Chapter 14
Enslak
When Niki kissed me, something cracked open inside.
Not broke. Cracked. Like ice on a frozen lake when the sun finally hits it right. I felt it in my chest first, this spreading warmth, then up into my head where everything had been stuck and jumbled for so long.
She pulled back. Smiled through tears. Said: "Your Niki. And you're my Enslak."
Mine.
The word rang through me, clear and true. She was mine and I was hers and that was everything.
She didn't kiss me again after that.
I wanted her to. Kept thinking about it. The softness of her mouth. The warmth. How my whole world had narrowed to just that single point of contact, her lips against mine, nothing else existing.
I didn't remember kissing before. But my body knew what to do. My lips had moved right. My hand had come up to cup her face without thinking, tilting my head to get the angle better.
Maybe it was instinct. Something deeper than memory.
Either way, I wanted to do it again.
I didn't know how to ask. The words for I want to kiss you felt too complicated, too far away. So I waited. Hoped. Tried not to look disappointed when she hugged me instead of pressing her mouth to mine.
Things changed after that kiss, though.
We touched more. Her hand finding mine when we walked. Her leaning against me by the fire. At night she curled into me like we'd always slept this way, and I'd wrap around her and breathe in her scent.
That scent.
It was the third morning after the kiss when it really hit me. She'd just woken up, stretching, and her hair fell across my chest. The smell of her, flowers and something else, something warm and female, went straight through me like lightning.
My cock went hard so fast it hurt.
I froze. Didn't breathe. Tried to think about hunting, about the pit fights, about anything except the way her body felt pressed against mine.
It didn't work.
The Ulkommenian had kept me empty for so long. Over a century of chemicals that killed everything except rage. They'd made me a weapon. Nothing else.
Now those chemicals were gone.
And my body was making up for lost time.
I wanted to roll her under me and stop thinking entirely.
But she was small. Fragile. I could hurt her without meaning to.
That fear almost matched the wanting. Almost.
So I'd stroke her hair instead. Run my fingers through the silky strands. Try not to think about what else I wanted to do with my hands.
My mind got clearer every day. The fog lifting slowly, unevenly, burning off in patches the way it did over the river in the morning.
With clarity came awareness, and with awareness came the particular torture of noticing everything.
The curve of her waist. The way her hips moved when she walked.
The line of her throat when she laughed.
Every single thing about her.
Memories started coming back too. Not all at once, just fragments, pieces surfacing like objects washing up after a flood.
My father teaching me to track. The weight of a bow in my hands, smaller hands, younger hands. The satisfaction of a clean kill.
My brothers.
Charick. Serious. Always carrying too much weight on his shoulders. I could almost see his face clearly. The way his jaw set when he was concentrating on something.
Kavak. We'd competed at everything, training and hunting and whatever else we could turn into a contest, but it was good competition. Brotherly. I remembered laughing with him, genuinely laughing, and the memory felt like sunlight on cold skin.
There were others too. Faces without names. Voices without words attached to them. But they were there, and they were real.
When I tried to remember our home, though, the name of it, the shape of the place, I hit a wall.
Not the protective walls I'd built inside my own mind.
This was different. This was absence, like someone had reached in and carved that specific piece out cleanly, leaving nothing behind but the shape of where it had been.
It made me want to roar. To tear things apart until the memory came loose.
But Niki would touch my arm. Speak softly. And the frustration would ease back to something manageable.
Her leg healed. The scars from the creature's claws faded to pink lines against her skin. She could walk without limping now.
I carried her anyway.
Not because she needed it. Because I needed it.
I loved the weight of her in my arms. How she fit against my chest like the space had always been there waiting. How she trusted me not to drop her, not to hurt her, even with these claws and this body that had been made into a weapon.
And I wasn't proud of this, but I also loved how carrying her meant feeling every curve of her against me. Her warmth so close it made my skin burn.
Sweet torture. The kind I chose willingly.
She never complained. Just settled into my arms with that small, easy smile and let me carry her like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Speech got easier too.
Those first words after the kiss, "Don't cry" and "You safe with me," had felt like dragging boulders uphill. Each word a battle fought in fog.
But it improved. "Good morning" became routine. "Thank you" when she did something kind. "Careful" when she got too close to the edge of something.
Short sentences. Two or three words at a time. But they were mine, chosen and meant.
And when her face lit up because I'd communicated something clearly? That made every struggle worth the effort.
Though sometimes I wished I had better words. Words to explain this need, this hunger, this ache that worsened every single day.
We were by the river. A different spot from where the attack happened. I'd made sure of that.
I was cleaning a fowl with iridescent feathers that Niki said tasted like something called chicken, a comparison that meant nothing to me but that she made with great enthusiasm every time.
She sat nearby washing tubers, the ones she'd taken to calling carrots, her hands moving easily through the cool water.
I tried to focus on the fowl. On the work.
My eyes kept drifting.
The sunlight in her hair. Her hands in the water. The curve of her back. The glimpse of skin at her wrist where her sleeve had ridden up.
This was getting worse.
"You're such a good hunter," she said, glancing at me with that smile that tightened my chest every time. "Seriously, Enslak. You always find exactly what we need. We haven't had to eat even one of those nasty nutrition bars."
Pride swelled in my chest. And something else, something that made me want to beat my chest and roar at the sky like something uncivilized.
Her scent hit me then, carried on the breeze, mixing with river water and green growing things. My nostrils flared. Heat flooded through me. My hands tightened on the fowl, claws piercing deeper than I intended.
Breathe. Focus.
Then a flash came, sudden and unbidden. My father's hand on my shoulder, heavy and warm.
A forest I couldn't quite place, somewhere with trees taller than I could see the tops of.
His voice saying something about hunters, about providing, about what it meant to care for your people.
The memory was slippery, like trying to hold water in a cupped palm.
I could feel the weight of his hand but couldn't see his face clearly.
My brothers were there too. Charick. Kavak.
Their names came solid and real in a way most things hadn't been for so long.
A good hunter provides. That was what he'd said. Or maybe I was remembering it wrong, shaping it into what I needed to hear. The memory fragmented even as I held it, dissolving back into fog. But the feeling remained, that desperate need to be worthy. To be strong enough. To protect what mattered.
To provide for her.
"Enslak?" Niki's voice pulled me back. "Are you okay?"
I looked at her. Still gripping the half-cleaned fowl. She'd moved closer without my noticing, right beside me now, her hand on my arm. Concern in her eyes and her scent shifting with it, something warmer and sharper underneath the flowers.
So close I could feel her warmth radiating against my skin. So close her scent surrounded me entirely.
My body reacted instantly. Every muscle tensed with the effort of keeping still.
"Father," I managed. My voice came out rougher than usual. "Taught me. Hunt."
Her eyes widened. "You remember your father?"
I nodded, trying to focus on the memory instead of her proximity. "And brothers. Charick. Kavak." The names came easier this time, more solid on my tongue. "Hunted together."
"Oh, Enslak." Her smile was brilliant, the kind that reached all the way to her eyes. "That's wonderful. You're really remembering."
She squeezed my arm.
That innocent touch sent electricity up through my shoulder and straight into my chest. I locked my muscles to keep from trembling.
I wanted to tell her more. Describe the forest, the feel of my father's hand, the sound of my brothers arguing over who'd made the better shot. But the words were still too difficult to organize, and I was too distracted by her thumb moving in a small, unconscious circle against my forearm.
I forced myself to dig deeper. Tried to pull forward other details. Where had we hunted? What planet?
The answer hovered just beyond my reach, and when I stretched toward it, it slipped away.
Frustration surged through me. I made a sound, half growl, half groan, and my claws tore through the fowl before I could stop them.
"Hey." Niki's hand stroked my arm, steady and warm. "It's okay. You don't have to remember everything at once."
Her touch was fire on my skin, burning through what little composure I had left.
"Want to," I said, the words rough with emotion and with something else I didn't have a name for yet. "Want to remember."
"I know." Her fingers traced gentle patterns on my bicep, completely unaware of what she was doing to me. "And you will. It's coming back, Enslak. Every day, more comes back." Her voice softened further. "Your brothers would be so proud of you. They love you."
I closed my eyes. Focused on breathing.