Chapter 3
Osid
Assassination is the way of kings. Whether you’re the one driving the blade into the heart of an enemy or on the receiving end of a poisoned drink, a king was born to rule and to die.
My father, King Ullrow, was murdered by one of his own queens.
A necessary measure to install her own son on the throne before my father could name me his true heir.
My brother Kelo was two years my senior and had just as much right to rule as I.
But where Queen Pokatti put all of her efforts into gaining my father’s favor and whispering in his ear to turn him away from the advice of his court, my mother Queen Sumire ruled over the social elite and had supporters from factions all over the land.
When Queen Pokatti’s efforts proved in vain and my father still named me his successor over Kelo, she killed him.
Subtly of course. She needed him alive long enough for the courts to see him weakened with sickness till he was nothing more than a bedbound shadow clinging to the comfort of his favorite queen.
Naturally, because he loved his queen and his firstborn, with his dying breath, he proclaimed that it would be Kelo to succeed him instead of me.
Or so the queen said.
My brother was crowned king the next morning and was dead by nightfall. As is the way with kings. And now it was my turn.
Raging water beat at me from all sides. I fought with everything I had, struggling against the crushing weight of the churning current.
Moments earlier, I’d been asleep in my chambers when a deafening explosion shook the palace walls. From my window, I could see the dam break. Shouts and screams echoed through the corridors as a colossal wave breached the streets, flooding everything in its path.
Freezing water tore me from my room and tossed me about like a leaf in a storm.
Debris battered into me as water swirled all around.
Each impact felt like a knife. My lungs burned with a desperate need for air, but the raging waters showed no mercy.
Strength abandoned me as darkness crept into my vision.
When exhaustion bled to acceptance, death came in the form of an ethereal dark beauty.
Her soft arms wrapped around me in a tight embrace.
I sank into her without question, longing to follow her to whatever lay beyond.
Everything faded into a sea of blackness.
Then came a great pain that wrung a groan from my lips.
I tried to force reluctant eyes to open, seeing a crimson haze and understanding with a calm indifference that it was my own blood that I was seeing through.
Typical, I imagined pain and blood came with dying.
I closed my eyes and tried to fade back into the numbness, but the pain felt like hot coals burning against every area of my skin.
Again I forced leaden eyelids to lift. Crimson cleared gradually, but there was only gray smoke when there should have been sunlight.
From a very great distance, I noted that I could hear water running.
There was a smoldering rumble that lapped at the senses like waves.
Then there were other sounds, faint crackling noises, and heavy-handed thumping of beasts on the run.
There was a hum rolling through my horns like the warning of a distant storm on the horizon.
And then there was a voice, a voice that was lyrical despite all its harsh, violent insistence.
I tried to fight my way out to the darkness to meet her, but my body screamed for rest. For a moment, the voice faded, and I was struck with stinging grief at never knowing the face it belonged to.
Misery drove desperate limbs to move, and I reached for her.
My fingers grazed something soft and impossibly warm.
The contact sent a balm to my searing skin, accompanied by a need so intense my grip tightened, desperate, and trembling.
The humming grew more insistent, resonating through my horns and pulsing outward until the air grew heavy, thick with a foreign energy that was both soothing and maddening.
Every Sankado was born with a sensitivity to magnetic currents.
We relied on them to find our way and warn us of dangerous storms. And now it was like the same current that had guided me all my life had suddenly shifted to usher me directly into the path of an incoming tsunami with a mindless ache that demanded to be acknowledged.
The voice called again, and my horns pulsed with a rhythm I couldn’t control.
I dragged her closer, my hand sliding upward as I felt the delicate curve of her shoulder.
When I felt more of her softness against my chest, I groaned.
My other hand found her, weakly clutching at her waist, pulling her toward me.
The softness of her body pressed against me, and I shuddered, a low guttural sound breaking free.
My fingers dug into her as though she might vanish if I loosened my hold.
I couldn’t see her face, but I didn’t care.
She was here, she was real, and she was mine to hold.
Greedily, I brushed my lips against her skin—her arm, her shoulder, wherever I could reach—and I breathed her in, desperate to make her mine in any way I could.
I wanted more. More of her touch, her warmth, her presence.
I wanted to sink into her, to consume her, to make her a part of me so I’d never lose her again.
A sharp slap stung my cheek. I woke up to find a creature I didn’t recognize shaking me by the front of my breast plate.
When the creature raised a hand to slap me again, I grabbed the creature’s wrist. It was then I realized I had trapped the poor thing against me, and released the waist I was half crushing into me.
The creature made soft soothing noises as it leaned closer to me and ran gentle fingers around my head as if checking for injuries.
The new position caused a pair of full breasts to be pushed directly in my face, and my cock realized before my mind did that whatever the creature was, she was female.
The being’s features somewhat resembled that of my kind, but she was smaller, with softer facial features.
Her skin was the color of rich soil after it rained; the coiled mane atop her head was a deep purple.
When I took her hand in mine, I noticed that her nails were a deep red, and I wondered briefly if the creature was venomous.
Bright colors on an animal usually meant piss off or die.
With no horns or tail to speak of, their kind must have found some way to defend themselves.
By the way she bared her teeth at me and snatched her hand away, venom seemed like the most likely suspect.
Her wet clothes clung to her ample curves, leaving nothing to the imagination.
My throat went dry. Without thinking, I placed a hand on her hip, not ready to let her lean away from me.
The contact turned the hum into a roar, and if my body weren’t so battered and bruised, I don’t know if I could have stopped myself from pushing the strange woman to her back and mounting her.
Purging the indecent thought from my mind, I asked, “Who are you?”
Instead of answering, the strange woman barked something at me in an odd, choppy language and tried to pull me to stand. When I was sluggish to move, she made a frustrated noise and waved around us.
I blinked rapidly, finally realizing the situation.
Up the river, flames engulfed Fuchsia Grove.
The woman had managed to somehow get us down the river, but we still weren’t nearly far enough away from the smoke.
I forced my legs to stand, nearly toppling over before the woman caught me and draped my arm over her delicate shoulders.
Despite her small stature, she showed no discomfort at the extra weight and half dragged me farther down the river until we were far enough away from the smoke.
She guided me to rest on a log before collapsing beside me, panting heavily.
The last thing I could remember was riding out with a small war party to put an end to the raiders attacking our farmlands in Riverbend. A sudden explosion threw me from my mount, and I must have gotten knocked unconscious in the blast.
Unhooking the clasps of my breast plate, I let the heavy armor fall to the ground. “Someone must have tipped off the marauders on our route. Whoever was foolish enough to try to kill me obviously didn’t expect you.”
Curious ink-black eyes blinked up at me. “Eh?”
“You don’t even know who I am, do you? Very well.
” My body was loath to move again, but I’d already shown enough weakness in front of a female.
Ignoring the pain, I moved to kneel in front of her and took her hand in mine.
“You saved my life. Can’t imagine what would cause you to risk yourself for a stranger, but I owe you my thanks.
I am the man who will unite the new world under one banner—”
She reached out and touched my left horn, running her fingers over the serrated spikes. The intimacy of it made my blood run hot, and when she felt the horn pulse beneath her fingertips, full lips parted in a soft gasp. Her mouth curved into a bemused smile.
One I found myself returning. “Inquisitive thing, aren’t you? If you go around touching every man you meet like that, you’ll end up on your back.”
It might not even take that much. With the survivors of the Calamity being 90 percent male, female company was in short supply. The only woman in Thornward was Hakri’s already happily married mother. If they could sense the same magnetic pull I felt coming from her, there’d be bloodshed by morning.
An irrational wave of jealousy had smoke billowing from my tail. The woman gasped before she flung herself off the log and beat at the smoking tail with her wet coat.
The sight had me laughing so loud the sound seemed as foreign as my savior. She paused to stare at me, then gingerly lifted her coat to see if the smoke had stopped. Seeing that it did, she let out a breath and returned to sit against the log.
I took her hand in mine. “You amuse me. That’s nearly as impressive as saving my life. I am the lord of Thornward Citadel and king of the Dulba Empire, Osid Nanphrey.”
The old title burned from my lips like a cursed lie.
I supposed it was a lie. On Sankatul, my rule spanned most of the continent of Dulrock.
The only real competitor we had was the Singing Arrows.
If not for the destruction of my planet, I would have ruled over them, too, in time.
Here, on this backward and wild planet, I had only one city to speak of.
The mighty Dulba Empire was hardly a kingdom.
No matter. In time I’d unite the scattered bands of my people and restore Dulba to its rightful glory.
Her head tilted as she scanned me up and down.
She moved to pull her hand away, but I kept hold, inspecting her long red nails.
Black leggings disappeared into bizarrely shaped dark purple shoes with sharp spikes.
The jacket at her side was the same bright green of the deadly nylos back on my home planet.
Even the tattoo that spanned her neck resembled the deadly creature, save a few missing eyes. “Are you venomous?”
Despite being trapped on this planet for the past ten years, I had never seen a creature like her before.
As far as I knew, no one had seen any other form of intelligent life besides our people.
Aside from the Biwban who stole us away from Sankatul.
Yet here she was. She clearly wasn’t Sankado.
If only we could communicate, I could ask her where her people had been hiding all this time, and why she was out in a forest fire by herself.
Did the marauders destroy her village and force them out?
Rage festered inside me at the thought of my venomous good-luck charm being forced from her home.
They had already sealed their fate when they tried to plunder our lands.
If I could exact revenge for her in the same breath, then I’d stack bodies at her discretion until my life debt was paid in full.
The woman looked back at the burning grove before returning her attention to where our hands conjoined. She pinched at her cheek and pulled until the skin stretched enough to show her teeth.
I pushed her hand from her face and took hold of her chin, forcing her attention back to me where it belonged. “It’s common courtesy to give your name after someone introduces themselves.” To ease the discomfort of the language barrier, I leaned closer to her and repeated my name slowly. “Osid.”
Her brow furrowed, the only indication I got before she jerked her chin from my grasp and sank dull teeth into my finger.
I pulled my hand away. “You bit me.”
She held her head high, as if proud of the accomplishment, before she smiled and said, “Blair.”
“Blair, is it?” I found myself returning her infectious grin once again. “I think I’ll keep you.”