’ve got a lot of plates spinning right now. The Bitter Sea warriors coming back here soon. Contacting the fifth Sea Sands tribe. An impending human attack. Now this.”

“I didn’t mean to add another plate,” I said honestly. “And I don’t need you to do anything about it. I have a plan to get more.”

Chapman’s brows furrowed. She crossed her slim but muscled arms and looked at me.

“OK. I’ll bite. Whatchya got, Jocelyn?”

I took a breath, holding it for a second, then let out all my words in a rush.

“I want to go with Xyan and the others. Go to the Death Plains. That’s where more of the fallink plant grows.”

Chapman narrowed her eyes. Fallo looked at me from over her head, his gaze severe.

“New women will not go on needless missions outside of the settlement. This is folly,” he growled menacingly.

“It’s not folly,” Chapman snapped, whipping her head back to look at him. “You know that as well as I do!”

I stared at them in stunned silence. I’d been speaking somewhat quietly to Chapman, almost worried about Fallo hearing. That guy was crazy, and I didn’t even know if he was aware that Chapman was using any kind of birth control. I definitely didn’t want to put her in a tight spot.

But it seemed like he did know what was going on.

Chapman turned back to me, sighing.

“Does he…?” I looked at Fallo, then back at her.

“Does he know I’m using the fallink for birth control? Oh, yeah,” she said, nodding.

“Oh, OK. Cool.” I had to admit, that surprised me a little bit.

“Yeah, unlike some of these other guys, he isn’t in any rush to have kids or cubs or whatever. He killed his own father after all.”

“Um. He… He what?!” I stammered, absolutely gobsmacked. That little detail had been left out of my understanding of the local history. Yikes.

Chapman waved my look of disturbed amazement away.

“It’s a long story. But yeah, he knows about the fallink. He supports it. And I do too. Honestly, as glad as I am for Theresa and Cece, more pregnancies could complicate our already very complicated situation.”

“Yeah. And we don’t want anyone falling pregnant if they don’t truly want it,” I said firmly. We’d already had so many choices ripped away from us getting dumped here. This was something I was going to fight for.

“Alright, this is what we should do,” Chapman said, looking thoughtful. “I think it makes sense for you to go with the party to collect more fallink since you’re our herbal expert. Up until a point, anyway. We don’t know what’s going on with the fifth tribe right now. We don’t even know if their baklok is done. The place could still be in chaos and I don’t want any human women near that mess. So I propose we send an extra warrior with you and the group. That way, you can go as far as you need to, to get the fallink. Then the other warrior will escort you home before you have to go too far with the other four.”

Home. The way Chapman called this place home twisted in my chest. I liked the people here, especially the other girls. But was this really home? Home to me was rolling green hills and a creaky house stuffed full of papers and books and herbs. Clotted cream and jam. Tea. Soft brown hands smoothing my curls.

I forced myself to focus. Home or not, this is where you are now.

Chapman was speaking quickly with Fallo. His red sight stars pulsed back and forth between her face and mine.

Finally, he growled, “If this is your plan, mate, I will adhere to it. But I demand that the fifth man be of my tribe.”

I wanted to whoop. Yes! I was going to do this!

Now that I’d made my decision I was starting to get excited about leaving the settlement. I’d really enjoyed working with the healers and helping out the pregnant girls, and I certainly didn’t want to get eaten by an alien monster out there, but I was also interested in seeing more of this planet. Even if I don’t get all the way to the Death Plains, it will still be cool to see some sights. Unlike Melanie and Kat, I hadn’t been to Taliok’s mountains or anything. And I hadn’t been to the Bitter Sea like Zoey and Chapman. I’d only been here at the settlement and in Fallo’s territory. I’d have to keep my wits about me, that was for sure. But this could actually be kind of cool.

Again, assuming nobody gets eaten by any alien monsters.

“Fallo and I will talk to the other Gahns,” Chapman said.

“Great. I think Xyan’s already talked to Gahn Baldor,” I said, standing.

“Good stuff,” Chapman replied. “OK, well, the party is leaving tomorrow. We’ll make sure you have your escort. You should be ready at first light.”

I swallowed, feeling the gravity of the situation coming down on my shoulders. It was still an exciting prospect, but it was really hitting me that I’d be leaving the relative safety of the settlement in less than 24 Earth hours. But this needed to be done.

Setting my shoulders, I started walking back to the human tent, mind abuzz with thoughts of tomorrow. Once inside the tent, I quickly got to work.

I had packing to do.

CHAPTER THREE

Jocelyn

Let’s just say that the novelty of travelling outside of the settlement wore off pretty quickly. There were no piercing red peaks like at Taliok’s mountains. And no shore with a glittering dark Bitter Sea, either. It was days and days of desert. Sometimes flat, sometimes wavy with dunes. Sometimes marked with large boulders and stone outcroppings. But more often than not, it was just shifting coppery sand, as far as the eye could see.

This was the heart of the Sea Sands. We passed through Gahn Buroudei’s desert territory, and now we were beyond it, heading straight for the Death Plains.

After a week of travelling, though, it didn’t seem like we’d ever end up anywhere except exactly where we were. The sands seemed endless. Maybe Death Plains is a misnomer. Maybe it’s all sand too.

“Thank goodness you guys know where we’re going,” I said, turning in my saddle and speaking to Xyan behind me.

Xyan grunted.

“Vaxilkai is of Buroudei’s tribe. He has lived closest to the Death Plains and he knows the way best. Although now that I have made the journey once before, yes, I feel certain of our path.”

I glanced at the other warriors riding their irkdu beside us. There were five warriors and me. One representing each tribe, plus an extra to be my escort. Gahn Fallo had gotten what he’d wanted, and the extra guy was from his tribe, a warrior named Dalk who’d been slotted into the mission at the last second. The other guy from Fallo’s tribe was named Ankrokal, and someone named Oxriel was travelling with us on behalf of Gahn Taliok.

I mostly rode with Xyan. I felt like I knew him a little better than the others, though even riding with him, the conversation had been… less than stimulating. Not that he wasn’t a smart guy. Not at all. I got the sense he was a very quietly intelligent sort of person. Someone who never bragged about their skills or their mind because they just didn’t need to. No, it was more that all five of the alien warriors travelling with me were too focused to talk much. Out on the open sands, they kept their weapons raised at all times, ready to ward off an attack from a desert predator, like the zeelk. And it was a good thing, too. I definitely wasn’t keen on meeting with any more zeelk anytime soon. I’d seen what those gigantic armoured crab monster things had done to our ship and half the people on it. It had been utter destruction. And even outside of the threats of the desert, I knew that the men were thinking ahead to what they’d find in the lands of the fifth tribe. If their negotiations would be heard and if they’d be welcomed.

Or if they’d be killed.

Cor, I hope not. Travelling with these guys, even quiet and lost in their own thoughts and duties as they were, I felt myself growing closer to them. I didn’t know them nearly as well as my human friends, obviously. But I definitely didn’t want to see any of them harmed when visiting the fifth tribe.

Though I’d thought it impossible, after ten days of travelling, the landscape finally started to change. The sands grew paler, flatter, until we were no longer travelling over sand at all, but rather hard cracked plains. The colour completely melted away until the land was no longer copper and gold, but a chalky pale grey. The sun was just as vicious here as back at the settlement, but without the red of the cliffs and the warmly coloured sand, everything felt somehow colder, even though it was wickedly hot. Ahead of us, on the horizon, something so bright it was hard to focus on it, even with my sunglasses, loomed. As we got closer, it grew, taking shape in front of us, until finally, as dusk was falling, I could tell what it was.

It was a massive, deadly-looking rock formation. It sprawled across the horizon, jagged stone in shades of white, tan, and grey. Unlike Fallo’s cliffs and the Cliffs of Uruzai, it didn’t present as a huge stone wall upon first glance. But rather, the rock formation rose and fell in spikes, like shark teeth forced up out of the hard ground.

Yeah, if shark teeth were tens of metres high…

“Beyond these peaks lies the territory of the Death Plains people. You will not go beyond them,” Xyan said as we approached the rock formation. God, the closer we got, the more intimidating the peaks became. I knew there were dangers at the other cliffs, but these ones felt… creepier. All biting white and dusty grey, rising high out of colourless pale plains. No wonder they call them the Death Plains.

We got close to the rock formation as evening took hold, dimming the light, turning the grey and white peaks ghostly and strange. As our irkdu lumbered alongside the rocks, the warriors scanning for a place to camp, I felt goose-pimples pricking on my skin under my solar protection jacket. The temperature seemed to be falling much more rapidly here at night than it did back on the sands. I took off my sunglasses but kept my hood up for some added warmth.

“There,” Xyan said, gesturing with his spear. I squinted in the rapidly dying light. He was pointing at a spot at the foot of a large white peak, where a smaller peak rose and curved over into a wide arch, creating a shadowy, protected spot.

“This appears to be a sheltered place to camp,” Xyan said. I bit back the urge to tell him to lower his voice. He hadn’t even been speaking loudly. But I couldn’t help but think we should try not to make too much noise here. It felt like something, someone, was watching. Listening. Hell, it feels like the rocks themselves are listening.

The five of us dismounted, me with some help from Xyan. As the warriors got to work setting up tents, I took a quick look around the area. If I wasn’t going to go any further into the fifth tribe’s territory, then I’d need to collect what I’d come for here.

Hmm…

I didn’t see any fallink around this spot we’d chosen for our camp. I didn’t see any, well… anywhere.

Uh oh. My heart rate increased, and I pursed my lips against the panic. What if I couldn’t find any after all?

I placed my hands on my hips, frowning, staring into the shadows of the huge rock formation. I couldn’t decide if they were creepier in the day, when they looked like fangs, or now, when they loomed like sharply pointed fingers ready to close into a fist around me.

OK, well, clearly I’m not a fan of this place. The faster I get what I need, the faster Dalk and I get to leave.

I turned back to the others. Four tents were crammed together under the wide stone arch. There were only four tents, as Dalk had been sleeping outside my tent as a guard. I felt a bit bad about that, but nothing I’d said had swayed him from his spot. These warriors were nothing if not hard-headed.

“Hey, can I go further into the rocks?” I asked. Right now we were standing on the packed grey plains, just at the base of the huge rock formation. I could already see a rocky valley near to us I could probably traverse at least somewhat easily. “I need to find some fallink.”

“Wait until morning. We will not go searching at night,” Dalk said, slashing his hand through the air in a gesture I’d learned was like the alien version of shaking your head “no”.

“But it might be safer at night,” I pointed out. “Aren’t zeelk a little less active at night, for example?”

“Hmm. This is true,” Xyan said, looking at me, then looking at the rock formations. “But you said you needed to look closely at the fallink. Will the darkness not hinder your work?”

“No, I don’t think so,” I said. The ring of asteroids that circled this planet glowed with the force of dozens of moons in a long band across the sky overhead. And the stars were deliriously bright in the inky sky. The light here was actually fairly decent now that the asteroids and stars had risen. The light turned everything into silvered statues or plunging shadows, a sharp contrast that made me uneasy.

“You may be right. It may be safer at night. We can blend more easily into the shadows,” Xyan finally said.

“See?” I said to Dalk, raising my eyebrows meaningfully. “Besides, the sooner I find what I need, the sooner Dalk can take me back to the safety of the settlement and get me out of this place.”

He grumbled something about Gahn Fallo having his head if anything happened to me.

“Obviously I won’t go alone,” I added quickly. “What do you say, Dalk? Feel like a little adventure?”

“Fine. Let us go,” he said, coming towards me, holding his spear ready and scanning the rock behind me with suspicious eyes.

“We will go hunt and replenish the stores,” Oxriel said, gesturing to himself, Ankrokal, and Vaxilkai. “Xyan can guard the camp.”

Xyan grunted his agreement, and I nodded.

“OK. So it’s decided then. Come on, Dalk.” I tried to sound optimistic, even cheery. But it fell flat. I was glad to get started on what I needed to do, but man, those shadows were looking really deep and dark.

It’s OK. Get in, get out, and get it done.

Dalk and I left the shadowy space under the stone arch, heading for the rocky valley that would allow us entrance into the rock formation.

“Stay very close,” Dalk muttered, keeping his spear ready and pulling out a second blade. I almost snorted at that. As if I’d even be able to get away from one of these guys if I wanted to… Even though Dalk and the others weren’t from the Death Plains, this planet, all of the toughness of the sand and the rock, were natural landscapes to them. Their long, strong legs and kangaroo-like feet and ankles carried them over even the most treacherous areas easily.

I couldn’t quite say the same for myself.

Picking through the rocks of the valley was much more difficult than I’d anticipated. I moved slowly and carefully, Dalk glued to my side, his eyes shifting every few seconds from observing the area around us, to watching me to make sure I didn’t fall and break my bloody neck.

The valley continued in a mostly straight line for some time, rock rising up on either side of us in severe peaks. Eventually, the valley twisted slightly. We followed it, only to be met with a wall of rock ahead of us.

Except it wasn’t really a wall. It was a steep incline. And partway up that incline? The puffy, telltale dark flowers of fallink plants on a ledge.

“There!” I said, being a little louder than I’d meant to be in my excitement. “There,” I said, shifting to a whisper, pointing up. Dalk eyed the incline, and I already knew what he was thinking: This weak human with her tiny legs will never make it up there. I didn’t even bother to be offended by the look in his eyes because frankly, if that’s what he was thinking, then he was absolutely, 100% correct.

“I can climb up and bring the fallink to you,” Dalk said. But then he growled. “No, that will not do. Then you will be alone down here too long.”

“Yeah, plus I need to examine the fallink before I pick them.”

I looked at the incline again. This was the first fallink I’d found, and I’d need lots more than just this. So I didn’t want to waste this chance.

“Look, let’s do whatever it takes. I’ll ride on your back.”

Dalk sighed, looking unhappy with my plan. But finally, after another look between the incline and me, he knelt.

He had to lower himself a lot more than a human guy would have had to because he was so damn big. In a quick movement before I clambered onto him, he rotated his straps so that his blades were on his chest and not on his back where they could cut me.

“Thanks,” I said, climbing onto him.

Dalk made pretty quick work of what would have been a totally impossible trek for me. Once we started climbing, I realized just how steep it actually was and I clung on for dear life. Every time a scatter of pebbles rained downward from beneath Dalk’s claws, I was pretty sure my heart entirely stopped beating. But luckily, we made it to the ledge safe and sound.

Dalk knelt, letting me slide off. The ledge was substantial, larger than what I’d seen from the ground. We were about six metres up from the ground, now, and the rock continued past us over our heads for another twelve metres or so, with more jutting ledges. There was enough space for Dalk and me to stand comfortably on this ledge, which was nice. It wouldn’t have been so easy to work while constantly feeling like I was about to fall to my death.

“Nice,” I said, seeing the fallink plants I’d spied from the ground. I crouched next to them, examining them gently with my fingers. They reminded me so much of dandelions: puffy, with slightly spiky leaves. But the puffy seeds on these fallink plants were black instead of greyish white like on Earth. It wasn’t even the seeds I needed, anyway, though I made a note to keep the seeds to try to grow more near the settlement. It was the leaves that had the potent compound that acted as birth control. The women using it chewed one leaf twice a day to get consistent results. And for a small plant that didn’t have a ton of leaves… well, we were burning right through it.

“Hmm, these ones are close, but not quite ready,” I said. There was a certain quality to the seeds of plants that were ready to be harvested – they were fluffier, making a rounder puff on the plant. These ones were close, but the puffs were still a bit tight. They’d need a few more days before picking them.

“Well, we came all the way up here, might as well look a little more,” I said, trying not to feel too disappointed.

An impatient grunt somewhere behind me let me know that Dalk had heard what I’d said. I stood, going inwards on the ledge to the rock wall, walking along it. Dalk stayed close, and we walked along the long ledge for some time. Eventually, it widened even further, moving upward on an incline. It felt almost like we were just walking up a normal hill, except we were way high up off the actual ground now.

“Oh, there!” I said, pointing excitedly. A little ways ahead there was another group of fallink plants. Even from here, they looked like they might be ready. I hurried over to them, prodding them gently before nodding to myself, satisfied. “Yup, these ones look good. Dalk, can you bring a knife and -”

A deafening, spine-wrenching screech split the air. It was a sound I’d heard before. A sound I’d vowed to forget. The sound of zeelk, screaming as they destroyed our ship.

“Get back!” Dalk bellowed, yanking me up by the wrist and forcing me behind him. I slammed backwards into the rock wall, fighting to catch my breath and get my bearings.

Fuck. No. No!

A huge zeelk was up on the ledge with us. Horrified, memories of the zeelk attack from out on the sands played in my mind. Huge alien monsters that looked like some mutant crab, spider, scorpion combo digging out of the sand, their claws and tails ripping through bodies and metal alike.

And now, here was one in the flesh, right in front of us.

Dalk launched himself at the zeelk, blade and spear slashing. Eyes wide and mouth clamped shut, I stumbled backwards away from them, pure feral fear driving my actions.

Stop running, you knob! Help him!

“Fuck!” I cried, looking around. I didn’t have any weapons that could do anything against a zeelk. Even Chapman’s gun had done nothing during the last attack. Only their own spurs, attached to Sea Sand spears, could damage their tough armour. Other than that, a warrior needed to land a lucky blow between their armoured plates with an ablik weapon.

Well, I didn’t have a zeelk-spur spear or an ablik blade. I didn’t even have my own pack.

Horrific scrabbling and crunching sounds directly beside me had all thoughts of helping Dalk vanishing. Because suddenly, I had other things to worry about. A second zeelk was scaling the cliff face below me easily, heading right for me on the ledge.

I stood totally frozen, unable to scream. Unable to even breathe. The only thing I could do was stare and shake as the thing hauled itself upwards, its metal-strong legs flying.

In that moment I realized two things. The first thing was that these zeelk were slightly different than the desert ones. Instead of black armour, these ones matched the landscape, glowing like ghostly spiders under the asteroids and starlight. That is, if spiders had scorpion tails and were more than a meter tall.

And the second thing I realized?

I’m going to die.

It hit me hard as the zeelk crested the ledge. Things somehow moved both fast and slow in that moment. I could tell the zeelk was coming at me full-speed, but it almost looked slow motion. I caught every sprinkle of starlight along its terrible clicking legs. I saw its many eyes fixed on me. I saw the way its barbed tail curled up over its back, angling for my squishy human body even before it reached me.

What I didn’t see was who the fuck grabbed me from above a split-second before the zeelk tore my guts out.

But grab me, someone did. My breath caught in my tight, panicked throat as I was yanked roughly upwards by the back of my jacket.

Once again, I was forced backwards. Although this time I was tossed instead of pushed, almost like a rag doll. I fell hard on my ass, skidding back and once again hitting the rock. A flash of pain made me close my eyes, but I whipped them open again. I was on another ledge, above the first one.

Dalk must be OK! He must have killed the other one!

He stood with his back to me, then crouched in a defensive stance. I cowered backwards against the rock when I realized the second zeelk was still coming, crawling up and over this ledge towards us.

I watched in terror, waiting for Dalk to throw his spear. Or use his knife. Or do something.

But he had no weapons.

Er… What the fuck?

He has no fucking weapons!

I blinked, wondering if I’d hit my head or something and wasn’t seeing straight. But nope. I could see every hard line of thick muscle in this warrior’s back. There wasn’t a single strap or weapon covering his skin to obscure my view.

Well, great. Now we’re both fucked. Me, and whoever this guy is.

I knew for sure that this wasn’t one of the men I’d come with now. The man in front of me wore his hair somewhat similarly to Gahn Baldor – it was shaved on the sides. But where Gahn Baldor’s hair was long and usually braided, this man’s was loose, and only came to his shoulders. The five men who’d come with me didn’t have shaved heads, and their hair was long.

He’s a stranger…

And apparently, a batshit crazy one. Because this bloke was now jumping right onto the zeelk’s goddamn back. No weapons, no armour.

Finally, I found my voice, screaming, “What are you doing?!”

He didn’t answer me, evidently too busy wrestling with the zeelk’s tail while haphazardly straddling its armoured back. Once I got over my shock at the guy doing a fucking kamikaze jump right onto this monster, I figured out that it was actually a pretty smart move. The zeelk’s legs weren’t flexible and couldn’t reach this guy on its back. Only the tail could reach back there. The tail that the alien now had firmly wedged between his bulging arms.

The zeelk screeched again, lowering itself to the ground and then straightening its many legs in rapid succession, trying to dislodge the warrior. Even over the scrabbling, I could hear the alien warrior grunting with the effort it took to hold on. His knees were locked on either side of the zeelk’s white back. Then, in a bizarre, move, the warrior threw himself backwards so that he was lying on his own back on top of the zeelk.

“Ain’t time for a nap mate!” I called, my hands flying up to either side of my face in shocked panic. All I could do was watch this insanity and hope to fucking hell no more zeelk came crawling up the walls.

The warrior grunted again. Even though he was on his back, he still had the zeelk tail in his arms. And he was pulling it down on top of himself.

Holy shit. He’s about to get a zeelk spur right through his skull.

The warrior roared, the deep grind of his voice zinging down my spine and making my hair stand up on end. I held my breath as he gave his final pull, wrenching his head to the side at the last second, driving the zeelk’s tail spur into its own armour.

The creature’s scream was horrific. I covered my ears, wincing.

The warrior didn’t stop to cover his own ears. In an instant, he was up and moving again. He rolled up and over so that now he was on top of the zeelk’s tail, sandwiching the tail between his own torso and the zeelk’s back, driving the spur further into the zeelk’s body. His feet slid down to the ground as he grappled with the still-fighting zeelk. Raising a massive fist, he slammed it down onto the tail over and over and over, until finally, the spidery alien monster stopped moving.

I let out a shaky breath.

“Thank you for -”

I didn’t get to finish my sentence. The warrior spun around to face me, fury carving his hardened features. Before I even knew what was happening, I was once again hauled upwards. Only this time I wasn’t tossed up onto a stone ledge.

This time, I was tossed over a shoulder.

A very big, very strong shoulder belonging to one very angry unknown alien.

Well… Shit.

CHAPTER FOUR

Razek

As soon as I had the female, I was moving. The foolish party she’d come with had set up their camp practically right on top of a zeelk nest in the rock. And if we were going to survive, we’d need to put as much distance between that nest and us as possible.

But this odd creature in my grip was not making things easy. She kicked and wiggled, bucked and bit. It did absolutely nothing, as tiny as she was. But when she screamed, I stopped my hurried run along the ledge, growling, “If you do not cease that keening, you will bring every zeelk of these peaks down upon us.”

Mercifully, that seemed to have worked. Though she kept on kicking, she was now quiet. I resumed my pace, running along the ledge, then up a steep stone incline. I kept my ears primed backwards, listening for the fang-gnashing sound of zeelk spurs on stone. I could hear the sound of weapons clashing and zeelk screams, but so far no one, man nor beast, seemed to be following us.

I kept moving, the weight of this female not hindering me in the slightest. Not much would hinder me here. This was my land. My peaks. My valleys. I knew it all – every shadow. Every crack. Every pebble.

And normally, I had enough sense not to be out here without weapons.

Curse the baklok, I thought to myself angrily, grinding my fangs as I now moved downwards, descending the stone into a valley of pitchy shadows. The baklok was almost complete, now. This was the penultimate round after days upon days of other contests. The three warriors who’d been victorious so far, myself included, were to survive three nights and three days away from the tents of the tribe with no weapons. Just their own claws, fangs, and wits. If more than one man survived this trial, there would be a final battle to determine who was Gahn.

I had hoped to avoid too much trouble, at least this early into things.

Already had to kill a zeelk with my bare hands, and it’s only the first cursed night.

But then again, who else could be such a victor but a future Gahn?

I was shaken from my thoughts by words catching in my ears. Quiet, hissing ones, but urgent.

“You can’t take me like this! You have to put me down right now!”

“If I put you down, you will die,” I answered honestly, continuing through the valley on quick legs. I was fast, but zeelk were faster. If they pursued us, we’d need to have a head start. Without my weapons, I could not guarantee success against future zeelk. Especially if there was more than one.

I believed in my own might. But I was not a fool.

The female said something, a word I did not recognize. Something that sounded like “ball locks.” I ignored it. It does not matter what strange words this even stranger female utters. What matters is that we live to see the morning.

I was not accustomed to getting myself killed if and when I could help it. Even less so, letting a female die. Even if that female seemed to be a most unwilling participant in her own survival.

WE WERE PLUNGED DEEP into the night by the time I stopped running. The sounds of zeelk and men fighting had long since faded. I could not be sure if it was because of the distance between us and the zeelk, or because the zeelk had all been slaughtered.

Or the men.

Most likely the men.

Either way, I finally stopped moving, settling into the shadows of a sheltered nook carved into the base of a high peak of white stone. Glancing around to make sure there were no other predators ready to lunge at us with hungry mouths, I lowered the female to the ground.

She’d stopped moving some time ago, and I’d wondered if she’d fallen asleep, or even become unconscious. Her constant breath pressing in and out against my back and shoulder let me know that she was at least alive. But I realized I had no idea if she had been injured in the zeelk attack or not.

Well, she certainly wasn’t unconscious. When I placed her upon her very odd, flat, round-shell feet, she launched backwards and away from me. But there was nowhere to go. This little nook of stone had only one exit. And I was blocking it.

“What do you think you’re doing, abducting me like that?” The strange woman hissed. I cocked my head, studying her. She did not look like anyone I had ever seen in all my days. She wore very strange garb. A cloak with long sleeves, and a hood that was pushed back. Her hair puffed out and down to her shoulders in spirals as dark as winding rindla vines. Her face was small, but even so, her eyes seemed large, and very odd in colour. Round and white, with singular dark sight stars in the centre. Her nose had a high, bony ridge. Her lips were curved and full, similar to my own people’s mouths, but behind those lips were the tiniest, flattest, most ineffectual teeth that I had ever seen. And it wasn’t just the teeth that were small. The whole shape of her was. I was certain she was not a child, but she stood no taller than someone two heads shorter than myself.

I ignored her question, instead asking my own.

“Who are you? Where have you come from and why do you travel with other Sea Sand men?”

Her small mouth fell open, and I reeled in shock seeing only one little tongue in there.

“Oh, no. No, no, no. That’s not how this works. You don’t just get to abduct someone then think you get to ask all the questions.”

I bristled.

“It was not an abduction. I saved you from certain death. If I had not carried you away as I did, you would have been zeelk-meat.”

“But I had friends back there! We just left them!”

There was a bite of grief in her voice. She cares for the Sea Sand men… This was getting more and more bizarre by the moment. This woman clearly was not of our kind. And yet she travelled among those men and treated them as friends.

Everything in me tightened.

“Was one of those men your mate?”

Why had I not thought of it before? An unmated woman was not likely to travel among men as she had been. No wonder she was so worried about the group.

Her slim, dark brows shot upward.

“What? No. I don’t have a mate yet.”

“Yet?” I asked quizzically, leaning in towards her, sniffing. I was trying to get a sense of her, starting with her scent. I’d been moving so quickly, the air whipping past my face, that I could not get a good whiff before.

She scowled, crossing her arms and hunching back towards the stone.

“Yes. I said not yet. Some of my friends have mates, but not me. And are you smelling me? Stop that.”

I stopped mid sniff, crossing my own arms to match hers. I saw her eyes fall to the muscles of my chest and arms and raised my chin with a small swell of pride. She sees my strength. Good.

“You’re bleeding,” she said, pointing a tiny clawless finger at my chest.

Oh.

I looked down to see where her gaze had fallen. True to her words, there were gashes along my chest. I uncrossed my arms, looking at the wounds. They were not deep, but they would be an annoyance. While I was out here participating in the baklok, I was not allowed to return to the tents for Lavrika’s blood.

But it reminded me that I did not know if she was injured or not. She may have been hostile towards me so far, but I was not about to let a female die from blood loss or some preventable festering of a wound. Not when women were so scarce. Not when there was not a single unmated adult woman in our tribe.

But she said she does not have a mate yet. And that her friends have mates…

“Who are your friends?” I asked, stepping up to her, crowding her with my frame. I hooked a claw under the hem of her weird little cloak, pulling it upwards to examine her abdomen and make sure there were no wounds there. She gasped in protest, but I ignored the sound.

“Stop. I am checking for wounds,” I gritted out as she tried to wriggle away from me, as if she could burrow into the rock itself. Under her cloak was yet another layer of clothing. How much clothing does one female need?

I hoisted the cloak’s hem up higher. So far I could see no blood. But my breath came harshly when I saw her chest.

Breasts.

A hot pang went through me, but I could not identify the feeling. I felt my sight stars pulling inward as I stared at the soft swell of her breasts. Beneath the fabric of this second garment, I could see the pebbled peaks of nipples, and my jaw clenched.

A jab of pain made me drop the cloak back into its original position. I looked down at my chest to see one of the woman’s fingers digging into my largest wound. For such a small and clawless appendage, it was certainly capable of doing some damage.

My gaze flicked back up to meet her own. Her brows were drawn downward, her eyes flashing in the darkness.

“You need to step away from me. Right now.”

Another press, then twist, of her finger in my wound made me growl.

“I was checking you for injuries,” I grunted again. Her finger dug deeper, and I hissed.

“Nah, boy. You were pulling up my clothes and staring at my tits.”

Boy?

My hand shot upward, gripping her wrist. Her eyes widened as she felt the strength of my fingers curl around her arm. I did not squeeze. Just held her arm firmly.

“I am not a boy,” I whispered, leaning downwards so that my face was level with her own. “I am Razek, strongest warrior of the Death Plains. This is my territory, my land. I will be asking the questions here, and you will answer them.”

I tugged her wrist forward and away from myself, grunting softly as her finger popped out of my wound. My blood glistened, black on her skin. My fingertips were positioned on the inside of her wrist. I noticed the melodic flutter of her heartbeat there, and my fingers twitched.

“Fine,” she snapped. “Fine. Ask me your questions, then. But my clothes are staying on.”

“Are you injured?” I asked. Without realizing it, I’d been fingering the incredibly soft skin of her inner wrist, seeking out the song of that pulse there. She set her narrow jaw and pulled meaningfully on her arm. Reluctantly, I let her go.

“No. I’m not,” she said.

I breathed out.

Good. Now that that was out of the way…

“What are tits?”

She blinked her large round eyes at me.

“Are… are you serious?” she asked.

“Of course I am,” I grumbled. Why did this female think I would ask anything that was not of a crucial nature? If I was going to be Gahn, I’d only be busying myself with matters of the utmost importance. Like finding out what tits were.

“They’re breasts,” she said.

“Ah,” I said, suddenly unable to think of anything else as I remembered the curve of those breasts under her clothing. They were completely hidden from view now, under her cloak. “Well, if I was staring, it was only due to the surprise that you are pregnant when you claimed that you did not have a mate.”

“Oh my God. I’m not pregnant. Most women of my kind develop breasts as they grow up.” She paused, then shook her head in an odd side-to-side gesture.

A woman with breasts who is not with a cub, or nursing? What is the point of having breasts…? Once again the image of their curves flashed in my mind, and I swallowed. I almost missed her next words, so absorbed was I in trying to understand what she had told me.

“I don’t know how Cece did this, explaining all this shit for the first time to Buroudei…”

My spine straightened. Buroudei. That was a name I knew. The Gahn whose territory was closest to the Death Plains.

“Gahn Buroudei?” I pressed, my mind whirling with yet more questions.

“Yes,” she answered, leaning back against the stone, crossing her arms again. “Gahn Buroudei. His mate is one of my friends, Cece.”

My tail jerked in shock.

“A mighty Gahn has been joined by the Lavrika to one of your kind?” I asked. My disbelief must have coloured my words strongly because once again she scowled at me.

“Yes. Is that so hard to believe? In fact, it’s not just him. All four of the other Gahns have mates from among my friends.”

I remained silent as I processed this information.

She sighed.

“Look, that was why we came here in the first place. We’re here to update your Gahn on recent events. So really, what needs to happen next is we need to go back and see if my friends, the men I came with, are OK. And then we can all go see your Gahn and talk about everything all together.”

“No,” I said firmly. “We left the other men on top of a zeelk nest. It is too dangerous to go back to them.” Even outside of that, I wasn’t about to let her go that easily. She was the only unmated adult woman within thousands of paces.

I lifted my chin.

“If you need to speak to the Gahn of the Death Plains, then you need go no further.”

Her arms dropped to her side.

“Oh, shit. You’re the Gahn?”

I paused for a beat.

“Well, no. Not yet. But I very soon will be.”

“Hold on… Does that mean the baklok still isn’t finished? How long does it take you guys to pick a new leader around here?!”

“The baklok is nearly concluded. And I will certainly be the victor.”

Her gaze narrowed.

“How can you be so sure?” she asked, and all over again, it felt like she was pressing a finger into my bleeding chest wound.

I did not know why I felt the need to prove myself so badly to this angry little woman. But I did.

“Because I am the strongest and most brutal warriors left alive on these plains. It will be me.”

When had I gotten so close to her? Every breath she took, her cloak brushed my abdomen, making my muscles clench.

“OK, you’re strong. I mean, I guess that’s true. I just saw you kill a zeelk without any weapons. But what else do you bring to the table?”

Table? Sometimes when hammering new weapons into being, we used a stone slab as a table…

“What do you mean?” I asked, leaning closer, as if by getting closer to her face, to her body, she’d start to make more sense to me. So far, it was not working. My eyes fell to the rapid flicker at her throat, and my fists clenched at my sides as I forced myself not to trace that rhythm with my fingertips.

“What else makes you think you should be Gahn besides being strong? What else do you have to offer?”

My fists came upwards, unfurling as I planted my palms against the stone on either side of the woman’s face.

“What else is there?” I asked. “What else is there but the glory of a warrior’s strength to lead him forward?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she scoffed. She raised on hand between us, fingers spread, then pointed at each finger, counting them off as she continued. “Strategic thinking. Foresight. Cleverness. Leadership. Goodness.”

“Well, I am certain I possess all of those qualities,” I huffed. Although, now that I thought about it, I could not recall anyone ever specifically saying I was “good” or that I possessed “goodness.” But then again, no one had ever called me “bad” either. And that must have basically meant the same thing.

This woman is filling my head with nonsense.

I leaned even closer, the tip of her high nose a breath from brushing my own flatter one.

“A Gahn must be as hard as the land he rules,” I insisted. I did not know if I was saying it to her, or to myself.

“Well then if you’re so strong and hard and mighty, why won’t you take me back to my friends?”

“I am strong. Not stupid,” I snapped. “This part of the baklok involves staying alive out here without weapons for three nights and days. I have no blades and no access to Lavrika’s blood. I do not wish to destroy myself and lose you in the process just to check on the fools who brought you here.”

Lose you? Why had my words come out that way?

I shook myself, straightening, trying to breathe in clear air. Air that wasn’t soaked in this woman’s oddly alluring scent.

“So you’re telling me that the men I came with are probably dead, and there’s nothing we can do about it?”

I looked down once more, flinching at the woman’s sudden change of expression. The hostility from before was gone. She looked bereft. For a moment, I hated myself for putting that expression of pain on her small face. But I hardened myself against both her and those feelings of vulnerability. She did not understand her current position. The danger she’d put herself in by coming here. And the fact that I was not about to let her try to leave on what would be a death mission.

I placed a claw under her chin, tipping her sorrowful face upwards. Moonlight slipped through cracks in the shadows, gliding over her skin, her brows and bones, making her glow. Her eyes glistened as they might mine.

“Small female, you are in the Death Plains now. Forget those other men and everything that’s come before. The only path forward, the only one who can keep you alive now, is me.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Jocelyn

“The only one who can keep you alive now is me.”

Well isn’t that just splendid? Technically this guy had rescued me, but he was also one of the most stubborn and arrogant aliens I’d had the displeasure of interacting with so far. And if I wanted to survive now, it looked like I was stuck with him. At least for now, until I figured out how the heck I was going to get back to the Cliffs of Uruzai.

Without Xyan and the others.

Nope. I wasn’t going to go there right now. If I sank too much into grief, I wouldn’t be able to focus on the situation at hand. And the situation at hand was a seven-foot-tall killing machine who was currently my only lifeline in this place.

Razek’s claw was still under my chin. His brow furrowed as his sight stars pulsed, glittering galaxies in his large dark eyes. His thumb came up to brush my lower lip, so slowly and gently it made my toes curl in my boots. His expression was fierce, but not as hard and angry as it had seemed before. Now it seemed more… searching?

“Well, look, if we’re going to get through this in one piece then we should try to get some rest,” I said. I tipped my head back, trying to get out of his grip without slicing myself on his claws. Thankfully, he left his hand fall away.

“We will stay here for the night. It is as sheltered a place as any you will find.”

I sighed, looking at the hard, rocky ground. My pack, my tent, everything was back at the camp we’d made earlier. This was not going to be a comfortable night. Especially not with Mr. Grumpy Wannabe Gahn over there watching my every move.

With any luck, he’ll go to sleep, too.

A small part of me wanted to wait until he fell asleep and then try to escape. Maybe Xyan and Dalk and the others were OK out there somewhere. Maybe they were even looking for me…

But my own inner thoughts echoed Razek’s declaration from earlier. I’m not stupid. We’d come a long, long way through these imposing and shadowy peaks and valleys. There was no way I’d find my way back. And even if I did, I’d probably get skewered by a zeelk first. Or maybe something even worse.

Camping out here it is.

I eyed my companion, or captor, or whatever the hell he was. I couldn’t quite be sure what he was to me yet. Even if I didn’t need him to survive, something told me he still wouldn’t be keen on letting me out of his sight anytime soon…

He turned away from me, leaning out of this little nook in the rock, sniffing the air. Probably checking for predators or something, but the sight of him doing it reminded me of how he’d fucking sniffed me a few minutes ago. Heat flooding my cheeks at that, I let my gaze trail over him.

OK, he was super hot. I couldn’t deny it. His hair, with its shaved sides, falling loose to his shoulders had this almost punk-rock look that wouldn’t have been out of place on the streets of London. The huge stature, broad shoulders, muscled back and tapered waist that led down to a distinctly kangaroo-like tail? Yeah, those things may have been out of place back home. But here, on him, it all worked.

He turned around, facing me in the gloom. Strips of silver light fell over him, illuminating a hard jaw and dark brows. There was an almost rebellious sort of air around him. He seemed a little younger than some of the other Gahns. Definitely younger than Baldor. He was super muscly but longer and leaner than some of the other huge guys I’d seen, and he moved with cat-like grace.

“All is quiet. You are safe to close your eyes.”

He crouched down, his back to the exit, staring at me.

“Great. Safe from everything except you,” I grumbled.

“I have no reason to harm you,” he said, and I had to say I took umbrage with the note of exasperation in his tone.

“Look, man, I just met you, alright? You may have helped me out with the zeelk, but you also carried me away against my own wishes and then started poking and prodding at me, tugging at my clothes. So forgive me for being a little wary!”

My tone was drenched in sarcasm, but apparently, that went right over Razek’s big head.

“I forgive you,” he said solemnly.

Jesus Christ.

I sat down on the hard ground, wincing at just how pointy all the pebbles under my ass were.

“You said you weren’t injured,” Razek said, at my side immediately.

“I’m not,” I said. “It’s all these stupid little rocks. They’re digging into some soft spots, OK?”

He seemed to tense a little at the word “soft.” He reached forward, pulling me up and off the ground, cradling me against his chest.

Oh, fuck no!

“Put me down!” I said, batting at him. He’d just told me to go to sleep and now he was, what? I didn’t even know what he was doing, to be honest.

But when I saw his tail strike out, swiping the ground where I’d just been sitting, I understood.

“It should be clear now,” he said, placing me back on the ground.

I felt like a bit of an arse, now, for reacting so strongly when he’d been trying to help.

“Well, thank you,” I said. The ground was still hard and uncomfortable, but at least it was flat and kind of smooth.

“No thanks are required,” Razek said, returning to his spot across from me and sitting down. “I did it for my own sanity. If I had to witness you wincing and complaining about the rocks all night, neither of us would have gotten any rest.”

“Sorry, I’m not built out of Sea Sand bones and hide like you! I wasn’t made for this place,” I cried.

“What are you made of?” he asked, capturing me in his intense gaze. I shivered, simultaneously cold and hot.

“I’m human,” I said flatly, lying down on my back, then rolling onto my side, facing away from him.

I could feel his gaze boring into my back, but I ignored him. I did not have the energy to explain what human meant right now. We’d have a lot more to catch up on tomorrow, but that could all wait. For now, I was going to stare at this rock while he stared at me until one of us finally gave out and fell asleep.

And, it turned out, the first one to give out was me. Though I wouldn’t have expected to, I fell asleep fast and hard, exhausted from the day’s events.

I may have fallen asleep quickly, but I didn’t stay that way for long. I awoke not much later, my own shivering startling me into wakefulness. Fuck, it was cold. It was definitely colder here at night than it was back at the settlement. And I wasn’t in a cozy tent bundled in a bunch of hides out here. All I had was my solar protection jacket. Since it was designed to protect from the sun and let heat out so that you didn’t get heatstroke, it wasn’t doing too much in the keep-the-Earth-girl-warm department.

I brought my stiff cold fingers up to my mouth, blowing on them, curling into a tight ball, trying to get warm.

“I have removed all the pebbles. What bothers you now?”

I almost jumped out of my chilly, goose-pimply skin at the alien growl behind me. Fucking hell, I’d almost forgotten he was there.

I twisted my neck, looking at Razek over my shoulder. He was sitting up, leaning back against the stone, his long legs stretched across the space between me at the opening that led outwards.

“It’s bloody freezing is what’s bothering me!” I exclaimed through my chattering teeth. “It doesn’t bother you?”

He looked perfectly comfy wearing nothing but his freaking alien loincloth. And frankly, that was extremely annoying.

“Mere pebbles cause you pain, and now you tell me you are in this much distress because the night air is too cold? Your kind is truly delicate. You are lucky I found you. You would not last a moment here without me.”

I glared daggers at him, then wrenched my head back around to stare at the rock wall again.

“I’m not that weak,” I said, more to myself than him. “For example, I’m perfectly capable of building a fire. But I don’t have any of the stuff I’d need to do it.”

“Fires are safe out on the plains where the tents are. But you cannot light fires here in the peaks. The ablokoi are drawn to the light,” Razek replied.

“Do I even want to know what an ablokoi is? No, nevermind, I don’t.” All I cared about right now was getting warm. The cold seemed to have seeped right down into my very bones. It felt like even if I were next to a fire, there would never be enough heat to get me warm again.

There was a slight whisper of movement and my shivering muscles stiffened when I became aware of Razek’s presence directly behind me. I kept my gaze glued to the wall, ignoring whatever fuckery he was getting up to back there. But I couldn’t exactly ignore it when he pressed up against me like the weirdest kangaroo alien big spoon there ever was.

“Oh, no. We are not doing this,” I said, turning my head around to face him again. I gulped when I realized just how close he was. His face was a hair’s breadth from my own. Shadows pooled under the hard lines of his bone structure, and his fangs glinted as he spoke.

“You protest too often,” he declared. “Against even things that are good for you. I saved you from the zeelk and you fought me. I come to you now to help warm your incapable little body, and you reject me. I do not understand you.”

He started to roll away from me. But in that brief press of his body against mine, I’d felt warmth. Deliriously delicious warmth, radiating from him and into me. And suddenly, my pride and anger and irritation didn’t seem that important.

As cold air replaced Razek’s heat, I said, “Wait.” I felt him stop moving behind me. “You can come back. Maybe. Please.”

Instantly, he was at my back again. I sighed, giving up all pride and pretenses, wiggling and burrowing backwards against him, seeking more heat. No wonder he didn’t feel the cold – the guy was like a huge alien furnace. The heat was rolling off of him, enveloping me.

But it wasn’t quite enough.

Once again, his claws found their way to the hem of my jacket, tugging upward.

“I thought we talked about how I was going to keep all my clothes on!” I yelped.

“Stop screeching. Remove this, then use it as a blanket. You will get more heat with my skin against yours.”

Oh. I mean, it was true, but…

I hesitated, but then just thought, fuck it. If he’d wanted to do something really shitty to me, he could have done it by now. Apart from saving me in a way that I didn’t want to be saved, then staring like a horny schoolboy at my tits, he hadn’t actually done that much to make me not trust him.

I unzipped the jacket, shimmying out of it before bringing it quickly back down against myself as a blanket. A heavy arm fell over me, on top of the jacket, and I was drawn backwards against the solid muscled wall of Razek’s torso.

And, OK, I had to hand it to the guy. This was working. Like, really working.

I breathed out, my muscles slowly unlocking, my teeth finally stopping chattering. The heat was blissful after the cold from before, and I wiggled again, snuggling closer.

I felt Razek’s chin settle against the top of my head, then the heavy drape of his tail over my thighs, and suddenly a whole new heat was rocketing through me. Because this was an extremely intimate position, wasn’t it?

Due to our size difference, and the fact that I was curled up pretty tightly still, no part of me was touching his groin. And for a brief, absolutely insane second, I wondered what was going on… down there for him. Because as fucked up as it was, apparently there was something going on down there for me.

OK. Yeah. I was getting turned on.

This bastard hasn’t even asked me my name yet, and just the feeling of his chest against my back is arousing me?

“What is your name?”

The shock of his question made me jump. Please tell me he isn’t a mind reader…

“It’s Jocelyn,” I said, my breath shuddering out of me when his arm tightened slightly against my frame.

He made a smooth sort of “hmmphhhh” sound but he didn’t say anything more.

Not knowing what else to do, I squeaked out, “Goodnight!”

“It would be a good night if you would be quiet and let me get some peace, Jozelyn,” Razek grumbled. But there was no bite to his words. Just a sleepy sort of softness that reverberated into my scalp and down my neck, making my nipples prick and my breath catch.

I scrunched my eyes shut, focusing on calming down and going back to sleep. Razek seemed to be having no trouble with it. His chest was pressing into my back with every steady breath he took, and apart from that, he was still.

OK. Yup. You are definitely the only one crazy enough to be getting turned on by getting spooned by an alien stranger.

Alien stranger – is that redundant? Whatever, go the fuck to sleep!!!

Eventually, exhaustion overtook me again. And once again, I fell into the darkness.

CHAPTER SIX

Razek

Curse all of this. I shifted slightly, trying not to wake Jozelyn. But my cock was so murderously hard it was torture to remain like this.

She had only just fallen asleep, her tense little form going limp, her breath deep and even. If I left her side now to try to relieve the pressure in my groin, she would certainly wake up from the cold again. And I did not imagine it would go well when she discovered me viciously fisting my own cock.

Why am I hard? This woman is not my mate. She is not even of my people.

But I couldn’t deny the strong pull of arousal, deep in my pelvis. I wanted so badly to shunt my hips forward and wake her by grinding against her small rump. Tear aside her clothing, and nudge my fat tip at her wet entrance -

Stop.

I bit back a growl. Those kinds of thoughts were only making things worse. To take my mind off of the pulsing of my engorged member, I started planning the next few days. I’d take her back to our people’s tents. She’d be safer there. Our way would be slowed by her short legs and her lack of experience in this terrain. I’d also have to hunt for two instead of just fending for myself, something made more difficult with no weapons.

But no matter how difficult, I’d told her that as long as she was with me, she would survive. And I had never spoken words less true. Oddly, I looked forward to the challenge of taking care of her.

She was strange and barbed and unlike me in so many ways, but I found that I did not want to see harm come to her. And it wasn’t just because she was a female in a land where females were scarce. It was her, in particular, I did not want to see hurt now. I chewed on that revelation, wondering just what it meant. That, along with my aching erection… it couldn’t mean anything good.

Perhaps I can turn around. Put my back to hers, keep her warm that way, but be able to reach my cock and relieve the hardness.

The thought of stroking myself with her right beside me in the darkness made my heavy balls twinge. I started to move my arm to try to adjust myself, but Jozelyn made a small moan of complaint as soon as I did so.

And that sound, so soft… I was powerless against it.

I was not sure I had ever felt powerless in my entire life. I did not like it.

Sighing, I returned my arm over her form once more, encasing her in the cocoon I’d created with my body. She made a satisfied sound, burrowing closer, making me grit my fangs. I’d been through battles and had had wounds with such pain that could scarcely be imagined. But this, right now, may have been the worst torture my body had ever faced.

I got no more sleep that night. I remained rigid and aching until the sun began its ascent.

As the sun trekked higher into the sky, warming the air, Jozelyn stirred. She flung a small hand backwards at me, mumbling, “Too hot. Get off.”

I needed no more persuasion than that. My arousal had not let up for even a moment during the long countdown to dawn. I jerked away from her, muttering that I would be right back. I stalked out of the little nook we’d shared. I was a mere few paces from her, but I would be out of her sight, now, hidden by the rock. And considering how desperate I was for release, I knew this would not take long. As long as I remained here at the entrance to the little nook that held her, she would be safe.

And as long as she didn’t see what I was doing, I’d be safe, too.

Wrenching my loincloth to the side, I gripped my member, jerking the hard flesh quickly with a strong fist. I tried to beat them away, but memories of Jozelyn’s softness kept coming to me. The brush of her tight curls of hair against my chin and neck. The gentle curve of her spine against my chest…

I grunted, trying not to think of her, working my hand faster. But when I realized that thoughts of her were speeding up this process, I gave into them, letting them wash over me. Her scent in my throat. The shockingly enticing swell of her breasts under her clothing. Flesh that looked so soft, so supple, but hardened at her nipples’ peaks…

That did it. I growled, exploding on the stone, pumping my hand through the waves of pleasure radiating through my groin. Breathing hard, I clothed myself again. Physically, I did feel some relief, now. But mentally? There was no relief to be had. Especially when I returned to the nook to see Jozelyn stretching without her cloak, those breasts pressing outward under her thin sleeveless tunic as she arched her spine, raising her hands over her head.

I froze, watching her. Her eyes were closed as she stretched. The morning light made her brown skin rich and warm. Sunlight cascaded over the springy shapes of her curls before moving to her face, drenching her round cheekbones and dusting her soft lips. And when her eyes opened, focusing on me, I saw that the sight stars in the middle weren’t pure black like I’d thought last night. The very centre of her eyes were black, but around that needle prick of darkness, there was a ring of desert babkit-brown flecked with gold.

“Hey. Where’d you run off to?” she asked. My gaze slid from her eyes to her mouth as she spoke.

“I… went to relieve myself,” I said.

“Ah. Right. Well, I actually need to do the same…” her voice trailed off, and she looked around uncertainly. A flash of wicked heat went through me, threatening to engorge my cock all over again when I thought of Jozelyn “relieving” herself the way I had just done. Pleasuring herself.

But I knew what she actually meant.

“We will be leaving this place and no longer camping here. You can do what you need to here.”

“OK. Thanks.”

We stared at each other in silence until finally, she said, “Well, are you going to step outside again or what?”

Right.

I turned and stepped outside the little nook, letting the full force of the sun blast over my skin. I breathed in deeply, trying to return to sanity.

But when I heard the stream of what had to be urine hitting rock, and I knew she was naked from the waist down in there, all hope of sanity vanished.

This was foolishness. Peril. If I couldn’t focus, I wouldn’t be able to keep either of us safe. Not to mention the fact that this woman was a distraction from what I was actually doing out here. I was not out here to play strange games with even stranger women. I was here to prove my worth to my tribe and take my place as Gahn. I was sure that, had Gahn Itok had the chance, he would have named me Gahn before his demise. But he did not, so now I had to prove what I already knew deep down.

I was meant to be Gahn. I’d known it from my first days. For as long as I could remember. I’d forged myself into a weapon of the Death Plains, worked every moment to be stronger and harder than any other man. I was meant to rule these lands and take care of my people.

But at this moment, I’d need to take care of the person who was now back at my side, pulling up the hood of her cloak, squinting out at the landscape.

“Good thing these were in my pocket instead of in my pack,” she said, fishing out a shiny black item from within her cloak. I watched, confused, as she unfurled two skinny black wing-like things, then pressed the whole contraption against her face. She looked up at me, her eyes hidden behind thick black shells.

“What are those?” I asked, unnerved by the change in her appearance. I’d only seen her eyes open in the sunlight once so far, and for some reason now I did not want to see them hidden.

“They’re called sunglasses. They help me see out here and protect my eyes from the sun. I don’t have any sunscreen for my skin, though, so I’ll have to be careful and really keep my hood up and stick to the shadows.”

I stared at her, dumbfounded about how someone so vulnerable had made it this far, even with the party of warriors escorting her.

“How are you even alive?” I asked, unable to contain the question.

Her nose wrinkled, and thought I could not see her eyes, I was sure that she was scowling.

“Yeah, well, you try taking the tube during rush hour. Then you tell me who’s hardcore.”

I had no reply to that, as I had not understood even half the words she’d uttered.

“What is this other language you are speaking? Some of your words are foreign.”

“It’s English. It’s my native tongue. I’m from Durham. It’s in the UK. On Earth.”

“These places must be beyond the Sea Sands,” I said slowly. I felt suddenly ignorant and wished I were not so.

“You’re telling me,” Jozelyn said. For the first time, her small, plush mouth curved into a grin. Even though her face was cast in shadows, the expression lit her up. “I’m not even from this planet, this world. I’m not from Zaphrinax. My friends and I came from another world.”

I stared at her, then out at the peaks of white rock around us. There was something other than Zaphrinax? The only things I knew of besides the world under my feet were the moons and stars of the sky.

“So, what, you have come from a moon, then?”

She snorted, an odd, huffing sound, and smiled wider.

“Nope. Further. Past the asteroids, the moons, that you see at night.”

“This does not make sense,” I finally said, exasperated. Was she making up some story designed to fool me? To test me? I whirled on her, suddenly wondering if she actually were some kind of test. Part of the baklok, meant to test my sanity.

Surely, she was not a mirage of the desert. I’d felt her last night, pressed against me in the darkness, as I’d warmed her small, soft body. But thinking of that made my cock stir, so I forced myself on to other thoughts, other words.

“Tell me again why you have come here,” I said, trying to stop the spinning of my head. To understand who, what, she really was.

“That,” she said dryly, pushing the sunglasses up her bony nose, “is a very, very long story.”

She had not exaggerated. As we began moving, picking our way through the rock, she told me this story from the beginning. She told me of being taken from her own homeworld and brought here against her will, along with other females of her kind. She told me of their stay with Gahn Fallo’s people, and then the unification of the four tribes. The news of this union, this alliance, unnerved me. Death Plains warriors were stronger, harder, than any other Sea Sand men. But if we ever had to fight, I did not like our chances against four other tribes united. And even more unnerving were her tales of the water irkdu-men, gargantuan scaly warriors from the Bitter Sea, one of whom apparently had a mate from among her kind.

Compared to tales of giant water men, her warnings about her own people coming back to attack seemed paltry.

“Why would I worry about your kind attacking? You need protection from the sun and from the cold and from the press of pebbles in your backside. Unless your males are of an entirely different kind than you, I do not fear them.”

I glanced at her sideways, catching a glimpse of her profile under her hood. Any traces of a smile from before were gone now.

“You don’t know what my people are capable of. The weapons we have… They could destroy this world.”

That was something I could not fathom. What kind of spear could cleave an entire world? What kind of blade could carve Zaphrinax down?

Jozelyn stopped moving, and so did I. She turned to face me.

“This is why we came here. To invite you back and negotiate an allegiance. Join with us, the other four tribes and the Bitter Sea men. We’re all stronger together.”

Her soft face was hard with determination. I sighed.

“Jozelyn, let us focus on surviving the next few days first. I cannot negotiate any of your strange requests if I do not even live to become Gahn.” Not that I was entirely sure I was willing to negotiate her demands at all. When the party had come looking for us many days ago, just after the death of Gahn Itok, we had not known of this alliance. We had not known of their true purposes. They’d left almost as soon as they’d come, once they’d learned there was no Death Plains Gahn to deal with. But evidently, this is what they’d come for. Still, I did not like it. Allying ourselves with the other four tribes? All five tribes living as one? Five Gahns together, splitting power? It seemed impossible. Like a tempest in its early stages. The kind of sand storm that could destroy us all.

“OK. Fine. We’ll get through the next few days, then we’ll talk more about it. And figure out who’s taking me back to the settlement if you don’t want to go to negotiate,” Jozelyn replied.

Everything in me stilled. A fierce, almost furious possessiveness reared up inside me, shocking me with its burning fire.

I stepped up close in front of her, forcing her to jerk her chin up. I bent down, looking into her face.

“Who has said that I will return you to the settlement across the sands?”

Her mouth fell open, the sun catching on the wet, flat edges of her teeth.

“What do you mean?!” she sputtered. “That’s… that’s where I live! That’s where my people are, my friends!”

“You know as well as I that the journey is long and arduous. Why would I waste men on this when I would just as quickly see you settled safely among my own people?” I did not know why I was pressing this so hard. Really, it had nothing to do with the danger. Travelling the open sands was no more dangerous than these peaks – if anything, there were fewer predators out there. But I knew, deep in my bones, that I did not want to relinquish her to any other tribe, any other men. Perhaps it was because she was the only unmated female in these lands now, a great potential boon to my tribe. I swallowed, my eyes tracing the way the sunlight caught on a stray curl that had escaped her hood.

A great boon to the tribe? Or to me?

I knew with another wave of irritation that not only did I not want to give her up to the other tribes, I also did not want to see her mated to one of my fellow tribesmen, either.

Certainly, I do not want her as a mate. Absolutely not. She was been a spur in my side this entire time.

What, then? What was this hot itch creeping along my tail and up my spine when I looked at her?

You are losing focus and control. Keep your mind on the baklok. Become the Gahn, then you can decide what to do with her. When you are Gahn, your decisions will be law and none will be able to oppose you. Not even her.

But as my gaze took in the stern set of her jaw and the flashing of her eyes behind her shells, I had the blasphemous thought that if anyone was going to oppose a Gahn of the Death Plains, it would be Jozelyn.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Jocelyn

This bastard. I stomped away from him, fuming. Not that I could get away from him, or anything. I wouldn’t be able to get anywhere without him. But it was a symbolic gesture that made me feel at least a teensy bit more in control. His words clanged in my head.

Who says I will return you to the settlement?

Motherfucker. It would have been better if he hadn’t looked so damn good saying it. Everything about him was made even more infuriating when combined with the fact that he was the most attractive Sea Sand bloke I’d come across so far. I paused in my angry forward march to throw a glare backwards at him. Of course, he’d kept pace with me easily and was right behind me. His sight stars were pinned to me. In the sunlight, I could see him better than last night. His sight stars glinted silver-purple, lavender shards that were trained on me. A lot of the Sea Sand guys had a really broad, almost brutish look to them. But there was something almost refined about Razek’s high cheekbones and wide mouth. His hair fell to one shaved side of his head, and he brushed it out of his face in a shockingly human gesture. That, combined with his lithe, carved body all added up to one very handsome, absolutely infuriating alien man.

But good looks or not, he definitely was not on my good side. He’d been getting there, after saving me and then keeping me warm last night. But now? After that proclamation about keeping me with his tribe against my will? Nope. No way. Didn’t matter how he looked. It mattered what he did.

I looked forward again, breathing out harshly. The landscape would be impossible to traverse without Razek. Like it or not, I was stuck with the guy. I looked around, feeling like I had been dropped into some harsh moonscape.

We were currently picking our way through a rocky valley. The ground wasn’t smooth or flat here but comprised of grey and white stones of varying shapes and sizes, from rocks the size of my fist to boulders that came up past even Razek’s head. All around us, towering white peaks of stone pierced the sky, as if we were in the centre of a huge animal’s open mouth, its bottom teeth caging us in. And it seemed to go on forever, from what I could see. It felt impossible that there were any plains beyond this.

He wants to keep me here…

Everything in me rebelled against that. There was no way I was staying here. This wasn’t a moonscape, it was a hellscape. And I had friends to get back to. I had come here for a reason, and people were waiting for me.

At that moment, I spied a little bit of exactly why I had come here. Fallink. A small collection of the black, puffy blooms were in a sunny spot against a nearby boulder. I hurried to them, being careful not to twist my ankle in the rocks, then crouched down to them.

These were perfect! They were exactly what I needed.

The heat of the sun on my back as I crouched dulled as a large shadow fell over me and the fallink. Razek towered behind me, blocking out the light, but I ignored him.

Shit. I didn’t have my pack with me. The fallink stems were prickly and thick, way tougher than the similar-looking dandelions of Earth. And I wouldn’t be able to pull them out of the ground either – their roots went very deep.

Please, please, I begged silently as I patted my trousers’ pockets. Fuck yes! A tiny pair of first aid scissors were still there from when I’d last used them to trim my nails. I yanked them out of my pocket, beginning to hack away at the stem of the nearest fallink plant.

“What are you doing?” Razek asked from above me, his voice a smoky growl.

“I’m getting these fallink plants to take back with me. Because I am going back,” I said, practically spitting the words. Razek didn’t say anything to argue this time, remaining still and quiet above me.

Once I’d cut all the fallink plants, I bundled them together and shoved them deep into my trousers’ pocket. Beside the fallink, I noticed another useful plant, orlok. Before I stood up, I collected the orlok too, snipping at its small greyish leaves. It was a good natural disinfectant for open wounds. If we don’t have any access to Lavrika’s blood over the next few days, then we’re probably going to need this. As much as Razek was driving me up the wall, I couldn’t stop myself from noticing the gashes along his chest actually did look pretty bad. And despite all his arrogance and claims of keeping me, the only reason he had those wounds was because he’d saved my human ass. I hated to admit it, but we both needed each other.

“Can you stop standing behind me like fucking Big Ben and sit down?” I snapped. Having him standing over me like some giant stone building was getting on my nerves.

He crouched next to me. “What is it?”

“I said, ‘Sit down.’ Sit.” Crouching like that he would still be too tall to work on.

“Why?” A note of suspicion had crept into his voice. He eyed the little silver pair of scissors in my hand, then flicked his swirling lavender gaze up to meet mine. “Even if I am seated, small female, you cannot kill me. I am too strong.”

I rolled my eyes and groaned. “Yes, yes. You’re strong. I know. It’s your wounds. If you want to stay strong and not topple over because of infection then we need to get them sorted.”

Theresa’s mate Baldor had gotten a pretty nasty infection from a hand wound when he’d first arrived at the settlement. And having Razek keel over now would definitely not be in either of our best interests.

Razek looked at me for another long moment, the slow drag of his gaze over my face heating my skin.

“Would you just do it, please?” I asked, sitting down myself.

Finally, he did it, settling himself cross-legged in front of me. My eyes fell downwards to the pull of tendons and muscles in his bronzed inner thighs, leading up to his loincloth. I yanked my gaze back up, focusing on his chest.

There were two gashes, criss-crossing each other, the deepest, bloodiest part at the point where they intersected, just above his sternum. I wouldn’t be able to do much to clean the dried blood away. I didn’t have any spare clean hides or bandages or anything. But I could at the very least use the orlok to help ward off infection.

I looked around, gathering the things I’d need. Beside us was a flat stone, and I grabbed a smaller one that I could hold in my hand. I swept away the dust and loose little pebbles from the flat stone, then placed some of the orlok leaves onto its surface. I hefted the other rock, then started pounding. Beside me, I was aware of Razek placing his elbows on his knees, leaning forward to see what I was doing better.

“You are a healer?” he asked. I kept my eyes on my work, pounding and grinding with the rock until the grey orlok leaves turned frothy and bright green from the plant’s inner juices.

“I was learning from them, yes. Training, I guess you could say.”

I added a few more leaves until I had a pretty decent helping of the bright green stuff. Its sharp, medicinal scent filled the air, reminding me of menthol.

“OK. There,” I said, satisfied with my preparations. “Now put that on your wounds.”

Razek looked at me, then down at the pulverized orlok.

“I do not know the healers’ ways. I do not know if this is some venom you mean to put into my blood.”

I quirked a brow at him.

“I thought you said that no matter what, you were too strong for me to kill you?”

He levelled his lavender gaze at me, his sight stars pulsing. He cocked his head.

“Perhaps I was mistaken.”

We stared at each other in some kind of weird standoff. Finally, I threw my hands up.

“I want to just say, ‘Whatever, get an infection if you want to.’ But if you die, I’m screwed out here. I need you to stay alive, OK?”

He leaned further forward. “You need me.”

Why did it sound so… meaningful when he said it? I scowled at him, then pointed at the orlok.

“I said I need you to stay alive. So shut up and put this stuff on your wounds already!”

Razek squished his fingers into the orlok, then slapped it haphazardly against his chest.

“There,” he said, moving as if to stand.

“Er, excuse me. No,” I said, grabbing his wrist and pulling him back down. “You just did a piss poor job of that.”

“Piss? You want to piss on the wound?”

His nostrils flared, and his gaze dragged down my body to settle between my legs. Heat slammed through me, and I switched from sitting cross-legged to kneeling, pressing my thighs together.

“Good God, just stop talking,” I begged. I scooped some of the orlok onto my own hand, shuffling closer until my knees met the hard resistance of his crossed shins. Immediately, he unhooked his ankles, spreading his legs so they rested on either side of me. Face on fire, I moved closer, cursing this idiot the whole time inside my head. I shook my head as I once again looked at his own handiwork. A sloppy mess of orlok gleamed on one side of the wound. The deepest centre part of the wound hadn’t even been touched.

“You didn’t even spread it on the worst part of the wound!” I scoffed, raising my eyes to meet his. Though I kind of wished I’d just stayed staring at his chest. Because his gaze had hardened, tightened. He was looking at me with an intensity I was not ready for. I squeezed my thighs again.

He caught my wrist as I moved my hand towards his wound. Memories of last night, of digging my finger in there, feeling the hot ooze of his blood, pounded inside me.

“Perhaps because I do not trust you, strange female. You claim you need me to stay alive, but I have no reason to believe your words. You have already proven yourself foolish when it comes to your own safety by travelling here and then proven it again by wishing to remain near the zeelk nest. I have no reason to believe you would not risk your life yet again to kill me.”

My breath caught as I stared at the dark mask of his face. A face that a few moments ago had been so devilishly handsome and now was terrifying in its fury. It was the fury I’d seen that first time he’d whirled around to face me after killing the zeelk. It was brutal and primal and I was afraid. But through that fear, something else called. A dark wanting.

My nipples stiffened, my core heating as Razek stared at me, his fangs bared. I knew there was nothing I could say right now to convince him of anything. And I doubted I would even be able to speak if I wanted to. My throat was tight, my eyes wide behind my sunglasses.

Finally, Razek broke the strained silence with a groan, pulling my dripping, orlok-coated hand against his wound. He pressed his hand down against my own, forcing my slick palm flat against his torn flesh. He grunted as the orlok seeped into the deep part of his wound, his fangs flashing in the sun.

“What are you doing?” I managed to choke out.

“I do not yet know what you are. Some spirit of the desert, perhaps. Perhaps you’re meant to test me after all.”

His words made no fucking sense. Did he already have an infection that was addling his brains?

“But if this is a test,” he continued, “then I will face it with everything I have.” He growled, dragging my hand against his wound. “If you are poison, then I will survive it, as I have survived everything else.”

If you are poison.

“I’m not. I’m trying to help you!” I insisted, my voice growing stronger. “I’m trying to help you and you are being absolutely insane right now!”

He made a sharp, humourless laughing sound.

“I am insane? I am not the one dressed in strange garb who claims she came from beyond the sky. And I did not throw my own life into danger by wishing to remain at the zeelk nest.”

“Yes you did,” I hissed. “You did put yourself into danger at the zeelk nest. To save me. You didn’t have to come in and grab me. You could have taken off and left me there to die on that ledge.”

He snapped his jaws, eyes pulsing furiously. His face tipped forward, so close to me that I felt the breath of his next word along my jaw. It was only one word, but it sounded so broken and raw that it made my teeth clench.

“Impossible.”

He nudged even closer, his nose and mouth pressing up to my skin, forcing my hood back.

“What’s impossible?” I asked, barely able to form a coherent thought as his nose brushed my jaw. “The fact that you’re being insane?”

“No,” he ground out. I swallowed a short moan. If he was insane then apparently so was I. I felt like I was spell-bound, trapped by him and this moment and an unspeakable desire rising up inside me.

“Then what?” I whispered, my eyes fluttering closed as he dragged his nose down my neck, his lips just barely grazing my sensitive skin.

“Impossible to leave you there. Impossible to let you die.”

I gasped, and Razek wrenched back, his spine straightening. I felt the heave of his chest under my hand as he took ragged breaths.

“We must keep moving,” he said stiffly, removing his hand from mine. I blinked as if coming out of a trance. Slowly, I pulled my hand away from his chest, inspecting things. In that entirely too weird moment, we’d managed to smear the orlok across the whole wound, which meant that I was free to scramble backwards and away from him. I stood quickly, yanking up my hood, rubbing at my jaw and neck, trying to get rid of the tingling there. Dropping my hand, I clenched my fist, furious about the fact that I wanted to rub just as hard, if not harder, between my legs.

Fuck. I’d used the same hand that I’d just had plastered to Razek’s chest, and now I felt the sticky smear of orlok mixed with his blood on my skin. I wiped my hand on my trousers, then pulled my sleeve up over my fingers, rubbing at my jaw and neck again. But even as I pulled my hand away, I could tell that I wasn’t clean. I was still marked by it, by him. By that moment.

My emotions collided, sparking into an explosion. Grief at losing Xyan and the others. And for the fact that I may not get to ever go back to the settlement, the place that had been slowly becoming home after losing my real home. All of that combined with anger and arousal and so much more, all aimed at Razek.

“Keep moving where?” I cried, my voice breaking. “If you’re not taking me back then what are we even doing out here?”

Razek was standing with his back to me. His hands were down at his sides, curled into fists the way my own were.

“We are heading back to my tribe’s tents. But you are slow, and it will take some time. By the time we reach the tents, this portion of the baklok will be over. If either of the other two warriors in the baklok survived, I will defeat them in the final round and be declared Gahn. Then, I can decide what to do with you.”

“Decide what to do with me,” I said, feeling angry tears rise in my throat. “So I have no say in anything, basically.”

Razek whirled. I stumbled backwards, my shoulder blades slamming into the boulder we’d been crouching next to. He didn’t stop coming for me until his hands were planted on either side of me, caging me in.

“You have your say in everything!” he growled. “I have never met a female who says so much! Every moment you argue, though you know nothing of me and of these lands. You have no idea how to keep yourself alive here. But I do. So let me do it!”

“Oh really? I know nothing? So who found the orlok for your wounds? And it’s not poison or venom, by the way,” I shot back, hackles rising. Yeah, I wouldn’t be able to survive out here alone. I’d literally already told him that myself. But I wasn’t some useless idiot. And I deserved a say in my own life, my own path. A choice. But it didn’t seem like I’d get anywhere fighting him on this now. “Get away from me. We need to keep going. You said so yourself.”

Razek withdrew slightly, staring into my eyes. I met his gaze unblinking, pouring my anger out into the air between us. Finally, he shoved back from the boulder and stepped away from me. I let out a shaky breath, keeping him in my sights.

WE TRAVELLED IN NEAR silence the rest of the day, speaking only when we needed to. Razek killed a couple of big dark blue snake-looking things, slitting them open for their meat and the eggs inside for us to eat. As I swallowed down the strange food, I found myself homesick – not just for Durham, but for the settlement. I missed the smoked meat by the fire with the other girls. The camaraderie that was so slowly beginning to unfurl among the four tribes. Working with the healers.

If I end up stuck here with this guy…

No. No way. I was not going to let that happen. Somehow, someway, I’d get back to the others. With that in mind, I kept collecting any ripe fallink I came across, shoving the plants into my pockets.

By the time the sun was setting, I was exhausted. My feet were blistered and probably bleeding inside my boots, and my muscles were about to give out. But no way was I going to tell Razek any of that. Clearly, he thought I was some kind of weak-ass loser. Which, compared to him, maybe I was. But I wasn’t about to reinforce that impression by whining that my feet hurt.

Razek stopped, almost causing me to collide with his muscled back. He glanced up at the sky as if noticing the waning light for the first time.

“Night comes. We should make camp,” he said.

“I can keep going,” I lied, shifting back and forth on my destroyed feet. He turned around to look at me, his expression flat. I bit my lip as the setting sun poured over him, making his muscles gleam, his skin shining. He looked almost elfin, like a dark prince from another world.

If the dark prince’s mom married a kangaroo, that is.

I snorted, unable to help myself, and soon enough I was laughing my ass off. I bent double, placing my hands on my knees, laughing until I could barely breathe. The force of the movements sent my sunglasses falling to the rocks at my feet. I tried to take several deep breaths, laughs bubbling up between them. Damn, the exhaustion and the heat were getting to me because there really was nothing to laugh about right now.

But when I glanced up and saw Razek’s expression of pure confusion, I started laughing all over again. Finally, I was able to get some control over myself. I grabbed my sunglasses, pressing them into a pocket that wasn’t occupied by orlok and fallink plants, then let my hood fall back as I straightened up. The sky was flushed crimson, licking up into bruised indigo as the stars appeared above us.

“Are you well?” Razek said slowly, staring at me as if he thought I was some kind of ticking time bomb of crazy.

“No,” I said. “Not really. But I’m making it work.”

Razek didn’t look amused. “Please speak plainly. Are you well, or not? If you are not, I will attempt to rectify the situation.”

I stared at him blankly for a long moment before saying, “Oh, so you’ll take me back to my settlement, then? Back to the other tribes?”

“I said no such thing,” he bit out.

I shrugged aggressively, throwing my hands up into the air.

“Then you can’t make this alright. I’m isolated here away from my friends with a total nutter. How would I be ‘well’ with all of that considered?”

His mouth thinned into a grim line.

“What is a nutter?”

And there I was, laughing again like a total lunatic. But if I didn’t laugh at the insanity of all this, I’d fall apart. And falling apart was not an option right now.

When Razek stepped closer, his exasperation fading into what could have been concern, I waved him off.

“Whatever. Let’s make camp, like you said.”

We kept walking a little ways longer until Razek found a place he was satisfied with. I wrinkled my nose at his suggested campsite.

“Not as cozy as the other one, is it?” I asked, staring upwards. He’d suggested a high flat ledge, about four metres above us where we were on the ground. Unlike the spot we’d had last night, there wasn’t any nice nook to provide the semblance of shelter.

“It does not need to be cozy,” he said, jerking his chin upwards at the ledge. “It needs to be safe. Ablokoi and zeelk both nest down on the ground. We are less likely to disturb any predators up there, especially if you are going to keep laughing as loudly as you have been.”

I rolled my eyes at his laughing comment. “How is it safe without any walls or anything like that?” I asked, frowning.

“You need no walls to be safe tonight. My body will be enough.”

Before I could make some jabbing remark about what he’d just said, he gripped my waist and hoisted me over his shoulder, just like he had the first time he’d grabbed me. I jerked in his hold, pummelling his back with my fist.

“There are better ways to carry someone, idiot!”

“Like what,” he growled back, the vibrations of his voice sweeping through my chest.

“Like, I could ride on your back!” That would certainly be more dignified than this position.

A moment later, I was back on my feet, woozy from being righted so quickly after being upside down. Razek turned away from me then knelt. I swallowed a tight lump as I thought of Dalk doing the same thing for me only last night. That night seemed a whole lifetime away.

I shimmied forward up onto Razek’s back. He stood immediately, and I yelped, throwing my arms around his thick neck to keep from falling backwards.

Razek began the climb up to the ledge he’d chosen for us. And as we moved, I realized that this maybe wasn’t so dignified after all. Even though Razek was more lithe than some of the other Sea Sand blokes I’d seen, he was still massive. The breadth of his back forced my thighs wide apart, his muscles bunching under my crotch as he moved. My face burned, and I bit down on my lip. This was nothing like riding Dalk’s back. That had just been a monotonous means to an end. This was… something else. Luckily, the ascent didn’t take too long. Soon enough, Razek was vaulting us up and over the ledge. He knelt again, and I slipped off of his back. I collapsed down to a seated position, groaning and kicking off my boots.

Razek’s eyes almost bugged out of his head as I did so.

“Your feet!” he cried, his sight stars zooming back and forth between my discarded boots and my feet.

“What?” I asked, genuinely bewildered. I mean, I guessed after all that they probably didn’t smell great or anything. But he looked disturbed.

“What… what has happened? The outer shells of your feet! Do you shed them, like an animal skin?”

I was too tired to laugh again like I had before.

“Those aren’t part of my feet. They’re boots. Like my sunglasses. Like the clothing I wear. It’s all to protect my body.”

Razek picked one boot up by the laces, dangling it in front of his face, staring at it as if examining some weird, rare alien life form. Which, in a way, he kind of was. He tossed the boot down, then sat across from me.

“So those are your true feet?” he said, pointing at my feet.

“Actually, not quite. One more layer.” I peeled off my socks, grimacing at the sting. Yup. Blisters galore.

“Are they supposed to look like that?” he said, tilting his head, his heavy brow falling lower as he stared.

“Er, yes? For the record, I think your feet are weird too,” I grumbled, looking at his own long, three-clawed kangaroo-esque feet.

“That is not what I meant, though your many toes are indeed bizarre. I mean, are they supposed to look like that? Your skin… Is it torn?”

He bent closer, then without warning nudged the arch of my left foot with a claw, making me yelp and yank my foot back.

“Ticklish!” I screeched, drawing my feet up close to my body.

“What is ticklish? Is it what makes your skin damaged? It looks like you are bleeding.”

I looked down at my own feet, sighing. The lack of Lavrika’s blood was really going to be a pain in the ass now. At least I had all that orlok in my pockets.

“Those are blisters. It’s from all the walking in my boots. It’s fine. Just go stand guard or make yourself useful somewhere.”

Not that there was anywhere for him to go. The ledge was about two metres wide and three metres long, with a steep stone wall below (the one we’d just scaled) and one behind us that continued upwards into a sharp peak. And there wasn’t a whole lot for him to do, either. He’d already caught us some dinner earlier.

I pulled a few orlok leaves out of my pocket, then glanced around.

For fuck’s sake. This whole hellscape was laden with rocks of all sizes, except for this one ledge?

I seethed, realizing I was going to have to ask Razek to go get me some rocks to pound the orlok. I really wasn’t in the mood for asking him for anything, but it had to be done.

Before I could do it, he took the orlok from my hand. He placed it on the stone ledge between us, then curled his hand into a fist, grinding against the leaves with his bare knuckles. The rapidly dimming light softly illuminated the pull and stretch of each muscle in his arm as he worked. Glossy black strands of his hair fell into his face, but he didn’t seem to notice. I watched him in silence as he wordlessly ground the orlok down with his hard knuckles. God, this man was infuriating. He’d disregarded my wishes both in the past and when it came to my future. But then he did stuff like this. Jumping in to help me before I’d even said the help was needed in the first place.

My hand seemed to move of its own accord, reaching forward, brushing the stray hair that had fallen into his face aside. He tensed as I tucked the hair up behind his high, pointed ear. I withdrew my hand, and he uncurled his fist.

“I suppose now I must believe that this is no poison or venom,” he said, staring at the green stuff coating his knuckles.

“I already told you it’s not. I promise. I may not be too happy with how things are going right now, but I’m not interested in killing you,” I said, stretching out my legs. Razek seemed to misinterpret my movement, because he immediately grasped my ankles, hoisting my feet into his lap.

“What are you doing!” I cried, trying to pull my feet back. “I can do it myself!”

But Razek refused to loosen his iron hold. His fingers had slipped beneath the hems of my trousers and he was gripping my bare skin, sending prickling heat up my legs.

“You tried to help me earlier. And I was… not gracious.”

I snorted.

“You can say that again. What exactly did you say back there? That I was a spirit of the desert, sent to test you? Or poison you?”

His sight stars misted across his eyes. He breathed out, his thumbs brushing the inner bones of my ankles in small circles, making an ache well up inside me.

“I am only trying to unravel the mystery of you, strange one. I have known no other like you. And my people… we do not welcome outsiders easily.”

I nodded silently, sobered somewhat by his words.

“You helped me before, or tried to. So just let me do this now.”

I wanted to argue with him, to tell him again that I’d do it myself. But as the wonderful rough pads of his fingers and thumbs began to stroke and prod at my sore feet, I completely lost my will to fight him. He stroked across my ankles, down my arches. When I flinched at the tickling sensation, he pressed more firmly. A moment later came the sharp sting of the orlok as he smeared the stuff onto my broken skin.

As his fingers worked, I leaned back, planting my palms on the stone ledge, tilting my head back. I stared up at the rising band of asteroids, the bright gleam of the stars, as Razek started to speak.

“I did not think taking care of a female was so difficult. I cannot decide if it is because you are so strangely vulnerable, or if it’s because you are an especially challenging female.”

“Hey,” I said, jerking my chin forwards again to glare at him. But my glare faded as I took in the sight of him. All the hardness, the fury I’d seen in his face earlier was completely gone. He looked almost serene, calm like still water, as he stroked methodically at my feet.

His gaze flickered up to meet mine, and, holy shit, was that the first shadow of a grin?!

“Whatever the reason,” he continued, “there is no challenge too mighty for a Gahn.” The slight grin disappeared as he looked down at my feet in his hands. “You should have told me you were hurting.”

“Why bother?” I asked, sitting up straighter. “It’s pretty clear you don’t actually care about what I want or feel.”

Razek yanked my feet forward fast and hard. So hard my ass skidded forward with such force that it sent my head flying backwards. Before my skull got cracked open like an egg on the stone, Razek’s hand caught it, smelling sharply minty like the orlok. He heaved me upward with his one hand easily until I was seated in the diamond of his crossed legs, my legs spread on either side of him.

His hand was still gripping the back of my head, forcing me to look at him.

“You and I both know that is not true,” he said, his voice dangerously low.

“How would I know that?” I said. I tried to ignore the way his sight stars fell to my mouth as I spoke. I tried, really, I did. “All you’ve done so far is say that my friends are dead and that you’re not going to make any effort to send me back to my people at the settlement.”

“I did not say that,” he growled. His fingers tightened in my curls, and I arched, my chest brushing his.

“You did!” I said, astounded that he would lie right to my face. “You think I don’t remember?! It just happened today!”

“No. I asked you why I should waste men on the journey sending you back, not that I would never do it. I told you that it would be safer to remain with my people, not that I would keep you here. And I told you that once I was Gahn, then I would decide what to do with you.”

At some point, his other hand had fallen to my waist, clutching at me through the fabric or my solar protection jacket.

“Please, that’s just as good as saying you won’t take me back,” I said, but suddenly I wasn’t all that sure. I wracked my brain, trying to remember exactly what Razek had said when we’d talked about this earlier.

“Remember the situation you are in, strange one. You are the one who has come to my territory. You are the intruder in my lands. I did not come for you. I did not steal you from your friends and force you to live here. You came here. And now you ask me to risk my own life, or the lives of my fellow men, to send you back into the arms of my enemies.”

Goddamnit. He was right. About all of it. This wasn’t easy for either of us.

I took a deep breath, trying to see things from his point of view. Trying to see how we could work this out.

“OK, so you’ll make your decisions when you become Gahn…” A thought suddenly came to me, making my eyes widen. “But what if you don’t become Gahn?”

“What?” he asked, his gaze narrowing.

“Well, you said there are two other guys, right? What if one of them wins?” I hadn’t considered the fact that I might have to get used to negotiating with some other guy after we got back to his tribe’s tents. I’d barely gotten used to Razek.

“If I do not become Gahn then it means that I am dead.”

His words sank low in my chest.

“You… you’re kidding, right? You’re being dramatic?”

“No,” Razek said. His hands moved, until they were cradling my jaw. There was something so solid and warm and… weirdly safe about it. It made me want to lean into to his touch.

“No. If the other two survive this portion of the baklok and make it back to the tents, then we will do battle. The victor is declared Gahn.”

“It’s a battle to the death?” I asked shakily. I tried to picture it – making it all the way back with Razek only to have one of his own tribesmen run a blade through him. It was a horrifying image, so visceral it gripped me. I saw Razek fall to his knees. I saw the blood pouring. I saw the other faceless warrior standing victorious over his body.

The tears that had been pulsing behind my eyes for the past night and day finally spilled. Razek’s thumbs immediately met the tracks of tears, pressing into my cheeks. He came closer, his eyes searching my face urgently.

“It’s fine. I’m fine,” I choked out. The Sea Sand people didn’t cry like we did, and it always seemed to send them into a tizzy when they witnessed one of us doing it for the first time. “It happens when my kind is upset.”

His thumbs eased their pressure on my cheeks. He pulled one thumb away entirely, rubbing the salty wetness against the pads of his other fingers, looking down at his hand before returning his gaze to me.

“You are upset at the prospect of being separated from your friends?” Razek asked, his voice softening slightly.

“No. I mean, yes, I am. But that’s not why I’m crying now,” I mumbled, swiping at my eyes.

“Then why?”

Razek’s question hung unanswered between us for a long moment. Finally, I blurted, “Because I don’t want you to die!”

Razek’s sight stars, silver in the night, pulsed.

“The thought of my demise upsets you?”

“Yes, OK? Yes.” I grumbled. As much as we’d clashed, as much as our wants differed, I had to admit I really didn’t want to see Razek get hurt. And not just because he was my lifeline out here.

“I do not want to die either, strange one. But this is not something you need trouble yourself with. I am the strongest of my tribe. The most worthy warrior of the Death Plains. I have vowed to myself that I will be victorious. And now, I make the same vow to you.”

I sniffed hard, looking at his face.

That slight grin came back, playing softly about his mouth. “This day has ended strangely. Earlier, I’d half-wondered if you wanted me dead. Now you grieve at the mere thought of my death, though I am unharmed.” His thumb brushed down my cheek, following the damp trail from the tears. “Your kind is very soft, and not just in body.”

“I’m just tired,” I said, almost numbly. I felt totally emptied out.

“Then we will rest.”

Razek didn’t make me beg for him to be my own personal space heater, he just did it, and for that I was grateful. I slipped out of my jacket, shivering as the cool air nipped at my skin while Razek laid down on his side. I noticed the way he positioned himself closer to the edge of the ledge, his body like a guard rail to keep me from falling. I scooted into position, curling up with my back against his chest as he tossed my jacket over me. I closed my burning eyes, relaxing into the warmth of his embrace. The exhaustion slammed me so hard, and brought me down into dead-eyed sleep so fast, that I almost didn’t hear his last words to me that night.

“Sleep now, strange one. Creature of dreams.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Razek

Even holding her like this, she still did not seem quite real. She was like some fevered vision, brought forth from a dream. Someone I still could not understand, though I found myself more and more desperate to. I’d spoken true when I’d said I’d never met anyone like her, never met her equal. Bizarre and angry, with blunt teeth but fiercely pointed words. Clever, clawless fingers and little bleeding feet. And a strange, wet sadness that dredged itself out of her body. For me.

She grieved for me.

The thought was a hot stone in my guts, keeping me awake as I held Jozelyn in the darkness. After getting no sleep last night, I had thought, had hoped, that I would sleep quickly tonight. But it was not to be. So instead I studied the foreign female, memorizing every curve of her face, every twined curl of her hair.

She is lovely. Her face was so different from any other, but more and more, I found that that was what made it so appealing.

But her loveliness does not matter, I told myself angrily. She is not your mate. She does not even want to stay among your people.

I raised up slightly on my elbow, balancing the side of my head in my hand. I would have to decide what to do with her soon. This was the second night of this part of the baklok. There was tomorrow, then only one more night and day left before the final battle to determine who would be Gahn. I was already certain that the victor would be me, but that also meant that I would need to make a decision about Jozelyn very soon. I had a sinking feeling that just becoming Gahn would not impart me with more wisdom about this situation. If I did not know what to do now, I likely would not know what to do in a few days’ time, either.

I ground my fangs, thinking. I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to keep her among my own people. Where she was safe and always within my sights. A pulsing obsession was taking hold, somewhere deep inside me. Something I’d never felt before, not for any other female, not for anyone. She was agonizing and irritating and so, so soft. Strong and vulnerable. It made me want to wrap her up in my arms, create a cage for her, and never let her go.

You don’t care about what I feel.

That was not true. I was starting to care entirely too much. Before now, I wouldn’t have thought twice about keeping a strange, defenceless female among the safety of my own people. But now, knowing that it would make her unhappy? It was throwing me into turmoil.

I decided I did not like turmoil. My whole life, I’d had only one goal, one path. Become the strongest, and someday rule as Gahn. But now, my life was splitting, with too many choices ahead of me to fathom.

I sank back down, resting my head once more, pressing my chin against the top of Jozelyn’s head. The puff of her curls felt nice against my neck, and I pulled her in closer, tighter. My cock stirred as I breathed in her scent, but I scrunched my eyes shut, willing sleep to come. I needed to be able to protect her. And for that, I needed to be alert and rested.

With the small ball of Jozelyn’s curled body against my chest, finally, I fell asleep.

I DID NOT WAKE AGAIN until dawn was bleeding on the horizon. Jozelyn was still resting peacefully, her face clear of its often fierce expression. The red-gold light of morning licked over her features. I leaned in close to her face, admiring the warm brush of light over each hair of her slim brows and the fringe of hairs around her eyes.

But I could not stay here forever. There were many, many distances to be traversed today. I sat up, noticing the little brown bony structures of Jozelyn’s feet poking out of the blanket of her cloak. They had healed a little since last night – I could tell. The places that had been wet and raw were now dry and scabbed-over. I glanced at her foot shells, the ones that obviously did such a poor job protecting her feet, then at the soft, thin foot-coverings she’d worn yesterday. I frowned at the sight of them. Bloodied in places, and dirty. Not fit for her feet, especially considering her wounds.

I gathered the thin foot-coverings into my hands, being careful not to rend the weak fabric in my claws. Then, quietly, I crept over to the ledge, vaulting over the edge then climbing down, feet first, to the ground. From here, I could still see Jozelyn and I knew she was safe. Down on the ground, I searched quickly then found a few stalks of talka. I split one of the stalks with my claw, pressing until the white cleaning fluid leaked out. I scrubbed the talka gel into Jozelyn’s foot-coverings, staring up at her on the ledge as I did so. With a jolt, I realized that even though I would be able to protect her from ground predators from my current location, I would not be able to stop her from falling. She seemed just the odd sort of woman to roll somewhere haphazardly in her sleep. Cursing myself, I squeezed her foot coverings into a tight ball in one hand before dragging myself back up to the ledge.

She had not moved, and I breathed out, my panic turning to annoyance at myself. All is well. She is safe.

I sat down, letting my legs dangle off the edge as I continued working the talka gel through the foot-coverings. Then I beat the foot coverings against the stone of the ledge before finally laying them to dry in the light of the rising sun. It was not perfect, but I was sufficiently satisfied that, between the talka and the heat of the sun, the foot coverings would now be clean enough for her injured feet.

Today I will carry her, for as long as she’ll let me.

Why did it already feel like I would have to fight to get her to let me do that?

Behind me, Jozelyn made a small sound and began to stir. I pulled my legs back up then stood over her. She was squinting in the bright morning light, and I remembered what she’d said about needing protection from the sun. I stepped to the side so that my body’s shadow fell over her exposed face.

“Morning,” she said, sitting up slowly. Her cloak fell down onto her lap as she straightened, and once again she did that stretching and arching thing. Her hands linked together over her head as she swayed back and forth, the swell of her breasts pressing outwards, drawing my eyes. I wrenched my gaze away, turning so that my back was to her.

“Yes. It is morning. We should start moving soon.”

“Morning was short for ‘good morning.’ It’s a greeting, you know,” she said, standing and stepping up beside me as she put on her cloak and eye-shells.

“Hmmph,” I said, not able to manage much more than that. How was I supposed to greet her? Good morning, strange female whom I desire to steal away, never to see her friends again? Good morning, I still have no idea what to do with you? Good morning, the way the sun touches your skin makes my cock ache?

I clenched everything, willing myself to calm as Jozelyn moved from my side.

“Hey, have you seen my socks?” she asked.

“What are socks?” I asked, turning to look at her once more.

“Found them!” She grabbed the foot-coverings from their spot in the sun, waving them in the air. Then she frowned, bringing the small items of clothing to her face and sniffing.

“There’s no way these should smell so good,” she said slowly.

“They were not fit to be worn,” I said by way of explanation. I did not want to say any more. A man, a future Gahn, cleaning the clothing of a female who was not his mate or his child was… not done. Ever. I had not stopped to think about my actions, about what I was doing when I’d cleaned her socks. I’d just… done it. But for some reason, I now did not want her to know that I had done it.

I could tell Jozelyn was staring at me from behind her dark eye-shells.

“What?” I snapped, turning away from her and looking out over the spikes of stone around us. The morning light made them into reddish fangs, biting upwards and casting burnished shadows.

“Oh, nothing,” she said, and I turned my head back to look at her. My mood darkened when I saw the smirk upon her mouth.

“Today, I will carry you,” I said forcefully, looking out at the land again. “I won’t have you bleeding all over the clean socks.”

This time, she laughed, a loud, throaty sound that slipped over my skin.

“Yeah, yeah. We’ll see about that.”

She slipped on her foot coverings, then the hard foot shells. I did not miss the way she winced as she did it, but she did not complain. In this way, she is like me. She wishes to show no weaknesses.

“Oh!” she said suddenly, snapping up to look at me. “You cleaned these with talka, right? Is there any more? I could really use some…”

Every muscle in my body tightened as I realized that she meant she wanted to strip down and clean herself. Two parts of me warred. One part that desperately wanted her naked, near me, now. And the other part sought to maintain control, urging me to maintain some distance and save my own sanity.

The part that cared not a wit for my sanity won out.

“Yes. There is more. Come.”

I knelt down, as I had done last night. Jozelyn did not argue or tell me she wished to climb down on her own (which was good, as such a thing would have been impossible.) The desire to get to the talka was likely spurring her on and making her more reasonable than usual. My jaw cracked as her thighs parted, her cunt pressing against my back, emitting heat.

I must move quickly.

I moved to the edge, slipping feet-first over the edge, climbing carefully down with Jozelyn holding fast to me. I realized grimly that I liked this – I liked her holding on to me, relying on my strength. As soon as we were on the ground, I knelt again, hoping she would dismount as quickly as possible, and regretting the absence of her body on mine as soon as she did.

“Here,” I said, bending and retrieving another talka stalk from the spot I’d found the first one. I split it open with my claw and handed it to Jozelyn. She smiled broadly, and the smile hurt my ribs.

She said an odd word, “Chearz,” then turned from me.

“What are you doing?” I asked as she started to clomp clumsily away, trying and failing to move gingerly on her ripped-up feet.

“I’m looking for a shady spot,” she replied, throwing a look back at me over her shoulder. “With privacy.”

“If I cannot see you I cannot protect you,” I said, catching up with her in two large strides.

“Come on. We’ll do it like we do when I pee. You’ll have your back to me. It’ll be fine.”

“Then be quick about it,” I grumbled. We moved together to a spot with shade, a little ways away from the ledge we’d slept on. Here, a large curve of stone shot upwards, creating a tent-like roof, resting against the wall of a much larger peak. Jozelyn hurried under the stone roof, then jabbed the talka stalk in my direction as if it were a blade.

“Turn around, please!”

I did so, but with the movement I stepped subtly backwards so that I was closer to her. Only in case she needed my protection, of course.

The rustle of her clothing slipping off over her skin was an agony I was not prepared for. And I was certainly not prepared when the scent of the talka filled the air, which meant she was rubbing the stuff into her skin. Her bare skin.

She is nude, I thought. I gave my head a shake. Of course she is nude, you fool. She cannot clean herself while clothed. For the first time, I wondered if I were perhaps too dense of a male to become Gahn.

Jozelyn sighed contentedly behind me, and my spine straightened forcefully. My tail jerked as if searching for her. I pulled it back to my body. I pressed my claws to my groin, trying to urge down the swelling there. But my touch only made sensation roll through my pelvis, encouraging my cock, so I yanked my hands away.

“Are you nearly finished?” I rasped. My neck cramped with the force it took not to look back.

“Almost, almost. Just let me do this a little longer,” she trilled. She sounded happier than I’d heard her so far. My cock throbbed as I realized how much she was enjoying this. It’s pleasure for her.

And that had me tumbling down a dark hillside. Images of other pleasurable things crowded my mind. Pleasurable things I’d never even done with a female. This must be why I’m reacting so strongly to his woman. I’ve never lain with a female, so of course, being a strong and virile male, I would react to being so close to an unmated one.

I tried to convince myself of that. I tried. But I knew, with a grim force, that it was not just the fact that she was an unmated female. It was the fact it was her. The reality burned inside me. I wanted to rut. Not just any female. I wanted to rut Jozelyn.

I’d never even considered the fact I could have a mate. Having no unmated females around deadened that instinct, allowing me to funnel all my strength, all my desire, into fighting to become the Gahn.

She is not your mate.

The Lavrika had not called me. So whatever this was… It was fleeting. Meaningless.

Or, I would have to strip the meaning from it, at the very least.

Otherwise, I would lose myself.

I jolted as something touched the back of my arm. I looked down to see a bundle in a small brown hand, poking at me. Do not look back at who that hand belongs to, Razek. You will never be able to look away again. Because the bundle in Jozelyn’s hand was her clothing. All of it. Which meant she was still nude behind me.

“I just cleaned my clothes. Can you please lay them in the sun? They’ll dry quickly.”

Gritting my fangs, I did so. I took one small step forward until I was in the sun, then crouched, laying her items out in the strong light – her odd leg-coverings, her sleeveless tunic, her cloak. There was another piece of clothing I did not recognize. I held the tiny thing up in the light, squinting at it. I hooked my claw under the thin strip of fabric that ran down the centre, between two holes.

What are these holes for…

I held it further away from my face, groaning as I realized the entire garment was vaguely pelvis-shaped.

It was some kind of underthing. For her cunt.

Unable to put the item down, I fingered the holes, realizing that those holes were for her thighs. I groaned again, deeper this time, at the image of her thighs pressed into this garment. This fabric is so thin, so soft. What would happen if I got my fangs into it, while she was wearing it…?

“Everything alright?” Jozelyn called from behind me. I dropped the item of clothing as if it had stung me with a venomous barb. And in a way, it had. My hand tingled. My cock strained.

I forced myself to stand, biting down on my tongues, trying to focus on the pain.

Pain was the only thing left to anchor me.

Because this was torture. And clearly, I was doomed.

CHAPTER NINE

Jocelyn

Ipeeked over at Razek from where I was crouching, naked. My boots and socks were next to me in the shade, the rest of my stuff laying out in the sun where Razek had put it. It wouldn’t take long for them to get nice and dry in this heat, and I was frankly fucking thrilled at the prospect of having clean clothes.

And clean socks…

My eyes fell on the socks next to me. Last night, they’d been caked with dried blood and sweat. The blood had stained them a little, but they were clean now. Like, thoroughly clean. I thought about the hack job Razek did slapping the orlok onto his own wounds and wondered what the hell it meant that he’d washed my socks with way more care than he’d paid to his own injuries.

From my crouching position, I studied him, my arms wrapped around my shins. He was standing tall, his tail twitching every few seconds. He looked… tense. The muscles along his back and in his shoulders seemed more bunched up and tight than usual. I guess he’s getting impatient and wants to move on.

I sighed, not enjoying the thought of another long, brutal day of hiking over all that rock, especially with my blisters. I could accept his offer to carry me…

Ugh. No. Not yet. Not unless I’m desperate. Riding on his back, legs spread, all day long… I wouldn’t be able to stand it.

I licked my dry lips as my gaze travelled down his broad, strong back, to his tense tail, to his long, muscled thighs. Fuck me, he really was a fine specimen. It would be so much easier to just hate him if I weren’t attracted to him. And it definitely was impossible to hate him after he’d washed my fucking socks for me.

What does he want? I wondered, tilting my head. His words from last night had given me some optimism. He hadn’t 100% denied my wishes. He hadn’t for sure said he would keep me here. Maybe I needed to loosen up a little. Trust him, communicate with him, and see where we ended up after all this was said and done. I mean, not only did I want to get back to the settlement, but I also wanted to complete the task Xyan and the others wouldn’t be able to, now – bring him back with me.

If he becomes Gahn.

I pursed my lips, trying not to think of the alternative. That he could die, and some other man I didn’t know, didn’t trust, could be making all the decisions about my future and the possible future for the alliance. I really didn’t want him to get hurt, and not just because I’d have to negotiate with some other Gahn. I didn’t want to lose him.

I sighed, blowing stray curls out of my face. I’d finger-combed the talka gel through them, and now they smelled like the rest of me – herbal and fresh.

I stood, trusting that Razek wasn’t going to turn around. He tensed even more as I stepped up behind him.

“I think my clothes are probably dry now. Stay facing forward, OK?”

His reply was an unintelligible grunting sound that made me smile. I crouched again, snaking an arm past him to collect my clothes from the ground. I flushed when I saw my underwear laid carefully down on full display, not tucked into my tank top the way it had been when I’d given all my stuff to Razek.

Oh well. The Sea Sand women didn’t even wear underwear, so it wasn’t like he was going to know what they were anyway. No reason to be embarrassed. Still, heat lanced through my chest at the thought of Razek holding my underthings in his sharp claws.

As I tried to collect everything, I slightly lost my balance. Swallowing a yelp, I reached for the first thing to steady myself. My arms grabbed at Razek’s leg. When my fingers touched his skin, I felt his calf muscles jump at the contact.

I took a breath, then slowly let it out, heart pounding. I am clutching Razek’s leg. Completely naked. I quickly let go, gathering all my clothing against my chest.

“Do you still require my leg?” Razek said from above me.

“Huh?” I asked, my gaze running up the backs of his legs. From here, even with the loincloth, I was getting an eyeful of his strong glutes tapering up into his waist. Christ…

“Are you still in danger of falling over?” he seethed.

“Oh, no. I’m fine,” I said.

“Good,” he replied, his voice hissing out. “I am going to kill something.”

My mouth fell open as I watched him stalk away from me.

He’s going to… what?

It only took a few seconds for Razek to find something down on the ground.

Oh. Just breakfast. Jesus, why does he have to be so bloody dramatic?

I dressed as Razek butchered another one of the snake things we’d been eating out here. He returned to my side with it, and we ate in the shade where I’d just cleaned up. He collected some valok, too, and we slurped it down.

“Are you ready?” Razek asked, his pale purple sight stars vibrating as I stood.

“Yup,” I said, shifting back and forth in my boots, trying to work in my sore feet. “I’ll walk.”

When Razek opened his mouth to argue, I shook my head.

“For now. I promise I’ll let you know if I need help.” It was a surprisingly hard thing for me to say, but I meant it. Maybe accepting help from Razek wasn’t totally, 100% annoying. Maybe.

We started off on the day’s journey, Razek keeping close to my side. We continued moving through the long valley for the entirety of the morning. We stopped for more food and valok, and to let me have some time in the shade, before we continued on again.

As we walked, I started asking him questions. There wasn’t much else to do to pass the time, and it took my mind off my sore feet and aching muscles.

“So, tell me about your tribe. Are they pretty much like the other Sea Sand tribes? Your sight stars are a different colour.”

“Our sight stars are attuned to the colours of this land,” he said. I stumbled slightly, and his hands shot out to grip my elbows before I could even blink. Once I was steady again, he let go. “My tribe is strong, but not large. There are many dangers in the Death Plains, and we have few females.”

“How small is small?” I asked, already thinking about how many people could potentially be coming to live with us at the Cliffs of Uruzai. I looked up at him as I asked the question. The bright sun overhead turned him into a sharp-boned silhouette.

“We are the smallest of all the tribes. But we have also honed ourselves to be the strongest. We have sixteen males and five females in their prime. Four children. One elder woman, the Fol-Gahnala Kirat.”

“Wow, you weren’t kidding. There aren’t many of you,” I said, shocked. “So it sounds like you’re in the same position as all the other tribes, then. Not enough women to maintain your numbers.”

Razek grunted, glancing down at me with serious eyes.

“There is not a single unmated woman in my tribe.”

I stopped short, staring at him. I’d never heard of that. The other tribes had a huge imbalance of men to women, but none of the other tribes had no single women at all. I tried to imagine what being a male in such circumstances would be like. Growing up, knowing you’d never have a mate, a partner. The chance at a family.

It was fucking sad.

“Join us,” I said, my throat tightening with emotion.

Razek stopped to look back at me.

“I’m serious. Come with us. There’s strength in numbers. We can share resources. We’re stronger together!” You’re stronger with me.

Why did I really want him to come back with me? For the strength of his tribe? Or to stay close to him?

Razek stared at me in silence. For a second, I thought he was about to agree. So when he turned forward again, cutting off our eye contact, it felt like a blow to the gut.

“These are our ancestral lands. You ask me to leave them to reside with our oldest enemies.”

“So?!” I cried, suddenly enraged at the futility of all this. Of all this enmity, this hate. “The other Gahns have all done it! They’ve all put aside their differences and allied!”

“The other Gahns had mates from among your kind.” Razek’s words were soft, softer than I’d expected. And for some reason, they set me off. I stomped up to his back, poking at it until he turned around to face me.

“You shouldn’t need the lure of some sweet mate pussy to do the right thing. This is safer for everyone! It’s a good decision!” My words came ragged and harsh. Why was I so upset?

Because it felt like he was rejecting me?

That’s… That’s absurd.

Razek’s face pulled, his fangs glinting, his dark brows contracting. Fear and primal desire collided with fury, making my chest heave.

“If it is a good decision, then I will be the one to make it. When I am Gahn.”

“Is that all you care about?” I cried. “OK, so you become Gahn. Then what? You stay out here alone until your tribe dwindles to nothing? You could -”

Razek’s huge hands closed around my waist, lifting me from the ground easily.

He carried me a few steps until I was backed up against a cliff, in the shadows, before he set me on my feet. He wrenched the hood back from my hair, yanking my sunglasses off. We panted, sparks flying, the air crackling between us. His hands were still on me, burning right through my layers of clothing at my waist.

“You question me too much. It is doing my head in. I did not come out to these peaks to argue with an ungrateful female. I did it to earn my rightful place as Gahn.”

I laughed bitterly. Razek’s face descended until it was level with mine, his sight stars trained on my eyes.

“Ungrateful female. Strange female. I have a name you know!” I hissed.

Razek breathed out harshly, moving closer so that I felt the shudder of his chest against my own. My nipples pulled to taut peaks beneath my clothing, the sensation pricking down my spine to my pussy.

“Oh, I know your name. I have only just learned it, and already it haunts me. Before you, I knew my place and my path was clear. But now, here you are, with your questions and your beauty and your name. Undoing everything I am.”

I sucked in a sharp breath as Razek dipped his head.

His mouth pressed against my temple, his voice like shattering steel as he growled, “Jozelyn.”

My hands flew up to his jaw, aggressively pulling his face forwards to look at me. He tensed for a moment, sight stars spinning, then groaned, crashing his mouth to mine. Instantly, his hands slipped beneath the hem of my jacket, running up my back. I moaned against his mouth, arching with the sharp shock of the sensations overthrowing me. I couldn’t stop this – any of this. It was explosive and it was necessary and inevitable. My mouth opened as my hands grappled, moving upwards, grabbing at his hair. Razek’s tongues pressed into me, swiping, tasting, plunging. Running along the flat tops of my teeth. I nipped at those tongues and felt the reverberating grind of his hips against me in response.

Good God, I wanted him. I wanted all of it. The anger, the pain, the arousal. His hips pressed ardently against my abdomen, and I ached when I felt the hardness of him.

But I felt something else, too. Something moving around my feet, winding loosely around my ankles.

Razek froze, then moved his head back with a sharply controlled movement. His hands turned to steel at my waist. The weird movement continued around my feet.

Dazed, I blinked at him, licking my wet lips.

“Razek, what -”

“Listen to me, Jozelyn,” he said, cutting me off. Before, my name had sounded like agony on his lips. Now it was an urgent plea. Impossibly, his fingers grew even tighter on my waist.

Fear replaced the desire of the moment before. Real, gripping fear.

“What is it?” I said, my heart ramming up into my throat. I tried to pull out of his grip, to lean back so I could look downward.

“Do not move. Not yet,” Razek said, his words clipped and quiet. He pressed in against me, once again speaking against my temple.

“Jozelyn. Listen to me now and do not argue.”

I nodded, terror unfurling in my guts as something moved further up my legs.

Razek’s next words turned that terror into lead.

“When I say run, you run.”

“What? No -” I tried to say. Instinctively, I started kicking my legs against whatever was creeping up them.

Without another word, Razek hefted me up into the air, over his head entirely.

The next moments moved in slow motion. I saw myself pulled up and off of the ground. I saw my legs yanked out of the grasp of what looked like greyish tentacles. I saw the hard flash of Razek’s eyes meeting mine as he wrenched his body, throwing me to the ground on the other side of him.

“RUN!” he bellowed.

I hit the rocky ground, faltering slightly, my knees giving out. My fingertips hit the rough rocks as my boots slipped on pebbles and dust.

Razek’s roar echoed. Run. Run. Run. I didn’t know if my own brain was repeating his word, or if he was still yelling at me to run. Whatever it was, adrenaline sluicing through me, I got to my shaky feet and took off. My lungs burned as I pumped my tired limbs over the uneven terrain. But I didn’t go that far. Just far enough so that I could turn around and figure out just what the fuck had happened.

And when I saw what was behind me, I knew why Razek had ordered me to run.

I could barely even see Razek now. A mass of writhing tentacles, dozens of them, was tightening into a ball as big as a car. Between the horrible grey ropes of the tentacles, I could see bronze and black flashes – a glimpse of Razek’s elbow here, his foot there.

I raked my hands through my hair, panicking. He was strong, but holy shit this… thing, was massive. With way, way too many arms. And Razek only had two. He didn’t even have a blade on his back to help him.

Fuck! This was my fault. I’d distracted him. I’d argued with him until he’d lost focus, and then that kiss…

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

He could not die. I would not lose him. Not now, not like this.

Screaming, I started running again. But this time I wasn’t running away. I had absolutely no plan, but I knew I had to do something.

The huge tentacle thing was holding Razek next to a sloping boulder that was almost as tall as me. Sweat pouring, I scrambled up the rock’s side, trying to get a clearer picture from above.

The picture still wasn’t all that clear, though. I blinked over and over, squinting, trying to make sense of all the writhing shapes and movement.

There!

On the ground, connected to the tentacles, was what had to be the head. Although it didn’t look like any kind of octopus head I’d ever seen. But then again, what kind of octopus had that many legs and lived in the fucking desert?

Its head was wide and flat, at least a metre across. It reminded me of those weird fish that laid on the bottom of the ocean, flattened and hidden in the mud, waiting for a smaller fish to swim above them. I couldn’t see any sign of a mouth, but as I saw the tentacles tighten and pull inward, I knew it must have been trying to pull Razek into something. Oh, God, it’s probably got some huge mouth or beak or some shit under its head…

But Razek wasn’t going down without a fight. Every time the tentacles pulsed and tightened, the insane force of his body wrenched back against them. For a brief second, I saw his fist punch through the ball of tentacles, only to be ripped back down into the mass.

There was no way he could keep that up for long.

I looked down at the thing’s head again, scanning desperately. What, do I drop a rock on it or something?

Something moved on its head, drawing my attention. Yes! A long line of eyes blinked, almost impossible to see, blending into its greyish-white body. I slid down the boulder. The eyes had to be a weak point? Right? Right?

Please let this work, I thought as I ran around the other side of the creature. Luckily, Razek’s strength was keeping its many tentacles occupied. For now.

I reached the wide, flat edge of the top of its head where the line of its eyes was. My stomach turned, but I didn’t waste time on being grossed out. I was about to crush my boot onto those eyes when I thought of something better. Yanking the small scissors out of my pocket, I crouched and plunged them into the eye closest to me.

An unholy scream pierced the air, and some of the tentacles flew upwards and outward. I didn’t stop, but pulled the scissors back, sticking them into the next eye, then the next, Horrible grey eye-ooze coated my hand, making it slippery. But this was working! More and more tentacles were unwinding from Razek. I could see him from the waist up, now. I could see his arms swinging in brutal fury. Could see his fangs tearing and shredding the tentacles that were left around him.

What I didn’t see were the tentacles that suddenly wrapped around my arm, yanking me down, right onto the beast’s huge flat head.

“No!” I screamed, fighting for all I was worth. But the tentacle just squeezed harder, forcing me to drop my tiny scissors. I tried to grab them with my other hand, only to be restrained by a second tentacle. A third wrapped around my ribs, squeezing until I couldn’t breathe. My body twisted in the beast’s grasp, dragged down closer to where the unseen mouth must have been. I could see Razek again now. Even as my eyes exploded with dark stars, oxygen squeezed out of me, I knew the moment he saw me, too.

Because the moment he saw me wrapped in those tentacles, he went absolutely feral.

I thought he’d been fighting hard before. But a look of desperate, raw rage made his mouth open in a soundless scream. His neck bulged, veins ropy under his skin as he fought his way out of the tangle of tentacles holding him. He obliterated some of the tentacles with his fists, smashing right through the flesh. Others, he tore clean off with his fangs as he fought his way back to me. His claws plunged and slashed. And his gaze never left me.

Even as my own went totally dark.

CHAPTER TEN

Razek

How had I let this happen?

I could not tear my eyes from Jozelyn’s limp form in the ablokoi’s grasp. As I plunged and thrashed, ripping the foul creature apart, it gave up its hold on Jozelyn, all the tentacles coming back to me. But I was stronger than I’d been before. Before I’d seen that she was still in danger. Seeing her caught, trapped and squeezed, made me want to smash my fist right through the world. I’d destroy anything, everything, before I let harm come to her.

The tentacles, all of them were weakening. It still held my legs firmly, but any other tentacle that came to bind my arms was ripped open, the flesh ruined. The beast screamed, jerking, and Jozelyn’s limp form rolled off of its head, hitting the ground.

No!

A massive roar built in my chest. I brought my hands together in a clasped fist, driving my elbow down with powerful force on the tentacles holding me from the waist down. The ones holding my legs were slipping. A hungry wave of dark energy went through me, propelling my legs to wrench in a shaking step forward. I would walk through anything – any manner of beasts’ arms and teeth and claws – to find my way back to her. I did not even care if I died in the process. But I had to kill this thing. Kill it, so that she would be safe.

If she’s still alive.

That thought was the bite of a blade inside me, and I roared again, grabbing the tentacles at my thighs and ripping them outwards with a strength that should have been impossible. No man without his blades had escaped the grip of an ablokoi before.

But no other man had Jozelyn to protect.

Seething, I revelled in the crushing of the beast’s flesh between my fingers. The last few tentacles on my legs loosened, slipping down to my ankles. Mostly free, I charged up to the ablokoi’s head, crushing my elbow into its wide, flat face. Its eyes, I saw, looked damaged already, and I dug into the damage, punching my claws through the grey organs to the foul brain beneath. Even after it stopped moving, long dead, I kept hitting it, fury like nothing I’d ever known driving my limbs. The only thing that made me finally stop and return to sanity was the fact that Jozelyn was near. I stood and spun, leaping off of the corpse of the ablokoi and shaking its blood and wet flesh from my claws, my eyes desperately searching for where Jozelyn had fallen.

There she was.

Merciful sands, she was moving.

I rushed to her, skidding to my knees and grabbing her waist, flipping her over. I adjusted her so that her head was in my lap. I plastered my hands to her face, slicking back her hair, lowering my face to hers.

“Jozelyn. Jozelyn!”

“I get it. You know my name after all,” she croaked. I froze, then let out a long breath.

“You are alright?” I asked, pressing my forehead to hers.

“I think so. My ribs hurt, but I don’t think anything’s broken. I can breathe again, and that’s the main thing.”

She can speak. She can breathe. She is alive and everything in this world is right again.

I snatched her upwards to my chest, being careful not to squeeze too hard.

“Razek,” she said, her voice sounding thick. “What about you? Are you alright?”

“Nothing can harm me now,” I said, meaning it. If she was alive and well, there was no pain for me. Nothing could touch me. I buried my nose in her neck, breathing in deeply, letting her scent work its way into my bones.

“Razek, wait. Wait! Your chest!”

Regretfully, I loosened my hold.

Jozelyn leaned back, touching my chest. “Your wounds re-opened.”

“I will deal with this later,” I said, standing and lifting Jozelyn with me. I kept her in my arms, cradled against my chest, as I took off.

“Wait! Is this OK? Are you strong enough to carry me like this?” she asked, yanking her hood up. I ran, moving quickly. My limbs were sore, but I did not think anything was broken. And she was such a slight weight against me, it almost made no difference to my speed.

“If you have to ask me if I am strong enough, then you do not know me,” I growled as I leapt clean over a boulder.

I almost didn’t hear Jozelyn’s quiet words from where she pressed her face into my shoulder.

“I know you.”

I did not stop until the sun began to set and I had found a place worthy and safe for Jozelyn’s sleep. Like last night, I chose a ledge, high from the ground and out of the reach of any more lurking ablokoi. Though a small part of me wanted to crack my claws at the chance to kill another. Let every ablokoi of the Death Plains peaks come down upon me now. Let them feel my rage now that I have something precious to protect.

Unlike last night, this ledge was more sheltered. It was more like a cave with a large open entrance, about three lengths of my own body up off the ground. I scaled up to it easily. I did not even need to shift Jozelyn. I held her to me with one hand, hauling us up with the other until we were in the cave’s darkness.

I moved to the back of the shallow cave, depositing Jozelyn gently on the ground. She groaned, and I crouched next to her, taking her hands in my own. Gingerly, I peeled the sleeves of her cloak upwards, examining her wrists. Inflamed, ropy marks on her skin made me want to crush stone. Or skulls. Or something. But with Jozelyn in my hands, I had to remain gentle.

“Broken?” I asked, probing the bones of her wrist with tentative thumbs. I flinched when she hissed in pain.

“No. Just bruised,” she said.

I jerked my tail in acknowledgement.

“Let me see the rest.”

The black parts of her sight stars were large and round in the dimming light. Her lips trembled slightly.

“What do you mean, the rest?”

“Here,” I muttered, scraping my knuckle along the outside of her cloak at her ribs. She pressed her lips together, then moved her head up and down. Quietly, quickly, she shimmied out of her cloak. Her hands hesitated before she snatched at the bottom hem of her sleeveless tunic, yanking it up and over her head.

Everything in me tensed as her chest was bared before me. I dropped my gaze below the swollen peaks of her breasts, not allowing myself to get distracted. She is injured. You are checking her for injuries.

“Lie back,” I said. I rolled up her cloak, a makeshift pillow for her head. She did so, mercifully without argument, her eyes on me.

I reached for her then stopped, my claws hanging in the air.

“Can… Can I touch you?” I rasped.

“Yes. Be gentle,” she said.

Curse me and everything in existence. Gentleness was bleeding out of me. All that was left was the fire from the fight and the desire to press myself, my body, my cock, against all of Jozelyn’s softness.

But she was bruised. And she trusted me to be gentle. Though it went against the driving force of every instinct, gentle with her I remained.

I pressed very slightly against where I imagined her ribs must have been. Her eyes scrunched closed, and I stopped.

“No, it’s OK. Keep going.”

With a barely suppressed growl, I did so. I rose up on my knees, checking the other side. Jozelyn breathed out between clenched teeth.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure nothing’s broken. Just sore.”

Now that I was sure a broken rib was not about to pierce one of her small and no doubt vulnerable organs, I let my gaze roam over her a little more freely. My three tongues lashed against the back of my fangs, begging to taste her nipples. They were hardening, puckering in the air.

“Is this a response to the pain?” I asked, staring at the dark brown circles drawing up so tight and high in the night air.

“Wait, what? Is what a response to pain?”

“This.” I grazed a fingertip over her right nipple, and Jozelyn gasped.

I yanked my hand back, about to apologize for causing her more pain.

“No. That’s not from pain.”

“What then?” I asked. I could not stop myself from drawing a fingertip across the other breast, circling that taut peak. Fire leapt in my loins when Jozelyn’s small wet mouth opened.

“It’s… from the cold,” she said quickly.

Of course. Foolish warrior.

I guided the cloak out from behind her head before pressing it over her like a blanket.

“What about you? Your wounds,” Jozelyn said.

“I have been taught how to do it properly by a strong and very stubborn woman. I can spread the orlok myself.”

“It’s in my trousers’ pocket,” she said.

“Trousers?”

“My leg coverings.”

Ah. Right.

I slipped my claws along her thigh, looking for the pocket. I found the pocket, fishing out orlok leaves from between puffs of fallink. Like I had done last night, I ground them into the fragrant paste. It reminded me of dressing Jozelyn’s feet, and before I tended to my wounds, I removed her hard foot shells and her soft thin foot coverings.

“What are you doing?” she said, trying to pull her feet out of my hands. I did not relinquish the many-toed appendages.

“Hold still,” I muttered under my breath, spreading some of the orlok into the spots where her feet were once again bleeding. Finally, she stilled under my touch, watching me in the gloom. Outside the cave, the moon and stars rose, reaching silvered fingers into our hiding place.

“That’s enough. My feet are fine,” Jozelyn said, more forcefully this time. “Now it’s your turn.”

I grunted, finally letting her feet go. I spread the orlok on my chest, feeling the hot sting of the stuff as I worked it in carefully. I knew if I slapped it on quickly that Jozelyn would chide me. And in this moment, I did not want her to be unhappy. About anything, but least of all me.

“There. Have I done a satisfactory job?” I said, glancing down at my own chest.

“Yes. Come lie with me,” she whispered. My cock throbbed. I ignored it, lying down and drawing her smooth back against my chest. This was the first time her bare back had been against me without her thin tunic between us, and I almost couldn’t stand it. I remembered the desperate crash of our lips earlier, the slick wet sweetness of her mouth. My hand shot down, squeezing myself through my loincloth. Oh, cursed mercy, if she were not injured…

The things I would do to her would be primal and unspeakable.

But she was injured. So I had to satisfy myself by placing my arm overtop of her jacket. When I did so, she made a noise of complaint, and once again I worried that I’d hurt her. I started to pull my arm back when her quiet voice said, “No. Come back. Under the jacket.”

My breath stilled in my chest. I waited a beat, then in a fluid motion I slipped my arm under her strange cloak until it was wrapped around her bare front. Her breasts pressed into the inside part of my forearm. I curled my hand into a fist at the base of her slim neck.

“Razek?” Jozelyn asked.

“Hmm?” I said, nuzzling the top of her head, losing myself in her scent.

“Can you move your hand?”

“Yes. Where?” I asked. Perhaps I was touching a sore spot. Her own soft hand came up, clutching at mine, guiding me. Guiding me until I was palming the plush flesh of her breast.

I groaned, using every shred of strength I had not to squeeze.

“What are you doing?” I asked, my voice breaking.

“Today was… insane. I thought… I thought I was going to watch you die. And now I just need to feel you.”

I swallowed, my tongues twitching.

“You need rest,” I groaned, though my hips were already arching upward, the tip of my cock seeking contact with her body.

“I know,” she said. “And so do you. I just… just want to feel you. Just… keep touching me.”

My resolve broke. I may have killed the zeelk and the ablokoi with my bare hands. I may have been the strongest warrior of the Death Plains. But in that moment, I was weak. Weak to her skin, to her words, her quietly uttered requests.

With a broken groan, my lips parted, my tongues darting out to brush her cheek.

And with that one taste of her, I was lost.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Jocelyn

My whole body was pain and fire. The bruising around my ribs and wrists ached, but the ache between my legs was worse. Razek groaned above me, his three-pronged tongue, or tongues, lashing at my cheek, my jaw. He scraped my curls out of the way, dragging his hot mouth down to the spot point behind my ear, pressing his lips there. I gasped, arching, as his fingertips brushed then pinched, so gently, at my nipple.

“Fuck,” I murmured, letting the sensations explode inside my body. Earlier, I’d thought I was going to lose him. The fear I’d felt. The agony… It was like loss. Grief.

I can’t lose him.

I was starting to care about this brutal warrior, this arrogant man who wanted so badly to be Gahn. And judging by the way he was muttering against my skin, he might even have been starting to feel the same.

“I wanted to touch you like this the first night I met you. When I was lying down with you, my cock was so full and stiff, searching for your cunt.”

My eyes flew open, widening as I stared at the rock wall.

“I want to feel it,” I blurted, apparently no longer in control of my own bloody mouth.

“But your injuries -”

“We won’t… we won’t do that,” I said breathlessly, even though my ass was pressing back against him. “I just… want to feel.”

God, it felt like I had gone completely off my rocker. Maybe that’s what happens when you’re lost for this long in an alien hellscape with only Razek for company. Maybe that’s what happens when both of you almost die…

But crazy or not, I couldn’t deny the rising intensity of my need for him. To make sure he was solid and strong and alive in my arms.

Behind me, I felt Razek move, then heard the rustle of hide. When he settled again, I felt the thick, unclothed rod of his cock pressing against the backs of my thighs.

I rolled over, slowly, gingerly, to face him. When I was in position on my side next to him, his hand came up to cradle my jaw. His brows contracted in what looked like pain, and he made a thick snarling sound before capturing my mouth in his own.

I opened to him instantly, desperate hunger coursing through me. His huge tongues invaded, tasting, taking. As we kissed, his giant, hot hands moved down to cup my breasts. I tangled my own hands in his hair, pulling him closer as if I could pull him right inside me.

Inside me.

No, we wouldn’t go that far.

Not tonight.

Does that mean I’d want to go that far another night?

I’d never been one for casual hookups. The fact I was already going this far with Razek was significant. But I ignored all the questions and uncertainties about what this meant, focusing on what felt good. Curiosity driving me, my hands slipped downwards to Razek’s groin.

Bloody hell.

His member was huge. Hard, and hotter than any flesh had the right to be. Razek drew back from the kiss, hissing between clenched fangs as I drew my fingers slowly across his astonishingly smooth, thick tip. I tipped my chin down to try to see what I was doing in the gloom, my mouth watering at the sight of his engorged member. Fist-thick at the base, it tapered to a dark, wide point at the tip. On either side of the member were the cock spears I’d heard the other mated girls gush about. Finger-long, slim cartilage appendages that apparently brushed some very sensitive places when a Sea Sand man was inside you…

The cock spears themselves must have been pretty sensitive too, because Razek’s hips bucked and jerked as I fingered them. I alternated touching them, then his thick cock with one hand, while slipping my other hand down to cup his velvety, heavy balls.

I had to admit, it was a pretty fucking impressive set-up.

“I had to do this to myself in the morning, after that first night,” Razek growled as I started to pump his huge cock with my closed fist. God, my fingertips and thumb didn’t even touch until I got close to the tapered tip! Razek’s hands trembled as they moved down to hook his claws into the waistband of my trousers. “Now I want to see you do the same. I want to see you aching and lost in pleasure.”

I took a ragged breath, then let it out in a shocked huff at his next words.

“I want to see your naked wet cunt.”

That statement left no room for opposition. His hips were desperately rocking into my grip, and if I waited much longer I couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t shred my trousers to pieces trying to get them off me faster. Skin burning, heart hammering, I pulled my trousers and underwear down, kicking them off. I got rid of my jacket/blanket, too, no longer cold. Now, with Razek’s heat, and the heat of the attraction building between us, the air felt deliciously cool on my flushed skin.

Razek was up and over me in a flash, so quick I barely knew what had happened. His hands adjusted me, pressing my shoulders, rolling me onto my back. He knelt over top of me, on his hands and knees. His eyes were dark orbs of hunger, his sight stars practically vibrating with the intensity of his need. There was something about that hunger, that obvious desire for me, that had wetness flooding between my legs. I had to do this to myself that first morning…

So it hadn’t just been me getting all hot and bothered that first night lying next to a stranger.

But as I looked up into Razek’s carved face, his piercing eyes, I knew with a powerful certainty that he was no stranger. Not anymore. We’d slept beside each other, eaten together. Bled together. We’d almost died together earlier and had helped to save each other. With every breath, every moment, he was becoming more and more a part of me and of my life.

I reached up, running my fingertips along his hard jaw, reaching up to brush loose, hanging strands of his glossy hair back out of his face. He groaned, his brows puckering downward as he nuzzled into my touch.

“When the ablokoi had you, I…” He paused, his voice grinding to a halt before continuing. “I do not know how I will ever let you go now, Jozelyn.”

“So don’t,” I whispered. We stared at each other, the silence buzzing between us with unspoken words and the flood of possible futures. Futures where he and his tribe came with me to the settlement. Futures where I remained here. Futures where we went our separate ways, never to see each other again.

“Do not forget what you have just said,” he growled, moving to drag his fangs down my throat. My mouth dropped open, my head tipping back as his tongues emerged again, brushing against my sensitive skin before moving downward further. He paused at my breasts, groaning, running his tongues along my sensitized peaks, before dipping even lower.

His thumbs dug into to my inner thighs as he wrenched my legs apart, putting my pussy on full display. I raised up on my elbows, looking down at him as he stared. One of his thumbs moved tentatively inward, brushing my slick folds, up to my clit. When he pressed my clit, I cried out, my hips jumping up against his touch.

“I must be the only one worthy of being Gahn,” Razek rasped, his thumb slicking back and forth over my drenched clit, making me squirm. “Because no other man would be able to restrain himself from rutting this gorgeous wet cunt the way I will restrain myself now.” He bent lower so that his next words were breathed against my soaking skin. “I will hold myself back from you, Jozelyn. Keep the fervour of my body in check with the ablik will of a mighty Gahn. But I will taste you tonight. And when my tongue presses into the tight heat of your sheath, I’ll be dreaming that it’s my cock.”

Jesus fucking Christ. His words alone had me on the edge of wanting to come. And when his tongues went to work between my legs, exploring and tasting, I was thrown headfirst over that edge. I exploded in a sharp orgasm, the waves running through my bruised body. Razek’s hands remained firm on my thighs. As I convulsed and clenched, moaning, he pressed his thick centre tongue inside me.

I clamped down on his tongue, my muscles spasming against the intense sensations.

“So much… Too much!” I moaned, my fingers threading through his hair as pleasure coiled again in my pelvis. He growled, and I felt the vibration of it along his tongue, inside me, making me shudder.

He withdrew slightly, snaking the three tips of his tongues along my folds, lapping at my clit, before saying, “Too much? This is nowhere near enough.” Then he plunged that thick centre tongue back inside me, slipping it in and out, caressing it forward as his other two tongues slicked up along every sensitive part.

I came again, this orgasm harder, deeper, and more drawn-out than the first. Thank God his head is so hard, I thought, dazed, as my fingers squeezed at his scalp, my nails digging into the tough hide. Finally, after every last moment of pleasure had been wrung out of my body, Razek pulled back. The asteroid light and the glow of the stars reflected on the wetness coating his mouth and chin.

He moved up to his knees, towering between my splayed thighs. His cock jutted, huge and stiff. With a massive hand, he reached down to fist it, pumping, his lips drawing back from his fangs in a dark snarl.

“Remember what you have said,” he repeated. “Remember that you were the one who told me not to let you go.” I stared, unable to move, my fevered gaze flicking back and forth between his pumping hand and his ravenous expression. He grunted, his bicep bulging as his hand slowed, his pecs twitching and his abs crunching inward. Rope after rope of ejaculate spewed, most of it landing on my abdomen. The heat of the liquid seared, almost burning. Branding.

Razek gave a shuddering breath, then leaned down onto his free palm so that his torso hovered over my own. With his other hand, he dragged his half-stiff cock through his cum, smearing the liquid into my skin. I frowned, moving to wipe it away, when he caught my wrist, stopping me. We stared at each other, chests heaving in the darkness. The cool night air made his seed dry quickly until it was no longer so easy to wipe away.

Dread sank deep in my chest as I realized what a mistake I had made.

Remember what you just said. Remember that you were the one who told me not to let you go.

In that moment, I knew that there was no way Razek was ever going to let me go back.

And, that if he did trap me, that I’d never be able to forgive him.

We’re fucking doomed.

I turned onto my side, drawing my knees up to my chest, contemplating what had just happened, and what was likely going to come to pass now. We’d get back to his people’s tents, and he’d compete to become Gahn. He’d shown me his brutal strength with the zeelk and then the tentacled ablokoi. I had very few doubts now that he could best any man. He’ll win, assume power, then use that power to keep me here.

Razek moved in wordlessly behind me, draping the jacket over my curled, naked form, then slipping his arm beneath it, warming me.

And even though I knew it could never work, even though my throat was tightening already with anxious grief, I sighed, leaning back into that heat.

For tonight, at least, let’s just pretend this will all be OK. Pretend that we want the same things, that this isn’t going to completely go up in flames.

I squeezed my eyes shut, pretending with everything I had.

But too quickly, the sun would rise, burning all my pathetic pretenses away.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Razek

The final day of this part of this round of the baklok had come. Before nightfall, we would be out on the Death Plains, approaching the tents of my people. There, we would find out if either of the other two men, Hagor or Falork, had survived. But whether they survived or not was immaterial. No matter what, by dawn tomorrow, I would be named my tribe’s Gahn.

The thought did not bring me the intense, heart-thick joy it once had. Suddenly, being Gahn seemed much more complicated than I had anticipated. No longer would I be solely responsible for taking care of my own tribe. But I’d be responsible for her. Jozelyn. The tiny female curled against my chest right now. I watched the rise and fall of her shoulder as she slept peacefully on her side. I, too, had slept peacefully. The only way I could have slept more deeply would have been if I had taken her completely, blowing my seed deep into her cunt.

That image set my fangs on edge.

She is not even my mate…

But perhaps that did not matter. The Lavrika had not come to me, it was true. But as the dawn light worshipped Jozelyn’s strangely lovely face, I knew that nothing, not the Lavrika, not fate, not death, could keep me from her now. I had saved her from the zeelk. And then again from the ablokoi. I had not yet claimed her with my cock, but I would. Once I was Gahn, I would claim her, again and again, until she had no reason to ever want to go back to those other tribes, those other men.

And if she still wishes to go?

I sat up, then stood, pacing the cave as the sun rose. Surely, she would not want to return to the other tribes now. She was feeling a connection to me, too. I was certain of it. She’d shown real grief at the prospect of me dying. She’d opened her sweet cunt to my tongues.

She would not leave me now.

I thought of the words I spoke to her on our first night. When I’d told her to forget all others who had come before. That I was her only path forward, now. I turned my head, looking back over my shoulder at her as the cave’s gloom lightened. She slept, unperturbed, while my own thoughts whirled.

Biting at my tongues, I exited the cave, scaling down the stone quickly to retrieve meat and valok to serve her upon waking. I collected talka, too, and once I was back in the cave I once again cleaned her thin little foot coverings. After doing that, I poked at my chest wounds. Even though they had re-opened in the fight with the ablokoi, they did not seem to be festering.

I wonder how she fares…

It had been difficult to assess the extent of her bruising in the darkness last night. I moved to her side, crouching, lifting the cloak to examine her back.

I growled, then swallowed, her bare brown skin and wing-like shoulder blades making my cock stir. What would that back look like, arched and needy, as I took her from behind…?

I forced myself back to my task, raking my gaze down her torso. There was some bruising, a dark ring around her ribs, but it did not seem extensive. At least from what I could see. I knew little of her kind, and that made me curl my claws into fists.

She stirred, turning to look at me over her shoulder, blinking. She brought her hands up to scrub at her face, and I was heartened to see that the marks around her wrists did not seem severe, either.

“How do you feel?” I asked. She sat up, groaning. I noticed she kept her cloak firmly pressed to her chest. I did not completely understand that, but somehow I knew it was meant to create some distance between us once again. And it made me want to roar and throw the cursed cloak right out of the cave so that she’d have no choice but to be bare and beautiful before me.

“Sore, but I’m also stiff from sleeping.” She rolled her head around on her slim neck, her curls brushing her shoulders. She held up her wrists, examining them, then prodded gently at her sides. “Bruising is sore, but now that I’ve had some rest I can definitely tell the injuries aren’t too bad.”

“This is good,” I said, letting out a tight breath. “But even so, today I will carry you. We have a long way to travel to reach my people’s tents.”

Something flashed on her face, an expression that disappeared as quickly as it had formed. She moved her eyes from my gaze, noticing the supplies I had collected that morning. I brought her the food and valok, and we both ate in silence.

“Is that talka?” she asked. I grunted, handing it to her. I’d only used a little bit for cleaning her foot-coverings. There was still more than half the stalk left.

“I’m going to clean up a little,” she said. My tail flicked, and she stared at me flatly.

“That means you can turn around now.”

She really was trying to create more distance between us. But for what purpose?

As I turned, that answer jolted into me, like a venomous spur.

She still intends to leave you.

As the realization hit me, I knew instantly that it was true. Even now, she was cleaning my seed from her skin. I tipped my head back, throat thick as I stared up at the cave’s rounded ceiling. My seed had glistened so beautifully on her skin last night. It had almost looked like she was mine.

Maybe the Lavrika would still come to me. Awaken the mate bond in her so that I could finally quell all her thoughts of leaving. This was no longer a question of resources and not wanting to bring an unmated female into the clutches of enemy tribes. Now, this was about not wanting to lose her.

But she was the one who told me last night… She told me not to let her go!

Perhaps I really was dense. Because it was only now dawning on me that she meant for me to come back with her. To submit to the putrid alliance of the other tribes. My hackles rose, ancestral, territorial rage threatening to swallow me whole in vicious jaws. But I forced it all down as I heard the rustle of fabric behind me.

“I’m ready.”

I turned to find Jozelyn fully dressed in her people’s odd gear. She pulled the hood up, offering me a thin, lifeless smile.

“Where are your eye shells?” I asked, glancing around the cave.

Her smile fell away.

“You don’t remember ripping them off my face yesterday? Pretty sure we lost them back there.”

I tensed, hating myself for losing something that she needed. I will find a way to create new ones for her…

“Ride on my back. You can bury your face against my neck when needed.”

She looked like she was going to argue, but finally acquiesced. I knelt before her, and she clambered upward. I felt her wince slightly as she got into position, and the hatred inside me doubled at the fact I’d let her come into harm’s way.

“I am sorry,” I said grimly as I stood, “for not protecting you yesterday.”

Jozelyn stilled on my back, even her breath stopping for a moment.

“What do you mean?”

“I tried to get you out of the ablokoi’s reach. Clearly I did not do a good enough job. It still caught you in its foul grip.”

She let out a small, humourless laugh.

“No, you did a great job at that, actually. I was totally clear of the danger.”

I stiffened.

“So what, then? What happened?”

“I came back to help you,” she muttered.

Twisting anger clenched.

“You could have been hurt far worse than you were. You could have died!” I snarled. I was glad she was on my back and that she could not see my face. The expression there must have been abhorrent. Angry and… afraid. Afraid of losing her. “Never, ever do that again, Jozelyn. Do not put yourself in harm’s way for me. Not ever.”

“But you could have died too!” she said, anger rising in her own voice to match my own. Growling, I shifted my hands, letting her drop to the ground. I spun, grabbing her shoulders, leaning down so that we were eye to eye. Her own round eyes blazed with golden-brown defiance.

“Yes, I could have died,” I said. “And that would have been my sacrifice to make. For you.”

Her eyes flashed.

“So you would literally die to keep me alive, but you won’t listen to me when it comes to meeting with the other tribes and creating an alliance that could keep both of us alive in the long run?”

“We do not have time to discuss all this now,” I said, though I already knew she was right. I would not be able to let her go after all that had passed between us. I should never have let her down off my back. I wondered now if I’d have to force her to get back on. She will slow us down too much if she insists on walking.

Luckily, she did not.

“Fine,” she snapped, walking around to my back without me asking. I knelt, allowing her to climb back up. As I straightened, she uttered words that were worse than the drag of a blade across my back.

“I don’t need your permission for anything. I’ll figure this all out on my own. And I will find a way back to my friends. Mark my words, Razek.” She spat my name so that it sounded like some kind of curse.

“The next time you say my name, it will be preceded by the title Gahn,” I seethed, exiting the cave. I scaled the wall while Jozelyn held tight to me. I clung to that – the fact that she was clinging to me. At least in that moment she needed me.

We moved through the last stretch of stone and peaks that cut through this part of the land, finally reaching the plains by mid-afternoon. I felt Jozelyn perk up, straining to look out over my shoulder. She let out a small breath, and I felt pride roll through me as she took in my homeland.

“These are my lands,” I said.

She uttered some words in her language. I stared out at the land of my birth, trying to see it with foreign eyes, wondering what she was seeing.

The ground stretched, flat and pallid grey under the bright sun. Apart from cracks in the dry land, it all appeared uniform, but the ground was not actually all made of the same stuff. It was deceptive in that way. While most of the land was packed flat and hard, one step in the wrong spot would have an unwary traveller sinking into shifting, sandy depths.

A terrible satisfaction came over me.

“Only a warrior can traverse these plains. There are spots that will swallow up anyone who does not know the way.” I twisted my neck to catch a glimpse of Jozelyn’s profile, shadowed in her hood. “And these plains are especially hungry for argumentative females.”

I faced forward again before I could see whatever irate expression she was no doubt throwing my way. But her anger, her arguments, would not change things. Once I took her into those plains, into my people’s tents, she’d never be able to leave without me by her side.

I stepped out onto the plains with Jozelyn pressed into my back. I began the long trek as the sun moved across the sky. We would reach the tents of my people by sundown, I was sure of it. I knew this way, this land. Again, pride snaked through my limbs, warming my chest. It was not an easy path. Few would survive the trek across these plains. But, Razek, future Gahn of my people, would escort Jozelyn safely to my people’s tents.

And then I will have to decide what to do with her once and for all.

We continued the rest of the way in silence. The land looked like it went on endlessly, but there were small landmarks a Death Plains warrior knew by heart. As the sun fell towards the horizon, we came to the place where the ground began to slope downwards, leading down to a dip in the land. This small dip was lined with flat white stone, and white boulders lined the perimeter of the lowered area, creating a natural barrier. In the centre of this area, perched atop the flat stone, were my people’s tents.

My tribe assembled to meet us, a small group watching as we approached. I felt Jozelyn tense on my back, craning to get a better look. The sun sank lower and lower, the boulders and tents creating deep shadows.

When we were within earshot, I called out.

“I, Razek, have returned, victorious against the zeelk and the ablokoi.” I wanted to add that I counted myself victorious against the angry female on my back, too, but for some reason that did not feel entirely true.

“We welcome your return, Razek,” called Kirat, the Fol-Gahnala – mate to the fallen Gahn Itok. She pushed to the front of the group and I stopped before her, raising my tail before letting Jozelyn down to the ground.

“There have been no others. Hagor and Falork have not yet returned,” Kirat said.

I stiffened, my chin rising, my tail twitching. If neither of the other two returned by dawn, I would be named Gahn of my people. The role, the title I had trained and fought for my entire life… It was finally within reach…

Kirat’s sight stars fell to my chest.

“You have wounds. We will tend to them with Lavrika’s blood.”

I jerked my tail in agreement. “Yes. But you need not ask a tribal a healer, for I have found my own.”

My chest warmed at the way I’d called Jozelyn my own so naturally.

I turned, slipping a hand behind Jozelyn’s back, urging her forward. She pulled back her hood, her face serious, as she faced the Fol-Gahnala of our tribe.

“Fol-Gahnala, I present to you Jozelyn.”

Kirat’s sight stars exploded, then pulled in tight. She leaned down, staring into Jozelyn’s face.

“Who are you?” she asked, half in awe, half wary.

“I’m Jozelyn. I’m a human woman.” Jozelyn’s eyes flicked sideways to me, then back to the Fol-Gahnala. Her next words came out in a rush. “I come as a messenger from the other four tribes. We have formed an alliance. We invite your tribe back to -”

My hand fell heavily onto Jozelyn’s shoulder.

“Stop,” I hissed. She jerked her head towards me, dark eyes defiant.

“If you won’t listen to sense maybe some of your people will!” she cried. She wrenched her head back to the Fol-Gahnala, who was looking at us appraisingly. Heated shame slammed through me. If I could not even assert my authority over this one tiny female, what hope did I have to earn my own people’s respect and obedience?

“Come,” I growled. I gripped Jozelyn’s elbow, being careful to avoid her bruised wrist. I marched her away from the others, feeling their eyes on my back.

My tent was on the edge of the grouping, settled against one particularly large white boulder. I trundled Jozelyn inside the tent. As soon as we were inside, she whirled on me.

“I’ve had enough of this. I need to know, right now, what you plan to do with me. I can’t take this uncertainty anymore, not knowing if I’m a prisoner or not.”

“You are not a prisoner,” I growled, moving closer to her in the gloom of the tent. “I have brought you into safety, out of the danger of the lands that would have destroyed you. The fact that you are not capable enough to leave of your own accord does not mean I am imprisoning you here.”

She said something angry and sharp in her native tongue before switching back to the language of the Sea Sands. “Then why does it feel like I’m a prisoner? You didn’t even let me speak to the others!”

I raked my claws through my hair. I tried to remain calm, to remind myself that this female was strange and that she did not know our ways.

“By morning I will be Gahn. Speaking to the others will make no difference. It will be my word that determines the actions and the future of this tribe. Mine alone.”

I put emphasis on that last part and Jozelyn laughed bitterly.

“So, that’s it then? Alone, alone, everything alone? That’s how you want to be? Alone?”

I stared at her in the darkness of the tent, trying to discern her meaning. It felt like she was asking something of me, beneath all those other words, but I could not tell what.

“Speak plainly. What are you saying?” I asked, stepping closer to her. Her cloak brushed my front, lighting sparking sensations under my skin. In the enclosed space of the tent, her scent was overwhelming me. Without realizing it, my hands moved to her hips and she made a small sound before speaking again.

“I’m asking what you want, Razek. When it comes to me. Do you want… Do you want me? Because there’s no chance for us if we continue on like this.”

My fingers tightened, my claws slipping beneath her cloak and tunic, grazing the skin of her hips. I felt her shudder at the contact. I leaned in, my lips, then fangs, brushing her forehead.

“Are the other Gahns’ mates like you? I do not know how they have survived,” I groaned, my cock engorging, tipping forward, aching for contact with her. No wonder the other Gahns had submitted to this bizarre alliance. The Lavrika had not even awakened the mate bond in me, and already I felt like I was being torn in two by this female. Everything I knew, everything I thought I’d understood, getting crushed under the weight of her dainty, blistered foot.

Her scent was destroying me. I could not stop my tongues from emerging, tasting the succulent point behind her ear, flicking desperately against her pulse. She gave a soft moan, her hands rising to my chest.

“Their mates?” she repeated, the words halting and stuttered. I froze, my tongues splayed along her throat.

I dragged them back into my mouth so I could speak.

“You want to know what I want?” I took a step forward, then another, driving her backward into my tent until her back collided with a bone post. My cock surged at having her like this, trapped against me. “I want to rut you. I want to mate you. I want to make you my Gahnala.” The words surprised me as they tumbled from my mouth. But as I said them, I realized they were the truest I had ever spoken. Jozelyn was mine. She was meant to be my mate.

“But what happens if I’m not supposed to be your mate? What happens if the Lavrika chooses someone else and he comes looking for me?” she asked quietly.

“Then I will destroy him,” I hissed, feeling madness rising up inside me at the thought. I was too far gone, now. I would never be able to see her in the arms of another man. Lavrika or not, my fate and hers were bound. Our destinies forever entwined, from the moment I’d snatched her from the zeelk. “You speak of being alone? I would destroy every male in existence to keep you. There would be no other tribes to return to. I would be the only male left for you. Your only tribe.”

As I spoke, I ground my aching erection against her abdomen, the fabric of her cloak crinkling. She gasped, and I slipped my fingers between her legs, pressing against her nub of pleasure through her leg-coverings. Subtly, she slipped her legs further apart, and it took everything I had not to tear up into that fabric with my claws, exposing her sweet wetness to my fingers and tongues and cock.

“Jozelyn,” I said, my voice turning from its aggressive growl to a pleading tone. “Tell me you feel this. Tell me you want me, too.”

I was not accustomed to begging like this. It was not befitting of a warrior, a Gahn. But I needed to hear it, to know it. I felt the wetness even through her clothing. But where her body acknowledged the desire, did her heart? Her mind?

“Razek, I want you,” she moaned. My breath shuddered out of me and my mouth fell to her neck again, suckling at her skin. Simultaneously, I yanked at the odd whirring mechanism that undid her cloak, forcing the stiff fabric of the garment to the ground.

She wants me.

“Jozelyn,” I murmured against her throat, speaking her name in time to her rapid pulse. “Jozelyn, Jozelyn -”

“I want you, but I have other wants, too,” she whispered, making me pause. “I want to see my friends again. I want all the tribes to live in harmony, and to face the future together as one.”

I felt crazed in that moment, my skull being split down the middle. I moved my hands up, palming her soft breasts, feeling the nipples pucker under my touch. She arched into my hands, but at the same time, she did that side-to-side head shake that indicated displeasure or disagreement.

“Tell me you’ll at least consider it. Tell me, please, that you’ll at least come back to meet with the other Gahns. To see everything at the settlement. To understand what I’m even asking of you when it comes to this alliance.”

Urgent fear lanced me. Fear that if I agreed to this, and took her back even as a temporary visit, she would never want to leave with me again. She would never want to come back with me. As strong as I was, and for all my claims of killing every other male in this world, I knew that even with the strength of my tribe at my back, I could not fight off all of the other Sea Sand warriors to keep her.

Jozelyn’s small hands flitted to my tense jaw, pulling my face to meet hers. She dipped inwards, her plush lips brushing my own as she spoke again. Her words halted my very breath.

“Do this, Razek. Come back with me, and I’m yours.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Jocelyn

Fuck. Who just said that? Was that seriously me, telling Razek that if he came back to the settlement, I’d be his bloody mate?

My feelings are getting in the way of being a rational fucking human being, I lamented silently. Because it was true – I wanted to be with Razek. I was falling for this stubborn fool of a warrior. I wasn’t playing with him, trying to bargain, or bribing him by dangling the chance at some human pussy in front of him. As shocking as the words had been as I’d said them, they were true. If Razek were willing to come back to the settlement with me, that would be a huge step towards us building something together. And I wanted something with him. Something real, something beyond fevered hook-ups between bouts of near-death. I definitely didn’t want to commit to living here in the Death Plains, but if he was willing to come back with me, maybe he’d see all the good that could come of joining with the other tribes.

At the very least, I had to go back to deliver the fallink plants I’d collected. In the brief time we’d been outside in this spot, I’d spotted many more fallink plants growing from cracks in the stone between the tents.

Razek’s rasping voice brought me back to the moment, making me forget all about fallink and settlements until all I was aware of was his darkly muttered words against my mouth and his fingers returning to the pulsing place between my legs.

“Once, I thought that you might be trying to poison me. Now, I wonder if you are trying to trap me,” he said. His fingers pressed harder against my clit, and heat jumped up my spine.

“What are you talking about?” I moaned, tipping my head back against the bone post of the tent. Razek’s mouth moved to my ear.

“I fear you promise something that you will take away. You will make me bring you back to the other tribes, only to separate yourself from me there.”

“We’re going in fucking circles!” I cried. Pleasure built between my legs as dread filled my chest. “I want to go back but still be with you. You want to keep me here forever and never go to the other tribes where my friends are. But those things are mutually exclusive. I need some indication you’re willing to hear my side of things. Anything, Razek!”

My last words were a long whine as Razek’s fingers stroked me faster through my trousers. The seam of the trousers under his touch was creating the most exquisite friction, bringing me up to that burning edge.

But Razek said nothing, a wall of heaving silence as I came, bucking, against his strong grip. And the next words that rang out weren’t mine or his, but rather the shout of a warrior outside the tent.

“The baklok is still underway! Falork returns alive!”

The heat inside me turned to ice as Razek pulled back.

“I must go,” he said. I panted, watching him as he bent and retrieved what looked like a long blade from the ground near my feet.

“Fine, go,” I whispered thickly into the darkness, frustrated tears threatening to spill.

Razek slipped out of the tent without another look back. I waited a long quiet moment before I finally moved to follow him. Part of me wanted to stay, alone and angry, in the tent. But if the other guy had returned, and they were about to fight…

No way. I wasn’t going to stay behind now. Not if Razek was about to enter into some crazy battle to the death. As frustrated as I was by our situation, the thought of losing him eclipsed that by a whole hell of a lot.

Heart in my throat, I left the tent.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Razek

Iset myself to the impossible task of putting Jozelyn out of my mind so I could focus on the battle ahead. True to what I’d just heard, as I weaved through the tents, I saw Falork’s dark silhouette moving down the slope towards us. I swung my blade, rolling my head on my shoulders. There were several men I would have regretted having to kill in the baklok. Falork was not one of them. A brutal warrior who bordered on cruel, he would not go down without a fight. One of us was going to die tonight.

And I had much unfinished business with Jozelyn. So I did not plan for it to be me.

“Falork, welcome back,” the Fol-Gahnala said. I moved through the small gathered crowd of my tribe to stand beside her. Behind me, I was aware of the waft of Jozelyn’s scent, and I knew she had followed.

I wanted to feel happy about this. Proud. Content with the fact that she had come to see me destroy my enemy and take my place as Gahn. But the tension between us lingered, making my mood foul. My mood darkened further when Falork approached, coming to a stop before me, smirking as he took in the wounds on my chest. From what I could see, he was unharmed from his days and nights without his weapons.

Well, he did not have a mouthy female to protect. My wounds were a mark of honour, of sacrifice. They were a mark of my strength in the fights against this land and its monsters. Marks of my duty to keep Jozelyn alive.

And whatever further wounds Falork inflicted upon me would only be testaments to my strength in my inevitable victory against him.

“Get your blade, Falork. Let us end this,” I said, setting my jaw.

I felt the Fol-Gahnala’s gaze hit me from the side.

“You have not yet tended to your wounds, Razek. Take some time to heal, then come to the battle fresh,” she said.

Falork’s smirk grew wider. “Yes, Razek. You will need all your strength against me.”

My rage only intensified when I saw Falork’s sight stars move past me, exploding in shock. He sees Jozelyn.

“She is mine,” I growled, too quiet for Jozelyn to hear, but loud enough for Falork and the Fol-Gahnala to comprehend. Kirat said nothing, but Falork’s fangs flashed.

“Is she unmated?” Falork asked, his sight stars lingering on Jozelyn in a way that made my insides twist. By our people’s standards, yes, she was unmated, as was I. As was Falork.

But none of that mattered. Not to me.

“She is mine,” I said again, a deep growl reverberating in my chest. I stepped up to Falork, bumping his chest with my own, snarling into his face. “And you’d best get your blade, now, before I run you through with mine right where you stand.”

Falork’s smirk hardened into a sneer.

“If you wish to bring your own death upon your head all the more quickly, so be it,” Falork said. He cast one last long look at Jozelyn, then disappeared into his tent a few paces away. I tried to still myself, to press strength into all my limbs as I waited for him to emerge.

“Razek.”

The sound was a tight, soft pull in the air. It tugged at me, winding little fingers between my ribs.

Jozelyn.

I turned to find her right behind me. She’d left her cloak back in my tent, her bare shoulders glowing as the moonlight bathed her. Her eyes were luminescent and deep, her soft mouth pulled downwards at the corners.

“What is it?” I asked, moving closer to her, unable to help myself. I was powerfully drawn to her. Bodily so.

She bit down on her lower lip. “Whatever happens between us, whatever… Just, whatever happens, I need you to stay alive.”

I smiled wanly.

“I intend to do so,” I replied. The words were heavy on me, as were their motivations. “Days ago, I would have wanted to survive solely to become Gahn. But now…”

“Now?” she pressed, her voice warbling slightly.

“Now it is to return to your side.”

I tracked the movement of her slim throat as she swallowed, bobbling her head up and down.

“Then you’d better do it. Get out of this alive. And we’ll figure out the rest.”

“I will,” I said, a solemn vow. I straightened, hefting my blade in the air beside me, tightening my grip on its bone handle. Jozelyn looked like she was about to step back and away from me, but at the last moment, she careened forward. Her arms circled my waist, her bare skin slipping against my own, making me clench.

My blade-free hand buried itself in her thick curls, pulling her tighter against me. For a moment, everything else fell away. The tribe, the tents, the bloodshed awaiting me this night. There was only Jozelyn’s form pressed into mine. Her words, begging me to live.

But too soon, she was ripped away. My eyes flew open and I hissed. Falork stood before me. Jozelyn’s arm was captured in his grip.

“Stop embracing the female and face me, Razek,” Falork growled. I almost didn’t hear his words. A furious buzzing, monstrous and loud, filled my skull as I stared at his fingers on her bare arm. His fingers were pressing into the bruises of her wrist.

I moved so quickly Falork did not have time to react. I brought my blade down so hard and swift that his hand was severed from his body before his fingers could even try to uncurl themselves. Falork roared, drawing his bleeding stump of a wrist into his chest, hunching over. Jozelyn’s face went flat and tight, her eyes wider than I’d ever seen them. Falork’s filthy hand fell from her arm to the ground, and she stumbled backwards. The Fol-Gahnala caught Jozelyn about her shoulders, steadying her, and I turned back to Falork.

“I told you she was mine. You will never touch her again!” I bellowed, not caring if Jozelyn heard me now.

But despite his injury, that putrid smirk had returned to Falork’s face.

“Even without a second hand, I am certain I could please her better than you.” His face turned deadly. “I will kill you for this, Razek. I will be Gahn. And I will mate your woman in front of your death pyre as your corpse turns to ashes on the plains.”

With a loud cry, he was upon me, swinging his blade. I met the crash of his blade with my own. Even with only one good arm, he was a formidable opponent. I held my blade with two hands, he held his with one. He brought his bleeding wrist up, pounding it against the flat of his blade, driving it down harder against mine. With a brutal wrenching of my body, I forced his blade up and off of me. I felt the wounds in my chest tear open once again, my own blood combined with Falork’s staining my skin.

We circled each other, tails snapping. This time I charged. Our blades met again with a furious clang. We met blows over and over. Our fellow tribes-people dove out of our way as the dervish of our bodies came too near them. Normally, we would have completed this battle out on the plains and away from the tents. But the impatience of my blood lust had not been able to wait until we were in a more open space.

A quick, twirling flick of Falork’s blade had its sharp edge scrape along my chest, widening my wounds. Hot breath lurched out of me at the pain, and he used that moment to sweep his tail beneath my feet. I jumped to avoid it half a moment too late, landing hard on my back.

Falork was in the air, leaping down towards me, the tip of his blade aimed for my heart. Everything grew mightily still and slow.

Somewhere in the dark distance, the high call of my name echoed.

Jozelyn’s voice wrapped around my name created an inferno inside me. Lust and agony and desire and the sick slip of loss collided, exploding through my chest, my limbs.

Screaming, I sat up to meet Falork’s descent. My movement had thrown his aim off course, but his blade still buried itself deep in my shoulder.

It did not matter, though.

Because my own blade was now buried in his guts. Falork’s breath hissed from between his fangs, his lips twitching. Hatred burned inside me, and I twisted my blade, drawing it up hard against his ribs.

Falork’s good hand fell away from the handle of the blade piercing my shoulder. He slumped over, falling into my lap. I rolled him off of me, standing, my chest heaving. I scanned the crowd for Jozelyn.

But she was not in the crowd. She was running to me.

I tried to reach for her, forgetting about my wounds. Pain exploded in my shoulder. My left arm was completely immobilized. But that was no matter. I had another arm.

She stopped before me, her eyes fixed to the blade in my shoulder. The way she’d stopped without touching me bothered me. With my good arm, I took her hand, pulling her closer.

She shook her head over and over, threading her fingers with mine, moving to my side.

“You have a whole fucking sword in your body, do you know that?”

I grunted, unlacing my fingers from hers for a moment. I gripped the handle of the blade, gritting my fangs as I pulled it forward and out of my body.

Jozelyn gasped, immediately stretching up and pressing her hands into the bleeding wound.

“What are you doing?! You can’t just pull it out like that!”

“Why? It cannot remain lodged in my shoulder forever,” I said.

The rest of the tribe moved closer, forming a circle around us. Two warriors collected Falork’s body, moving it away from the tents. The Fol-Gahnala stood in front of Jozelyn and me. She gave me a long, hard look, then raised her tail before me. One by one, everyone in my tribe did the same, raising their tails, acknowledging me as Gahn.

The moment did not have the sweetness I had once anticipated. Suddenly, being Gahn, having my people recognize my power, was not as good as having Jozelyn’s complete acceptance. Her devotion. Her love.

The Fol-Gahnala’s tail fell away, and she turned to the rest of the tribe.

“Fetch Lavrika’s blood for the new Gahn of the Death Plains!”

“Bring it to my tent,” I growled. Now that my goal had been achieved, my task of becoming Gahn complete, all I wanted was to be alone with Jozelyn. Preferably with the use of both of my arms.

“Come on,” Jozelyn said. She removed her hands from my wound, then gripped mine. Warmth rushed through me as I anticipated her locking her fingers with my own once more. But instead, she dragged my hand upward, slapping it to my opposite shoulder.

“Apply pressure here.” She moved around to my back, and I felt her hands return to my body, pressing into the exit wound of Falork’s blade.

“Let’s go,” she said. Her little hands pushed, and together we walked back to my tent.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Jocelyn

Awoman whom I presumed must have been one of the healers was already waiting for us outside of Razek’s tent. Relief pumped through me at the sight of her, doubly so at the large jar of Lavrika’s blood and bandages in her hands.

“Thank you so much or bringing that,” I said to her from behind Razek’s back. My hands slipped a little in his blood, and I swore quietly, pressing my palms harder to the wound back there. I could only hope that he was making just as much effort to stop the bleeding coming from the entrance wound on the front of his shoulder. These guys were all way too blasé about life-threatening wounds. She raised her tail, bowing her head slightly, before letting it fall away.

“Leave it all here,” Razek growled. The healer dropped the items to the ground immediately, raising her tail again before walking away.

“Wait, what?!” I cried, twisting and watching her go while keeping my hands on Razek’s wound. “Why did you send her away? You need a healer!”

“I need nothing but you, now.” Razek wasn’t looking at me, his gaze locked straight ahead. “There is no other touch I want upon my skin but yours.”

“Whatever, let’s just get inside,” I pleaded. “You need to sit down. And if things go badly, then I’m going to drag the healer back here myself.”

We moved together into Razek’s tent. Now that I was out of the starlit gleam on the white stone outside, it was hard to let my eyes adjust. It was surprisingly light out there, with the asteroids and stars reflecting their light off the white rock. In here, it was all shadow.

“Candle?” I asked, squinting. Razek bent, pulling himself out of my grip. I could see his silhouette crouch. With his good hand, he placed what looked like a flinty stone between his fangs. He held another similar stone in his good hand.

“Are you for real? Stop, stop!” I said, realizing he was about to smash the other stone upwards against his own fangs to light a spark for the candle. “Just give it to me.”

I knelt next to him, fumbling in the darkness until I had placed the valok candle in front of me. I took the two stones from Razek.

“One of these is all wet from your spit,” I said with a sigh, shaking my head. I manoeuvred that rock so that its dry part hit the other one. Luckily, it only took two tries to light the candle. I placed the candle on the stony ground, letting its light fill the space.

Yikes.

The light only made it more obvious how bad Razek’s wounds were.

“OK, you sit there,” I said, pointing to the ground. Razek moved out of his crouch, seating himself on the stone.

“I did not anticipate taking so many orders from another so soon after becoming Gahn,” he said, watching me.

“Yeah, well,” I said, blowing a stray curl out of my face. I was too tired to come up with a more clever response. I stood, going back to the tent’s entrance and collecting the items left behind by the healer. I toted the jar and bandages back inside, satisfied to see that, at least so far, Razek had listened to me and had remained sitting.

I got to work immediately. First, I used some of the bandages to clear away the blood, trying to better gauge just what I was dealing with. The wounds on his chest were worse than before, but ultimately they still seemed shallow enough. It was the big one in his shoulder that would cause the most problems. Blood was coursing out of it faster than I could clean the inky liquid away.

Tucked into the bandages were a bone needle-looking thing and very fine stripes of some kind of fibre, or maybe tough threads of hide.

He needs sutures…

“We really should get the healer for this,” I said, looking at his wound and gulping.

“The Lavrika’s blood will do all the healing that is necessary on the inside. All that needs to be done is closing the skin to help it along,” he replied.

I breathed out, hoping that he was right. I definitely didn’t know how to reattach ligaments or fix muscles. But I’d helped Aunt Edie mend enough clothing to know how to sew, at least. I’d just never had to do it on a living being before.

“Here goes,” I said. I moved the candle a little closer, then dumped a healthy helping of Lavrika’s blood over Razek’s shoulder. I smeared the glowing white liquid around, watching it turn dark from Razek’s blood, trying to help it all seep into the wound. I added a little more, then pressed the torn edges of his skin together with my finger and thumb. “Try not to move,” I muttered, leaning forward.

Razek made a deep sound when the needle pierced him.

“Sorry!” I said, but I didn’t stop. I kept going, pulling and pushing, the sharp needle pulling his shoulder messily back together. It wasn’t pretty, but soon enough I was done on the front side. I smeared yet more Lavrika’s blood there and was relieved to see that the coursing of his blood had slowed significantly.

I moved on my knees around to Razek’s back, continuing the process there. The wound back there was slightly smaller and I worked as quickly as possible, drawing the wound closed and dumping more Lavrika’s blood over everything. Beneath my touch, Razek’s taut muscles began to relax and he breathed out, long and low.

“Better?” I asked, shuffling on my knees to his front once more.

“Yes,” he said. “And what of you and your wounds?”

“What?” I blinked at him. His sight stars slid down to my wrist.

“He hurt you. I saw him pressing here,” Razek’s claw grazed my bruised wrist, his voice dripping with hatred.

Oh, that other warrior.

I shivered as I remembered the roughness with which he’d grabbed me, the uncaring strength with which he’d squeezed my arm. It had hurt the bruising, but it hadn’t actually caused any damage that I could tell.

“I’m fine,” I said. I shivered again, remembering Razek’s reaction to that moment. The way his sight stars had spun, crazed. The way his nostrils had flared. The way his blade came down, cutting the other guy’s hand clean fucking off.

I tried to forget that violent moment, focusing on Razek’s wounds once more. The shoulder was as good as I could get it, but he still had the wounds on his chest.

His long legs were straight out, splayed in front of him. I moved closer, between his thighs. I dipped my bloodied hand into the jar, cupping Lavrika’s blood in my palm. I pulled up my dripping hand, flipping it quickly to smear the stuff into his long gashes.

I kept doing that, scooping up the milky liquid and smearing it. Before my eyes, the bleeding on his chest stopped, and the wounds here already looked much better.

“Good,” I said, smiling tiredly and nodding to myself. I looked him up and down, making sure there wasn’t anything I’d missed.

My eyes fell to his loincloth.

“Er, are you hard right now?!” I cried, staring at the bulge beneath the fabric of his loincloth.

“Yes,” Razek rasped.

“How do you even have enough blood left for that?’ I asked in disbelief.

“I am a virile warrior, Jozelyn. Unless I am dead, there will always be enough strength and blood for this.”

I scooted back and away from him before he could do anything stupid. Or maybe it’s to stop me from doing something stupid… Because honestly, after seeing him almost die, again, all I wanted to do was straddle his hard cock, testing that vigour and strength for myself. But I was pretty damn certain that what I was picturing in my head right now would not be conducive to his recovery.

“Well, tell that blood to go do something more useful, like helping heal your wounds,” I said, my cheeks heating.

Razek’s brows fell downward in what could only be described as a boyish look of disappointment. A warm surge of affection for him made me smile.

“Don’t give me that look. You’re injured. You’re going to get a good sleep tonight. Then we’ll figure everything out tomorrow.”

I didn’t have the energy to bug him more about his plans for the future. At least, not tonight. We’d both been through too much to keep pushing and snapping at each other.

I pointed to the hides on the other side of the tent.

“Now go lie down.”

He didn’t move.

“Are you going to join me?”

“Razek, I just said -”

“No, not for… Just… Will you sleep next to me again? Like we have done before?”

There was a note of sad exhaustion in his voice I’d literally never heard before. And suddenly, my ribs didn’t hurt because of the bruising there. They hurt because he was breaking my heart.

“I will,” I said. The truth was that I didn’t want to leave his side, either. As much as we’d clashed, as much as our futures were pulling us away from each other, I still wanted him.

So when he finally moved to lay down in his hides, I didn’t hesitate to join him.

He was lying on his side, his injured shoulder up and his good shoulder to the ground. I took off my boots and socks. After a pause, I slipped my pants off, too. Razek’s sight stars pulsed at that, and I felt his eyes drag down my bare legs.

“Don’t be getting any ideas,” I said before I blew out the candle. “It’s more comfortable to sleep like this.”

Razek made a growly sound, but said no more. Darkness thick as smoke around me, I crouched, then crawled into the hides. I smiled widely, a laugh bubbling up in my throat as I rolled in the softness of the fabric. Then I wiggled, nestling inwards against Razek. After days out in the cliffs sleeping on literal rocks, this was pure bliss.

“You are happy,” Razek mused. As if it was the most natural thing in the world, he settled into our usual position, his chin against the top of my head. He pulled a loose hide blanket up over me. The movement of his arm was stiff, but it was already better than before. Then he slipped that arm under the covers, pressing into me. His tail did the same, slinking over my bare thighs, making my skin prickle.

“I am,” I said guardedly. In this moment, I was happy. Happy he was alive. Happy to be lying next to him, warm and comfortable in the darkness. Happy to feel the solid weight of his arm and tail thrown over my body.

“I think you could remain happy here. With me.” His words were slurred. His arm and tail grew heavier on my body as sleep began to pull him down. Tears pricked my eyes. There was no arrogance or pride or commanding tone in his voice this time. He wasn’t telling me to stay here as the Gahn. He was hoping, imagining, begging for it as Razek.

“I can’t,” I whispered thickly into the night air. But If Razek heard it, he gave no reaction. Closing my eyes, I let myself drift, hoping to follow him into sleep.

I SLEPT LONG AND DEEP. When I awoke, bright sunlight was piercing every little gap in the tent’s hide walls. I blinked, breathing in and out slowly, letting my tired, bruised body wake up slowly. I turned my head back. Razek had shifted in his sleep. His chin was no longer up on the top of my head. His face pressed into my hair. As I moved, my curls tickled him, making his sleeping face crinkle.

I laughed, then caught myself, not wanting to wake him yet. This was the first time I’d seen his sleeping face in the morning light like this. When he slept, there was so much stripped away. His stubbornness, his violence and strength and pride. He looked younger like this. He’d never look soft, not with that stony jaw and the shaved sides of his head. But like this, he looked… almost gentle. And I let myself believe that we would come to some kind of peace together. That somehow, we’d work out a way that we could both be happy.

As much as I’d tried not to, clearly, I had woken him. Long, clawed fingers came up to scratch at the nose my hair had just tickled. I snorted as he cracked open an eye, his sight stars misty with sleepiness.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

“I have taken my place as Gahn and woken with Jozelyn beside me in my hides. I feel like fate has heaped every blessing upon me.”

OK, that was super cute. But don’t let that distract you.

“No, not like that. Your wounds.”

I sat up slowly, noticing my own soreness had gotten significantly better during the night’s rest. Razek did the same, tentatively moving his arm and rolling his injured shoulder. I was pleased to see that the stitches I’d given him had held, and the wounds looked far less angry than yesterday. The shallower ones on his chest were basically healed now, the skin shiny and new.

A rustle just outside the tent made both of us jump. Rapid footsteps on the stone got quieter and quieter, and I relaxed.

“It’s been a while since I’ve slept in a tent at a secure settlement,” I laughed shakily, willing my adrenaline levels to drop. Between the journey here, losing Xyan and the others, the zeelk, the ablokoi, the battle with Falork… I wondered if my nervous system would ever be the same.

Yeah, probably not.

Razek rose, padding to the tent’s flap, his tail swishing. I admired the long, muscled lines of his body, the lanky grace with which he moved as he crouched. He returned to my side a moment later, his claws full.

“Someone brought us breakfast?” I asked, my mouth already watering. I didn’t even recognize the food in his hands (besides the valok plants), but I was absolutely starving.

The meat was smoked and somewhat similar to the dakrival meat we’d been eating at the settlement. There wasn’t just meat, though. There were long strips of a blackened plant, almost looking like tree bark. I took a bite, feeling the unusual food crumble into powder in my mouth. I coughed, which seemed to alarm Razek, who immediately began hitting my back with forceful blows.

“I’m fine,” I wheezed, taking a slurp of valok gel. Now that I knew I wasn’t choking to death on the stuff, I decided it wasn’t half-bad, and I took another crumbly bite. It almost tasted like extremely bitter dark chocolate.

Some more of the powdery chocolate bark, meat, and valok later, and I was feeling pretty damn good. Other than the painful press of a very full bladder.

“Er, where do I…?”

“You want to empty your bladder?”

“Do you have to just say it like that?” I groaned. “But yes, where should I go?”

Razek stood. I did the same, pulling on my trousers, socks, boots, and jacket. He led me out of the tent and around the large boulder that his tent was beside. In the boulder’s shadow was a softer area of greyish sand instead of more of the white stone. I did my business then kicked the sand over it, hurrying back around the boulder to Razek’s side. He held out a talka stalk to me, and I cleaned my hands. Then I used the talka husk to clean my teeth as I surveyed the camp.

After the hustle and bustle of the settlement at the Cliffs of Uruzai, this felt… Unnaturally quiet and tiny. I remembered Razek telling me of the sixteen men, five women, four children, and one elder. I grimaced, realizing that there were now only fourteen adult men after the baklok. Falork was gone, and the other man, Hagor, had evidently not returned.

Most of those men weren’t here now. If this tribe was anything like the tribes at the settlement, then many of the men would be out patrolling and hunting during the day.

In the centre of this area of stony ground, the five adult women sat in a small circle. Like Razek, they all had sight stars in unusually pale colours – icy pinks, smoky silvers, and powdery blues. The long sleeveless tunics they wore were made from woven fabric that was lighter in colour than the greyish-green tunics woven from peet grass back at the Cliffs of Uruzai. But they had the same long, glossy black hair I was used to seeing on the Sea Sand people, done up in various braided styles. Three of the women were scrubbing hides, the other two were butchering a large animal. The animal was smaller than a dakrival, but still pretty huge, about the size of a small pony. It was vaguely bovine, like the dakrival animals of the desert, but its tusks were shorter and lumpier looking. Its hide was also grey instead of dakrival-brown. I realized that all the tents here were grey instead of brown like at the settlement, no doubt made from the hides and bones of more animals like that one.

A young girl watched the butchering process, and one of the women scrubbing had a sleeping baby strapped to her chest. Two boys ran between the tents, play-fighting. One of them shouted, “She is mine! You will never touch her again!” a childhood imitation of Razek’s thunderous roar last night. Five men stood high up on the slope, looking out over the plains, spears and blades ready.

It was nice being back in a tribe. Nice to see the families, everyone working together. But something about this just felt… off. It didn’t take me long to put my finger on it.

It’s totally unsustainable.

Back at the settlement, with the energy brought by all four tribes together, plus the optimism of us human women, there was an undeniable hope and life in the air. Women were pregnant, people were coming together as allies. But here, it felt the opposite. Not many children, and so many warriors without the possibility of mates.

It was a tragedy.

“Razek,” I said, turning to him. I reached for the hand of his good arm, holding it between my two. “Please tell me you’ll come back to the settlement with me.”

His sight stars flashed.

“Jozelyn,” he growled, clearly warning me to back off. But all that did was make me angry, and make me want to press my point home even harder.

“Look at your tribe. It’s tiny, cut off from everything in the middle of a death trap! All your women are mated and most of your men are alone. Not to mention how few men there even are, especially after losing two more in the baklok!”

Razek’s face was hard, but he remained silent as I spoke. I was begging him, not just because I wanted him to stay with me, but because I honestly wanted his people to flourish. We could all thrive together, if only he could see that.

“Your numbers are unsustainable. You must know that. Within a few generations, your tribe will be reduced to nothing. But if you come with me, move you people to the settlement, you have a chance to grow. To live. Your men might even have mates from among my friends, did you even think of that!?”

“If my men have mates from among your kind, why can their mates not come to live here, as you have?” he asked.

“We’re back to this already?” I said with a sigh. “I didn’t agree to live here forever, Razek. Just agree to come back with me, see what I see at the Cliffs of Uruzai. See what the future can offer you and your people!”

Some of the firmness drained from Razek’s face. His mouth was grim as he stared down at me. Then he turned his head, casting his sight stars over the small number of women and children in the centre of the paltry group of tents.

“You believe that I am Gahn of a dying tribe. A king of nothing.”

“You don’t have to be. You could lead your people into a new future, the way the other Gahns have,” I murmured, squeezing his hand again. I knew this wasn’t easy. These tribes had such deep wounds between them. And he and his people had lived so far out here, for so long…

“Just come with me. One trip to see what I’m talking about.”

I could feel his resolve weakening. I could feel him coming more and more to my side of things. Joy lurched in my chest. We might actually have a chance, him and me. And we’d be giving his tribe a better chance, too.

Razek squeezed my hand back, bringing his other hand up in a stiff movement to cup my cheek. His jaw was tense, his eyes sorrowful. But why? Because he’s about to break my heart or his own?

“My Gahn! Men on the horizon!”

Razek ripped his hands from me, and I gasped at how bereft I felt at that. Razek sprinted back into his tent, returning with his blade, still crusted with the blood of last night’s battle. One of his warriors had come halfway down the slope and was gesturing upwards with his tail.

“Razek, wait! Your injuries!” I cried. He ignored me, charging up the slope to meet the other five men.

For fuck’s sake. This idiot is going to get himself killed. He’s nowhere near recovered from last night!

I sprinted up the slope, my short human legs taking way longer than I would have liked. By the time I reached the top where the others were, I could see the men coming this way even with my own squinting human eyes.

“Kill them. All of them,” Razek snarled, his tail snapping. I peered between the warriors trying to see who was approaching.

Hold on…

The only other warriors out there were from the tribes in our alliance. If he killed them, he’d be killing men I may have known.

“Razek, no!” I cried, pulling on his good shoulder until he turned to face me.

“Go back to the other females,” he hissed, his face a mask of brutality.

“No! Not until you agree to meet with the men coming this way!” I twisted, looking around him. The men were moving slowly, no doubt trying to avoid the quick sand patches Razek had warned me about earlier. But the closer they got, the clearer their forms became. My heart stuttered then swelled, and I gave a whoop.

“Xyan! Dalk! Oh my God, guys!” I screamed, waving my arms like a crazy person. I whooped again, laughing. “Razek, these are the men who brought me here! They’re my friends! They’re alive!”

Razek stared at me, all the emotion melting away from his face. His flat expression filled me with dread. He turned his back on me, speaking to his other warriors. His next words were like ice in my blood, a knife in my back.

“It does not matter. Kill them anyway.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Razek

Jozelyn was a stubborn female. I should have known she would not have liked my command. But I must admit, I was surprised by the violence of her reaction. She hammered her small fists into my back, screaming, “No, no, no!” The words repeated in time with her blows, creating a war rhythm that made blood lust rise all the faster.

I knew those men could have but one purpose in coming here. They were here to steal Jozelyn.

And that would not happen. Not while I lived and ruled as Gahn. My men bared their fangs at my sides, ready to fulfill my commands and fight off the intruders. But like them, Jozelyn seemed just as eager to keep fighting. She had ceased her hitting and was now jumping and clambering up my back. Soon, her legs were locked at my waist.

She grabbed my ear, tugging on it. The move was surprisingly painful given her small hands. It forced my head down and to the side. She pressed her intoxicating mouth to my ear.

“Don’t do it Razek. I’m serious. This will be unforgivable.”

“Losing you is unforgivable!” I snapped.

“You will lose me forever if you kill my friends! I like those men. I’ve known them longer than I’ve known you. They’ve looked out for me, protected me…”

“You are not helping their cause,” I growled, jealousy fuelling the rage inside me. The men would be upon us in moments. As they got close enough to see our aggressive stances, our blades, they drew weapons from their own backs.

“Don’t do it. Don’t. Please don’t. Tell your men to stand down and to just talk to them. I’m begging you.”

The proud Jozelyn was begging for these men’s lives? There was no way these men were worthy of it. But my anger was clouded by sudden doubt. Doubt that told me maybe I was wrong. That my instinct to crush these men would drive Jozelyn further from me than ever, even when she was so physically close that I could feel the heat of her cunt against my back.

“Do not attack right away,” I finally spat. My men glanced at me, as if uncertain, and I bared my fangs until they raised their tails in acknowledgement.

“Don’t attack them at all,” Jozelyn added. Grunting, I unhooked her arms from my neck, forcing her to slide back down to the ground.

“I have had enough of your diplomatic input for now,” I said. I could hear the other men shouting as they approached and stress mounted inside me. Uncertainty. Confusion.

Kill them and lose Jozelyn. Let them live and lose Jozelyn.

If I lose her either way, I should at least get to kill them.

But I turned to face the men with a lowered blade.

The five men finally reached us. Their sight stars all fell upon Jozelyn at once, heating my blood.

“Surrender Jozelyn to us,” the largest man said, stepping forward.

“Xyan, it’s OK! I’m safe!” Jozelyn cried from behind my back.

“I will believe that once you are back in our care,” the one called Xyan growled, his sight stars flicking to me. I stared at him, and the others, sizing them up. They all looked to be strong men, but…

“You are injured and outnumbered,” I said. Each of them had suffered in the battle with the zeelk and whatever other monsters they’d fought to get here. “You have no hope of surviving if you try to take her.”

“Our Gahns will not accept our return without her,” Xyan replied. There was a calmness to his voice, a steadiness that I did not trust. If it comes to clashing blades, he will be the most dangerous. I noticed the subtle tightening of his claws upon the handle of his weapon.

“Can you stop?” Jozelyn’s high voice cut in. “Steal her, take her. I’m a person, not a fucking rock you can tote around!” Jozelyn shouted from behind me. “Razek, move out of the way right now so I can talk some sense into them.”

“You cannot be serious,” I said, tossing the words back over my shoulder at her. “You think I will move out of the way and present you to these enemy warriors? Just like that?”

“But they aren’t enemies to me.”

She was right, and I hated it. This was her tribe. As much as I wanted it to be otherwise, as much as I wanted her to choose me and my people, she… hadn’t. I turned around, exposing my defenceless back to the other warriors as I looked down into her small, beautiful face. Every instinct in me urged me to turn and fight and win, just as I had last night. What was I, if not the victor of every battle, the unbeatable male I had forged myself to be?

Yet what was I without her?

“Tell them what you will,” I finally muttered, feeling hollowed down to my core. Jozelyn’s brows contracted, almost as if confused, but then without a second glance at me she pushed past me. I whirled, keeping her pinioned in my sights as she stood in front of me.

“I don’t want any violence here,” she told the others firmly. “The same rules that apply at the settlement apply here, as far as I’m concerned. There will be no killing the warriors here in order to take me back. The Gahn, Razek, has been my companion and protector these past few days while we’ve been separated. I don’t want him harmed.”

Her companion. Her protector. She had become the pained and pulsing centre of my life, and that was all I was to her?

“We came here to reclaim you, hoping you were still alive, and to complete the original negotiations of our mission,” Xyan said. He looked at Jozelyn as he spoke, then over her head at me. “If the new Gahn Razek will not come with us for the negotiations, and he will not let you go…”

“He will,” Jozelyn said calmly. A ripple of shock went through everyone present, most strongly in myself.

Jozelyn turned back to me. “A few moments ago, it looked like you were coming around to my side of things. That you were going to agree to come back to the settlement with me to speak with the other Gahns.”

She had perceived correctly. I had been considering it more seriously than before. Because as much as I hated to admit it, she spoke sense. Our numbers here were shrinking with every generation. No new mates for my men, few children. Little hope to return to our old strength. I did not want to join with the other tribes. I did not even want to go for a temporary visit. But if it meant my tribe could survive and become stronger, then I owed it to them and myself.

I felt trapped. I had never felt such a thing in all my life. Anytime I’d been trapped before, I’d gouged my way out, fighting through beasts and land and stone.

“If I take you back, you will never leave,” I said, reaching forward and fingering a stray curl that poked out from her hood.

“Have you already forgotten what I told you before? Taking me back is the only way we have a chance at happiness.”

I’m yours, she had said. But there was no way to know if she truly meant it. Not yet, anyway.

There would only be one way forward, now. One way to find the truth, to carve out the future. I would have to go back to this settlement with Jozelyn. And I would hope with everything I had that it was not a ploy. That I would not lose her and have everything be for naught.

“We will go,” I said, feeling defeated. My men clicked their tongues in shock. I turned to them, tearing myself away from the painfully lovely expression of joy on Jozelyn’s face at my proclamation. “We are not strong in numbers here, especially after losing Hagor and Falork. I will bring no warriors, no men with me on this journey. I will travel into the Sea Sands, to the Cliffs of Uruzai, to meet with the other Gahns and understand this new alliance they have formed.”

If they wanted to question me, they thought better of it, raising their tails. No doubt they had the same confusion swirling inside them that I did. Alliances and negotiations and new women. Our world was ripening with strange new fruits. Whether those fruits would poison or nourish us was yet to be seen.

“Razek, thank you!” Jozelyn said, tugging on the hand of my uninjured arm. I tried not to, but I could not stop myself from looking at her. The happiness on her face… it almost broke me. And up until now, I had considered myself unbreakable.

“So much happiness to leave this place,” I said, tucking that stray curl back into her hood. Her face fell, and she moved her head side to side rapidly.

“You know it’s not like that. I’m happy because you’re coming with me.”

I hoped that it were true.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Jocelyn

Somehow I was able to convince Razek to allow Xyan and the others access to his tribe’s Lavrika’s blood. I didn’t like the look of their wounds after being left to heal out in the dirt and the rocks. I doubted they’d rubbed any orlok into their wounds the way I had done with Razek. No, knowing them, they were probably combing the cliffs incessantly, looking for me.

I’m so happy they’re OK.

The grief and guilt around surviving when they hadn’t (or so I’d thought) had been a constant throb at the back of my mind. Now that it was lifted, I felt lighter, brighter. Even with Razek’s foul mood dampening the atmosphere.

“Fine, give them the Lavrika’s blood. It will not do to have them slowing us down by dying of their injuries on the journey back,” Razek grumbled. His sight stars grew sharper on my face. “As long as you are not the one doing their healing.”

I wanted to bug him a little, to ask if it made him jealous. But I already knew the answer to that question. It was obvious Razek was jealous. And even though it was slightly cute, it also had the possibility to get in the way of the very slow progress we were making towards peace. So I left it alone, letting Xyan and the others smear the stuff on their own battered and torn skin.

Not long after they arrived and healed their wounds as best they could, Xyan and the other four went hunting for their own dinners, leaving me alone with the grumpy new Gahn and his people. Razek strode wordlessly to his tent, and I followed, taking quick steps to keep up with his long legs. He wrenched the tent flap aside and held it open for me. I scurried inside, readying myself to deal with whatever anger he no doubt had for me defying him earlier.

But I was not ready for the frantic grip of his claws at my hips and the desperate crush of his mouth to mine. Desire swelled hot and fast inside me, and I instinctively opened my mouth to allow him better access. His tongues plunged into me mercilessly, stealing my breath, until they slicked back out, leaving me dazed. My hands slammed into the hard curves of his chest, pushing upwards to grip his neck, trying to drag him even closer to me. He grunted softly into my mouth as his hands moved to my ass, hoisting me up. My legs wrapped around him, and he shifted me down until I could feel the hard grind of his cock against my ass.

He pulled back from my mouth, dragging his nose across my cheek to speak thickly into my curls.

“I have decided that I no longer care. I do not care where we go, where I must follow, as long as you keep your fingers laced with mine. I will not lose you, Jozelyn. Not to any man, any tribe. Not to fate. Not to death itself.”

My palms dragged over the shaved sides of his head, threading through his hair, pulling his head back so that I could see his face. His pale lavender sight stars glowed silver in the gloom of the tent.

“I do not even care if you never love me the way I have come to love you. I do not care if you only see me as your companion, your protector.” He rolled his hips, dragging his cock forward and back against my ass. “But even so, I will say this to you as plainly as I can.” He paused, his jaw tightening, his sight stars boring into me. “I want you as my mate. I want to be inside you. I want to claim you in every way imaginable. And I will fight and battle and push every single day of my life until that future becomes our reality. I will do whatever it takes to claim you, even travelling into the desert with these other men. Because I cannot let you go. I am strong, the strongest of my tribe. But I am not strong enough for that.”

“Let me get out of these clothes,” I moaned, already wriggling to undress. His words were sending me into a spiral. Arousal was welling up faster than I could hope to keep up with it.

“I can help you undress faster. Tear it all off with my fangs and claws,” Razek growled. “Dress you in the garb of my people.” There was a raw, primal emphasis on the word my and it made my core clench, my stomach muscles contracting.

“Don’t rip them,” I ordered him, trying to take a steadying breath. He made a frustrated sound, letting my feet down to the ground but keeping very close to me. I stripped, fast and furious, letting everything fall to the sand in a heap before stepping quickly back up to him, pressing my palms to his hard jaw.

“Thank you, Razek. Thank you for listening to me. For agreeing to let my friends live. And for agreeing to come back with me.” Maybe it seemed like he was doing the bare minimum. Like, wow, brilliant, he didn’t chop my friends’ heads off for daring to come rescue me. But I knew how intense and territorial these guys were. I knew how much bad blood was between them. He was making strides, big ones, for me. And, I hoped, for his tribe. Once he sees the future possible for his people, he’ll have to agree to the alliance…

I was stolen from my thoughts by Razek falling to his knees in a sharp, heavy movement.

Holy fuck. I gasped as his hands gripped my hips, his long fingers splaying over my ass cheeks. He pressed his face between my legs, breathing deep and groaning.

“Are you fucking smelling me again?” I stammered, batting him on the top of the head. He did not pull back to speak, which meant his words were hot vibrations against my most sensitive places.

“Do not deny me this, Jozelyn. I have survived the baklok, the zeelk, the ablokoi, and spared your friends against my own instincts. Give me this. Do not make me pull back now.”

There was a note of command in his tone that made me bristle, but when he groaned against me, rubbing his face back and forth against my curls, I knew I could never tell him to stop now. My own need for this matched his own, pulsing and wet.

I stepped further apart, my mouth falling open into a soundless sigh as his tongues moved inward. He didn’t take his time exploring. There was a desperation to his movements, like he was begging me with his body. Like he couldn’t stand to wait a second longer. His large centre tongue pressed greedily inside me while the outer tongues slurped fervently. His fingers jerked, pressing even harder into my flesh, and I clenched around him, crying out.

I looked down, not even realizing that once again my hands had found their way to his head, his hair. My fingers slipped through the softness of the strands, clenching into fists when his centre tongue began a maddening inward curl against my G-spot.

“Oh, fuck yes,” I breathed in English, grinding my hips against his face, unable to stop the motion. Razek’s hands adjusted, his fingers slipping into my backside’s crease, grazing up and down, lighting up nerves in my ass that made me double over, clutching at his head.

A few more inward curls of his centre tongue combined with flicks against my clit and my ass and I was finished. Bucking and moaning words that were probably total gibberish, I came, the force of it driving all strength from my limbs. My knees buckled, but Razek caught me before I really fell, wrenching his head out from between my legs and tightening his grip, lowering me downwards until I was on my knees too.

“Now you,” I said as we faced each other on our knees. “Take this off.”

I pulled at the loincloth, swallowing at the hardness I could see carved beneath it.

Razek wasted no time doing it, unloosing the garment and throwing it away so hard it was almost absurd.

“Sit down,” I told him, my hands falling to his hips, feeling the hard bones and muscles there. I urged him downward with a quick movement. He sat, his long, muscled legs splayed, watching me. His tail twitched on the sand behind him.

I stared at him, slack-jawed, for a moment. At the lanky, dark-eyed, almost devilish beauty of him. The hard pull of long limbs. The expression that looked like he wanted me so badly he would destroy us both. The swell of the huge alien cock between his legs.

I want it in my mouth.

I wanted to taste him like he’d tasted me. To give something back, after what he’d given to me.

To see him fall apart.

I crawled forward between his splayed thighs. His chest shuddered, his hips twitching with desperate tension as I approached. I took his shaft in my hand, marvelling at the hot thickness of it. The smoothness of the skin over the steel-like organ beneath. Stroking with one hand, I played with his two cock spears with the other before moving down to cup his balls. That made his tail smash the stone ground behind him, and I heard the crack of his claws against the ground.

I stroked faster, biting my lip, my pussy clenching in a heated wave that was already rising again. He let out deep guttural sound, then seemed to stop breathing entirely when I lowered my mouth to his smooth head.

His hips bucked mercilessly and he tensed, fighting to control his movements as my lips met his tip. I opened my mouth, just slightly, teasing, nibbling and tasting. He tasted like salt and desert and stone and summer night air. Moisture immediately beaded, and everything became saltier. I moaned a little, opening my mouth further, tasting and prodding. I slipped the tip of my tongue against the dark opening that was beading with liquid, and Razek grunted, his hips shunting upwards.

A hot pang ran through me at his obvious undoing, and I couldn’t wait anymore. No more teasing. No more tasting. I opened my jaws wide, pressing downward as far as I could, creating strong suction on the way back up.

Razek’s hand immediately moved to the back of my head. His fingers were tense to the point of shaking against my hair, as if he was using every milligram of will to keep from pressing my head down and fucking my mouth until my throat was raw.

The combination of that – his unhinged, primal desire and the shuddering control he was exerting over it, was a potent mix. My pussy clenched again, the aching muscles squeezing against nothing. As my mouth slipped up and down, getting used to his girth and size, I slipped my free hand between my legs, strumming my clit. My other hand worked the parts of his shaft I couldn’t ever have a hope in hell of getting in my mouth. My mouth moved faster, and on an upward trajectory, Razek fully buried his hands in my hair, yanking me up and off his shaft.

“I am warning you, and warning you now,” he panted, his face feral, his sight stars buzzing. “If you keep going, you will be drinking my seed down.”

I bit down on my lip, my hand stilling between my legs. That image was almost painfully erotic. But in all honesty, I didn’t know how hard these alien warriors blew their loads. If their ejaculation was anything like everything else they did, it would be… hard to handle, to say the least.

Keeping eye contact with him, I moved back downwards. Instead of taking his tip in my mouth and moving down his shaft, I slurped my mouth up and down the bottom side of his shaft. He was so fucking smooth.

With each pass of my mouth along the underside of his cock, I squeezed at his balls and cock spears. As I moved upward, I passed over his weeping tip with my tongue. Every time my tongue met his fat tip, he jerked, every muscle in his chest and abdomen tensing, becoming harder, as if carved from stone.

“Once, I told you that when I rutted you with my tongue, I’d be dreaming it was with my cock. But even like this, it is…” His words fell away, shattered and fevered. I slipped my tongue over his tip again and again, my hand working at my clit once more, bringing me back to that pulsing edge.

“Like this what?” I breathed against his heated shaft.

He groaned, running his claws along my jaw, down my neck to my shoulders.

“Your mouth is already becoming my undoing. Your cunt must be… oblivion.”

He barely pronounced that last word. Every part of his body went taut and corded. The muscles in his thighs jumped, his hips rocked upwards. I slipped my mouth away from his tip just in time to avoid the jettison of his seed spurting upward over and over again. I jerked him slowly, firmly, in time to the spurts of seed, and when he seemed to be finished coming, I swiped my tongue across his tip once more.

He made a deep huffing sound, almost sounding like a warning, as I lapped gently at his post-orgasm tip. He was still half-hard, and I sucked him gently into my mouth again, suckling as he threw his head back.

My fingers stroked faster between my own legs as Razek shook beneath me. Already, impossibly, he was hardening again. That was, frankly, hot as fuck, and I increased the suction until he swelled further, filling my mouth with his engorged dick.

He was totally losing himself. I could feel it as much as see it. His fingers were desperate at my shoulders, my neck, his hips coming up off the stone ground, hovering in aching, sensitized arousal.

Having him arching like that, so aroused, did it. I moaned around his thickness as I came again, my whole body pulsing. Razek jerked immediately afterwards, surprising me by coming into my slack mouth. I sputtered, pulling back, swallowing instinctively.

Fuck. I hadn’t meant to do that – swallow his cum like that. I’d literally been repulsed by the idea of doing that with previous boyfriends. But in that moment, there was no way I’d have been able to pull back. The gravity of our mutual pleasure, the intensity of it… it was like a drug. And now that it was coating my mouth, my throat, I had to admit I kind of liked it. Sharp and salty and purely Razek, inside me.

Razek sat up, catching my hands in his claws and yanking. I swallowed a yelp, heaving forward. Razek steadied me, then kept pulling, until I was seated between his thighs. His arms became a hard band around me, drawing me into his chest.

“I fear I will never know peace without you again Jozelyn.” He muttered against the top of my head. “Though I have never known less peace than now, after you came into my life.”

“You’re welcome,” I said with a shaky, sated laugh. I was starting to relax, now. Now that I knew he wasn’t going to kill my friends. And that he was going to come back with me. Everything is going to be OK. For him, for his tribe… for us.

Tension that had been thrumming along the back of my neck and my shoulders ever since the zeelk attack finally began to melt away. I sighed, closing my eyes, sinking into Razek and breathing in his scent. It didn’t take long to fall asleep.

And I slept damn well.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Razek

Idared not move once Jozelyn was asleep against me. The only part of me that moved was my sight stars. They alternated between looking at Jozelyn’s lovely sleeping face and staring at the wall of my tent, lost in thought.

Tomorrow, we would go with these others to the Cliffs of Uruzai.

I had never been that far into that part of the desert. I did not like the idea of it – leaving my land, my people. But I liked the idea of letting Jozelyn go even less.

No. I hated that idea.

I will go with her to satisfy her wish. She said that as long as I went with her on this journey, she would be mine.

That thought almost made my cock swell again, and I palmed myself. She was mine. I needed no Lavrika to bless that fate for me. I had chosen it, snatched with my own claws. And Jozelyn, I could feel, was starting to choose that fate, choose me, too. Why else would she have sucked my cock into her mouth, drinking down my seed? Soon, I will claim her cunt as I’ve claimed her mouth. She will be bonded as my mate, she will become my Gahnala, and she will never be away from my side again.

Too soon, she began to stir, and I loosened my arms. But only slightly. Just enough to let her stretch in the circle of my limbs. Her chin lifted along with her arms as she stretched, her breasts bobbing and pressing outward. Without a word, I dipped my head to them, sucking a puckered nipple between my fangs. The resulting gasp made my cock thicken, but she started pressing at my shoulders.

“Razek, it’s getting dark. We should eat, and start to make plans.”

I growled, letting that addictive, puckered flesh go with regret. Curse plans. Curse everything but her and me in the darkness of this tent.

But she stood and dressed despite my thoughts of curses, and I did the same, slipping into my loincloth and grasping at a blade and a strap for my back. She eyed the weapon, her slim brows falling into a frown.

“Do you really need that here?” she asked.

“There is always danger in the Death Plains, especially when men from other tribes arrive from the desert.”

She sighed, turning from me. She pulled at her hair, bringing it upwards, tying it into a round puff on the top of her head. Already, I missed the fragrant brush of her curls against my skin.

“Well, whatever. Blade or not, let’s go out there and get everything figured out.”

We exited the tent.

In the centre of the stone, between the tents, our evening fire blazed in its usual place. My sight stars spun, tracking over the area until I found what I was looking for. The five enemy men, standing and watching. My men stood between them and us, blades ready.

“Everybody just relax,” Jozelyn said. “I’m safe. I’m friends with both sides here, you got it? No killing each other.”

“Do not kill them. Unless they do something to deserve it,” I muttered to my men.

“Razek!” Jozelyn said, whirling on me.

“Do not worry, Jozelyn. We will adhere to the same code, ourselves. We will kill no one. Unless we are provoked,” the one named Xyan called from where they stood.

Jozelyn threw her hands into the air, stomping away from us on her small feet, muttering something that sounded like “madd fuhking bloaks.” If her words were insulting, then she must have meant them for Xyan and the others. Throwing those enemy men a dark look, I turned to follow her, seating myself beside her at the fire.

We ate quickly, in tense silence. The people of my tribe watched us as they devoured the hunters’ kills. Away from the fire, the enemy men were doing the same, eating what they’d killed during the day.

After eating, Jozelyn got up, dusting the back of her leg coverings. I stood immediately, as did the other men from the settlement. She looked between all of us and sighed.

“I’m not going far. I’m staying at the tents. I’m just going to collect some more fallink plants. So all of you can just chill out.”

I assumed that chill out meant please follow me, Razek, Gahn of my heart. As she turned and moved away from the fire, I strode slowly after her, watching her relentlessly as she crouched here and there, examining the fallink plants that grew between the cracks in the stone.

Soon enough, we were away from the fire, away from the tents, at the deserted end of the low rocky area.

“If you’re going to stalk me, you might as well make yourself useful.”

My core tightened, my fists clenching at the word stalk. Like a hunter with its prey. My fangs pressed against each other hard as I looked down at where Jozelyn’s small form was crouched.

“These ones are good. Can you please cut them with your claws?”

I knelt beside her, doing her bidding, astounded by the fact that I, the Gahn, was falling so easily to my knees at the word of this strange woman.

We worked quietly. Jozelyn moved to different clumps of the plentiful plants, then showed me which ones to cut. My sharp claws worked through their dark stalks easily, and she shoved them into the pockets of her leg-coverings.

“Remind me why you need so much of this weed?” I asked her.

“The other women like me need it,” she said simply. If there was a further explanation, she did not provide it. And that made me panicked, desperate. To think that she was holding anything back from me. To think that she could still be trying to hold distance between us. I stood, pulling her up with me.

“Jozelyn,” I said, my voice stark and urgent. “Tomorrow we leave with the other men. Against every instinct that makes me a good warrior, a Gahn, I do this. I am putting my trust into you and, by extension, the enemy men who you want to leave with.”

She opened her small mouth, but I kept going, pressing forward against her, my claws draping against the sides of her jaw.

“But know this: no matter how far we go, no matter how many enemy men I must face, you are mine, now. Only mine, and mine forever.”

She pressed her plush lips together.

“So you’re saying I’d never escape you, then? Whether I wanted to or not?”

“You won’t,” I hissed, pressing in closer. What was she saying? That she did indeed want to escape me? That sent dark vines of terror through me. I beat down the terror, replacing it with a hunter’s instincts, the assurance that even if she tried to flee, I would catch her easily. Bending down to breathe my next words against her ear, I said. “There is nowhere you can run.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Jocelyn

This guy still hadn’t figured out that I didn’t actually want to escape from him. I just didn’t want to feel trapped. But still, his words were bothering me. Making irritation rise, making me want to push back.

“You sure about that? I’m a fast runner,” I said, leaning away from the intoxicating feeling of his breath against my ear. With his mouth so close to my neck like that, I couldn’t fucking think.

I had been mostly sarcastic about the running thing. I mean, yes, I was a good runner in school. But I knew it was no comparison to the speed and agility of someone like Razek, especially here in his world. But he didn’t seem to catch the sarcasm, which I should have known he wouldn’t. He stared at me, his lips drawing back in a soundless snarl, his claws tearing away from my face. Arousal and fear bloomed in me in unison at the tension wracking his face and body. He gritted out a single word.

“Try.”

I gulped. Try what, fucking running?!

“But the quicksand…” I said breathlessly. Heat was coursing through me at the way Razek’s nostrils were flaring, his sight stars pulsing as if his eyes could swallow me whole.

“You will never make it that far, even with a head start,” he growled, his voice a jagged claw drawing down the column of my spine. Skin prickling with goosebumps, I took a step back.

His lips twitched, and his tail jerked behind him on the ground. “You’re wasting your head start.”

His words were like the shot of a starting gun on a track. Heart skittering, breath catching, I turned and fled. I slipped a little, quickly regaining my footing, sprinting as fast as I could away from both Razek and the tents. This was crazy. Absolutely fucking insane. There was nowhere I could go, and why was I even running anyway?!

But the way he’d looked at me… like he was ready to snap his jaws and pin me to the ground… It had woken something inside me. Something primal, something that raised its head and howled.

So I ran. I ran as fast as I could, feeling almost giddy with the anticipation that he would catch me.

My head start didn’t last long.

I heard a quick, deep bark of a sound, then flying footsteps and erratic breathing. He’s so close. I swallowed a sharp cry when I thought I’d felt his claws catch at the back of my tank top. But it had just been my imagination.

My legs burned. My chest heaved. My ears rang, pounded by my own harsh breathing and panicked heart.

As I ascended the slope that led up the plains, I wrenched my head back, trying to get a glimpse. My breath seized as I saw him. Dark and loping, wolfish and deadly, he came for me. I could barely look away.

But I did. I forced my head forward, trying to make myself faster. But the slope of the ground slowed me, and I could hear him getting closer and closer.

And then, the closure around my waist. Claws like metal bands grabbing me, yanking me down, pinning me on my stomach.

I panted as Razek lied above me. I felt a slight tugging at my scalp, then felt my curls pulled free from their bun, the tie shredded in Razek’s claws.

He groaned, rubbing his nose through my loose hair. I bit my lip as I felt the hard drag of his erection against my ass.

“I told you. You cannot outrun me, Jozelyn.”

It was hard to reply, my throat was so thick with arousal and adrenaline.

“Now that you’ve caught me, what will you do with me?”

He froze. I couldn’t see him above me, but I could practically feel the crackle of the tension coursing through him. The same tension binding my own muscles in knots, soaking my pussy and making me quake. Without meaning to, I angled my ass up and back, arching, and I moaned softly when I felt Razek grind himself mercilessly against me.

“Oh, what I would do,” he said, hungrily, almost wistfully. “Destroy every scrap of your strange clothing. Pull back your hips, spread your pretty human thighs, and rut you with my tongue all over again.”

He kept grinding against me as he spoke, adjusting his positioning so that his cock wasn’t thrusting up towards my lower back, but rather was between my legs. I squeezed my thighs together, revelling in the friction his movements were causing against my clit.

“But I wouldn’t stop there,” he rasped, dragging his nose along the edge of my ear. “I’d only be rutting you with my tongue to prepare you. For you are small. And I… am not.”

“Yes,” I moaned, pressing up against him harder. With a choked sound, Razek wrenched himself up and off of me. I was about to complain about the sudden absence of him, when he grabbed my hips, pulling me up and back until I was on my hands on knees on the slope. I glanced behind me in time to see him strip off his loincloth, his cock stiff and twitching. He shifted forward on his knees until his tip pressed against my ass. With a grunt, he pressed it downward, once again between my thighs. I was still fully clothed, but fuck it. I was way too far gone to stop and take my clothes off now. I just needed that friction, that pressure, again, as soon as fucking possible.

I threw my head back as Razek began pistoning his hips. My whole body rocked with the force of his movements. Like a fucking battering ram, he let himself go against me, his hips slamming, his cock throbbing between my legs. I clenched harder, wanting more, needing more.

“This is what I’d do to you, Jozelyn. What I’ve wanted to do since that first night.”

His words were slurring. Becoming thick, almost agitated. His hands grew even harder on my hips. One of his hands moved down, pressing against my clit through my trousers, making me cry out.

“Yes,” he groaned. “Nice and loud like that. Let Xyan and the others hear you. Let them run to us and see you coming undone solely from my cock between your thighs.” He rocked faster, harder, as pleasure built inside me. His next words had me coming so hard I bit down on my thumb to keep from doing exactly what he’d just said.

“Let them see, let them all see, which Gahn has truly claimed you now.”

Hot wetness soaked the front of my tank top. I shuddered, my own hips moving through my orgasm as Razek pumped and snarled. Another spurt, then another, until finally we both were spent, aching and breathing heavily.

A few breaths later and Razek stood, returning his loincloth to its place. He reached a large hand for me, and I took it, getting up shakily. His sight stars skimmed down my front, settling on my lower abdomen. A claw came forward, scraping over the wet spot of my shirt.

“Good. Stained by me,” he breathed. “This time you cannot so easily wipe it away.”

I flushed, looking down at the semen soaking my shirt.

“I’m going to clean it as soon as we get back to your tent, you know,” I said.

Razek’s lips twitched.

“Yes. But in order to get back to my tent, we will have to go through the other tents and pass by all the others.”

For fuck’s sake. What the hell kind of walk of shame was that?

But then again, I wasn’t really ashamed of any of this. I’d wanted to do stuff with Razek. When I’d run, I’d wanted him to catch me. I’d wanted his cock between my legs. I’d wanted more.

We collected some more fallink before returning to Razek’s tent. I wanted to make sure I had a healthy collection, both for the women to use, and to try to grow more plants at the Cliffs of Uruzai. If more girls got mates, then we’d need to keep our supplies up.

True to Razek’s words, we did have to walk by the others. The women and children were gone from the fire when we came back into the main area, but the men remained, warily watching Xyan, Dalk, Oxriel, Ankrokal, and Vaxilkai. The five men from the settlement rose when they saw us. I waved at them, smiling and hoping that none of them would notice the wet spot on my shirt in the firelight. I mean, yeah, I wasn’t ashamed. But it was still kind of embarrassing, walking around with some bloke’s cum drying on your clothes.

“Goodnight,” I told them, continuing past them with Razek.

“Wait,” Xyan said, his voice steady but hard. I froze, and Razek stopped too, his shoulders visibly tensing.

“You take her to your tent?” Xyan asked Razek’s bunched-up back. Razek spun around.

“Remember yourself, warrior. You are in the Death Plains, where I am Gahn.”

Xyan’s normally smooth, calm face pulled into a frown, and I stepped between them.

“Don’t worry, Xyan. I’m going because I want to.”

Xyan’s sight stars flicked to my face, then, fucking hell, down to the wet stain on my tank top. I could practically see the gears turning in his head before his gaze met mine again.

“If you have made this choice, Jozelyn, I will respect it,” he said slowly, his gaze moving between Razek and me. “But know that we will be close by and listening should you need assistance.”

“She will need nothing of the sort. Not from you,” Razek huffed, but I grabbed at his elbow, trying to hold him steady.

“Everybody just relax. We have a long journey ahead of us, starting tomorrow. Let’s all get some rest.”

Razek’s jaws snapped, and he turned from the others. Xyan caught my eyes again, and I nodded. He raised his tail, and finally, he and the others sat once more, preparing to rest for the night.

Once inside Razek’s tent, just as I’d said, I used some talka to scrub at my tank top. Of course, I had to do that topless, and Razek’s gaze devoured me with a hunger that didn’t seem possible after coming only a few minutes ago. Lack of stamina is apparently not a thing to these guys…

It was to me though. Even after the nap earlier, I was tired.

“Lie down and just relax,” I told Razek, clicking my tongue at him. He did so, stretching out on the hides, his dark eyes still watching me. I stripped out of the rest of my clothing, scrubbing at it with more talka gel until it smelled and looked pretty clean. I laid it all out on the stone to dry overnight, then cleaned myself quickly with the talka and some soft, spare hide in the tent.

The gruff scrape of Razek’s voice distracted me from my task.

“I will have to hide the talka from you soon,” he said, his sight stars pulsing. He was on his back with his hands behind his head in a languid sort of pose. His fucking cock stood straight out from his groin, a powerful rod beneath his loincloth.

“I don’t think either of us would like that for long,” I snorted. The smell alone… Yikes.

“I would like it. To have you filthy with my seed. I would have your skin, your cunt, so coated that it becomes a part of you.”

My mouth fell open at the shocking nature of his words. When I turned my head towards him again, I found him squeezing himself over his loincloth, his jaw set fiercely.

“That is so gross,” I laughed, though I couldn’t deny the flush of arousal I felt seeing him squeezing himself like that while watching me. But we really did need to get some rest before tomorrow. I scurried over to his side, my skin cooling rapidly from the drying talka gel and lack of clothing. I burrowed into the hides, creating a little nest, using the hides as a barrier between Razek and me. He did not seem pleased with that, but with a bemused sigh, he tossed his heavy arm and tail over top of me, pulling me in closer. It was so cozy like this. I breathed out happily, wiggling in the warmth.

“Keep your backside still if you wish to remain unmarked by my seed after cleaning yourself,” Razek warned, his hips jerking in response to my movements.

“Sorry, sorry,” I muttered, stilling. “Goodnight, Razek.”

I felt Razek press his face into my curls, still damp from the talka gel I’d combed through them. His grip tightened on me, a wordless response. Heaviness pulled at me, and soon enough, I was asleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Razek

Iwoke before Jozelyn did, and I stared at her in the predawn gloom. I tried to ignore the fact that this may be the last time I woke next to her in my tent, in the land of my birth. I ignored that thought because if I let it get too much space inside my skull, it would have my blood lust pumping, ready to kill the men who’d come for her and to trap her here forever whether she liked it or not.

But that would not make Jozelyn happy. And I’d made my decision. Today, we would leave my lands. With her, I’d face the other tribes and whatever future waited for us.

She stirred, softly, dreamily. My muscles tightened involuntarily, pulling her deeper into my embrace. The longer she sleeps, the longer I keep her alone like this in my arms…

But Jozelyn was waking rapidly. To my chagrin, she sat up quickly, almost as if excited. That blackened my mood, though I sat up, too, then stood, readying myself for the journey. I strapped several blades to my back, comforted that this time when I trundled Jozelyn through our murderous land, I would have them ready. My injured shoulder was stiff and slow to move as I retrieved my blades, but already I could tell that it was healing well.

I watched Jozelyn’s naked form bend to her clothing. My cock grew hot as her backside curved, high in the air as she reached for her things on the ground. And suddenly, my need for her was greater than ever. My need to be inside her, to claim her, before we left this place. Before we were under the power of the other tribes. Before she was out of my arms.

But too soon she was dressed and beckoning me out of the tent. Seething, I went with her.

The enemy warriors were ready and waiting as dawn chipped away at the sky.

“So what’s the plan?” Jozelyn asked, sidling up to the five waiting men. My own warriors stood nearby, too, watching me, waiting for any instructions. I pressed in close to Jozelyn’s back, placing a warning hand on her shoulder as I glared over her head at the other five.

“After defeating the zeelk that attacked us, Oxriel collapsed the tents and secured all of our belongings to the irkdu while we searched for you. They are grazing on the other side of the rocky peaks, where we left them.”

“Oh, irkdu. I forgot about that. Do you have one?” she turned to me with a questioning look.

“Of course I have a mount,” I scoffed. “Hopefully my beast has not killed the others. It is strong and territorial.”

“But it is only one to our five,” the one Jozelyn had called Dalk growled.

“I’m sure they’re all fine,” Jozelyn snapped, cutting off any argument before it started. “So, we go find the irkdu, then head straight back?”

“Yes,” Xyan said.

“Yes,” I added quickly, unhappy with how Xyan appeared to be making the decisions here. But there was no way for me to oppose this plan. It was the only sound one.

“So we’ll be camping out without tents and things again until we reach the other side of the rocks?” Jozelyn asked, sounding dispirited. I puffed my chest, tightening my grip on her shoulder.

“You will want for nothing, Jozelyn. I will provide all you need. We can bring tents and hides from here for you.”

She turned around and smiled at me.

“That would be great. But we’ll need ones for the others, too.” She gestured at the five enemy men. I sliced my hand through the air.

“Our people’s hides and tents are limited. I will bring my own for you, but we do not have enough for the others.”

Jozelyn frowned looking like she wanted to argue. But even if I had wanted to provide for these other men, I could not. I was not exaggerating – we did not have extra stores to lend from.

“Do not trouble yourself, Jozelyn. We do not need them. We have our own tents with the irkdu. Any more than that would just get in the way on the journey back,” said one of the other men, the one closest to Xyan.

“If you say so, Ankrokal…”

She needed to stop worrying about these other men.

“Your heart is so soft. Any warrior with a sharp enough claw is able to dig inside it,” I grumbled. She made a snorting sound, turning to me once more.

“You should be glad about that. How else do you think you got in there? My standards have really fallen.” She grinned and poked at my chest, and I begrudgingly accepted the fact that she was speaking in jest.

“Fine then. It is decided. Let us prepare and go,” I said.

Jozelyn’s grin turned into a softer smile. A smile that was a twinging pain inside me. The finger poking at my chest moved, her palm flattening against my hide.

“Thank you,” she said. I pressed my own hand over hers, leaning down to brush my mouth against her forehead. I would have stayed that way for a long moment, but the sun was rising and Jozelyn was pulling away.

We ate and packed quickly. I broke down my own tent and hides, rolling everything together into a travel pack. We’d be able to scavenge valok and hunt for meat as we went, so there was little else we needed besides our weapons. Jozelyn stuffed her pockets with all the fallink she’d collected, and by the time the sun was high, we were ready to leave.

Before we ascended the slope out of our tents up onto the plains, I turned to my tribe. They’d assembled to watch us go, and my heart throbbed as I saw what Jozelyn and these other men were seeing. A tiny, dying group who would not survive into the future. My pride wanted to rebel against that fact. To say that the warriors of the Death Plains were stronger than any other. That we would bend the world to our continuance. But seeing this paltry group, with so few children, I knew with a sickening stab that we would not be able to do it.

Not alone.

“My people,” I said, stepping forward. “I have only just assumed the title of Gahn and already I must leave you. But I do so in service of our future. I will leave with our enemies to better understand the forces at work in our world. To meet more of the new women, and to face the other Gahns. I leave all my warriors here for the tribe’s protection, just as I am leaving for its future protection.”

One by one, my people raised their tails. The Fol-Gahnala came before me, raising her tail last of all.

“Razek, I tell you this now,” she said, her colourless sight stars focused on me. “Gahn Itok chose you, Razek. Before he died, he said your name. But there was no one else there to witness it, so we had to call the baklok.”

I stiffened, my heart thrumming in my chest.

“You are a Gahn twice over. Once by unwitnessed proclamation, and again by your victory in the baklok. Fate has thrust itself upon you as much as you have earned it. We trust you and will follow you wherever you lead us.” A ripple of agreement ran through my tribe, and my spine straightened, pride and responsibility strengthening every part of me.

“I have survived much. I will survive more yet to fulfill my obligations as your Gahn,” I said solemnly. The Fol-Gahnala clasped her knobby hand to my elbow, raised her tail again, then stepped away. I turned to Jozelyn and the others who were watching in silence.

“Come,” I said, hoisting the pack of hides and bone posts onto my back, over my blades. I took Jozelyn’s small hand. “Let us go and face whatever lies ahead.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Jozelyn

All in all, the journey went smoothly. Although I did have to admit I was concerned that Razek might try to lead the other men directly into a quicksand pit, killing them and making it look like an accident. Luckily, if he was thinking about doing it, it was just that – thoughts. We made it through the plains and into the peaks without incident. Once in the peaks, I swallowed my pride and let Razek carry me around on his back. It really was faster this way, and now that we were heading back, I didn’t want anything slowing us down. I also didn’t want a repeat of last time, where I’d distracted Razek so much with my poking and prodding that we’d walked right into the tentacles of the ablokoi.

Each night in the peaks and valleys, we found a safe place to camp up on a ledge somewhere. Razek shared the tent and hides with me each night, but we didn’t do anything more exciting than sleep. Razek wanted to do more – we both did. But I was not interested in screaming my orgasms directly into the ears of the other five men who were sleeping right outside that tent. Each night, the tension between Razek and me grew thicker until I was sure that the only thing that would break it would be a blade as sharp as Razek’s. That, or the most out-of-this-world fuck-session an Earth girl could ever hope to have.

Thankfully, with Razek leading us and keeping his eyes properly peeled, we avoided any lurking zeelk or ablokoi. In the last stretch of rock before we reached the sand of the desert we’d crossed what felt like an eternity ago, Razek stopped, lifting his chin and yipping sharply. I looked up at him curiously from my spot on his back, not realizing what he was doing until I saw an irkdu slinking through the rocks towards us.

It looked pretty much like the Sea Sand irkdu I was used to. Leathery purple-grey hide, a long reptilian snout in a huge head, and dozens of legs on a whale-sized body. But upon closer inspection, it was slightly different. For one thing, it had more eyes. And the Sea Sand irkdu already had, like, twenty eyes, so that was really saying something. It also appeared to have a slightly narrower and longer body, ideal for working its way through the jagged rock here.

“We will ride the rest of the way,” Razek said, lowering me to the ground.

“She needs a saddle. There is one on my own beast,” Xyan said.

A muscle flickered in Razek’s jaw, and I could tell he was about to say something stupid like, “How dare you tell me what she needs?!”

I headed off a confrontation by saying, “Xyan’s right. All the human women use saddles. We’ll need to get the one I brought before I ride.”

Razek’s pale lavender sight stars lingered on my face before slipping down to my thighs.

“If anyone knows such things it is me,” Razek drawled, running a possessive claw under my hood and down my neck. “I have felt just how soft those thighs are.”

“Hey!” I said, flushing and glancing furtively at Xyan and the others. But they didn’t seem to care much about Razek’s teasing. They had already turned forward, beginning the last trek downward from the rock to the sand. Razek and I followed, the long-bodied irkdu behind us.

Once down on the sand, it did not take long for the other men’s irkdu to find us. They weren’t cute creatures by any means, but bloody hell, was it good to see them. After travelling so long with the creatures, it was almost like being reunited with a long-lost pet.

Razek and the others had some work to do, making sure the Sea Sand irkdu didn’t kill Razek’s unfamiliar one. It was an almost perfect representation of the men, I noticed with a shake of my head. A few stern words kept the irkdu from fighting, and I realized that, when it came to the men, I was the one giving the stern words, making sure nobody killed anybody else.

THE JOURNEY OVER THE sand was a long, hot blur. Each day bled into the next until I was certain we’d be wandering this desert forever, just as I had been the last time we’d crossed it. But the one thing that kept me anchored and looking forward was Razek’s hard chest against my back as we rode his irkdu with the others.

And then, finally, looking so unchanged that it was almost like this whole journey had never happened at all, were the Cliffs of Uruzai.

I didn’t even see them at first. Without my sunglasses, I’d been keeping my eyes closed for a lot of our daytime travels, protected in the shadow of my hood. But I felt Razek tense behind me and heard a tight hiss of breath that had me wrenching open my eyes to see the settlement on the horizon.

I sat up straighter, my mouth falling open in a broad, smiling laugh.

“We’re almost there!” I cried. Xyan raised his spear, acknowledging my words from his irkdu. Then he turned his eyes back to the settlement, a fiercely determined gleam in his gaze. And was it just me, or did he start driving his irkdu a little faster?

No, he was definitely moving faster. Razek clicked his tongues, urging his own mount to keep up, and we all zoomed over the shifting copper-coloured sand until the Cliffs loomed large before us. We turned, moving along the side of the cliffs, and as we did I wanted to fucking cry or scream or jump. There had been a time I never thought I’d make my way back here. To this bizarre, alien place that had now become my home. Every ripple in the stone was like a childhood memory, every glint of the sun a greeting that I soaked up.

Razek was having no such happy moment. I twisted to look at him. His eyes were narrowed to slits, his mouth a thin, grim line as he stared forward.

“It’s going to be alright,” I said to him. But if he heard me, he didn’t answer.

Soon, guards came into view, standing at the entrance to our settlement as they always did. I didn’t even know the names of the three guys standing there, and I still wanted to jump to the sand, run to them, and hug them tight. I had a feeling that would end up kind of… bloody, though, if Razek’s mood was anything to go by. So instead I held still in my saddle as we slowed and approached.

“We have returned as commanded with the new Gahn of the Death Plains, Gahn Razek,” Xyan said, dismounting. “Fetch the other Gahns.”

One of the guards turned and sprinted back into the tents. Even from here, I could see the hustle and bustle of the settlement, people moving to and fro between the tightly-clustered brown tents. A total contrast to the small stillness of Razek’s tribe. I turned again in my saddle to look up at him, and I knew he was seeing what I was seeing, too. His gaze was both calculating and… wistful. Wistful, perhaps, that his tribe did not have this strength, this life. And calculating just how he’d be able to fight his way out of here if shit went south.

It won’t, I said firmly to myself. I’ll make sure it won’t.

After all this, I wasn’t going to let Razek die in some misplaced battle. Not after everything we’d been through. I wasn’t ready to lose this arrogant warrior. And I doubted I ever would be.

If he dies when I’m the one who made him come back here, I’ll never be able to forgive myself.

And I’d never recover from the loss of my heart.

That was a sobering thought. The thought that maybe I’d been doing more than just falling for Razek. That maybe I already loved-

“Gahn Razek!”

Gahn Buroudei’s commanding voice made me snap to attention. At his sides were the other Gahns of the settlement – Taliok, Fallo, and Baldor. They moved as one, a line of hulking alien testosterone coming our way. Razek was tense and silent behind me, his forearm a protective band across my chest. We were the only ones left on the irkdu, now. Behind us, the sun began to sink, brushing the air and stone and sand with rich shadows.

“We should get down and greet them,” I said. Without a word, Razek leaped to the ground, then turned to grasp my waist, lowering me gently to the sand. I could practically feel the other Gahns gnashing their fangs at that sight – an enemy Gahn, not submitted to their alliance, touching one of us humans so freely. I could see Gahn Buroudei gearing up to say something about it.

I took a deep breath, about to tell him, and all of them, off. Because I was so sick of this. Of this fighting, this hatred. This jealousy. I remembered counselling Theresa once to try not to worry about Baldor’s violent actions in coming to claim her because it was just how these guys were. It was their culture. But now that I was thrust in the middle of it, I could see why it was so frustrating.

But I didn’t get the chance to tell anybody anything. The four Gahns and the five warriors I’d travelled with, plus the guards behind them, all jerked their heads, almost in unison, to look at something further down the cliffs, their attention no longer on Razek and me.

What the hell…?

I turned to look, too. My breath caught in my tight chest as my gaze settled on it.

The Lavrika. It had to be.

Serpentine and starlit, it slipped over the sands like some kind of dragon spirit. I stood gobsmacked, in total awe, as it wound its long body towards us. Some of the other girls said they’d caught a glimpse of the Lavrika in the sacred pools, but I hadn’t. And seeing it now, like this… It was overwhelming.

As it got closer, I was able to fully grasp its impressive size. It had to be more than ten metres long. Its long glowing body was legless and translucent, but its head was too great, too dragon-like, to be compared to a simple serpent.

“Someone shall see his mate tonight,” Gahn Buroudei said, his voice so solemn it almost sounded grave.

“Which warrior does it come for?” asked Fallo, his tail flicking with his usual mad energy.

The Lavrika got closer and closer as the sun disappeared, its body competing with the stars in terms of brightness. Just before it reached us, Razek spoke, his words echoing from above my head.

“It comes for me.”

I gasped, wrenching around to face him.

“How do you know?” I asked, my eyes wide, my heart hammering. His face was unusually smooth, almost expressionless as he looked down at me. But there was a tension behind that mask. Like if he made one wrong move, everything would break wide open.

“I know,” he said simply.

It looked like he was right, because the gigantic Lavrika had parked itself right in front of Razek. It dipped its head so they were eye to eye, then slowly turned, coming back the way it had come.

“You must follow it, Gahn Razek,” Gahn Buroudei said. “Just as all we Gahns have done.”

“I know,” Razek said again.

“Wait. Just… hold on a second!” I said, staring at the retreating Lavrika then up at Razek. “This is crazy. We just got here and now you have to go off to the caves or whatever?”

“Yes, Jozelyn,” he said. The mask cracked a little, his sight stars pulsing. He slipped his claws under my hood, fingering my curls tenderly.

“But what if…” I bit my lip, a terribly dark thought coming to me. “What if someone else is supposed to be your mate?”

Razek’s mouth flickered into a small smile.

“You are my mate, Jozelyn. Even more surely than I knew I was meant to be my people’s Gahn, I know this. You have implied that I am arrogant before, and maybe it is arrogant to say it now, but I am past the point of caring about such things.” He leaned forward, brushing his lips over mine in a whispered caress that made tingles erupt in my belly. “You are mine, Jozelyn. The Lavrika knows it as well as I do. There is no other vision it can show me, no other destiny that can be forged. I’ve already chosen my destiny. I chose it the very first time I pulled you into my arms.”

I swallowed against the sudden threat of tears. I nodded over and over again, the motion fast and tight.

“Well then you’d better get going,” I said thickly. Razek stepped back, letting out a small breath as he took his hand out from my hood. He turned, starting to follow the Lavrika’s glowing body to the entrance to its caves. And suddenly, I couldn’t bear to see him go. Not without saying one more thing.

“Razek!” I screamed. He immediately stopped and turned back, eyes flashing. They met mine across the distance. That gaze meant everything.

But it wasn’t enough. I had to say the words squeezing the air out of my lungs. He wasn’t the only one who’d chosen his destiny out in the stark Death Plains. And I had to make sure he knew.

“No matter what happens, Razek, I choose you!” My words carried over the sand to him. As if they had some kind of magnetic pull, they brought him bounding back to me. He captured my face in his claws, forcing my hood back as he lowered his hard mouth to mine. I groaned into him as our lips crashed, our tongues searching. I moaned, almost as if in pain, when Razek pulled away. He spoke quick, raw words against my mouth.

“The Lavrika can create no bond in me that surpasses how I already feel. In every way, you are already mine. And I am yours.”

“I love you.” The words poured out of me, shaky but true. Razek and I had been through so much together, overcome so much. Hell, he had overcome his own instinct and culture to trust me enough to come here.

“I love you, though that word does not seem enough,” he answered. He let me go, forcing himself away and turning to run after the Lavrika, whose glow was now a small speck in the distance.

I watched him go, shaking, already aching for him to come back.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Razek

Icaught up to the Lavrika just as it was entering its caves. The Lavrikala gave me an appraising glance, then let me inside. I hurried into the darkness.

I’d never been to the Cliffs of Uruzai before, but I’d heard the tales from the mated men of my tribe. Heard of the long dark tunnels that led to pools of Lavrika’s blood where you would glimpse the face of your fated mate. Where you’d dive into your destiny.

But this was almost a formality, now. Everything I’d said to Jozelyn was truer than my own heartbeat. She was mine, my fate. There was nothing that would either bring us closer nor separate us now.

The narrow dark tunnel opened into a large, cavernous space. Humidity I was not used to felt strange on my skin. I breathed in deeply, studying the space.

It was the largest cave I had ever entered, but not gloomy, rather glowing. The light came from the pools themselves, circles of white liquid dotting the ground, some very large, some smaller than puddles. The Lavrika disappeared into the closest large pool. As the tip of its tail went below the surface, I muttered, “You know who is meant for me, Lavrika. I expect to see Jozelyn’s face and no other.”

Such words would mean nothing to the sacred Lavrika, I knew. It was not known to answer the prayers of men. But still, I felt I had to say them. To make my will known here, before I took one more step.

But I was certain it would be Jozelyn. So I took one more step. Then another. Then another, until I was at the edge of the pool. I let my weapons and loincloth fall to the stone.

Then I dove.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Jocelyn

Iwanted to wait right in that spot until Razek came back. Uncertainty had flooded me since he’d disappeared. Uncertainty that maybe our relationship, our feelings, didn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things. That the Lavrika had someone else in mind for him.

But the Gahns were not pleased by the way I’d planted myself there on the sand, staring into the darkened distance.

“Come, Jozelyn. We would have your report,” Gahn Buroudei said.

I sighed, turning to the Gahns and nodding. All of us – the Gahns and the five men I’d travelled with, entered the settlement. Even though Razek’s absence pricked at me, it felt great to be back here. To see so many familiar faces, to see some of the human girls chatting and walking about, to see the families. A deep twinge pulled inside me, and I hoped, so badly, that Razek would bring his people here too.

None of the tents the Gahns shared with their mates were quite large enough for all ten of us to talk without being crowded, so we ended up in Gahn Taliok’s healers’ tent in the centre of the settlement. I was pleased to see nobody was hanging out injured or sick in there. Everybody’s been minding their Ps and Qs. No kerfuffles. Good.

“How are Theresa and Cece?” I asked as we all settled ourselves in a large circle in the tent. Each Gahn was seated next to the man he’d sent with me on the journey. Fallo, having sent two men, was flanked by Dalk and Ankrokal directly across from me. I avoided his shifty red gaze, looking at the steadier faces of Buroudei and Baldor. Taliok and Oxriel were on my right.

“Zeezee rests much. She will be glad you have returned,” Gahn Buroudei said. Holy hell, I think this was the first time I’d ever heard a Gahn sound… tired. There was a charmingly human look of fatigue on his face as he sighed and rubbed at his square jaw.

“Thereeza fares well,” Baldor said. Unlike Buroudei, he puffed up, looking overjoyed.

“I’ll visit with both of them soon,” I promised.

Both the fathers-to-be looked pleased by my words, and after that, we dove into recounting all that had happened since we’d left. I let the other warriors tell their side first, letting my mind wander back to Razek, wondering how he was faring. Wondering if he’d already seen my face in the pools, wondering what he was feeling now…

“And you, Jozelyn? What became of you during all this?”

I straightened, then launched into my story. It was a little stilted at first. There was a lot to tell, and I hadn’t exactly rehearsed. And let me tell you, those Gahns were not an easy audience. All four of them had piercing gazes while I spoke, watching me in stony silence.

I left out a few key details of the story. Namely, how many times Razek had made me come. But they’d already seen us kiss outside the settlement. They already must have had an inkling of what was going on between us. Not to mention Xyan seeing that fucking cum-stain on my shirt the other night…

I summarized all that by simply saying, “I think it’s very likely that Razek is seeing my face in the pools right now.”

“We will find out upon his return,” said Gahn Baldor.

“What is your sense of his reaction to our alliance so far?” Gahn Taliok asked. Normally the quietest Gahn, I was surprised to hear him ask anything of me.

“Honestly, I don’t know yet,” I said with an exhausted sigh. “It was very difficult to get him to even come here in the first place.” Very difficult felt like a massive understatement.

Gahn Fallo grunted at that. “If anything that is proof of his sanity. I would trust no Gahn who came here without reservation, without a blade at the ready.”

Buroudei looked visibly annoyed by Fallo but ultimately twitched his tail on the ground in agreement. “I am not surprised by your words, Jozelyn. All of us already had the mate bond established before agreeing to ally. The fact he has followed you here without yet having the mate bond speaks to how strongly he feels for you.”

I gulped, my heart squeezing at his words.

Xyan made a sound of agreement from where he sat next between Buroudei and Baldor. “Seeing all I have seen of Gahn Razek and his tribe, I do not believe he would have come with us had it not been for Jozelyn. Only her words kept him from killing us on sight when we went to retrieve her.”

“Well, I think that’s why he was so hell-bent on killing you. Because you were coming to retrieve me,” I added. “But all that matters is that he’s here now. I’m very hopeful he will bring his tribe here, as you all have.” I paused, wondering if I should say the next part. It felt like I was giving away some secret, like I was betraying Razek in some way. But if they don’t hear it from me, they’ll hear it from one of the other five warriors anyway… “His tribe is very small. There are no unmated women and few children. They won’t survive in isolation the way they are now for much longer.”

Fallo made an irritated hissing sound.

“Yet more foul warriors coming to claim the new women…”

“If the Lavrika deems it so, we cannot stop it. It is fate,” Gahn Baldor said solemnly.

“We, none of us, will obstruct the will of the Lavrika,” Gahn Buroudei added fiercely, pinning Gahn Fallo with his copper gaze. Then he turned back to me.

“Thank you for all you have told us, Jozelyn. You may return to the new women’s tent to rest and replenish yourself.”

What I really wanted to do was see Razek. Now that the conversation at hand was done, my mind was once again whirling over thoughts of him and the Lavrika. But I nodded and stood. I was sure that even once he was done in the caves, he’d probably have to meet with the other Gahns as soon as he returned, anyway. And getting some food and getting cleaned up sounded pretty fucking brilliant right about now. Plus I wanted to see my friends. Do I ever have a hell of a story to tell them…

I exited the healer’s tent, breathing in the familiar scents of dakrival hide and the smoke coming from the evening fire. To the fire? That’s where my human friends were likely seated now. I thought about going there first, but I started walking towards the human tent instead. The pack I’d brought on the journey, I realized, was still strapped to Razek’s irkdu, and who knew where that creature had ended up now that it was free to roam for the night. No, the first thing I’d do was get cleaned up and grab a spare uniform from the crate in the tent that we’d brought back from the ship.

The inside of the human tent was dark. Nobody was there. Everybody was probably off at the evening fire now. A grumble from my stomach had me moving quickly to join them soon. But hungry as I was, and as happy I was to see them all again, especially after thinking I wouldn’t ever come back here at all, it was nice to have this dark, quiet moment of solitude. This was the first time in weeks that I’d been alone. I tipped my head back, closing my eyes, just letting myself bathe in the fact that I was here, I was safe, and that Razek was safe, too.

Speaking of bathing…

I opened my eyes, hurrying between bedrolls made of dakrival hide to the large crate of spare uniforms. I rummaged but eventually stopped to light a valok gel candle to see what I was doing better. With its flickering orange light, I was able to grab everything I needed faster. Including fresh socks and underwear, thank goodness. Before heading out, I took all the fallink currently in my pockets and stowed it on a nearby bone shelf, between first aid kits, water bottles, and extra valok plants. There was more of it in my pack, and I was pretty sure I had enough now for the girls who needed it and to have a store of seeds to try to farm more. Although, I had slightly less of the stuff now than I did when I’d left the Death Plains. Even though when we’d left Razek and I weren’t officially destined mates, and we hadn’t even gone all the way yet, I’d started chewing the leaves twice a day as a precaution.

With my bundle of fresh clothing clutched to my chest, I stepped out of the human tent and into the much smaller conical steam tent us humans used to get clean. I didn’t bother lighting a big fire to do the usual sauna thing. I just sent a spark flying against a small bundle of grass to give me enough light to work with.

The clean herbal scent of the smoking desert grass filled my nose as I undressed. I broke a talka stalk from the ground in half and squeezed it. I finger-combed the surprisingly moisturizing gel through my curls before tying them up under a clean strip of soft hide. Hair out of my face and protected from the smoke, I got to work cleansing my body with quick movements. Anxiety was making me go faster. Anxiety about where Razek was now. If the mate bond was already bringing him back to me.

Clean and refreshed after the dust, sweat, and sand of the journey, I dressed in the clean uniform I’d snagged from the crate. I groaned as I realized I hadn’t scrubbed my other uniform clean yet, but screw it. I’d do it tomorrow. For now, doing the laundry could wait. I carried the dirty garments back into the human tent, dumping them into my bedroll. I left my boots there, too, along with both my old socks and the new ones I’d gathered. I wriggled my toes in the sand, letting my poor blistered feet breathe, opting to keep my boots off for the remainder of the evening.

I walked, then jogged, towards the evening fire at the very centre of the settlement, impatience to see my friends quickening my pace.

“Alright?” I said with a grin as I reached the bubble of human girls sitting among all the Sea Sand people at the fire.

“You’re back!” Theresa shrieked, rising from where she’d been sitting and throwing her arms around me. I laughed, squeezing my eyes shut as I embraced her.

“Oh my God, your belly!” I squealed as she drew back. I’d felt the very slight roundness of it pressing into me in our hug. Theresa beamed, looking down and stroking her puffy abdomen.

“Not much yet, but growing every day,” she said, eyes shining in the firelight.

“You’re, what, ten weeks along now?” I asked, shaking my head. “And showing already!”

Theresa nodded, her expression becoming more sober.

“Yup. I feel like it’s been forever since we saw you. We were starting to get real worried about you.”

Melanie and Serena rose, hugging me next, as I thought about what Theresa had just said. Between the ten-day journey Death Plains and back, plus the baklok and the time I’d spent among Razek’s people, I’d been gone more than three weeks.

“Am I ever glad to be back,” I said, meaning it, sitting down with the others. All the other human girls smiled and greeted me. Nearby, I caught the waving hands of Kat and Zoey, who each sat with their mates. The Gahns didn’t seem to have joined the evening fire yet. Probably still talking amongst themselves. Or maybe they’ve gone to find Razek… That thought was a worrying one. I could only hope that my reactive warrior would keep his cool without me next to him tugging on his arm.

“Where’s Cece?” I asked, looking around.

“Resting in her tent, I think,” Serena said. “I saw her with the healers earlier.” At my furrowed brow, Serena quickly added, “She’s doing alright. Her blood pressure is still a little high but stable.”

I nodded, renewing my vow that I’d go see her as soon as possible.

“So, what are you waiting for girl? Spill it! What happened out there?” Theresa said, sitting gingerly next to me.

I laughed tiredly. Even though I’d just told this whole story to the Gahns, somehow I still felt like I didn’t even know where to begin. But once I started, the telling of the tale went smoothly. And the girls got a lot more of the dirty details than the Gahns did. Between talking, I chomped on roasted meat and sipped valok gel.

“Oh my Lord. So where is this delicious hunk of man? Is he still in the Lavrika’s caves? You know that he’s totally going to be your mate!” Theresa said with a sunny smile.

“The Lavrika came for him just as the sun was setting. That was a while ago now…” My voice petered out as I twisted, looking around the settlement. There was still no sign of Razek, nor the other Gahns.

“I’ll be back,” I mumbled, not even knowing if those words were true. If anything, I didn’t want to come back to the evening fire tonight.

I wanted to find Razek.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Razek

Imade my way out of the narrow stone tunnel towards the open sands. It was time for me to find my mate. The only thing that had made this absence from Jozelyn tolerable was the fact that I’d gotten to glimpse her in the pools. But now that that vision had faded, I needed her. The real, soft press of her body against mine. I needed to feel the hot slick of her mouth and the constriction of her cunt around my cock. Growling, flexing my claws at that thought, I hurried. With the sacred mate bond awoken in her, too, she would no longer have so many arguments and frowns to throw my way, I was certain. She would be as desperate for me as I was for her.

What I’d said to Jozelyn before I’d left her to follow the Lavrika had proven true – the Lavrika had not created any new feelings in me. Rather, it was as if the Lavrika had taken the feelings that already existed – the lust, the desperate love, the all-encompassing desire, and wrapped a fist around them. It made everything tighter, tenser, a hard knot inside my body that made me rub my knuckles viciously against my chest as I emerged onto the sands.

My mood turned foul when I saw what, or who, was waiting for me there. I should have known that it would not be so easy. That I would not be allowed to claim her so soon.

The four other Gahns stood before me. Behind them, their irkdu waited in a line.

One of the Gahns stepped forward, a hard-looking warrior with a long braid.

“Gahn Razek, new Gahn of the Death Plains. I am Gahn Buroudei.”

I watched him silently, my tail tensing, territorial aggression rising up inside me. The other Gahns stepped forward one by one, each speaking in turn.

The one with the scars. “I am Gahn Taliok.”

The one with the fevered red sight stars. “I am Gahn Fallo.”

The one who appeared oldest among them. “I am Gahn Baldor.”

Gahn Buroudei spoke next.

“We are glad you have come all this way. We would like you to travel a little further this night. Call your irkdu and come with us.”

I hissed, drawing a blade.

“You mean to separate me further from my mate? I will die before I’m pulled away from her,” I warned them. Gahn Fallo snarled, heaving forward, but Gahns Taliok and Baldor caught his arms.

“Lower your blade! You may be a Gahn now, but you have not allied yourself with us and thus you are still our enemy. If you attempt any violence here, you will be torn to pieces,” Gahn Buroudei said, a dangerous glint in his eyes.

I remained stone-still, my sight stars tracking between the four of them.

“Where do you want me to go?” I asked tightly, knuckles cracking against the handle of my blade.

“Out to the human ship. We want to show you where the new women came from. And show you the power of their people. The people who now create our greatest threat,” Gahn Buroudei said.

“It is no ploy. If we had lured you to this settlement to kill you to try to destabilize your tribe, we would have done it already,” said Gahn Baldor. He let Gahn Fallo’s arm drop, as did Gahn Taliok. I watched the feral Fallo closely, chewing on Baldor’s words. Really, he was right. I was vastly outnumbered here. Even on the journey back, if Jozelyn’s escorts had wanted to kill me they could have at least tried. Though there had only been five of them, and I would not have gone down easily…

I still was not sure about leaving with these other Gahns, though. I did not want more distance between Jozelyn and me. Every moment she was not in my sight, under my protection, made my fangs ache.

Gahn Taliok stepped closer, and my gaze moved from Fallo to him.

“Think about this, Gahn Razek. Do you not think there is a purpose in the Lavrika linking all of us – all Gahns of enemy tribes – to the new women of one single tribe?”

I stared at him, my brains churning. I had not thought about that. I had only thought about how right it felt that Jozelyn had been bonded to me as my mate. I had not let my thoughts travel further than that. And I cursed myself for it. A Gahn needs to be forward-thinking. To see things from all angles…

“And it is not only us. Kor, one of the Bitter Sea men, also has a mate from among the new women. One by one, the Lavrika has pulled the tribes of the desert and the sea into one centre. Through our mates, we have all become allies. There must be a reason for it,” Gahn Taliok continued.

“What reason?” I asked, my gaze narrowing. I did not like men who spoke in riddles. “Speak plainly.”

“The Lavrika knows what’s coming,” Gahn Buroudei snapped. “It knew the new women were coming before they arrived. And now, we believe it knows of the threat the new women’s people pose to us. If we are not a united front against this threat, we will fail. And we will all die.”

It was not common among our people to be deceptive. We came at our enemies with blades, not lies. Slowly, I let my weapon down, just slightly. The other Gahns were tense, but none of them had drawn a blade against me.

“This is why we wish to show you the ship. To give you a sense of the power of the humans,” Gahn Baldor said.

I huffed a humourless laugh.

“I have already gotten glimpses of this power. For one so small in body, Jozelyn is a fierce female.” Never had I been so bent to the will of another, by such soft hands.

“If you already know this, then you are more clever than I’d given you credit for,” Gahn Buroudei said. Before I could bristle at the insult of his backhanded praise, he told me to call my irkdu again. And I did. As much as I was desperate to get to Jozelyn, curiosity mingled with dread had uncurled claws in my guts.

My irkdu arrived and we all mounted our beasts, taking off over the sands in the star-bitten night. It did not take long at our speed to come upon something truly strange in the sand. My dread had indeed been well-placed. As we dismounted, and the other Gahns led me towards the bizarre shining skeleton hulking in the sands, my dread only intensified.

“What kind of creature is this,” I muttered, staring up at its huge corpse.

“It is not a creature. It is a… a craft. They call it a ship. The new women’s people built this and used it to traverse the stars,” Gahn Buroudei said. “I saw it come down from the sky, stronger than a hundred krixels.”

Jozelyn had told me all this, but seeing it myself was something else entirely. Tentatively, I moved to the ship’s solid sloping side, wrapping my knuckles against its silver surface. It was unlike any stone I’d ever encountered. And it was gargantuan.

“The humans have more warriors on their world than we do. And they have more crafts like this, weapons we cannot fathom,” Gahn Buroudei continued, stepping up beside me to stare at the ship. Then he turned to me. I met his gaze head-on.

“Ally yourself with us, Gahn Razek. Bring your people here to thrive and join your warriors with ours against this threat. Your men may even be granted mates from among the new women, and it would not do to be far from them if that were to happen.”

Gahn Fallo growled at that, but I ignored him, focusing on Gahn Buroudei’s words. What he said all made sense. And yet my instincts screamed and fought against it, against him and all the others. All I wanted to do was tear into the settlement, toss Jozelyn over my shoulder the way I had that first night with her, and steal her away into the Death Plains.

But mate bond or not, my proud Jozelyn would hate such actions. And even though I had not yet entered the settlement, from the entrance earlier I’d seen the vitality there. The many families. The children playing. An energy and a thrust of life that I could not deny my own tribe lacked. Gahn Buroudei must have known the same thing, no doubt informed by one of his obnoxious warriors.

“We know your tribe is dying. You will not survive the next three generations without joining with us,” he added, the words prodding at me.

“It does not matter how few we are, we are strong,” I barked, dark rage pumping. But my rage was less directed at this irritating Gahn and more at the fact that he was right. All the pride and arrogance in the world could not protect me or my people from reality. My men needed mates. And if these Gahns were to be believed about the threat coming our way, we would need allies, as much as I hated it. To deny this was futile. It was foolishness. And other than perhaps Jozelyn at certain times, no one else could ever claim that I was a fool.

“I must speak to my mate of all this,” I said stiffly, trying to reign in the sparking shower of everything happening inside my mind. “I cannot think straight without her.”

Gahn Buroudei twitched his tail in acknowledgement.

“We will allow you to stay in our settlement so long as you do not draw a weapon against any of our warriors. As you are mated now by the Lavrika, we will not deny you access to your mate.” His voice turned deep and grave. “But know this, Gahn Razek. If you should deny our request for alliance and establish yourself as our continued enemy, you will be banished from this place with the power of all our blades combined.”

“Fine,” I growled, mounting my irkdu. Not waiting to see if the other men followed, I raced away from the ship, from them, from everything.

Everything except my Jozelyn.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Jocelyn

He’s been gone too long.

I’d been pacing the settlement since leaving the evening fire, looking for him. The evening fire was done, now, the human girls back in our tent and the families and children tucked away for the night. The only other people around were the armed warriors, guards for the settlement, who watched my pacing. There was nowhere else left to check within this settlement – he wasn’t here. He’d never come back here after going to the Lavrika’s caves. I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of any of the other four Gahns, either.

So where the fuck are they?

My stomach was churning, my heart racing with anxiety. I stationed myself at the entrance to the settlement, crossing my arms, staring past the guards who stood between the settlement and the open sands. I didn’t bother trying to get past them – I knew it would be impossible, and frankly I only really fancied the idea of Razek chasing me. I chewed my lip viciously, every muscle taut, shifting back and forth from foot to foot. I squinted, willing Razek to appear with the other Gahns.

But he didn’t.

“Do you know where the Gahns have gone? All five of them?” I said to the closest guard.

“I know only that the four Gahns of this settlement left for the Lavrika’s caves some time ago,” he answered.

Fuck. So the other Gahns had definitely gone to intercept him before he could get back to the settlement. Before he could get back to me. For what purpose?

They better not have hurt him. And he better not have done anything stupid to make them want to hurt him, I thought frantically. My fingernails dug into my bare biceps until the pain forced me to uncross my arms. I shook my hands, trying to stay calm.

Maybe they just went to talk to him…

But then why wouldn’t they bring him into the settlement to do that? They’d let Baldor in here, and he brought his whole army down to attack us here!

I hated this. Feeling powerless. Like all I could do was wait and see what happened. How long will I have to wait?

Even if it took all night, I’d stay here. I’d stay planted here as long as it took to see what had happened to Razek. And if he didn’t reappear, I’d have to make new choices. Maybe I could convince Xyan or Dalk to take me out of the settlement to look for him…

I was distracted by these contingency plans by the warriors in front of me stiffening and drawing their weapons. I ran forward, trying to see what they were seeing. Only my lame human eyes weren’t nearly as sharp as theirs, especially at night. Luckily, one of the guards let me know what it was.

“Stay back, new woman. The enemy Gahn of the Death Plains approaches.”

I bent double, hands on my knees, so overwhelmed with relief I almost felt dizzy. Breathing deeply, I straightened, a smile overtaking my face.

“That’s not an enemy Gahn. That’s my mate.”

The guard who’d spoken cast me an incredulous look, returning to his defensive stance and staring forward.

Finally, I could see what they were seeing now in the darkness. On the horizon in the distance, a speck charged towards us. As it got closer, the greyish body of the irkdu became clearer, along with its frenzied rider. Behind him, four more men on irkdu sped. The other Gahns.

Are they chasing him?!

The warriors seemed to have the same impression I did, that the Gahns were in pursuit of Razek. Their tails jerked, their blades flashed.

“Wait, don’t hurt him,” I cried, latching onto the elbow of the nearest warrior. “I can talk some sense into him, into all of them!”

“We will do whatever our Gahns command,” the guard said, easing my hand from his arm. I swallowed panicked pain in my throat, knowing that if Razek had done something to earn the ire of the Gahns, I wouldn’t be able to do anything physically to help him. But like I’d said, I’d use my mouth. I’d talk my way out of anything. But can I talk Razek out of anything?

The group approached murderously fast, with Razek still in the lead. Two of the guards raised their spears, ready to throw -

“Let him pass!”

Gahn Buroudei’s voice cut through everything, making the warriors pause and lower their weapons.

Wait… what?

Razek was still careening forward at full speed. If he wasn’t trying to outrun the other Gahns, then what had him pushing his irkdu like that?

I’d find out soon enough. When he was within a hundred metres of the entrance to the settlement, he leaped off his irkdu with a power that was simultaneously graceful and feral. He loped over the sand, coming right for me. The other Gahns dismounted when they got closer, too, calling further words to the guards, but I was barely aware of them. All I could see was Razek – the powerful driving of his legs. The glint of his fangs. The raw intensity of his gaze.

He was upon me in moments. I was crushed to his chest. My arms went around him instantly, relief and love and the last doses of panic rushing through me.

“You’re alright,” I managed to choke out in his tight embrace. “You had me worried!”

Razek’s rough grip found its way to my face, tipping my face back. His hair fell in strands over part of his face, the lavender galaxies in his gaze reduced to glittering slits.

“You need never worry for me, Jozelyn. I would survive everything, will survive anything, to claw my way back to you.”

“Stop using that mouth for talking and kiss me,” I muttered, pulling his face down to mine. He obliged without complaint, his lips fevered and hard against my own. His hands convulsed on the sides of my jaw, and he pressed harder against me, his cock rock hard against my belly.

This somehow seemed even more intense than it had ever been before. Then it hit me.

The mate bond.

I pulled back a little panting, “It’s me, right? I’m the one you saw in the pools?”

Razek looked confused, drawing back further from me, studying my face.

“Of course. Do you not feel the confirmation of the mate bond?”

I let out a shuddering laugh.

“Us humans don’t feel the automatic mate bond the way your people do. Our feelings grow differently.”

His face fell, but before he could get too worried I assured him.

“Don’t worry. I don’t need the mate bond, Razek. I already love you, all on my own.”

“Good,” he rasped. “Because I cannot go one more night without my cock inside my mate.”

Heat lanced through me – both from arousal at his words, and the fact that we were basically standing within earshot of not only the guards but also all four of the other Gahns. Razek seemed unperturbed, moving back in to tongue-fuck me some more, but I held up my hand between us. He planted his mouth against my stubborn palm, then looked at me flatly over the tips of my fingers.

“Maybe we can go… talk more… somewhere a little more private?” I said.

With what looked like a huge effort, Razek pulled away from me, letting his hands drop from my jaw. He jogged back out onto the sand, clicking his tongues. His irkdu lumbered towards him. From its back, he took down the pack that had his tent and the hides we’d been using for bedding. Once that was in his arms, he sprinted back until he was standing in front of me.

“Tell me where you want to go and we will go. And do it fast, otherwise I will claim you right here, no matter who is watching.” His voice was thick with arousal, his cock jutting out from his body, barely obscured by his loincloth.

“Calm down. You’ve waited this long,” I told him, caressing his chest, admiring the smooth heat of his skin.

“That was before the mate bond,” he said between clenched fangs.

Oh.

My stomach muscles clenched, my pussy heating. He’d already wanted me pretty badly. To imagine that he wanted me even more, now… That desire was almost incomprehensible.

And I suddenly couldn’t wait to experience it.

“Come on,” I said, walking briskly away from the entrance to the settlement. We moved together through all the tents. I hoped Razek wouldn’t get too prickly with all the camp guards watching him, but from what I could tell his relentless gaze was trained solely on me as we walked through the starlight and shadows. I could already tell I was getting wet, just from the anticipation of what was to come.

We reached the cliff wall, moving into a shadowy nook in the surface of the rock, away from the other tents.

“Here,” I said.

Razek grunted his approval and got to work setting up the tent. I don’t think I’d ever seen a man, alien or human, set up a tent that fucking fast. His fingers flew, his long muscles pulling as he worked. Before long, it was erected. He pulled the flap aside.

I hurried into the tent. It was a pretty good size, not as small as the other travel tents Xyan and the others had used. It was tall enough for Razek to stand up, and besides the bedding hides, there was room for other things – valok candles and shelving, for instance. Of course, Razek hadn’t brought anything else with him to fill the tent’s space. It was just us and the bedding.

I turned to face him, heart pounding, as he entered the tent. The spray of stars and asteroids behind him turned him into a rippling silhouette, all lithe, muscled lines and hard angles. And suddenly I was frozen, unable to move as he approached me. He came at me a little more slowly this time, though his clawed fingers trembled slightly as they tugged at the hide binding my hair. I helped him pull it off, freeing my curls.

“I adore your unbound hair,” he groaned, bending down to press his nose to my scalp.

“Right back at you,” I squeaked, unable to think of anything more intelligent to say. I mean, I did love his hair. And pretty much everything about him, honestly. Even the parts that drove me up the wall.

“Undress,” Razek murmured, his lips brushing the sensitive spot just below my ear.

“Is that an order?” I breathed, tipping my head to the side to give him better access to my neck.

“Do not test my restraint, Jozelyn,” Razek said, his voice turning darker. “You are no longer separated from your people or your resources. You have access to more clothing and I will rip these from you if I have to.”

That image was a stab of pure, unadulterated desire. Just like it had been when Razek had chased me, it was a primal, half-scared, half-frenzied feeling of wildness I couldn’t get out of my blood.

“Do it,” I whispered.

Razek made a brutal, beastly sound. His tongues lashed my throat, slipping against my pulse. He didn’t wait for me to ask twice. A claw slipped beneath the hem of my tank top, grazing oh-so-softly over my belly button. But it wasn’t soft when his other hand came up to meet the first, fisting the fabric of my tank and ripping it in half with no effort at all.

“Fuck,” I groaned as the night air hit my bare breasts and stomach. Razek didn’t stop there. He fell to his knees. I looked down at him, his piercing sight stars devouring my gaze as he bit at the crotch of my trousers. The press of his fangs through the fabric made my hips grind forward. I gripped the back of his head, throwing my own back, pulling his mouth harder against my pulsing clit. His hands gripped my thighs, his mouth shifting upwards until his fangs were buried in the top seam of my trousers, right at my hips. I held my breath, every millimetre of my body buzzing as he wrenched his head brutally to the side, tearing through the fabric of the trousers like it was nothing. I watched in wide-eyed, lustful fascination as he brought his claws upwards, too, ripping the shredded trousers down my thighs. He did the same thing to my underwear, his fangs scraping hotly over my skin as he ripped the garment from my body with his teeth. The sound of ripping fabric tore the air.

Now I was totally naked, apart from the destroyed trousers and underwear around my ankles. Razek gripped my hips and ass, then pressed his thumb inward to circle over my clit. I cried out, and his glazed gaze met mine again.

“You don’t know how much I’ve wanted this,” he growled, pressing his thumb harder against my clit, making my hips buck forward.

“Me too,” I said. God, if I didn’t get him inside me soon, I’d be the one tearing his loincloth off with my teeth. I didn’t need the mate bond to make me want him. That fantastic press of his thumb and the glint of his fangs and just fucking everything about him was doing a pretty thorough job of that.

“I want to taste you. I want to lap at you so long your legs give out and you beg me to stop because I’ve brought you more pleasure than you can stand.”

Oh my God.

“But I do not know if I can wait that long…” he continued. “I want to do it all, everything, all at once. To have my tongues in your mouth and in your cunt all at the same time while I rut you.”

His words were making me lose my mind. His thumb stopped pressing so hard, beginning to circle slowly in time with his words. It was maddening, and I kind of understood what he meant. I wanted him to eat me out and fuck me and kiss me and so much more.

“I don’t even fucking care anymore. I just need… you,” I stammered. That slow movement of his thumb was already going to make me come. But I needed more.

I gasped as I was wrenched off the ground before being deposited onto my back in the bedding hides. Razek’s fingers skimmed along my inner thighs, and my legs immediately parted, my centre aching for him. With a strangled grunt, he moved on his knees towards me, gripping my hips and yanking them upward until his tip pressed against my slick entrance. He started pressing inward but holy fuck he was big.

“Wait!” I cried. He froze, his fingers digging into my hips, his hips shuddering with the force of remaining still.

“What?” he ground out.

“Go… go slow,” I stammered. I wanted him to fucking pound into me with everything he had, but there was no way my body would be able to take it.

“Curse me, you are so small. I do not want to hurt you…”

I remembered then that there wasn’t a single unmated woman in his tribe. And he didn’t strike me as a very old warrior by any means, so those women might have been mated pretty much his whole adult life. He’s never been with a woman before.

That sent another wave of arousal through me – that this was the first time he was having penetrative sex. Not only was it his first time, but it was with his mate.

This is going to blow his fucking mind.

“Move your hips forward and back in slow, shallow movements,” I said, reaching my hands around to grip his strong glutes. He did as I told him, his pelvis stuttering in tightly controlled, shallow movements. His thick tip slicked in and out of me, working me open, lighting deep fires inside me.

“Now a little more,” I breathed, sweat beading on my brow. Even in the gloom, I could see Razek’s chest hitch, his brows contracting in a fierce expression of restraint. His hips rolled, pressing deeper, but still not going too fast. I let my head fall back onto the hides, my back arching. As I did that, Razek’s hips bucked, and I felt his cock pulse inside me. A half-second later, I felt a hand come up to cup one breast, then the other, rolling my nipples between the pads of rough fingers.

“Oh, God,” I moaned in English as pleasure spiked in me, over and over again. The tight, slow, deeper-every-moment movement of Razek’s cock was blindingly good. That combined with his fingers playing at my nipples had me close to orgasm already.

“Deeper,” I said. I arched again, pressing my chest into Razek’s hand as he did so. Now, his cock spears were grazing my folds, lighting up sensations all along my pussy.

“Harder,” I mewled.

“Jozelyn,” Razek growled, the sound of my name going right to my clit. He lowered himself to one elbow, his hard chest against mine, his hide creating gorgeous friction against my nipples. Like this, his cock spears were crushed against my clit with perfect pressure, his thick cock deeper than before, its girth hitting every point of pleasure.

“I’m not going to last much longer,” I moaned, clawing at his back. I hitched my hips up, pinning my knees up against his sides, my heels against his lower back.

Razek’s mouth met my jaw, then my chin in messy, unhinged movements. His lips dragged down to my neck, his tongues lapping greedily at my collarbone.

“Everything about you is an ecstasy,” he said, his hips moving faster. But now, it was fine if he moved faster, harder. Fuck, now I needed it. I threw my arms around his neck, drawing those tongues harder against my skin.

“An intoxication,” he continued, his fangs dragging along my pulse. “A calling in my blood.”

His hips were driving so hard that I was scooting backwards on the hides with every thrust. I clung to him, because that was all I could do, as the sudden breaking of my orgasm hit me. I cried out, clenching around him. He drove his hips, unrelenting, through my orgasm, until I was a trembling mess.

“Your cunt is not oblivion. Not like I had thought,” Razek muttered fervently. “It is the opposite. I am feeling… everything.”

“Come inside me,” I moaned. Once again, my hands moved down to grip his ass, marvelling at the strong plunge of the muscles there as he pounded into me. “I want to feel everything, too.”

“Then you shall,” he growled. “You shall feel my seed coat your cunt, your womb. You will feel me claim you. Creature of other worlds, creature of dreams. Jozelyn. My mate, my Gahnala. You are mine.”

On that last word, he exploded, and he was right. I did feel it. I felt every hot, thick spurt, deep inside my core. I felt every twitch and pump of his cock as he ground through his orgasm, his thickness softening slightly. I felt every drag of his breath, the hammer of his heart against my chest.

And when he finally pulled out, I felt the terrible absence of him.

But he wasn’t absent for long. He crashed onto the hides beside me, pulling me into his heavy arms until my bare back was perfectly nestled against his chest. He placed his chin on the top of my head, the way we had slept every single night, and a thick blanket of affectionate familiarity came down around me. The ghost of the feeling was made real by an actual blanket, as Razek pulled the hide covers over my bare form.

I knew we had a lot more to work through. We had things to discuss, decisions to make about the future. But for now, just like this, the moment was too warm and perfect to ruin with more words.

So I remained quiet, and so did he. And soon we were both asleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Razek

Inever imagined I would have been able to sleep so well in enemy territory, surrounded by the armies of not one, but four other Gahns. And yet, I slept more deeply than I had in a long time, perhaps ever. The power of my mate and her glorious cunt, I thought with grave respect. Such strength cannot be underestimated.

Judging by the fingers of grey light coming into the tent, dawn was breaking outside. Jozelyn began to stir in my arms. As she woke, she rolled over to face me, opening one eye, then the other.

“Good morning,” she murmured.

In an instant, bathed in her soft morning warmth, I was hard and aching. Like I’d never taken her at all. I found one of her hands under the hides and guided it down to my swelling cock.

“Well, I’m awake now,” she said. She started skimming her excruciatingly soft fingers over my hard length, then stopped.

“Wait, Razek. We should talk first.”

I swallowed down a hard rumble in my chest. “What do you want to talk about?” I asked, though I already knew what she meant.

“We need to figure out what our next steps are. What you want to do about the alliance.”

I sighed, sliding my knuckles over her round cheekbone, down to her little chin. We both already knew what needed to be done. I’d known it at the ship with the other Gahns when I’d seen the power of her people. And I’d known it when I’d seen the strength and life and children of these tribes. The future we could be a part of if we reached for it. I just hadn’t officially said the words to anyone yet.

“I will join the alliance,” I said. The words were heavy coming from me, but they did not seem heavy to Jozelyn. If anything, they buoyed her. She sat up, her breasts bouncing, drawing my hungry gaze to her chest

“You’re sure?” she asked, her eyes wide.

“Yes.” There was no sense in fighting this future. It was the only way forward, now. For both my mate and me and the health of my tribe.

“Oh, Razek, I’m so happy,” she said, beaming at me, her smile so beautiful it hurt. There was a scrape of grief inside me, sorrow that she did not feel such joy at the prospect of living with me in the Death Plains. But I shoved it away. No matter what, I had still brought that smile there.

“It occurs to me that I have done something very good. I have made you very happy,” I drawled. I kicked the hides off of my legs, shifting to lie on my back. I placed my hands behind my head and felt a surge of aroused satisfaction as Jozelyn’s gaze turned lustful and fell to the jutting rod of my cock. “Perhaps I deserve a reward for my great sacrifice.”

Her expression soured, and she poked a torturous finger against my sensitive head. I hissed as she dragged her finger in a slow circle around my tip.

“Oh you do, do you? You’d better not just be telling me you’re joining the alliance to get some more of the good stuff.”

I groaned as she wrapped her whole fist around my head, squeezing gently.

“I am not,” I promised hoarsely. “It is the only way forward for my tribe. You know this. You have told me so yourself.”

She smiled again, dragging that tightened fist down my shaft, making my heavy balls twinge.

“OK, good. Had to make sure.”

With a quick movement, she moved upwards, hooking a knee over my hips until she was straddling me. I watched, unmoving, pinned by her erotic beauty, as she guided her hips down onto my glistening tip. My fangs ground against each other as her hand slipped between her own legs, strumming at her little nub of pleasure. Tonight, when I take her again, I will suckle at that nub until she screams. Until she can no longer scream, her voice will be so raw.

Her mouth falling open, she sank onto my cock. Only partway, of course. As I’d seen first-hand last night, she needed time to adjust to my size. I kept my eager hips in check, stopping myself from rutting upwards the way my body demanded I should.

Lower and lower, she slipped onto my cock, until my cock spears were pressed into her slick folds. I moved my hands from behind my head, gripping her hips as she rocked. I didn’t know where to look – her face slack with pleasure, her bouncing breasts, the place where my thick cock disappeared inside her. It was all too alluring, too lovely, and it was not long before I was exploding inside her, my balls drawing hot and tight to my body as my seed surged.

Jozelyn moaned my name, throwing her head back as her cunt’s slick walls constricted around me, drawing my sensitive cock deeper, urging more seed from my body. I stared, hypnotized, clutching at her as she rode me, taking her pleasure from my cock.

I will get to do this every night, every day, I realized with grateful awe as she finally slowed. Suddenly, bowing to this alliance seemed a very small price to pay to be forever near her. And perhaps my men would be able to experience this potent joy for themselves, too.

“I will meet with the other Gahns today and tell them of my decision,” I said as Jozelyn panted, still seated on my cock.

“OK. It’s just… Can we stay like this for a bit? I don’t exactly feel like I can talk about big decisions and plans anymore. My head feels totally empty.”

“But not your cunt,” I said with a grin, grinding up into her once more.

She laughed shakily, then pitched forward until she was lying on my chest. As she nestled into me, I wrapped my arm around her slim back.

It was decided, now and from this moment forth:

I would never let her go.

Thank you so much for reading Jocelyn and Razek’s story. I absolutely adored writing these two, with all their push and pull. I hope you enjoyed the journey to their HEA as much as I did creating it! The next Sea Sand love story will feature a fan favourite – our honourable Xyan! It should be out before the end of March 2022. If you want to keep up with all my news and be the first to receive teasers, bonus content, and to hear about my releases, please subscribe to my newsletter atwww.ursadaxwriting.com/content

Until the next Sea Sand love story,

-Ursa

FATED MATES OF THE SEA SAND WARLORDS

BOOK 1 ALIEN TYRANT

“If you should flee, no matter where you run, I will always follow.”

Book 2 ALIEN ENEMY

“They call me the Mad Gahn. But I never felt truly mad until I saw her face…”

Book 3 ALIEN ORPHAN

“I have trained, battled, and fought my whole life. But winning my mate’s love is the greatest challenge I have ever faced…”

Book 4 ALIEN REJECT

“She is a difficult creature, my tiny Kat. But I have never met with a creature I could not tame…”

Book 5 ALIEN EXILE

“Beneath all that makes me strange to you, my heart recognizes yours…”

Book 6 ALIEN HUNTER

“Now that I have found her, I refuse to lose her…”

Book 7 ALIEN VICTOR

“I found her, I saved her, and once I am Gahn, I will claim her. There will be no other tribe left for her but me…”