Chapter 19
PEE. ZAH.
KOL
My eyes open. The alcove is dark.
Normally, my claw is wrapped around the hilt of my bone-knife before my lungs even take a breath. The dust trains you to wake up ready to bleed. You listen for the scrape of claws on stone. You smell the air for danger.
This dawn, I do not reach for my knife. I do not check the air currents for predators.
I reach for the female tangled in the furs beneath me, dragging her small, soft body firmly against my chest, and I bury my face in her mane.
She smells like Ain’s warmth. She smells like the storm winds that rage across the flats. And beneath that, underneath the warmth of her skin, she smells like me.
My scent is completely ground into her skin.
It is a thick, musky brand that tells every single creature on this planet that this female belongs to me.
The beast in my blood, the thing that has been tearing me apart from the inside out for sols, is finally, completely silent. It is fed. It is triumphant.
And I am... happy.
I drag my nose along the curve of her jaw, inhaling deeply. A low, chest-rattling purr builds in my throat, and I press my mouth against her neck, vibrating the rumbling sound directly into her skin.
Eh-ree-kah shifts in her sleep, letting out a small, exhausted sigh. Her hand uncurls, resting flat against my collarbone.
Her skin is losing heat. I can feel it under my palm, the slow bleed of warmth draining from her bare shoulder into the freezing cave air.
Her body cannot hold temperature the way mine does.
The thin atmosphere of Xiraxis strips the warmth straight out of her while she sleeps, and she does not even stir.
The thought sends a sudden, blinding spike of panic straight through my chest. I wrap my thick arm tighter around her waist, pulling her flush against my body until there is no air between us.
Mine, the instinct whispers in the dark.
I open my eyes, looking down at my own body in the dim, yellow light filtering into the alcove.
The absolute black of the starfield has retreated. The skin of my chest, my arms, and my thighs has faded back to its natural, deep amber-gold.
But I am not the same Drakav I was last sol.
I am denser. My chest is too wide. The deep claw gouges from the shadowmaw are gone. Every wound from the battle has been erased, the skin smooth and unmarked, as if the dust itself sealed me shut before rebuilding me from the bones outward. And then there is the weight resting between my thighs.
I shift my hips slightly and the two thick, ridged shafts drag against the furs.
I stare at them in the dim light.
They are... substantial. Solid. Densely ridged and tapering to a blunt, swollen head that twitches at the lightest shift of air against my skin.
The primary one, the one I buried inside her during the dark, is longer than the span of my claw.
The secondary too, pressing snug against the first, slightly shorter but just as impressive.
I am the only male in the cavern with two.
None of the other warriors went through a transformation as this. Their bodies are built for fighting and surviving the wastes. Mine was rebuilt from the inside out for one single purpose: to claim her so thoroughly that the scent of me would be soaked into her blood for the rest of her life.
I look down at them again. Then I look at Eh-ree-kah, curled against my chest. She is so delicate. Her hips are narrow. Her thighs are soft and smooth, not much wider than one of my forearms.
And she took the primary one.
All of it. In the dark. While gasping my name into the furs.
There is no way the males from her water-world possess anything of this size. They are probably smooth and blunt...and short. No ridges. No secondary shaft. Just a single, underwhelming appendage.
And I have two.
I am vastly superior.
Just thinking about the blazing heat of her clamping down around both of them makes them swell instantly, thickening against the furs until they ache.
I clamp my jaw shut. I cannot take her again. Not yet. I spent half the dark out of my mind, driving into her with a hunger that barely left her able to breathe, let alone walk. If I wake her up and drag her beneath me again, she will break.
But the need to touch her is an ache in my fangs.
I want to lick the salt off her skin. I want to bite the soft skin of her shoulder just hard enough to leave a mark. I want to pry her lips apart and examine those tiny, flat teeth before plunging my tongue between her lips.
I have lived alongside the human females for sols now. I have watched them from across the cavern. But I have never held one against my chest like this, never had her close enough to actually study. The details are alarming.
How does she tear meat from the bone? She has no fangs. No claws. Just blunt little teeth and soft digits. If a sandfin snaps at her, she will simply die. I must never let her out of my sight. I must wrap her in thick hides and carry her everywhere. The dust is not fit for her.
Now I understand the overwhelming possessiveness Rok, Tharn, and Sarven display.
Eh-ree-kah mumbles something in her sleep, her brow furrowing.
I freeze. Did I wake her? Is she hurting?
“...pizza...” her thought floats through the mindspace. It is sleepy and confusing. “...extra pepperoni...”
Pee...zah? Pep...eh...roh...nee?
The mindspace gives me an image of a flat, baked disc covered in congealed fat and circular slices of spiced meat.
I frown in the dark.
Pee-zah. That is what her mind calls it.
Pee. Zah.
Wait. I know the first part. ‘Pee.’ The human females say that word all the time, usually right before they sprint toward the latrine holes at the back of the cavern, clutching themselves. It is a human waste function.
They named a food after it?
The mindspace connection pushes the image closer and it gets worse.
The fat on top has gone cold and thick, like rendered grol fat left out too long.
The circles of spiced meat are glistening with grease.
The whole thing looks like it was cooked in a fire pit and then somebody just..
. left it there. On purpose. And the humans apparently fight over who gets to eat it.
This will not do. Fresh, bleeding meat straight from a kill is so much better for keeping her strong.
“Do not eat the strange flat-meat,” I project gently, sending warmth toward her. “I will catch you a fresh sandfin when Ain rises.”
She sighs against my chest, nuzzling deeper into my arm. The image of the ‘pee-zah’ dissolves into a vague, contented fog of sleep. Her breathing evens out again.
But her longing for it lingers. She misses this food. It is tied to something in her memories, something safe and comfortable from her water-world.
I stare at the ceiling of the alcove.
I do not know how to make a flat disc of congealed grol fat and spiced meat. I do not have such ingredients. I do not even know what a ‘pep-eh-roh-nee’ is.
But she wants it.
So I will find a way to make it. Somehow. Even if I have to grind raw sandfin meat into flat circles, smear it with pink spore-fruit jelly, melt rendered grol fat over a hot stone, and slice kiveh root to mimic the ‘pep-eh-roh-nee’ until she declares it acceptable.
I relax, letting my head fall back against the stone wall.
Her mind is a bright, blazing fire in the center of my skull. So new. A tether of light holding me together.
She shifts in her sleep, and pieces of her dreams drift through the mindspace. Images of her world before she fell to Xiraxis.
I see endless stretches of dark, moving water. Water so vast it swallows the horizon. I see walls made of pure, flashing light in a world without sand. And structures. Smooth, shining spires reaching so high into her blue sky that strange white vapor curls around their peaks.
I see humans. Uncountable numbers of them. Females walking freely among the shining spires. So many Daughters of Ain, and weak, soft males strolling right beside them, not even guarding them. Taking their absolute abundance for granted.
It is a chaotic, terrifying, loud world. It makes no sense to me.
But something else snags in my chest. Something cold.
Those structures. The smooth, shining surface of them. I have seen it before. Not standing. Not reaching for any sky. Lying broken and half-buried in the deepest tunnels beneath the Giving Stone, where us Drakav are forbidden to go.
The wrongness of it sits cold in my gut. A low warning thrumming in my blood. I do not chase the thought further. Not now. Not with her warm and breathing against me.
I pull her closer, wrapping an arm securely around her waist to anchor her against my chest. Her world may be full of impossible things, but she is here now. I will not let the chaotic water-planet have her back.
Her dreams fade, and the mindspace around us settles. Without her images filling my skull, the rest of the cavern bleeds in.
The minds of my warriors. A low buzz outside my alcove. I keep my shields locked, refusing to broadcast my thoughts, but I can hear them.
They are awake.
I hear Mih-kay-lah carefully rationing the water. I hear Rok quietly grinding firebloom paste for our wounded brothers. I feel the dull, pulsing ache of their torn flesh bleeding through the mindspace.
And underneath it all, a crushing, suffocating weight.
Ah-lex.
The missing female. Ripped into the wastes by that ka’vrakt.
The lingering effect of having mated with my female is burning in my blood.
It wants me to stay in this alcove forever.
It wants me to build a wall of rocks over the entrance, hoard dried meat, and spend every waking dra-kirbeat exploring the limits of Eh-ree-kah’s tiny body.
It does not care about the clan. It does not care about Lucek.
It only cares about keeping her exactly where she is.
But I am the dra-dam.
My people are bleeding. The enemy holds one of our own.
I let out a slow, silent breath through my nose. The pain of leaving this bed of furs will be immense. The beast inside me is already roaring in protest at the mere thought of releasing my grip on her hips. We must hold a council. We must track Lucek. We must hunt.
But not yet.
I tighten my arm around Eh-ree-kah, closing my eyes. I have a few more moments before Ain fully clears the horizon. The clan can wait just a little longer.