Chapter 12
I DID NOT RE-brAID MY HAIR FOR WAR
ERIKA
My hands are shaking. I grip the edge of the mapping stone until my fingers hurt. A full hunting party of rival clan warriors is out there. Each one seven feet of muscle with claws that can shred bone. Marching across the blistering desert right now to kill us all.
I should be organizing a retreat. I should be looking for a deep tunnel to hide in.
Instead, I am standing in the center of the cavern, distributing sharpened lengths of bone to women who look like they’re about to throw up, and the only thing I can actually focus on is the heat still radiating off the side of my neck.
An entire day has burned away since Kol strode across the cavern floor, wrapped his arm around my waist, and buried his face in my neck. In front of every single warrior in this clan.
My skin still feels scorched where his mouth pressed against my pulse.
My pulse still hasn’t dropped below a frantic, panicked sprint.
Every time I accidentally glance toward the stone archway of the main armory where he’s currently briefing Sarven and Rok, my heart tries to batter its way out of my ribs.
I drag another hide strap through the sharpening block.
“Erika,” Mira says quietly, her voice trembling slightly in the cool cavern air. “Are you sure this is strong enough?”
I force my eyes to un-glaze and look at the woven fiber net she’s holding. It’s meant to drop from the ceiling in the narrow, sun-baked tunnel connecting the main cavern to a side passage.
“Double it,” I say, my voice coming out choked. I clear my throat and try again. “Double the weave, Mira. These guys are built like actual boulders. If they hit the net at full speed, single plies will snap. We need them to get tangled in it.”
Mira nods, her dark eyes huge and frightened, and hurries back over to where Pam and Lucy are frantically braiding stalks of dry fiber into strong ropes.
It is a terrible kind of chaos. The air in the cavern is stifling.
The fire pit has been extinguished. Sunlight filters through the high fissures, illuminating the eerie stillness of the Drakav.
They aren’t moving. They are ready. All of them are stationed at different lookouts along the cavern walls, just watching. Waiting.
The silence is the most terrifying part. The only sounds are the quiet scrape of bone weaponry being tested by us humans and our own high-pitched, strained breathing.
I grab the next bundle of bone spikes and turn to Amelia. Out of all of us, she’s the only one who actually asked one of the Drakav for a weapon. She’s currently testing the balance of a serrated bone knife that’s nearly the length of her forearm.
“You only use that to buy yourself a single second,” I tell her, my voice low. “If they get that close, you slash whatever you can reach, drop the knife, and run. Do not try to fight them.”
Amelia’s jaw sets. She doesn’t look like she’ll take my advice.
She looks ready to fight. But she gives me a short, tight nod anyway.
A few feet away, a Drakav is watching her with an expression that is equal parts absolute awe and alarm.
His amber eyes are wide, his glowing skin pulsing with a rapid, uneven rhythm.
I’m pretty sure he’s currently projecting his terror and admiration to the entire clan, but I don’t have the mindspace to confirm it.
“Okay,” Jacqui says, dropping a large basket of sorted herbs near the tunnel entrance. She wipes the back of her hand across her forehead, leaving a streak of grey dust. “The lower alcove we’ll be using for the sick bay is stocked. Firebloom paste is mixed. Water is secured in waterskins.”
“Good,” I say. I wipe my own hands on my pants. My palms are sweating. I hate that my palms are sweating.
Jacqui leans against the rock wall, studying me for a long, quiet moment. Her eyes narrow slightly. “Your hair looks nicer than usual.”
My hand instantly flies up to the braid resting over my left shoulder.
I didn’t even realize I was doing it. Somewhere in the long, sleepless hours of preparation, my fingers had just automatically started working the dark strands, pulling them tight, getting them out of my face, leaving my neck bare.
The spot on the back of my neck where Kol’s sprawling hand had tangled in my hair last night suddenly burns.
“It was getting in the way,” I snap, dropping my hand like the braid is electrified. “This keeps it out of my eyes.”
“Uh-huh,” Mikaela says, walking over to join us.
She drops a bundle of clean hide bandages into Jacqui’s basket.
She looks exactly as terrified as the rest of us, but the cynical edge in her voice is fully intact.
“Very practical. Symmetrical. Neatly parted. You definitely spent twenty minutes on that instead of panicking about the impending bloodbath like the rest of us.”
“I was figuring out where to drop the nets,” I say, glaring at her.
“Right,” Jacqui says flatly. She exchanges a look with Mikaela. A complete, telepathic conversation happens between the two of them that involves raised eyebrows.
“If we survive tonight,” Mikaela adds, crossing her arms, “you’re going to have to tell him.”
My stomach drops. “Tell him what?”
Both women groan. “Erika.”
“There is nothing to tell,” I say, keeping my voice even. “He is the leader of a lethal alien death squad. I am trying to keep us from getting slaughtered by a rival alien death squad. That is the entire extent of our interaction.”
“Right,” Jacqui repeats. “Except for the part where he stares at you like he wants to unhinge his jaw and eat you whole. And the part where his arms are showing the starfield skin and there’s only one person in this whole cavern who could have caused that.
And, oh, you re-braided your hair for him before a siege. ”
“I did not re-braid my hair for Kol!”
The sharp, angry denial leaves my mouth much louder than I intended. It echoes off the high, curved ceiling of the cavern.
Every single golden eye turns in my direction.
“Oh, God,” I whisper, my face burning so hot I’m surprised it doesn’t give off its own bioluminescence.
From the armory archway, Sarven’s head snaps up. Rok pauses mid-stride, a spear balanced in one hand. And Kol…
Kol steps out of the shadows.
He fills the entire archway, his bone axe balanced across one broad shoulder.
He doesn’t look like a male preparing for defense. He looks like a force of nature preparing to level a mountain.
His golden eyes lock directly onto mine and my lungs instantly stop working.
A deep, mortifying heat flood my face. I want the stone floor to open up and swallow me. I want to look away.
I can’t.
Kol doesn’t look amused. The concept of human embarrassment probably doesn’t even exist in his brain. He simply stands there, the absolute alpha of this cavern, and stares at me with a sprawling, possessive focus that makes my skin burn.
His golden eyes drop slowly. They track from my flushed face, down my neck, and lock directly onto the complicated braid resting over my shoulder.
He stares at it. He doesn’t look away.
A sudden, violently unhinged thought crashes into my brain.
It hits me so hard I actually gasp out loud.
The phantom scrape of his claws dragging up my bare thighs. The crushing heat of his chest pressing my spine into the furs. His fangs grazing my neck, tearing my braid loose, and the force of his hips driving into mine.
The intrusive thought is so vivid, that my entire body shivers on an exhale. I have to grip bones in my hands as a sudden slickness pools between my thighs.
What is wrong with me?
I swallow hard, my throat dry. The wet throb in my lower belly drowns out the scraping of weapons around us. All I want to do is drop the spikes on the stone floor and beg him to put his hands on my bare skin.
My pulse hammers against my ribs.
“I am going to check the eastern tunnels,” I say. My voice is tight, but it doesn’t shake.
I don’t wait for Jacqui to respond. I am done fighting this. My body has fully overridden my brain.
I drop the bundle of bone, turn my back on the sick bay, and walk directly toward the dark passage leading out of the main cavern.
I don’t look back at the armory archway. I don’t need to. I feel the sudden, possessive shift the exact second Kol abandons his warriors to track his female into the shadows.
The desert outside is too quiet.
The rough stone of the fissure bites into my forearms. Below, the gorge is swallowed by pitch black the exact second Ain drops behind the rock face. The temperature plummets. Freezing air howls through the narrow crack in the wall.
I don’t feel it. I lean my back against the freezing rock, but the heat still pulsing between my thighs drowns the cold out. It thrums through my blood, demanding despite the impending danger.
I don’t have to wait long.
The scent of hot stone and spice suddenly floods the freezing air. He doesn’t make a single sound and I don’t turn around. My pulse simply kicks as I feel him come to a halt directly behind my spine.
I can feel the slow, deep draw of his chest expanding at my back.
I swallow hard. It’s just the two of us here, tucked into a fold of the mountain, minutes before Lucek’s killers arrive at our door.
Everything about this moment feels final. It feels like the safety we built in the cavern is gone.
I turn away from the fissure to face him.
His head is tilted down, those intense amber eyes locked onto my face.
I don’t want to be brave right now. I’ve been brave since the ship fell through the atmosphere.
I was brave when we stepped from the wreckage, rationing our survival packs, trying to hold ourselves together while this planet tried to cook us alive.
I am so, so tired of constantly fighting just to survive.
I look up into his terrifying, beautiful face.
“Kol,” I say, my voice scraping against the quiet.