Chapter 6
I'M NOT SAYING HE'S NESTING, BUT MY WAKING AREA SUDDENLY LOOKS HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS
ERIKA
It is so warm.
I groan, rolling onto my side and blindly digging my freezing toes deeper into the searing heat. I feel completely buried. Weighed down by something incredibly heavy and ridiculously soft.
My stiff fingers lock into a thick, luxurious pelt. I drag the thick edge right over my freezing nose, letting out a long, ragged exhale of pure relief.
Then the scent floods my lungs, and my eyes snap open.
It smells exactly like hot, sun-baked stone and the dark, spiced heat of the dra-dam.
I stare straight up at the dark, rocky ceiling. My memory is completely blank after I collapsed onto my freezing sleeping mat last night, but I definitely did not have this fur when I fell asleep.
A sharp spike of adrenaline hits my chest, shattering the exhaustion.
The weight of the dra-dam’s scent is wrapped around my body and my body immediately recognizes it. A thick, aching flush of pure heat surges straight down my spine, demanding I burrow deeper into the nest he built for me while I slept.
I kick the heavy furs off my body.
The freezing morning cavern air bites into my skin, but I scramble up from the mat, rubbing my hands roughly over my arms to scrub the chill and the terrifying arousal away.
I cannot think about this. If I think about the fact that the terrifying warlord stood over me in the dark and wrapped me in his scent, I will lose my grip on reality.
I have to survive today.
I turn my back on the pile of furs and stalk toward the water basins, forcing the terror down.
I am washing my face when Sorn walks directly into the main cavern.
He moves like a ghost, keeping the ruined side of his face turned toward the dark wall. He bypasses the central fire, walking in a wide, silent arc around the outer edge of the cavern until he reaches the flat stone ledge near the main entrance.
When the Drakav first brought us to these tunnels, I thought the stone was an altar. It took me three full days of watching the warriors to understand it was a survival ledge. Like a communal sharing stone. Take what you need. Leave what you can.
Warriors drop excess meat there. If someone has an extra waterskin, they leave it on the stone for the clan.
Sorn stops at the edge of the stone.
He reaches into the small pouch on his belt and carefully pulls out a tiny object.
He sets it down on the dark rock gently and holds his huge fingers over it for a second before pulling his hand away. Then he turns, bowing his head so the shadows swallow his ruined face, and vanishes silently into the deep back tunnels.
I step away from the basin, water dripping down my wrists, and cross the cavern to see what Sorn left.
It’s a bone needle.
It’s blindingly white, polished perfectly smooth, and carved so incredibly thin it looks like it could splinter in the harsh wind.
My throat immediately goes tight.
Sorn tracked Hannah through the brutal dust for months and came back with nothing but a torn, sun-bleached scrap of her cotton shirt. I reach out, my freezing finger hovering directly over the perfectly smooth eye carved into the top of the bone.
It takes an impossible amount of control for hands his size to carve something this small. Sorn sat alone in the freezing dark of the wastes, working his scarred claws over a tiny sliver of bone to make a tool delicate enough to mend Hannah’s clothes.
Mira slowly approaches the stone ledge from the opposite side. Her dark eyes are wide. She stops two feet away from the stone and stares silently down at the delicate bone needle.
When her eyes finally lift to meet mine, they are completely red.
I swallow hard, my chest physically aching.
Neither of us touches the needle. It is untouchable now. We just stand there on opposite sides of the ledge, staring down at the tiny, perfect tool he made for a human female who will never use it.
After a long, suffocating moment, Mira presses her lips together, nods her head once, and turns completely back toward the sick bay.
I squeeze my eyes tight. I do not have the hydration to cry. I press the heels of my hands over my face, fighting the crushing wave of grief.
But when I open my eyes again, the beautiful little needle is still sitting there on the dark stone. Perfect. Useless. Waiting for empty hands.
We never gave her a funeral.
We stood numb in the cavern while Sorn held out the torn scrap of her shirt, and then we went directly back to surviving. We never stopped to let her go.
I find Mira first. Then Lucy. Then Pam. I don’t give a speech. I just walk up to each of them and say, “I want to do something for Hannah. Come with me.”
Nobody refuses.
The spot I choose is a flat stretch of shifting dust just outside the tunnel mouth that leads from the back of the cavern out into the dust. It’s slightly sheltered from the roaring wind by a large curve of rock.
It is a terrible place for a grave, and we don’t have a shovel.
We have our bare hands.
Six of us kneel in the burning dust. Mira uncurls her tight fist and silently hands me the torn scrap of Hannah’s fabric that she’s kept safe in the sick bay since Sorn returned from the wastes.
I take it from her, running my thumb over it for a moment. It’s so small.
With a breath, I fold the small piece of fabric and set it in the shallow depression we scraped into the hot sand.
Mira silently places a piece of firebloom leaf directly on top of it.
Pam just stares at the dust, gripping Lucy’s hand tightly enough that the bloodflow in both their hands is probably completely cut off.
“Should someone say something?” Lucy whispers, her voice breaking loudly over the wind.
I stare at the small piece of fabric, completely overwhelmed by how fragile we are on this brutal planet.
The only reason I am not being folded into the sand next to her is because of the Drakav.
Because of Kol and his warriors. My body does a stupid throb just thinking about him, completely inappropriate for a funeral.
“Hannah liked yellow,” I say, clearing my throat to get myself back on track.
The wind immediately rips the words from my mouth.
“When the gravity failed on the transport, she was the one who held Tina’s hand.
” Tina releases a sharp, broken sob from where she’s leaning against Trecia.
“She paced that wreckage of a ship for days straight because she refused to just wait to die.” I swallow against the hot pressure in my throat. “She deserved to live.”
The women nod.
I reach my trembling hands out and start scraping the burning sand over the folded fabric.
That’s when the sun disappears.
Four overlapping shadows drop over the scorching sand.
I turn my head sharply.
Four Drakav warriors have silently surrounded the outcropping. Zan stands at the front, his amber eyes locked onto the shallow hole in the sand. I’m completely used to the Drakav staring, but this is different. And the other women notice too.
“What’s wrong with them?” Lucy whispers, terror leaking into her voice.
Zan drops from the rock outcropping, landing softly inside the funeral circle. His gaze locks onto the piece of fabric sitting in the loose sand, and a low rumble vibrates in his throat before his piercing eyes snap up to lock on mine.
It happens so suddenly, I almost flinch. It’s like suddenly looking into the eyes of a tiger and that tiger sees you. He takes a sharp step forward, planting his massive body right between me and the shallow hole in the sand we just dug.
Lucy makes a tiny, terrified sound behind me. We all freeze. I have no idea what we just did wrong, but his entire posture is blocking us. Are we not allowed to bury her here?
Zan’s amber eyes flash with clear frustration when we just stare at him in paralyzed panic. He shifts his weight, his claws flexing continuously in the hot air as he tries to communicate in a way none of us can understand. None of us have access to the mindspace.
But when we still don’t step away from the hole, Zan finally forces out a harsh, guttural sequence of actual syllables.
My translator chirps flatly in my ear. “No. Under. No.”
I freeze on my knees, my hands still full of sand.
Zan drops to both knees directly in front of me.
He reaches out and gently sweeps his broad hand over the loose sand we just scraped out, eyes focused on the hole.
“Kah. Kah.” He turns and presses his open palm flat against the solid stone bordering the grave and rumbles a thick string of syllables.
My earbud immediately chirps. “Stone. Takes. Gives back.”
I stare at his claw pressed flat against the rock. Then I stare at the hole full of sand.
“He doesn’t want her in the sand,” I breathe.
Zan just watches my face. I hold my breath.
Up close, the energy rolling off his frame feels completely different from Kol.
Zan is frantic and wild. It sets every instinct I have on edge.
But instead of just plain terror, the only thing my stupid, exhausted body can focus on is to find something steady.
The sudden, insane urge to find Kol and press myself against his chest.
Dropping my gaze, I reach forward and pull the folded scrap of fabric out of the hole.
The second the fabric clears the sand, Zan exhales. He actually looks relieved, and it’s completely messing with my exhausted brain.
He rises to his full height and walks to a flat rock shelf, pulling his shoulders back before placing his broad palm flat against the stone.
He rumbles a low sequence, the vibration so thick it doesn’t sound like words at all.
“Stone. Takes. Returns,” my earpiece translates.
“What does that even mean?” Lucy whispers nervously from behind me.
“It means we messed up,” Alex murmurs back, her voice shaking. “They don’t bury their people in the sand. They take them back to the stone.”