2. Chapter 2
two
Sor’en
My attention is caught by a small wisp scooting over to me.
My breath nearly hitches in my throat as I take in the tiny creature's dim shimmer. A youngling close to the veil never fails to make an ache bloom deep in my chest. Ripping my attention from the small Vespera, I scan the crowd for its parents, finding them absorbed in the auction I seemed to have slipped out in front of. Vespera’s are known for their frequent use of human breeders, and are among the first species to normalize it, so much so that it’s essentially now a part of their culture, with many of the humans staying with one family unit for decades.
It makes sense; most Vespera’s prefer to remain genderless.
Their ability to swap and change fluidly is used mostly for reproductive purposes, but it is taxing in their culture.
Better to stay undefined as their gods made them.
“You can’t wear those here,” the youngling quips, pointing at my face covering. A mask of his own, colorful and decorated with shimmering jewels, is tucked into their grip. A popular item with younglings on the port.
“Yes, my apologies.” I smooth my hand over the plated wall, ensuring the fit is good.
“What are you doing? Can I help?”
I swallow hard. Flashes of shuttering wings and a pale, stiff body crumple at my feet, invading my mind before a small hand tugs on my cloak, bringing me back to a port I said I’d never come back to. “Can I help?”
I shift away. “You shouldn’t speak to strangers.”
“You don’t look so strange.”
“Perhaps it is why I cover my face. Perhaps I am terrifying,” I offer when I should be leaving. Hurrying back to the shield of my dome. Away from this place and its haunting, all too familiar corridors.
The youngling laughs at that.
They open their mouth to say something else when a commotion draws our attention back to the platform.
Or at least mine; the wisp of a youngling is far too small to see over the crowd.
A large Dhaizu jerks up the skirt of a female on display.
And in an instant, the crowd works into a frenzy, at the exact moment my world blurs to a screeching halt.
No shimmer.
My chest caves in on itself, my very being shuddering at the distressed female in front of me. Crimson blood blooming on her pale skin.
A human.
A human with no shimmer. I cast a panicked glance at the females beside her as if my gift must have just failed me, but no. Each of the other females has shimmers of their own, varying from bright to tragically dim.
Pheor’aya and Fam’ora… help me.
Our twin goddesses are silent, happy to watch this unfold the way they set it in motion.
My first step falters. I stumble. Pulling attention from the back of the crowd for a moment, attention I can’t afford. I don’t take my eyes off her, sudden anxiety budding in my chest, as if I dare, she’ll disappear. My mate, my chosen soulveil. Here on Vortara, so far from our home. Hurt.
My mate is hurt.
With my next step, I whisk the youngling into my arms, depositing them by their parents as they let loose a wild giggle at the sudden burst of speed and then… I’m there in front of her, my heart hammering away at my bones.
It's foolish to put myself in front of the crowd, to draw attention. But here I stand.
I watch as her tear-filled eyes widen in horror, a single choked word escaping me, “Draya’la.”
Soulveil.
Mate.
When her drak'thra pod-colored eyes take me in, a rich shade of dark green and warm brown, I can feel it… my very being altered. My soul bursting apart before re-knitting into something that would please her. The twin goddesses have blessed me with a strange mate. My hand twitches to reach into the space around her head where her shimmer should be, if I were able to see it. My very being trembles with the need to pull her close to me, to check over her arm and the superficial cut there, all the while understanding soon enough, she’ll be as horrified by my touch as they all are.
My poor mate, matched to such a terrifying creature.
A voice finds me, but I can’t focus on the words it's saying.
The brightness around me lightens further as others crowd in, the toxins in my body surging underneath the thin fabric of my cloak as I struggle to get my emotions in check.
The need to protect my mate is a sudden physical pang screaming deep within my chest. I need her safe, out of here, away from the hateful denizens who haunt the ports.
My thoughts are liquid, muddy, and unsure, reeling at what this means for me now.
How everything I’ve known for my last seventy-three solars is about to change.
I lower my head, hiding in my hood, understanding innately that two things are about to happen…
I am about to subject my poor Draya’la to a handful of very tense moments before she ever even learns my name, and secondly, that if anyone stands in my way, I am about to become the nightmare they paint me to be.
I would like to avoid the ladder, but I am what I am.
It cannot be changed, nor helped. It's the very nature of me that terrifies them.
I am not welcome here.
Not welcome anywhere.
And now neither is she.
“My apologies, little one.” I speak just loud enough for her to hear as I tilt my head, letting my veil shift, allowing the Oozarian female a better look at me, since she’s been straining so hard all this time.
Her mate reacts first, keyed in by the sudden look of horror in her placid green eyes.
He grips me, attempting to jerk me from my mate or his, likely both, but I don’t budge.
I cannot.
I will not.
I would sooner guide the entire port to the veil.
Everything within me rages, surges, demanding, tightening. They’re going to take her, touch her. My very core shudders at the fate that would befall them should they try.
I can feel Melion even light-years away, raging in response to me, his panic a physical fist in my chest.
When I face the Oozarian male next, he recoils, glancing down at his palm before it abruptly phases out of shape.
I didn’t harm him, but it’s better to be safe than sorry, I suppose.
Although I’m unconvinced that changing forms will suppress anything, should I change my mind.
It could buy him a domtic or two, perhaps.
He breathes quietly. “Thlorinzae, take the females out. Now,” he orders, but his mate doesn’t move, her eyes glued to me with no small amount of pity in them.
Is that better or worse than fear? Is it pity for me?
For her? Yes, that’s it… she pities my mate.
I force a calming breath at the concept, urging the darkness within me to hold its frenzied battering at the walls of my mind.
Taunting, demanding, raging at the very threads of my soul.
She knows. The Oozarian woman knows.
Females of her species have a gift, a secret one. One similar to mine, but different. They guard theirs better than we do. We have paid for that misjudgment since.
The breath she releases is wobbly at best when she shakes her head. “No, my light, that won’t be necessary. He has no interest in them. Only her.”
Her mate cuts in, “No! We are responsible for these females. They are part of the Breeding Act of—”
“I will leave with my mate now and we will do so quietly…” I offer, unable to meet my Draya’la’s eyes. I don’t bother to finish the sentence, to give voice to what goes unsaid. It’s unnecessary to expose my delicate female to such vitriol.
“I understand your eagerness, but she is a breeder, and you should not be here without an escort. Your very presence directly violates at least a dozen Alliance laws,” the male seethes.
My jaw ticks as I gently, slowly, slip off my glove underneath my cloak. If only they knew what their Alliance was up to, that I was invited… forced here.
“Perhaps a private room?” The female Oozarian cuts in.
“No, we leave now.” To Qavara with the meeting, I’ve done what I was tasked to do. They should find him soon and can glean their report from their cameras.
“She was here for compensation…” she counters.
My eyes cut to hers before gazing back up at my mate, meeting her terrified stare, her beautiful green and brown eyes, the pupils blown wide and panicked, hiding most of the color.
I can see it, the moment she puts the name to the species before her.
The fear that clouds her eyes is gutting; I don’t fault her for it despite the way it gnaws at the core of me.
“I will provide you with anything you need. Funds, luxuries, you will want for nothing.” A pathetic, desperate pang fills my chest as she shuffles away from me, her chest heaving.
“I’m not—” She gulps down a shaky breath.
“I-I’m just here as a breeder, that’s what I agreed to.
” Her head snaps to the Oozarians at my sides, desperation marring her pretty face.
She wants help; my mate is desperate to be saved from me.
My chest caves at the thought, the rejection marring and scarring my bones so deeply they will leave ruts in the land when I rot.
How hideous she must find me. Such a soft creature. A human of all the cursed species!
I look back at the floor, letting my hood obscure me again so I don’t further distress my female, my long pale hair falling forward, pressing against the inside of my veil in slashes of white.
The darkness taunts again. Reminding me we need her, begging, screaming, bellowing to touch.
My body trembles in the wake of the toxin that floods my system.
With it, a jarring anxiety that makes me falter in my rage.
A small dead body, his light snuffed out…
One mistake, that’s it. One loss of control, a mere domtic. Already the prayers and masterings drilled into me from birth are lesser than. Insignificant. How had I ever managed a modicum of control without her?