Chapter 2
Ursula hauled on the reins to stop the numpties.
The great beasts’ sides heaved as they panted, heads lowered in weariness.
A stolid plod expended far less energy than a panicked gallop.
A neighboring entrepreneur, who owned and operated a restaurant exited his storefront, glanced at the hoverwagon and turned a querying eye to her.
“Where are your guards, Prima cen’Vyr?”
Before answering, she checked to make sure Crow had come to no harm.
Rather than being frightened by the flight into town, the boy’s eyes sparkled with excitement.
She turned to her neighbor and replied, “We were attacked on the road from the manor.” She bit her lip, blinked watery eyes, inhaled deeply, and took a moment to muster the necessary calm before she succumbed to fright and grief.
“I do not know who, if any of my people, survived.”
The restaurateur’s tail lashed. He extended a hand toward her. “Disembark now, Prima cen’Vyr. You and the youngling must be kept safe.”
She smiled at him. “Thank you, Mr. Gallik. Your concern for our safety does you credit and honors us.”
The restaurateur frowned. Ursula wondered if he thought she mocked him, despite the polite words.
Nonetheless, she took his hand and descended from the hoverwagon.
She held up her arms, and Crow leaped into them.
The restaurateur steadied her as she began to topple over.
Crow seemed to get larger and heavier every day.
Ursula set her son on the ground and turned to her fellow businessman. “Mr. Gallik, I must speak with the mayor and sheriff to send assistance. May I borrow your staff to unload my wares?”
He raised his chin and blinked his yellow eyes slowly. “I will alert the mayor and sheriff, but only if you retreat to the safety of your shop. Sifgul and our mate will keep you company.”
She knew he meant for his mate and his dyad bond, a slender, bookish male, to keep an eye on her and report back to him, a report he would then gladly relay to Bran and Gil when they finally returned from their latest deployment.
Ursula also knew the mayor and sheriff likely would refuse to speak with her; neither approved of a female running her own business, but they would grant audience to Gallik.
Bowing to him, she said, “You are most gracious, sir. I thank you.”
Gallik nodded. He aimed a pointed gaze at the door to her shop and waited, making clear without speaking that he would do nothing until her safety was assured.
Taking Crow’s hand in hers, Ursula complied with the unspoken order to retreat.
When the glass-fronted door closed behind them, she looked through it and met the male’s gaze.
He nodded in approval before ducking into his own store to summon his staff, his dyad bond, and mate.
Moments later, Addilli and Sifgul entered the pottery shop accompanied by two males of the same small, nimble breed as the castrati servants who managed and maintained the Fangrys manor.
Addilli’s servant saw his mistress seated on a stool in the storeroom where she would be expected to stay out of sight while keeping the Fangrys Prima company.
Sifgul positioned himself near the door.
Ursula sniffled and wiped her tears with her sleeve.
“Thank you for keeping me company, Addilli,” Ursula greeted her friend with a warm if watery smile. She ignored Sifgul who would have taken affront if she’d acknowledged him. “Would you like some tea?”
The restaurateur’s mate gave her a nervous smile and nodded. “Gallick says there was trouble on the road from Fangrys. Are you and your youngling unharmed, Prima?”
“We’re fine,” Ursula said and sniffled.
Addilli gave the boy a fond smile as he rummaged through the toy box Ursula kept at the shop for his amusement. He had yet to understand the gravity of what had just happened.
“I worry for the castrati, though,” Ursula added. “At least one of the rosvoi who attacked us was warrior breed.”
Addilli nodded. “Yes. Gallick will see that the authorities are notified of this crime in lieu of your mates. He has already assigned two of our staff to unload your merchandise and care for the numpties.” She paused then leaned forward.
“How did you get them to run? I could not believe I witnessed numpties actually galloping!”
Ursula shook her head and let Addilli’s comment distract her from her grief.
“I’m not sure what really happened. One moment we were traveling as usual, the next a gang of thugs attacked.
” She shook her head again and rubbed the back of her neck.
“The castrati fought back, defended us as well as they could but—” Her voice cracked and she sobbed.
A moment later, she again mustered her composure before Crow realized she was upset.
She sighed and wiped her eyes again. “A warrior came to our defense.”
“A warrior?”
“Yes, he… he looked like Crow.”
Addilli glanced at the child.
Ursula shook her head. “No, not my son, but one of his fathers: Crow cen’Vyr, Third of the Fangrys Triad and the Bridge who connected my First and my Forever.”
Addilli’s eyes widened. “What did he look like?”
“Big. Massive. Perhaps not as tall as Bran, but… huge. Red with black horns.”
Addilli nodded. “Ah, a berserker.”
“Do all berserkers look like that?”
Addilli nodded. “Yes. Gold Urib are high caste: they are leaders. Other Urib castes and vocations range a spectrum of colors, but the mightiest of warriors—the beserkers—they are always red like blood, and they are always bonded within a warrior triad.” Addilli paused.
“It is worrisome that you encountered a berserker alone. They are dangerous—unstable—when not bonded.”
Ursula pursed her lips, realizing she’d spent too much of the last few years immersed in the minutiae of her life and mourning the loss of her Bridge and not learning more about the culture to which she now belonged.
What’s done is done. She took a deep breath and turned her head toward the clatter of merchandise being set upon the floor of her shop.
Rising from her own stool, she said, “I should supervise.”
Addilli’s eyes widened again. “Surely, that would not be wise.”
“Why not?”
“What if the rosvoi followed you here?”
“You’ve heard about them prior to today?”
Addilli nodded. “Yes. My mates hired extra staff to protect me.”
Annoyed, Ursula muttered, “Does everyone know about these criminals? Am I the last to know again?”
“Your people do as they must to protect you,” Addilli said.
Ursula rubbed her temples, feeling the throb of a headache erupt. “I… I…” She gasped and burst into tears, unable to hold back the horror any longer.
“Mama?” Crow wrapped his arms around her waist and laid his head in her lap.
Ursula stroked his head with a trembling hand while she sobbed. Addilli pulled a handkerchief from her pocket. Handing the potter a clean square of cloth, she rested her hand on the female’s shoulder in quiet support as Ursula wept. The slam of the store’s front door startled them.
“Prima!”
The two females gasped. Addilli cringed.
Sifgul, whose presence Ursula had forgotten, scrambled backward several steps with an awkward squawk.
Ursula looked around for something, anything, she could use as a weapon and grabbed a small ceramic pot, thinking she could throw it and hit the intruder with it.
If nothing else, it might prove a distraction and give them a few necessary seconds to escape.
Standing on trembling knees, she disentangled Crow from her skirts and whispered an order for him to stay with Mistress Addilli.
Hefting the pot in her hand, she sidled through the doorway separating the storeroom from the shop.
She gulped at seeing the hulking red warrior standing in the center of the display floor.
His broad, muscled shoulders strained the much-mended fabric of his shirt.
A torn sleeve revealed the impressive musculature of his arm.
Worn leather vambraces encircled his forearms. A wide belt wrapped around powerful hips from which hung a brown kilt of heavy, well-worn fabric.
His tail lashed, a sure sign of irritation.
A sheathed blade dangled at one hip, the hilt of another, longer blade poked above one shoulder.
Heavy boots encased feet which she knew would be tipped with sharp black claws.
He was dusty, but otherwise looked clean.
“Prima,” he repeated, this time quietly, although she felt the deep rumble of his voice in her bones.
She wiped her eyes again, straightened her spine, and stepped fully into view. “I am Ursula cen’Vyr, Prima of Fangrys.” She swallowed and hoped he did not intend to finish what the thugs started. “I owe you a debt of gratitude.”
His keen black eyes glanced around her shop. His nostrils flared as he inhaled. “Where are your mates?”
“Deployed,” she answered, knowing her candor might well be the death of her and Crow. She glared at the berserker and swallowed a lump of fear. “Where’s Suvesh?”
Sifgul frowned at her admission of vulnerability. The berserker nodded, the wicked sweep of his black horns gleaming beneath the overhead lights. “The castratus? I sent him back to your household. He was injured. I will secure your protection until your mates return.”
Ursula opened her mouth to object, but closed it without saying a word.
She’d learned early of Urib male dominance in a culture that considered its women precious and coddled them.
Independence in females was neither common nor condoned.
A woman in Urib society lived by privileges, not rights.
Although she loved her mates and the son she’d born, Ursula—not for the first time—mentally damned the shifty, weaselly government official on Earth whose deception had exiled her to a galaxy far, far from Earth.
She set the ceramic pot on the counter and said the only thing she could: “Thank you.”
He nodded again, accepting her simple expression of gratitude with what might have been a fine shiver of… pleasure?
Ursula figured she might as well be hospitable. He’d defended her and Crow against the rosvoi, so she assumed he harbored no ill intentions toward her or her son. “May I get you something to eat? To drink?”
“That would be welcome.”
She nodded and retreated to the storeroom where Addilli waited with eyes widened in fright. “Will you watch Crow for me? Please?”
Addilli pressed her hand to Crow’s small body, holding him against her as he squirmed and hissed to be let go. She whispered, “Shall I take him to Gallik?”
“The youngling is safe. I will not harm him,” the berserker’s deep voice rumbled from the shop.
Ursula’s eyes widened and Addilli squeaked. Ursula bustled about, pulling food and drink from the refrigeration unit, food that had been meant to feed the castrati who had perished defending her and Crow. She coughed, the lump of sorrow in her throat swelling.
“Go,” she whispered, urging Addilli to return to her mate and the safety of their restaurant. “I’ll send Sifgul shortly.”
Addilli understood the unspoken request to determine whether Gallik had summoned law enforcement. With a swish of brightly colored skirts, she hurried away, using the connecting door between the storerooms.
Ursula carried out a tray of food and drink, Crow walking beside her, a fold of her skirt clasped in his small fist. She set the tray on the counter and backed away a few steps.
Mustering her courage, she asked, “Who are you?”
The hulking, red-skinned, black-horned warrior thumped his fist against his sternum and said, “I am Zullar cen’Gyrah, Third of the Uk’khadir Triad.” His expression turned melancholy without the movement of a single facial muscle. “The Uk’khadir Triad is no more. I am all that remains.”
“May your loss be forever honored,” she intoned the formal expression of condolences and bowed her head. “I am grateful for your service.”
“Sit,” he bade her and poured water from the pitcher into a tall glass.
She retrieved her stool and brought it from the storeroom into the shop. Placing it behind the counter, she perched on it. Crow sat on the floor beside her.
“Will you tell me of my people?” she asked after Zullar had quenched his thirst.
“All dead but for the driver,” he replied.
Ursula closed her eyes and sent up a heartfelt prayer.
“Mama?” Crow whispered.
She looked at him and gave him a watery smile. He offered her Addilli’s handkerchief to wipe her tears. She took it.