Chapter 3
HOW TO SLOWLY LOSE YOUR MIND OVER A TINY, LOUD HUMAN
KOL
Ihave not slept.
The cavern is completely black. The central firestones cooled hours ago, but my core is running hot enough to burn. I lie flat on my broad back on my sleeping mat, staring at the unseen ceiling, my chest rising and falling in harsh, controlled breaths.
I can still feel her.
It has been an entire cycle since I took her bleeding hands into mine, but the physical sensation of her soft, fragile skin is permanently burned into my palms. The sharp, storm-wind scent of her is trapped in my lungs, choking out the stale air of the cavern.
Every time I close my eyes, my dra-kir seizes with violent, possessive need. I swing my legs over the edge of the stone ledge, my claws sliding out in pure frustration. My glow immediately flares, before I forcefully dim it back down to a dull thrum.
I must move before I lose the battle against my own instincts, cross the cavern, and find where she sleeps.
I push myself up, breathing the freezing night air deep into my chest, and force my focus outward to my clan. I open my mind.
The mindspace hits me like a dust storm tearing through a sealed cavern.
I sweep my awareness through the connected frequencies.
I feel everyone. I feel Rok’s steady, immovable presence, currently wrapped around the bright resonance of his mate, Jus-teen.
I feel Tharn’s restless energy, muffled by the sharp warmth of Jah-kee.
I feel Sarven actively bleeding loud, purring contentment into the dark, firmly anchored to his Mih-kay-lah.
Then my awareness sweeps toward the far corner of the cavern.
And I hit the void.
Sorn has returned. He is sleeping less than forty paces away, but in the mindspace, he is a gaping hole. He projects nothing. No dreams, no echoes. Just an unnatural silence that scrapes painfully against the edges of my mind.
I sent him into the wastes alone. I sanctioned the hunt for the human female we all knew the dust had already claimed, and the dust took a piece of Sorn as payment. I crush the cold surge of guilt before it can leak into the shared space. A dra-dam cannot afford the indulgence of weakness.
I step out of my alcove to begin my patrol.
I head directly to the water channels at the back of the cave and dip two fingers into the collected surplus basin and taste. The water is freezing. It tastes clean; hardly a trace of the toxic bloom that nearly killed the clan. The filtration weaves the females built are holding the poison back.
My gaze shifts to the baskets set directly into the basin near the mouth of the flow, and my body reacts before my logic catches up.
I step closer, my claw catching on the fiber weave.
The clean scent of the filtered water is instantly obliterated by the sharp, distinct smell of her.
Eh-ree-kah.
I can scent the exact spot where her tiny, bruised hands wrestled this basket down into the current. Beneath the sharp scent of the wet weave is the faint, copper trace of dried lifeblood where her knuckles cracked during the work.
I bare my fangs at the empty shadows. My claws shred the wet fibers of the basket before I even register the deep, vibrating snarl ripping out of my own throat.
My biology screams at me to track her fresh scent into the dark, to stand over her sleeping form, and scrape the dried blood from her skin with my teeth. The raw, blinding need to drag her against my chest so no other male in this cavern can even look at her paralyzes me.
“Dra-dam.”
The formal title vibrates sharply through the mindspace.
I turn. Zan stands near the dying central fire, rigid.
I walk over, my bare feet silent against the stone, just as Rok and Tharn slide out of the shadows. Sarven joins us, his glow dim, and we form a loose circle around the ash pit.
Zan reeks. It is the bitter, sour stench of fear. He attempts to smother it with aggression, but the scent pours off his skin in thick, undeniable waves.
“Speak.”
“The females,” Zan begins. His gaze shifts away from mine, staring down at the firestone ash as if he cannot bear my direct focus.
“They make us weak.” His thought is excessively loud.
It scrapes roughly against the inside of my skull.
“They waste water from their eyes. They make high, fearful noises when the shadows move. They are brittle and soft and they are changing us.”
The mindspace bristles instantly. I feel three different warriors awaken with low, rumbling growls echoing in my head.
“My female wove fiber to pull poison from the cavern,” Sarven projects. The force of it is directed straight at Zan’s skull like a sharpened spear. Zan bares his fangs in response. “She saved us.”
“A sand-runner got loose in our alcove,” Tharn projects, a wave of dark amusement flooding the shared space. “Jah-kee threw a rock at its head before I could even draw my blade. She is not soft.”
Zan’s fear-scent spikes so aggressively I can taste it on the back of my tongue. “They are making us weak! Changing our forms!” He gestures sharply at the hide coverings Tharn and Rok have begun wearing over their lower extremities to appease their mates. “They are making us forget the dust!”
“Enough.”
My projection slams into the mindspace like a falling boulder.
It crushes the argument instantly. The overwhelming weight of it forces the air from their lungs.
Zan flinches violently, his ears flattening back tightly against his skull as the sheer, dominant pressure of my will forces his submission.
“The females are ours to protect,” I project, my frequency deadly calm. “We hunt the eastern ridge today. We keep the darkness away from our cavern. And if you speak of the females like this again, I will remind you with my claws who leads this clan.”
The human females exist in our territory.
As dra-dam, I am sworn to protect them all.
Yet the exact second Zan spoke against them, it was only Eh-ree-kah’s sharp, storm-wind scent that surged into my lungs.
My dra-kir seizes with a dark possessiveness that singles her out from the rest. I will tear Zan’s throat out before I let him disrespect her.
Zan’s jaw clenches, but he lowers his head in absolute submission and steps back.
I remain by the dying firestones. Without another sound, my brothers disperse, melting back into the shadows to gather their bone weapons and prepare for the hunting rotations.
For a long time, the cavern remains perfectly quiet.
Slowly, the deadened rhythm of the dark begins to break.
The air in the cavern shifts as Ain’s light creeps in through the cavern entrance, the scent of sharp dust and cool stone giving way to the sweet, soft musk of the waking females.
From their sleeping partition, I hear the rustling of woven mats being pushed aside and the soft, high-pitched murmurs as they begin to stir.
I step back into the deeper shadows near the wall and fold my thick arms over my bare chest.
I am waiting for her.
My dra-kir thumps heavily against my ribs the exact second she walks out.
Her dark mane is twisted into an untidy knot secured at the top of her head, exposing the soft, vulnerable line of her neck. Her brow is furrowed, her small hands planted firmly on her hips as she surveys the main cavern.
She does not look soft.
She looks fierce.
She immediately begins organizing the other females. She points at the baskets, assigns tasks, and grabs a stubborn knot of weave to show them how to tie it.
“Pam,” she says. I listen to the rapid stream of sharp, meaningless sounds spilling from her mouth. I do not understand the words, but her tone carries a commanding, absolute edge that makes the skin on my forearms prickle with sudden heat.
The other female steps back, submissive to her command.
Eh-ree-kah turns to the next female before the first can even move.
She leads them exactly the way I lead my warriors.
The weight of their survival rests squarely on her fragile shoulders, and even though my warriors hover nearby, waiting to be called upon, she does not look to any of us for assistance.
The glow on my forearms brightens from dull gold to a bright, aggressive yellow. I cross my arms tighter over my chest, burying the light, and click my jaw shut.
Then she stops. Mid-command, her dark head turns. Her gaze finds the far corner of the cavern, and I follow it.
Sorn. He is sitting with his broad back against the stone wall, staring blindly at the empty shadows.
Eh-ree-kah grabs a gourd bowl filled with filtered water. She walks directly toward one of the deadliest trackers in our clan and holds it out to him.
Sorn physically recoils. His broad shoulders draw violently inwards, trying to shrink away from her.
He immediately ducks his head, pressing the ruined, raw tissue of his scarred face hard against the cold stone to hide his disfigurement from her sight.
He does not reach for the water and a wave of self-loathing leaks from him into the edges of the mindspace.
Eh-ree-kah does not retreat. She shoves the bowl closer, pressing the hard gourd directly against his muscle. She makes a sharp, scraping noise in the back of her throat and attempts the ancient greeting.
“Ain kah tor,” is what she should have said. May Ain not be hot today. Drink.
What she actually barks out is, “Ain ka’vrakt.”
Ain is a mindless beast.
Every warrior in the cavern freezes.
She leaves her hand planted firmly on her hip, tilts her delicate chin up, and glares intensely at Sorn. She refuses to let him hide in the dark.
“Ain ka’vrakt,” she demands louder, tapping the gourd against his chest again.
Sorn goes still. He looks slowly down at the tiny, exasperated female standing fearlessly in front of his ruined face, loudly commanding him to drink.
The scarred tissue of his jaw visibly tightens. His clawed hand trembles as he reaches up and carefully takes the gourd from her.
The jagged, freezing void inside Sorn’s frequency softens just slightly.
My dra-kir immediately pulses with a dark, feral need.
I am undone.
I look at her small wrists. I look at her fragile frame currently ordering huge warriors around. And a violent, undeniable urge roars straight through my bloodstream. It is roaring so loud I cannot hear my own thoughts.
Claim her.
Something deep in my being demands it. Something in the very dust demands it. Scoop the tiny female up. Carry her to a dark, unmapped place deep in the tunnels where no other male can ever look at her. Pin her to the stone and wrap your body around hers until she smells like you. Make her purr.
I need to physically feel her say my name in that terrible, harsh mouth-speak when she is trapped underneath me.
Kol ka’vrakt.
My skin ignites. My glow surges dangerously bright, lighting up the deep shadow I stand in. My fangs ache with the need to bite, and my claws fully extend, scraping harshly against the callouses of my own palms. The heat radiating off my forearms is searing.
I sharply turn away. I step deeper into the dark recess of the back tunnels, plunging myself into total blackness before I lose control, cross the cavern floor, and violently drag her away in front of everyone.
I do not stop walking until I hit the dead-end stone wall of the lower storage tunnel.
The air deep down here is freezing. I do not care. I press my broad back flat against the freezing stone and crush a clawed hand hard over my own chest, right over my glowing dra-kir, physically trying to force the hammering rhythm to slow.
It does not work.
I close my eyes and attempt to ground myself in the dark. I focus on the smell of the dry dust blowing through the upper tunnels. I focus on the soothing bite of the cold stone seeping into my overheated flesh.
But cutting directly through all of that, sharper than a bone knife, is her.
There are many females in this cavern. Their scents do not impact me at all. They are simply fragile creatures in need of basic protection.
But Eh-ree-kah’s scent is different.
I keep seeing her delicate chin tilt up at Sorn.
The stubborn set of her jaw. The way she shoved that gourd against the chest of a warrior twice her size and demanded he comply, acting as if she had the right to command him.
Acting as if she were not standing in front of a male who could instantly crush her fragile skull between two digits.
She is so small. So small, and she does not care, and my dra-kir is going to crack my actual ribs open from the inside.
I push my sharp claws harder against the solid stone, using the physical pain to ground my volatile thoughts.
Focus.
I force my mind out of the cavern and into the howling dust. We must hunt today. Sorn is a walking shadow, a living reminder of what a Drakav becomes when the planet takes what is hers. Our food stores are tightening.
The red poison nearly killed us because the clan was not prepared. I will not allow this clan to be caught unprepared again. Hard decisions are coming. The females will not like them.
Eh-ree-kah will tilt her delicate chin up, glare at me, and fiercely resist every single one.
And Zan is right to be afraid.
Lucek is encroaching.
The thought of that rival clan discovering the females—the thought of another male’s vile hands on Eh-ree-kah or smelling her clean storm-wind scent—makes my dra-kir seize violently. Because Lucek will rapidly realize what my warriors have come to know since we found these females in the dust.
That a Drakav without a mate is nothing but a hollow, feral shell desperately looking for a reason to bleed.
My lips peel fully back from my fangs in a soundless, terrifying snarl in the pitch black of the tunnel.
I will bathe in the hot blood of anyone who tries to take her. I will tear the throat out of anyone who stands in my way, strip the meat from their bones, and stack them outside the cavern as a warning to the dust before I ever let them within a length of her.
I let my claw drop from my chest. My dra-kir is still beating wildly against my ribs, but the erratic, chaotic rhythm has finally settled into a cold, murderous, territorial purpose. My glow dims back down and my claws fully retract with a satisfying schlick.
Eliminating every threat to her survival is the only thing my body will allow me to do until the exact moment I officially claim her.
I drag one more steadying breath of the freezing air deep into my lungs. Then I push off the rough stone wall, turn around, and walk back out into the light.