Chapter 13
CHAPTER 13
S asha
Eirik’s presence behind me is like a dark cloud that I can’t shake off. I want to be alone desperately, but I know it’s not possible. I need to mourn something I didn’t even realize I had.
I’ve just lost the only family I ever knew.
I know I wanted to leave them, to leave Valcan and start a new life somewhere else. Leaving didn’t feel like this when I imagined how it would feel. Maybe it’s because I’m still stuck here, on this sandbox planet that I hate, only this time and for the first time since Sargul took me in as a little girl, I’m all alone in the world.
I didn’t just burn my bridges with Sargul when I put a knife to his throat. I blew them up with dynamite behind me. There’s no going back, not with what I did. Now when I chose a stranger over him.
It’s no use dwelling on this now. What’s done is done, and I still have a deal with Eirik. I’m getting off this stupid planet. Who cares if the man who raised me since I was five vowed to kill me if he ever saw me again?
But whatever I tell myself, it doesn’t stop the burning pain in my eyeballs as I fight against the bitter tears that keep threatening me with each step I take away from the Fortress.
My legs burn from walking too fast and there’s a stitch in my side, but I don’t slow down. Eirik doesn’t show any signs that he’s tired, either. He just walks in my steps, his form dwarfing mine as I lead him through shallow alleys and deserted streets. We left the nice merchant neighborhood a while ago and we’re down to the unpaved streets of the lower city, the dry ground casting small puffs of dust in the air as we walk at a brisk pace.
It takes way more time than it should, hiding with Eirik on my tail, but he’s so tall and big, there’s no way he can just walk through the streets without attracting attention. And avoiding attention is exactly what we need right now.
When we’re finally where I want to be, I pause, flattening myself against the rough surface of a crumbling building that looks like it’s only standing by the grace of the old gods.
Eirik mimics me, doing his best to hide his impressive shape in the shadow. It doesn’t really work, but there’s nothing he can do about it. A few minutes later, after I make sure no lingering lady of the street or drunk returning home will see us, I motion for Eirik to follow.
Then we cross the narrow alley and turn into the shaded porch of a tiny home, nestled between a tannery and the old forge. Most people wouldn’t even notice the narrow flight of stairs leading to the second floor, nestled between the buildings. And this is exactly the way I want it.
Unnoticeable. Like a mouse in the wall. Like me.
The stairs groan and protest under Eirik’s weight as he follows me in the semi-darkness between the buildings, then pause behind me at the top. I fumble for a second, digging with my fingertips, pulling on a loose brick to my right. After a few seconds, I remove it and retrieve the spare key hidden behind. Then I unlock the door and we step inside.
I exhale a long, deep breath as the door closes behind us. I can feel Eirik at my back, feel his gaze on my body. I know by the way tiny hairs stand up on my nape. The place is bathed in darkness, but I know it by heart, so it doesn’t take long for me to retrieve a match and light up the oil lamp I keep by the door.
The golden glow of the lamp fills up the space, and I turn to see Eirik walk inside. He pulled his hood down and his face is unreadable as he twists around to see the contents of the one-room house. It doesn’t take long. I don’t own much.
“Is this your house?” he asks and his handsome face twists in a frown.
I feel myself bristling at his words.
“It’s a safehouse I kept in case I’m ever in need of hiding from everyone, including Sargul.” I cross my arms and lift my chin. “It’s not much, but it’s safe and no one knows about it except for me. I’m sorry it’s not up to your standards, but not everyone in Tartarus can live in a palace.”
There’s a bite in my tone, and I don’t really care. People like Eirik do not know what it is to live like a street rat, to scrounge a subsistence on the edges of society, to never know where the next meal is coming from.
This place is mine and as puny as it is, I’m not going to apologize for it.
“How is it that a thief like you has to live in such a place?” There’s no scorn or judgment in his tone, and it calms me down. “I can see how good you are. Surely, Sargul paid you handsomely for your work.”
At these words, my anger deflates and I move around the small room with purpose. Not long after, a stack of dry protein rations sits on my tiny table, between Eirik and me.
“It’s because I’ve been saving for my passage out of Valcan my entire life. Most of the time, I sleep at the Fortress.” I tell him the truth, because there’s no point in lying anymore. “I have a room there and all the food and water I need. But this is the one place in Tartarus that is all mine. It’s not much, but at least, I don’t owe it to anyone.”
As I speak, I sit down on one of the two low chairs and grab a protein bar, unwrap it, then shove it in my mouth. It’s dry and tastes like cardboard, but as it settles in my stomach, I feel better. After another moment of hesitation, Eirik sits down in front of me. He’s almost comically too big for the small chair and table. He can’t even slip his legs under the table as his knees push up, but he doesn’t complain and reaches for a protein pack of his own.
He makes a face as he puts it in his mouth and chews, and I can’t help but laugh.
“You never had one of those before, have you?” I chuckle and retrieve the small bottle of water I keep for emergencies and take a swig of it, then hand it over to Eirik.
“It’ll wash the taste away.”
Eirik frowns as he looks at the pile of protein rations on the table, then accepts my offer of water. He doesn’t drink much, handing me the bottle back after just a sip.
“We can share.” I shake my head. “We’re in this together, you and me. Take what you need.”
“Huugwors are made for the desert,” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t need as much as you.”
I take the water back, ashamed at how relieved I am, but truly, I’m parched and he doesn’t even seem to have broken a sweat. I drink the rest of the bottle in one long gulp, then lean back in the chair. Silence falls between us, stretching as we just look at each other.
To say we’re reluctant allies is an understatement. I’m sure Eirik would rather be anywhere else on Tartarus than stuck in this shoebox of a house with me, and I don’t blame him.
“Why are you so hell bent on leaving Valcan?” Eirik surprises me with the question and I blink a few times.
“Why do you care?” There’s no hostility in my voice, just resignation. I don’t have any fight left in me. Not tonight. He doesn’t answer, his unreadable, perfect face on me in the low light, his gaze as steady as that of a statue.
That’s what he looks like. A masterpiece carved of gray marble and just as unfeeling. Or maybe I’m being unfair.
“There’s nothing for me here apart from the life of a criminal, waiting for a noose,” I answer truthfully. I have nothing else to hide from him. “This planet cost my mother and father their lives. They’d been eaten by greed just like so many before them and so many yet to come. I don’t know much about other planets or life beyond the Empire, but I know one thing: if I stay here, there’s no hope for me. No better life than this.”
I make a wide gesture at the tiny home I spend years painstakingly rehabilitating, furnishing, stocking with possessions.
“That’s why I kept this safehouse all these years,” I keep going. Now that I’m talking, it’s like the dam has broken and I’m spilling my life’s story in big, weepy chunks. “I always knew the day would come when I would need to disappear for a while. I just hoped it never would, I guess. I hoped by that time, I would have enough to fly far, far away from here.”
Silence falls again between Eirik and me, but it’s not a silence like before. It’s a heavy silence, a silence full of words unsaid.
“This planet is not without hope,” he says, surprising me again. His tone is soft and there’s no trace of his usual stern authority. He’s just a man now, talking to a girl.
Running from thugs and murderers… but still, he’s just himself. Eirik.
“Valcan can be a place full of beauty and wonder.” His gaze softens and his features lose their usual harshness. I’m blindsided by how much it transforms him, turning him into this handsome stranger in the flickering light of the flame. A handsome stranger I yearn to know.
“For my kind, it’s where our ancestors roam the endless plains without water, their souls riding the wind and whispering in our ears. I would show you the wonders of this planet, little thief, if we have the chance. This way, even if you do decide to leave, you’ll know that your mother’s and father’s souls travel the plains with my parents’. They’re together, just waiting to walk the sands with you.”
My throat closes at his words and I don’t know why, but hot, bitter tears flood my eyes and I blink furiously. I fail at preventing them from falling and I have to bite the inside of my cheek as I feel them roll down my skin.
“You don’t know that. You don’t know how they died.”
They died slaves, used up by people who owned them and saw them as property and nothing more.
“They were born in shackles and died in shackles,” I continue, the flood pouring down my face freely now. “The only time my mother was ever free was when she escaped and made her way here, but she paid for that freedom with her life. Do souls roam the sands in shackles, Huugwor?”
My voice cracks and I can’t speak anymore. Eirik just looks at me, his surreal blue on blue eyes seeing too much. I’m nothing like him, nothing like this glorious warrior with his honor and his mission. I’m just the daughter of an escaped slave who survived by holding on to life with her bare teeth.
“All souls are equal in the waterless lands beyond.”
Somehow, it makes it even worse and I can’t hold on anymore. I’ve been so dead focused on my goal for so long, I never allowed myself to feel. But I feel now and I’m swallowed by my grief. My grief for my dead parents, who never got to live a life of their choosing, my grief for Sargul and Naeve and the illusion I wanted to believe in that they actually loved me. I lied to myself when I believed I didn’t want their love, didn’t feel anything for them.
And maybe I grieve for myself, for that little girl who wandered the street, hungry and thirsty after her mother’s death, only to be taken in by a man who used her for his own purpose.
“You’re just saying that, but there’s no place where that’s true. There’s always those who have everything and those who have nothing.”
The waterworks keep going as I allow all those feelings I kept at bay for so long to rise and rise and swallow me whole.
Somewhere along the way, I find myself sitting on Eirik’s lap. I don’t know how I got there, but I don’t have the strength to question it. Right now, strength is what I lack, and strength is what I need. Eirik has it in spades.
I bury my face in his neck, snot and all. His strong arms wrap around my shoulders, so warm and so hard, it’s like sitting in a boulder’s embrace. I let go and cry, and when I’m all out of tears, my throat raw and my midsection painful from all the sobbing, my cries turn silent, my shoulders heaving as I gasp for air in big, desperate mouthfuls.
If ever there were an elegant lady’s cries, they weren’t those.
Still, Eirik doesn’t pull away from me, not even when my ugly crying wets his cloak with what I hope is tears, but I know is also snot.
I don’t know how long I cried when my heaving slows down and finally stops altogether, but I know I’ve never been more exhausted in my entire life. Even after I’m done, I cling to Eirik, my small hands fisting his cloak as I breathe in his smell. He smells male and dusty, like the rocks, with some undertone of cinnamon and leather. I let it seep inside my raw soul, let it envelop me and soothe me. There’s a part of me that knows it’s an illusion, knows he doesn’t care about me, but I need this like I never needed anything in my life.
I’m not really aware of what I’m doing as my fingers open, freeing Eirik’s cloak. They travel, first to his chest, so hard and so warm, with his heart beating like a drum right under my palm, then up to his neck and behind his head. My fingers run through the soft hair, marveling at the silky feel of it.
Eirik is so still, he feels like a statue, but his arms don’t unwrap from me and he doesn’t push me away.
It emboldens me and I twist my face until my lips are right next to his neck. I can’t think straight at this point, but even if I could, I don’t think I would have been able to stop.
I kiss his neck, just underneath his jaw, where his jugular beats at a frenzied, fast pace. A hardness pushes against my thigh as I press my chest to him, molding my small breasts to his impossibly hard chest.
I’m so raw, so empty of feelings, it makes me bold. It makes me bold and rash and I’m like a drowning woman, holding on to him like the only safe harbor in the entire universe.
When I nip at his skin, the hands around me clench and he growls, the sound deep and animal.
I should beware, but I don’t. I just need Eirik and his strength and to hell with the consequences. I lick him there, right where I nipped him, and those fingers grab my upper thighs, the hold just shy of painful. I groan in protest, but I’m no match for his strength and he pulls me away.
When I look up and meet his gaze, he doesn’t look like a man. He looks like a ravenous beast about to devour me whole.
“Careful, little thief.” His voice is husky, halfway gone into the growls of an animal. “Don’t start something you don’t want to finish.”
I should listen, I really should. But I’m so turned on, I don’t care how stupid I am. I’m alive right now and I need pleasure just like I need to breathe.
“Who says I don’t want to finish it?” I move, my fingers finding their way into his hair again. I twist on his lap and rub the hard push of his erection with my leg, bold in my intent. I’m not in control of my own body, not in control of my own mind as he looks down on me with this expression on his face.
Like he’s about to say something either so wonderful I’m going to melt or so terrible I’m going to run away screaming.
But he doesn’t. Instead, he reaches for my face, cupping the side of my cheek. His hand is so large, his fingers reach all the way to the top of my head. He leans in and I stay still, mesmerized, like an animal who can’t look away from a predator.
Heat spills between my legs, coating my pussy with arousal. His nostrils flare, and I know he can smell it. And it makes more heat spill between the folds of my pussy until I feel it seeping through my panties and inside my pants.
His hot breath fans my lips, and his fangs catch a ray of light. My breathing accelerates until I’m panting there, my body set in stone. But not cold stone. It’s like lava pours through my veins and pools there in my belly. My core clenches and wetness spills between my legs as the corner of his lips curl in a cruel smirk.
The bastard knows what he’s doing to me. He knows and I’m too far gone to stop it.
Then he kisses me and there’s nothing that could have prevented what comes next.