Chapter 28 Tarken
TARKEN
The heat isn't in the air. It’s in my blood. It’s a second heartbeat, a thunder under my skin that matches the crimson pulse of the chamber walls. My armor feels like a cage. Every breath I take is fire.
She’s here. Solid. Real. The only anchor in this maelstrom.
I don’t ask. My hands find her waist, the reinforced fabric of her gear rough under my palms. I pull her back against the warm, glowing surface of the altar stone. It thrums against my knuckles.
“Tell me to stop.” The words are gravel, scraped from a place of raw need. It’s not a request. It’s a plea for a line I know she won’t draw.
Her eyes are wide, but not with fear. With recognition. Her breath hitches, a sharp, sweet sound in the thick air. “Would you listen?”
“No.”
A faint, breathless laugh escapes her. “Then don’t ask pointless questions.”
Her hands come up, not to push me away, but to grip the straining leather straps across my shoulders. Her fingers are strong. Sure. The contact is a circuit closing. The Jalshagar roar in my veins quiets, not to a silence, but to a directed hum. A purpose.
I lean in, my forehead touching hers. The glow from my eyes casts a gold light over her features. “This binds you. Here. To me. To Paragon. There is no walking away after this, Alana.”
“I turned my shuttle around. I walked into a collapsing city.” Her voice is low, steady, a bedrock beneath the ritual’s storm. “I think we’re past the warning labels, Tarken.”
A sound tears from my chest, half-growl, half-sigh. My control is a thread, and she holds the shears. I bury my face in the curve of her neck, breathing in her scent—sterile soap, ozone, and something uniquely, fundamentally her. It cuts through the ceremonial incense.
“My people call this a surrender,” I murmur against her skin, my lips brushing the rapid pulse there.
Her fingers thread into my hair, pulling just enough to bring my gaze back to hers. “What do you call it?”
The truth, stark and unavoidable, leaves me. “A choice.”
I seal the word by closing the distance, capturing her mouth with mine.
It’s not gentle. It’s a claiming, an affirmation, a transfer of all the chaos inside me into a single, shared point of focus.
She meets it, matches it, her own hunger a stunning echo.
The altar stone glows brighter beneath us, the chamber walls pulsing in a slow, deep rhythm.
When we break apart, both gasping, she frames my face with her hands. Her thumbs trace the ridges of my ceremonial scars. “The city’s rhythm changed. Can you feel it?”
I can. The erratic, dying flutter is smoothing into a stronger, steadier beat. It’s syncing with ours.
The clearing’s ancient stones vibrate under my boots as I step forward. Alana’s shoulder brushes mine—a silent counterpoint to the riot in my veins. Her scent cuts through the metallic tang of hostile stares.
Council Elder Vekar’s voice rasps from the shadowed dais. “You spit on centuries of—”
I unsheathe the resonance blade at my hip, its edge singing with the same amber light fracturing across my chest. The crowd stills. “Finished?”
Alana’s knuckles graze the small of my back. Not a plea. A reminder.
I pivot toward the southern clan’s contingent instead, their scaled armor rattling as I approach.
“Three days ago, your irrigation grid failed.” My free hand drags across the holo-tablet on a nearby pillar, pulling up damage reports.
The projection glitches, warping under the Jalshagar’s energy.
“Her recalibrations saved your grain stores. Your children.”
A wiry hunter with clan markings etched in poison-green steps forward. “Human tricks don’t make her Baktu.”
Alana snorts. “Thank the stars for that. Your ceremonial leathers chafe like hell.”
Laughter explodes from the younger laborers near the rear. My lips twitch despite the tension.
I seize the moment, closing the distance between us.
Her chin tilts up, unflinching, as my palm settles against the pulse racing under her jaw.
“You want proof of her place here?” The words boom, raw and unchained.
“She breathes life into stone your rituals starved. She argues with elders. She mocks my armor—”
“It does chafe,” she mutters.
A charged chuckle ripples through the assembly. The ground thrums louder.
My thumb traces the hinge of her jaw. “And she’s terrible at obedience.”
Alana’s teeth graze my calloused fingertip. “You’d die of boredom if I wasn’t.”
The hunter lunges, dagger drawn. I don’t bother turning.
She disarms him with a med-tech’s precision—pressure points, a twist, his blade clattering against her boot. “I’ll return this,” she says sweetly, “after I sterilize it. Foreign pathogens, you understand.”
The city’s pulse syncs with ours as I drag her against me. My lips find the shell of her ear. “Mine.”
Her nails dig into the scars along my neck. “Only if you’re mine.”
The challenge ignites me. I crush her mouth to mine, all teeth and desperation. Her moan vibrates through my bones. The clearing’s braziers flare, bathing us in gold.
When we break apart, her swollen lips glisten. “Well,” she pants, nodding toward the stunned crowd. “Still think I’m the delicate one?”
Vekar slams his staff. “This filth desecrates—”
Alana whirls, her braid slicing the air like a whip. “Your filtration system runs on my desecration. Breathe your next insult through a ventilator if you prefer tradition.”
Silence.
I flex my hand against her hip, the glow beneath our skin brightening. “Council will reconvene at dusk. Bring grievances. Bring proof.” My stare lands on the southern hunter, still cradling his wrist. “Or bring better blades.”
Alana’s laugh is wildfire—bright, dangerous, alive. The stones hum their approval.
The southern hunter's blade gleams at Alana's feet. I step over it, leathers creaking. "Your steel's duller than your threats, Kevra."
Alana's fingers curl around my bicep, anchoring. "Give him a medical waiver. Poor reflexes suggest neurological damage."
Laughter erupts from the northern smiths. Even Elder Vekar's second-in-command hides a smirk behind scaled knuckles.
I seize the momentum, hauling Alana against me.
Our joined glow intensifies, casting jagged shadows across the council dais.
"You want to debate her qualifications?" My palm slams against the resonance stone embedded in the central pillar.
The city's pulse thrums through my bones, syncing with the rhythm of her breath against my collarbone. "Argue with Paragon."
The ground shudders. Fracture lines spiderweb across centuries-old tiles.
Alana's nails bite into my wrist. "Careful. Your dramatic flair's overloading the seismic dampeners."
"Then give them something better to absorb." I spin her, her back pressing against my chest. My forearm locks across her torso, branding her to me. Her pulse races under my grip—not fear. Never fear. Anticipation.
Elder Vekar rises, staff trembling. "This human poisons—"
Alana tilts her head, all false innocence. "What's the Baktu punishment for perjury? Oh right—mandatory colonoscopy equivalents. Shall I prep the scopes?"
A young healer from the eastern clan chokes on his ceremonial wine.
I tighten my hold, my lips grazing the shell of her ear. "Stop charming my enemies."
"Stop hoarding all the fun." She arches, her ass grinding against the undeniable proof of my restraint fraying. "You're glowing, chief."
"So are you."
The observation cracks something in my chest. Her reinforced medic's gear now pulses with faint amber light where our bodies meet—Jalshagar energy seeping through synth-fabric barriers.
A clan leader from the western mesa steps forward, his scaled armor clattering. "If she's truly bonded, let her pass the Bloodrite."
Murmurs swell. Alana tenses.
I release her, stepping between them. "The Rite requires three days in the fissure tombs. Designed to kill unbonded intruders."
"Designed to test," the leader counters.
Alana emerges from my shadow, salvaged blade in hand. She tests its balance with a surgeon's precision. "You realize I survive hostile environments for a living?"
"Not like this," I growl.
Her smirk cuts deeper than any blade. "Bets, Tarken? I'll take twenty-to-one odds on lasting four days."
The crowd erupts—coins clattering, voices overlapping. She's turned a death sentence into a gambling ring.
I cage her against the vibrating pillar. "This isn't a field triage."
Her palm splays over my chest, directly above the Jalshagar's burn. "And you're not just a chieftain. So lead with me, not around me."
The ground's hum shifts—deeper, resonant. Approval.
Elder Vekar slams his staff. "Enough! The human dies at dawn, or the southern clans withdraw protection."
Alana stills. "How many civilians in the southern sectors?"
"Twelve thousand," I grit out.
She nods, stepping into the open. "Schedule the Rite."
My hand whips out, catching her belt. "Alana—"
"Trust your equal." Her voice drops, layered steel. "Or was that just pretty propaganda?"
The chamber holds its breath.
I yank her close, my forehead pressed to hers. Our shared light flares. "You come back."
"Or you'll storm the tombs shirtless and brooding?"
"With charts."
Her laughter ignites the resonance stones. The council recoils from the cascade of light.
I release her. "Bloodrite begins at dusk."
She saunters toward the exit, tossing Kevra's blade at his feet. "Sterilized. Wouldn't want foreign contaminants."
The city thrums with anticipation. Or maybe that's my own traitorous heart.
My hands are on her hips, the reinforced fabric of her gear digging into my palms. The city… it’s not just stabilizing. It’s responding.
The flickering panels overhead don’t just steady.
They brighten, a warm, amber pulse that washes the sterile chamber in the color of a sunrise I haven’t seen in cycles.
It’s the exact hue of the glow now burning under my own skin.
The light doesn’t just illuminate; it seeks, flowing over the curves of Alana’s shoulders, catching the sheen of sweat on her temple.
A deep, resonant hum vibrates up through the floor plates.
It travels through the soles of my boots, up my spine, and settles in my teeth.
The network of pipes lining the wall begins to sing, a low, throbbing chorus that resonates in the hollow of my chest. It’s not machinery.
It’s a heartbeat. Timberline’s heartbeat.
And it’s syncing with mine.
“Do you feel that?” My voice is rough, scraped raw by the energy coursing through me.
Alana’s breath hitches. Her hands, which had been fisted in my leathers, loosen. Her fingers spread wide over my chest, as if reading a new topography. “Vascular resonance. Neurological feedback loops. It’s… mapping us.”
Above us, the frantic holographic streams of crimson fault reports and gold energy flows don’t just organize. They dance. Red and gold ribbons weave together in complex, beautiful patterns, chasing each other in arcs that look less like system diagnostics and more like… entanglement.
The screaming alarms cut off mid-wail.
The silence is profound, heavy. For a heartbeat, there is nothing but the low hum and our shared, ragged breathing. Then a new sound emerges—a deep, steady, rhythmic thrum-thrum-thrum from the city’s core conduit. It’s slow. Deliberate. Primal.
It matches the pounding in my veins, the heavy, aching pulse of my own desire.
I look down at her. The clinical focus in her eyes is being flooded with a dawning, awe-struck wonder. She feels it too. Not just as a healer. She feels it here, where her body meets mine.
I pull her closer, eliminating the last sliver of space between us. The heat from her seeps through our clothes. The city’ pipes hum louder in approval.
“All those schematics,” I growl, the sound vibrating through my chest into hers. “All your scans and projections. Did any of your human models predict this?”
A slow, defiant smile touches her lips. Her hips press forward, a deliberate, testing motion. The conduit’s thrum kicks up a notch. “My models suggested a symbiotic bio-feedback loop. They failed to mention the loop would be quite this… tactile.”
I bend my head, my lips grazing the shell of her ear. The city’s light follows the motion, painting her neck in gold. “You wanted integration, healer. You’re in the system now.” My grip tightens. “We both are.”
The silence in the chamber is thick, heavy.
I watch it settle over the rival leaders.
Kevra’s blade-hand trembles, the point of his dagger scraping a jagged rhythm against the stone floor.
The arrogance in his eyes has shattered, replaced by a pale, dawning horror.
He’s not looking at a human intruder anymore.
He’s looking at a force of nature, and he’s realizing he brought a knife to a tectonic shift.
They all are. Their weapons hang at their sides, forgotten. They stare at the light still shimmering under our skin, at the way the city’s pulse thrums in the air around us.
This isn’t peace. It’s shock. A breath held before the scream.
Balance isn’t given. It’s wrestled from the chaos, and I can feel the chaos waiting underfoot.
Paragon’s rhythm is still a wild thing, a heart kicking against its ribs.
As if to prove the point, a sudden, sharp tremor rocks the chamber.
A fine dust shakes from the ancient ceiling, glinting in the amber light.
The holographic ribbons of data above us shudder, the red fault lines flaring bright for one alarming second.
See? Nothing is settled.
The Jalshagar power is a live wire under my skin, singing of possession, of a claim so deep it rewrites biology.
My every nerve thrums with it, with her.
I lean into Alana, my nose brushing the sweat-damp hair at her temple.
I inhale deeply—ozone, medicinal sharpness, and beneath it, the warm, vital scent that is hers alone. Mine.
My voice is low, a graveled command that carries in the new quiet. “The next one who calls her ‘human’ answers to the city’s pulse.” I lift my head, my gaze sweeping the stunned faces. “And I am merely its instrument.”
Alana’s shoulder presses back into my chest, a solid, undeniable counterweight. Her voice is pure, dry practicality. “Also, the next seismic event like that could rupture the secondary hydro-lines feeding the southern sectors. So if your posturing is done, we have actual work to do.”
I feel a grin, savage and unbidden, touch my lips. I look down at Kevra. “Well? Do you have a grievance? Or just poor footing?”