CHAPTER FOURTEEN | Fiona
After we finished our breakfast deliveries (which was how I preferred to think about that act, rather than acknowledge the whole you’re symbolically handing over potential pussy access side of things) we returned to our spots on the benches. We passed the trays around to the rest of the tribe and took some stuff for our own breakfasts, too. I pretty much exclusively stuffed my face with moonbark. I could not get enough of those delightfully fudgy white bars.
As I chowed down, the men below organized themselves. From what I could see, it looked like it would be one-on-one, and that several matches were going to take place at the same time. Pairs of men, including Dalk and a Deep Sky male, moved to different areas of the valley at Warrek’s direction. I watched Dalk, nerves bundled in my belly, and it suddenly became a whole lot harder to swallow the delicious moonbark.
What if he got hurt? I already busted his lip open today, and no matter what he said about it I still felt bad about that.
A horrible thought suddenly occurred to me.
“Zaria,” I said urgently as Dalk and the other man circled each other. “This isn’t a fight to the death, is it?!”
Zaria looked at me with surprise misting through her sight stars.
“Of course not!” she said. She sounded so shocked by the idea that I felt a teensy bit defensive.
“OK. Sorry. It’s just... That taklok thing before, the one between Gahn Errok and Gahn Thaleo, was supposed to be a duel to the death. And I know at least a couple people died in the recent Death Plains baklok. The word vaklok is kind of similar.”
“Ah. I understand,” Zaria said, smiling kindly. “No. The vaklok, while a sacred tradition, is not so serious or severe as something like a taklok, which is meant to kill a man, or a baklok to choose the next Gahn.” Her smile turned wan. “Our tribe is already small. We could not afford to lose half our men in a round of deadly combat just for the vaklok’s sake.”
“That makes sense,” I said. “What about a baklok? Did you guys ever have one of those? Is that how Gahn Thaleo became Gahn?”
For some reason, my voice fell to a whisper, as if I wasn’t allowed to be asking such questions. At least, not with Gahn Thaleo so close by. He was still in his place beside Nasrin at the end of the bench.
“Yes. Although it was an unusual case,” Zaria said. “Gahn Thaleo’s uncle was Gahn before him, and he named Thaleo Gahn with a witness before his death. Usually this would prevent a baklok from taking place. But Gahn Thaleo still called one. He was the strongest, so he won anyway.”
“Interesting,” I said, leaning behind her somewhat to observe the straight-backed, expressionless Gahn. “So that doesn’t typically happen, right?”
“Correct,” Zaria said. “Typically the Gahn names a successor before his death and that is all. The baklok is only called when a Gahn dies without naming the next. Or if someone challenges the old Gahn’s choice and wishes to topple the new leader. Though that is very rare. Nearly taboo.”
“Not if you’re Gahn Fallo,” I said with a slight snort.
Zaria tilted her head in confusion. Sunlight slipped along the coils of ink-blue braids piled on top of her head.
“Who is Gahn Fallo?”
“Oh. One of the Sea Sand Gahns. He was actually here before, though I’m not sure if you would have seen him or anything. Anyway, his dad was Gahn. He killed his own father and claimed the title of Gahn. There was no baklok or anything. I don’t think anyone challenged him, either. Not that I think many people would be able to challenge a guy like that and keep their heads attached to their shoulders.” I pointed at Dalk. “Dalk is from his tribe.”
“He killed his father, his own Gahn? And his people accepted this?” Zaria asked, looking so aghast I almost wished I hadn’t told her.
“I think there was more to the story,” I said quickly, once again feeling defensive, for Gahn Fallo this time, of all fucking people! “I don’t think he just offed his dad all willy-nilly. But I actually don’t know a lot of the details about it. I think his dad was kind of crazy, but then again, so is Fallo, so...”
My voice trailed off as my gaze alighted on Dalk again. And I realized with a stinging sort of clarity that it wasn’t Gahn Fallo I was feeling protective over at all, but Dalk. I knew Dalk respected his Gahn. I’d even heard him call Fallo the “Great Gahn Fallo,” and there wasn’t a hint of sarcasm or irony in that title because the Sea Sand guys really struggled to wrap their heads around those concepts.
While Dalk could be dense in his own weird alien way, I also knew that he was actually a really intelligent, driven sort of person. I wondered now about why he was so devoted to Gahn Fallo. Dalk didn’t bestow respect upon someone just because of rank or title. He barely tolerated Gahn Errok and he openly loathed Gahn Thaleo.
No. Dalk’s respect had to be earned.
What had Gahn Fallo done to earn it?
And would I be able to manage something similar?
God. Look at me. Getting all worked up about winning the approval of the grumpiest alien in these mountains.
I didn’t have a chance to worry about it for long, because the combat rounds were starting now. All in all, there were four pairs of men in a loose circle spaced well apart from each other. The other men were standing off to the side, waiting for their round.
Zaria told Tilly, then me, that the winner would be the first one to wrestle the other male to the ground and hold him there for the count of two breaths. I nodded, relieved that nobody would have to fall unconscious or lose an arm for a round to end. Just because it wouldn’t be a fight to the death didn’t mean it wouldn’t be vicious.
And this thought was only confirmed when Gahn Thaleo called out for them to begin and Dalk exploded into action against his opponent. It turned out that my worry for him, at least for this portion of the vaklok, was completely unfounded. Dalk’s Deep Sky opponent looked maybe a little younger than him, but still hard and strong, yet Dalk tore through that man like a fist through wet paper.
Or a fist through bone, because right about now Dalk was driving his knuckles straight into the other man’s face so hard I almost thought I should be able to see his knuckles poke out of the back of the other guy’s skull. Blood spewed from his opponent’s nose, and it wasn’t long afterwards that Dalk locked both his arms around his opponent’s waist, lifting him up then slamming him down to the stone. Before the other man could recover, Dalk forced him onto his stomach, wrapping one thick arm around his throat from behind in a headlock while he pressed his right knee into the poor sod’s spine. He got his free hand around the other man’s braid, pulling sharply up and back. Between that and the headlock, plus his full weight on his knee against the guy’s back, I actually felt a chill of nauseous fear that he might break the other man’s neck, maybe even accidentally.
“Jesus fuck, Dalk,” I muttered as Gahn Thaleo called sharply for Dalk to let go because he’d won his round.
Dalk did it, releasing the guy’s hair and neck so suddenly that the poor dude’s broken nose hit the stone, and hit it hard. Dalk stood up, and his opponent got his feet beneath himself and limped out of the proverbial ring, one hand cupping his nose, the other rubbing at his throat.
While nowhere near as bad off as his opponent, Dalk also looked a little worse for wear. His lip was bleeding again, sending a dark, almost vampiric river of blood down his chin and neck. All blades and straps had been removed for the combat round, which gave me a good view of his bare, burly chest. At some point in the frenzy he must have gotten gouged real good, because ragged claw marks across his pectoral now bled profusely.
And yet, none of that seemed to bother him one bit. He didn’t look tired out from the fight he’d just gone through. The man looked fucking energized by it. He stalked back and forth, sight stars alight, muscles taut and ready, like pounding that guy into the ground had been nothing but a light warm-up to him.
I should have probably hated myself for thinking it, but it was almost, sort of, in a very weird way... hot?
Which was a crazy fucking thing to think. Seriously. Who the hell got turned on by a big brute of a man pummelling another male into the ground and then jumping right back up as if to say, Another! Bring me another!
It was definitely messed up. Absolutely. Not a single argument from me there. Feeling a slow curl of heat down low in my belly and a buzzing in my clit from watching Dalk flash his fangs and flex his fists while covered in another man’s blood was something I should probably have worked through with a therapist. If I’d had one, anyway.
But I didn’t.
So I just felt it and tried desperately to pretend that I didn’t.
This combat round of the vaklok was tournament-style. The next two groups of pairs faced off against each other, and then the victors, all of them slightly bloodied and bruised (because even the guys who lost their rounds were still tough fucking fighters) were pitted against each other.
Unlike the archery and braxilk riding, Dalk was completely in his element.
Hell. Who was I kidding? The man fucking dominated.
Every alien who stepped up against Dalk inevitably went right back down. Every. Single. One. Some were very quick. Others, like Oxriel and Zoren, took a little longer. But they all fell beneath him, one after the other, until the only other man left in the combat round was Gahn Thaleo’s strongest warrior Warrek.
By this point in the day, both men looked pretty fucking battered as they circled each other. Both Warrek and Dalk had various wounds slashed open on their chests, arms, and backs. Warrek’s tail looked oddly stiff and slightly angled to one side, like it had gotten sprained or pulled. The sun beat mercilessly down, and I sweated beneath my cloak, wondering if they got hot during exertion like this. They didn’t look overheated or tired or bothered at all, not even with a twisted tail and blood coursing freely down both their contrasting purple-indigo and bronze-black bodies.
They came at each other like boulders colliding, neither one pulling any punches, grappling like their lives depended on it. My stomach swooped, lifted, then fell like a stone, every time it looked like Dalk might go down. But somehow, he never did. He’d either scrabble his claws beneath himself and stay steadily upright, or he’d regain his balance by sheer force of bodily will, using his own substantial weight to push back on Warrek’s force. New claw marks appeared on each man’s arms and backs and even faces, gushing black making their hide slippery as they each tried to drag the other down.
Not a match to the death unless one of them drops from blood loss, I thought woozily.
“There is Vrika’s blood ready and waiting,” Zaria said quietly to me, as if anticipating my question. “Once this round is complete, all the men who lost will be treated by the healers and the man who won will-”
Her words cut off in a gasp, and even if she’d kept on talking I wouldn’t have heard her anyway because I was too focused on what was happening ahead.
Warrek had toppled Dalk.
I nearly jumped out of my own seat, but restrained myself, instead just letting my heart leap up into my throat instead. Dalk fell heavily, and I found it hard to keep my eyes open, unable to watch his defeat.
Except...
Hold on.
Not defeated yet.
As Dalk fell, his tail whipped powerfully out beside him, sweeping beneath Warrek’s feet so fast the Deep Sky warrior didn’t have a hope in hell of dodging or jumping. Warrek fell backwards, catching himself on one hand, about to jump back up.
But Dalk was already there. He dove at Warrek like a rugby player executing a brutal tackle, the force of his leap and his weight driving Warrek back so hard that they both slid a solid two metres across the stone, the movement lubricated by their spilled blood. But Warrek wasn’t finished fighting yet. He gouged a ragged line down Dalk’s side and hip, severing the ties of Dalk’s leather loincloth until the garment fell entirely away.
Neither man seemed to notice, but holy hell, I did. And so did the other human ladies, based on the gasps I heard coming from the bench and the slightly embarrassed mutter of, “Oh, my...” from Valeria somewhere behind.
From this angle, with Dalk grappling on his knees above Warrek, trying to keep the other man down, I couldn’t see much besides hard thighs leading up to powerful glutes beneath his tail. Every once in a while, when one of his legs shifted, I thought I caught a glimpse of something long, thick, and dark exposed at his front, but it was hard to tell with all that movement and it wasn’t like I was straining my eyes to try to catch a peek or anything. No, siree. Not me.
As if he’d suddenly grown weary of fighting, Dalk landed a swift and decisive blow to Warrek’s temple, stunning the other man just long enough to flip him over and grab him hair-and-headlock style like he’d done in the first round of things. Even held like that, Warrek kept on fighting, his tail thumping up to smash against Dalk’s naked, bleeding back.
But it was no use. He was cooked. And the round was called with Dalk as the champion.
Gahn Thaleo made the announcement, and it seemed to take Dalk a moment to hear it and respond, as if Gahn Thaleo’s voice had to wade through a great wave of heady bloodlust before it could reach Dalk’s brain. But eventually, he got the memo, releasing Warrek and peeling himself off the other man. He stood, shook out his claws a little, then turned around to face the stands.
“Gott im Himmel...” Tilly breathed.
I would have probably uttered some proclamation of shock pertaining to God and Heaven too, had I not been rendered completely, utterly, breathlessly speechless by the sight of Dalk towering like some dark and bloodied demon, his sight stars on fire and his dick swinging in the fucking alien breeze for all to see.
I mean, it wasn’t actually swinging. He was standing still now, and an organ that hefty would require some serious bodily momentum to get it flopping back and forth, that was for fucking sure. It was so big it was like it was exerting its own force of gravity. Gravity that somehow seemed only to apply to my own damn eyeballs, because they were held and held fucking fast.
This was the first time I’d ever seen a Zaphrinax male in all his — ahem — glory. I’d heard about the cock spears but hadn’t been able to picture them fully until now. But there they were, two tapered appendages, one on each side of his dick. They hung long and low in their own right even though their tips didn’t even come halfway to the tip of Dalk’s main shaft. The sun was absolutely dousing Dalk, its light illuminating every curve and vein of him – the cock and the spears, the heavy dark globes of the balls beneath – and my mouth went suddenly dry at the thought of how smooth and velvety the hide there would be. There was no pubic hair, just that incredible Sea Sand hide, so velvety I could practically imagine just how easy it would be to run my tongue all the way up and down...
I hadn’t even noticed that Gahn Thaleo had left his spot beside Nasrin, so it startled me when he suddenly seemed to appear out of nowhere at Dalk’s side. The Gahn said something I couldn’t hear, and whatever it was caused Dalk to jerk his chin down towards his chest. He looked mildly surprised by his lack of loincloth, but mostly unfazed as he turned around and grabbed the ruined garment from the ground. It was too torn to bother refastening, so he held it awkwardly in front of his crotch like some kind of ratty old tea towel in his right hand while Gahn Thaleo hoisted his left high in the air.
“We have our champion of combat,” Gahn Thaleo boomed. If it bugged him to see a male not from his tribe win, and not to mention win by beating half his guys to a freaking pulp, he did a good job not showing it.
“Now what?” I asked Zaria. Now that Dalk’s dick was somewhat put away and my dumbass hormones could take a backseat to my somewhat-useful brain, I was once again reminded of just how injured Dalk was. Nothing looked broken, but some of those gashes were deep. And... Oh my God, was that a bite mark on his shoulder?!
Gahn Thaleo spoke before Zaria could.
“Now we will break for the healing ceremonies. The mated healers will tend to these men,” Gahn Thaleo gestured his tail towards all the competitors except Dalk, “and the champion will be tended to by an unmated woman of his choosing.”
Dalk snatched his hand from the Gahn’s grip, sending Thaleo a slightly wild look, but wild with what emotion, I couldn’t quite tell. That gaze didn’t stay on the Deep Sky Gahn too long, though. Because it cut through the air like a blade, like an arrow, like a broken and messily bound bow and it landed right on me.
Before I even knew what I was doing, and before anyone (least of all my own damn self) could talk me out of it, I’d careened up and out of my seat. My next words left my mouth far too quickly for me to even have a hope of calling them back.
“I’ll do it!”