21. Chapter 21
twenty-one
Hue
Before I can stop it, think better of it, or think at all really, I’m running full tilt between the vendors, my feet pounding the soft grass so hard it jars my knees.
Panic's grip tightening on me in every way that counts.
The kind of panic that blanks out your thoughts and surroundings, where your body hits autopilot and your actual mind is nothing more than a stowaway.
A strangled noise rips through my throat as I search for anything tight, anything small.
Anywhere to hide. I find nothing but the quiet city behind me and the field of flowers around me.
Suddenly, all the things I loved about it are painful and overwhelming. Taunting, ignorant and downright cruel.
My body doesn’t care, the weight around my neck drags me forward as I bolt toward the tree line in the distance.
I barely notice the sharp prick of pain that hits me as I bolt past a shimmering wall that hadn’t been there until seconds before I slammed through it.
I cry out, stumbling but recovering quickly as I make it to the heavy woods.
Where there was soft pale teal grass before the ground under my feet is rough prodding my sensitive soles. The dome. I’m out of the dome.
Good.
I need out.
Off this planet.
Away from these people.
I screwing everything up again.
But god, I’m scared.
For the moment I can’t even pinpoint where the fear comes from, what I’m terrified of.
I just keep running.
I run because that’s what's kept me safe, kept me alive all these years alone in space.
I run because Mom said there’s somewhere she needs to be.
I run because I think, whatever version of love I can feel, I feel it for him.
The city center isn’t quiet anymore, even muffled behind the dome I can hear the flurry of activity and I feel bad for that too.
Strange sounds filter in from all sides of me; fauna I hadn’t even realized this planet had waking to my presence as I thrash through their undisturbed home. Something dark and large slams through the odd purple trees ahead and—
My foot catches something, painfully stubbing every single one of my toes at once, as I hit the ground hard.
My knees screaming out as they’re ravaged by the rough dirt.
Where everything inside the dome is soft and muted, the outside is harsher.
I wince as I struggle to lift myself from my ground, taking in the stinging scrapes on my palms.
“Blessing to meet you again, star child. You are a long way from home.”
I barely swallow my scream as I jerk upright, my breath whooshing out of me all at once when I see a Xyrelith there.
The older male who intervened when Sor’en went off the deep end, much to his displeasure.
The one who bonded us. “Who even are you?” I grumble, sitting back down to check the state of my knees.
“Jin’rayal. Your mate is causing quite the stir in there,” he offers casually, tilting his head toward the sound of utter chaos behind us.
“He's not my mate,” I spit, hating the words in my mouth. Not sure why I even bother. And he can tell as I work myself up from the ground.
He laughs, not the muted, demure laugh of his people but a full belly one that feels warmer, easier. “Run then, star child. Find your broken little pod and run home to wherever you’ve convinced yourself that is.”
“If I had a pod, I’d be gone by now,” I retort.
He smirks, and it occurs to me a moment too late what I’ve just done.
What that could mean for Sor’en. They don’t leave; he certainly wasn’t supposed to be on that station.
Worry sinks into my gut, melding with everything else there just as a deafening crash fills the forest, one of the long, towering purple trees landing somewhere nearby.
I flinch, the eerie sound of my bellowed name leaving little to the imagination of who that is.
My mate is hunting me and he’s angry.
Jin’rayal raises his browless brows in a conspiratorial fashion before dusting his hands off from whatever he was doing out here. “Well, best of luck with that.”
I blanch, that panic that had cooled for a moment roaring to life again. I twist, ready to take off again despite understanding that’s useless at this point before he stops me.
“Perhaps a parting thought to get you through the next few trying moments…”
I shake my head, not facing him, my heart pounding in my chest. Every crash of a tree, every roar of my name making me flinch.
“Perhaps life does not end with the Nysharil, little Hue.”
“What did you just—" Everything blanks as I whirl on him.
He's gone.
For a moment, I don’t react to what he said, the words churning in my mind.
My heart is beating more sluggishly now.
Like it's suddenly as exhausted as I feel, like the adrenaline and panic have worn off and I’m all that’s left.
The sound that comes from behind me takes shape in my mind as a haunting wail of an enraged spirit.
A bellowing death cry that warbles eerily, taking form and lacing through my chest. I don’t start running again. There’s no point.
He's found me.
The owner of that wail, that haunted, horrified sound, lands in front of me like one of the missiles that helped kill off Old Earth.
I’m not ready when Sor’en’s eyes meet mine, and his hand snaps out, taking me to the forest floor.
He doesn’t let me hit hard, but a scream rips from my throat as he crouches over me.
His imposing form more lethal than graceful.
He doesn’t speak, just pants. And when his forehead rests on mine, I don’t mean to flinch.
I can hear others' prayers and consolations, pleas for me to stop, but I can’t look away from the male pinning me to the ground.
My body reacts on instinct, my hands trembling as I brace them on his chest. I mean to push him, I swear it.
To stay outside the protection of his clothes.
My chilled fingers slip beneath instead, onto the leathery soft skin of his chest. A small whimper leaving my throat as they slicken immediately.
My body losing its grip on its panic as whatever toxin he’s given me soaks into my pores.
I slip my slick hands further beneath the deep V of his structured garment mindlessly, like a compulsion I have no business even trying to fight.
Sor’en trembles under my touch and I feel it run the length of his body.
“You cannot—" He takes a deep breath, finally releasing the hand behind my head to grip my wrist. I wince, readying for the sting of a punishing touch, but it is gentle as he slips my hand up his chest, edging it toward his toned neck. Allowing me to gather more oil, forcing me to. “You cannot leave me, Draya’la. You cannot run from me.”
Tears burst into my eyes unwanted as his own hand leaves mine, slicking its way up my exposed chest, coating me in oil so warm I’m sinking into the ground. My body a puddle of nothing. I mean to squirm, to move away as his fingers grace the tender flesh of my breasts, but I can’t. My limbs won’t.
It occurs to me in some distant kind of way that he’s paralyzed me. My hand falls from him limply to the ground as if to compound that realization. He didn’t paralyze my tears, though, no, of course not. They run down my face as freely as always, dripping into the ground beneath me. “Why?”
“I am mad without you.”
“You barely know me.”
“I knew you before the stars made their homes in the sky. You will not run from me again, my beautiful, foolish mate.”
I sniffle because my pulse is fluttering and his words are pretty.
Because it would be easy, perhaps, to believe them if I didn’t have to do exactly that.
“I can’t move, Sor’en,” I state, even though it’s obvious. It's far easier to state something obvious than something convoluted and not.
“Mate. Say it, call me your mate.”
A dark shadow zooms overhead, flinging itself around us. My useless body letting out a shiver as his hands sink lower, deeper, my core tightening and gripping around nothing. “Please,” he begs. “You will claim me, the goddesses—"
“Are not my goddesses.”
“I am yours. It matters little what you choose to believe in. You will believe in me because for you, Hue, I am fucking inevitable. Take me, my horrid little gift, or I shall not release you from this.” The desperation in his voice hollows out my chest, the tiny bundle of nerves between my legs jolts as he wedges his knee there, adding pressure I hadn’t realized I needed yet.
“I didn’t ask for this. I don’t want to be yours,” I lie, my ugly little lies. “I have to go. I have to get to Lunareth.”
“You cannot.”
“Then… then take me, take me away from here. Find us a way there, together, Sor’en, please.”
He sobers at that, his hand making its way to my neck and up my chin, smearing his delicious oil across my lips. “I cannot.”
His head jerks to the side as Melion sparks with violet bolts, making me internally wince. Without another word, I’m gathered limp into his arms and carried back into the boundary as need so pungent it’s a torment not to squirm. A misery so ripe it sours my gut.
We were entirely silent for the few moments it took us to arrive home.
In my sluggish, heated non-thoughts, I wondered why they bother with the hovercrafts at all when simply phasing is much faster for them.
I’m drenched in oil every inch where he touches my prone, unresponsive body.
It's strange, the way my heart soars as he holds me close, so helpless, so entirely at this supposed monster's mercy.
There is power in knowing he simply needs to reach out to render me mindless...
that he could kill me with a touch. That he's already killed for me with the very same fingers that bring me pleasure.
Power that a small, insignificant human like me has never felt, likely will never again.
So, when we appear in front of the wasting room, my heart seizes its languid beat. “No!” I rush out as the door parts and we end up in front of the cleansing unit.