Chapter 21
DALOX
My skin feels fresh and tender from my shed. I thank my ancestors my mate decided not to envenomate me for my earlier transgressions, although I suspect my ancestors would not be impressed with my mating attempts so far.
I am also unimpressed. I believed it would be easier to mate than it turns out it is. When the rut rages within you, sending skin shedding into overdrive, the shift even harder to control, pleasing a mate whom I don’t even know is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.
So far, the fact she hasn’t envenomated me has to be luck rather than any form of judgement. I have not proved myself to her in any way. All I’ve done is offer her my hoard and made a promise I don’t even know I can keep.
No wonder she wanted to have nothing to do with me other than helping with my shed.
My entire body shakes at the thought of her tiny hands working at my spines.
I nearly spilt my seed everywhere as she touched me.
Had she touched any other part, I know I would not have been able to control myself.
My aquium would have been filled with my spill.
Gillian would have known I was a male who could not be trusted.
“My Lord.” My comm bursts into life. “Lord Dante wishes to speak with you.”
Dante is the last warlord I wish to see.
“Tell him I am busy with my mate.”
“I don’t think you are.” Dante lounges in the doorway, picking at his claws.
“Who let you in my nevving quarters?” I growl. “I will have their tail.”
“No need to maim your warriors.” Dante pushes himself upright and wanders over to my food dispenser. “I have various means to get in places I shouldn’t.”
“Then perhaps it is your tail I should have,” I growl, tapping out my instructions to get food and clothing to my mate on my console before giving Dante my full attention.
He already has a goblet of ale wine in one hand and a platter of meat in the other, his cheeks bulging with the food he has purloined.
“Give me that.” I swipe them both from him, my desire for the rare cuts he has ordered up greatly increased by my recent shed.
Dante releases all of what he’s holding without a word, simply turning back to get more. He then strolls to my pit and throws himself down without invitation and as if he owns the place.
There are plenty of things I could do to Dante, but not a single one of them will stop him from behaving like this over and over again. I sit opposite him with a growl which, of course, he pays no attention to.
“My mate says yours wants to return to their plane, Urth,” Dante says through another mouthful.
“She does.” I glare into my goblet. “And I need to find the mapping system, one which is actually functioning this time, for the wormholes, or we will never reach her home.”
“Deus,” Dante says, leaning back and spreading out. “His was functioning after we came through. He was the one who told Darax there were still wormholes opening up even when we thought there were not.”
“What are you talking about?” I wrinkle my nostrils because the ale wine tastes terrible. Instead I slurp up the meat on my platter as if I’ve never eaten before.
“Darax always believed there were wormholes. Driok confirmed the Ulep were using them, so Darax was right.” Dante huffs out a lungful of smoke to indicate what he feels about Darax being right. “And Deus, before he lost his mind, had a functioning mapping system. He was adamant it worked.”
I growl under my breath. I guess it takes one insane Sarkarnii to connect with another, and Dante is only half a spine’s width off being the same as Deus in any event. Even if he is mated.
“Deus isn’t here.”
“Do you blame him?”
“No. Darax was outside of his authority when he did what he did with his brother, but no one knows where he is, do they?” I glare at Dante who pays scant attention.
“He’ll be on the other continent. Where his ship crashed. Where else would he go?” Dante says, as if this is information we should all know.
“His ship was intact?”
“It was. And the mapping system was what he took from the Ulep,. That’s what he told me before he went mad.” Dante licks at his claws. “Madder,” he clarifies.
“He certainly was a mad nevver, taking items from the Ulep without informing his fleet admiral.” I growl.
“You said it, my Lord.” Dante drains his goblet of ale wine, picks mine up, and drains that too, fixing me with a gaze which is anything but mad, and yet entirely unhinged.
How is this Sarkarnii the fount of all knowledge? Dante looks into the goblet sadly.
“So, where is this ship?”
Dante shrugs. “He didn’t say, other than it was on the second continent.”
“That’s not exactly helpful.”
“It is not.” Dante rolls himself out of my pit and gets to his feet. “Anyway, if you want a way of finding Urth, finding Deus’s ship is going to be the only way.”
“I can take what I need from the Ulep. Driok will have all they had.”
“All gone. The Ulep destroyed what they thought we might need.” Dante says, edging towards my food dispenser again. “And believe me, Driok is thorough. If it was there, he’d have it.”
Nev the pair of them. Driok is thorough. It’s the reason I give him the jobs I know only he can do. Driok might not be the butcher all say he is, but his ability to carve the flesh from the bone is legendary among those who know what he can do.
So far, he’s done everything I’ve asked and more. But if I am to both take my mate back to her planet and deal with everything which brought us here in the first place, then I’m going to need more than even Driok can conjure up.
Which means, I’m going to have to play Dante’s games.
“So, I’m guessing you know where can I find Deus’s forgotten ship?”
Dante grins. “It all depends on what you have to offer.”