Chapter 4
VOKAR
Kintar is speaking again.
I hear him. I even understand the sounds he's making — flattened vowels and spit-shined syllables about cooperation, shared goals, sustainable trade routes through neutral sectors.
But it’s all noise.
There’s only one thing in this room that holds my interest, and it’s not the fragile diplomat wagging his surgically altered chin at me. It's the tiny human girl standing by the refreshments cart, cheeks pink, fingers twitching like she can’t decide whether to run or curl into a tighter knot.
Her scent…
By the old gods, I could drown in it.
Clean linen. Vanilla. And something wilder underneath. Fear, maybe. But not the kind that curdles — it’s electric. Bright. Like sparks before the fire.
I drag my gaze from her, force myself to glance at Kintar as he drones on about "intercultural protocol." His mouth moves like a puppet's. He gestures too broadly, trying to fill the room with presence he doesn’t possess. The Reapers behind me remain still, but I can feel Yorta’s irritation in the way he doesn’t quite breathe.
Kintar finishes his current soliloquy with something about "synergistic values" and looks to me expectantly. I lift one brow.
"You done?" I ask.
Kintar bristles, like a puffed bird. "The IHC expects a formal reply—"
I hold up one hand. Not high. Not aggressive. Just enough to make him pause.
Then I turn.
Not to him. To her.
She’s just finished pouring a drink. Her hands are steadier now, but she glances sideways like she knows I’m watching. Her braid swings behind her shoulder as she moves — a soft, gold ribbon I could wrap twice around my fist.
"Come," I command.
She hesitates. I hear the intake of her breath. But she walks.
Gods above and below, she walks.
Not with grace. Not the glide of a courtesan or the stomp of a soldier. No, she’s uncertain. But she walks to me.
Her tray’s balanced perfectly. Not a drop spills.
I take the glass without looking at it. My fingers brush hers. Warm. So small.
She steps back, clearly trying to maintain distance.
I won’t allow it.
My hand drops. Quick. Deliberate.
Smack.
The sound echoes. Not loud — but sharp. The curve of her ass trembles under my palm, just once. I see the shock ripple through her. And then — the bloom.
Her blush is full and fierce, spreading across her cheeks and down her throat like fire chasing dry brush.
General Rection chokes on his own breath.
Kintar slams both hands on the table. “This is outrageous! She’s not— You can’t—!”
I lean back in my chair and sip from the glass.
Deliberate. Slow.
“She serves, does she not?” I ask. My voice is honeyed gravel. “I thought service meant... proximity.”
“You assaulted a civilian staff member,” Kintar snarls.
“No,” I say, setting the glass down. “I touched what belongs to me.”
Rection practically growls. “She’s not yours. She’s not anyone’s, you alien bastard.”
“Language, General,” Kintar hisses. “You’re not helping.”
Freya — that’s her name, I’ve heard it said — is standing there, frozen. Her hands are still holding the tray, knuckles white again. But she hasn’t stepped away. Hasn’t run.
Her lips part. Just slightly.
She doesn’t speak. But her eyes meet mine.
Defiant. Curious.
Gods, I want to hear her voice when she moans.
“Your Excellency,” Kintar says tightly, “shall we resume?”
I don’t look away from her as I speak. “Of course. Continue.”
She takes a step back. Two. Then turns, walking away like the tray weighs a ton.
I watch her go.
Every step.
Only when she reaches the far wall do I allow my gaze to return to the table.
“Where were we?” I murmur.
Kintar glares. “Discussing the logistics of joint patrols.”
I nod as if I care.
But in my mind, I’m already imagining how she’ll sound when I press her down beneath me.
And how she’ll burn when she realizes I don’t take what’s mine all at once.
No.
I savor.
The moment the doors seal behind the humans, the air loosens—just barely. The stink of diplomacy fades, but the girl’s scent lingers like heat on metal. I roll my shoulders once, letting the bone-crests along my back click softly into place. My armor feels too tight, too hot, too damn… confining.
I should be reviewing the meeting logs immediately. Making tactical sense of the humans’ rambling propositions, the resource charts, the nonsense about neutrality corridors and provisional mining rights. That is what a warlord does: he weighs, he cuts, he rules.
But my gaze keeps drifting to the space where she stood.
Small thing. Soft thing. The kind of creature a Reaper could inadvertently crush with a careless shift of weight. And yet—she didn’t flee when I touched her. Didn’t crumble when my voice rolled over her. Her blush was fire. Her stare—when she managed it—was a flare in the dark.
I’ve seen warriors who couldn’t hold my gaze half as long.
Yorta clears his throat behind me. A gravel sound. “Warlord.”
I grunt.
He steps closer, the thud of his heavy boots echoing through the empty conference hall. “Your mind wandered.”
“During their prattle?” I snort. “My mind wanders during breathing. I would rather wrestle a stone-beast than listen to that man speak of ‘synergistic relations’ again.”
Yorta huffs, the sound dry. “More than wandering, I think.”
I shoot him a look. “Choose your next words with care.”
But he only tilts his head, old bone-spurs dull under the ship’s soft lights. “You watched the girl.”
I do not answer. I shift my stance, crossing my arms. My claws tap against the metal bracers of my armor. Once. Twice.
“She doesn’t look like much,” Yorta says—simple, straightforward, not malicious. Just an older warrior stating what he sees.
A spark snaps inside me.
I turn. Slow. Deliberate. I let my eyes bleed that faint glow that vibrates under the skin, twin embers that lock onto Yorta’s face.
“She’s not a ‘much.’” My voice drops to a low rumble. “She’s mine.”
Yorta’s shoulders stiffen. For a heartbeat, neither of us moves.
Then he bows his head once. A warrior’s acceptance. But not understanding.
I don’t understand it either.
The pull is strange—nothing like mating heat, nothing like hunger or challenge-lust. It coils deeper, under bone, under flesh. A tether. Invisible. Stronger than instinct and older than blood.
What are you, little human?
The echo of her gasp—when I slapped her—buzzes in my ears like a sweet vibration.
Her scent still clings to my palm. I flex my fingers, remembering the softness of her hip beneath my hand, the way her body gave just a little, like she was pulled toward the touch even as she tried to hide the reaction.
I want to hear her voice.
I want to see her bare skin flush that color again.
I cut the thought off, growling under my breath.
Yorta waits. Patient. Loyal. He has followed me through sieges and starvation and civil war, and still he watches me now as if evaluating the shape of this new obsession.
“Arnab will notice,” he says quietly. “Others, too.”
“I don’t give a rotting bone about Arnab,” I snap. “Let him challenge. I’ll tear his spine out through his throat.”
Yorta nods. “As you wish.”
I turn away before the tightness in my chest makes itself too obvious. My claws scrape lightly across the conference table as I pass, leaving shallow grooves. Let the IHC patch that later.
I stalk into the corridor, Yorta at my heels, the overhead lights flickering as the environmental systems shift to night-cycle settings.
The ship smells too sterile, too clean. Not like Storder—where the air carries iron and leaf-rot and the breath of beasts sleeping under the roots of the mountains.
But I catch the faintest whisper of her scent lingering behind us. The path she walked. The ground she touched.
It curls through my lungs, tightens something primal low in my gut.
We reach the suite assigned to me. Guards post themselves outside automatically—Reapers, loyal and stone-faced. I wave them off and close the heavy door with a thud.
Inside, the lights adjust to my preferred dimness. Shadows stretch long over the bone-plated furniture. I sit on the low bench carved from Storder stone, the weight of the room settling around me like armor.
Yorta stands near the entrance, waiting. Always waiting.
“She is human,” he says eventually. “Fragile.”
“So are the saplings we plant,” I counter. “But give them time, and they crack stone.”
“A human is not—”
“She is,” I cut in. “I do not know how. I do not know why. But I will not ignore the calling.”
He nods slowly. “Then we must protect her.”
My jaw tightens. “We will.”
A beat passes. Then another.
The pull sharpens.
I stand abruptly and cross the room in two strides, retrieving the portable holopad resting near my armor rack. With one tap, the interface flashes to life, sterile blue light cutting through the shadows. My claws skim the surface, bringing up a schematic.
But not of this chamber.
Of hers.
The humans hide their quarters behind coded partitions, but I have spies. Quiet ones. Ones who know how to slip through corridors unseen. I summon one now with a low whistle pitched to Reaper frequencies.
The wall panel shifts. A young infiltrator slides out of the shadows—thin, sharp-eyed, stealth-trained. One of the few who can move without making the air itself quiver.
“Warlord,” he murmurs, bowing low.
I tilt the holopad toward him. “Find me the layout. The girl’s quarters. Every exit, every access panel, every weak seam in the bulkheads. Bring it. Tonight.”
His nostrils flare, surprise flickering—but he bows deeper. “As you command.”
He melts back into the walls like smoke.
Yorta exhales. “Vokar…”
I don’t let him finish.
“If I want her,” I say softly, “I will have her.”
The words vibrate in my throat, half-growl, half-oath. The kind of vow that once started wars between clans. The old ways stir in my blood—ways of claiming, ways of choosing.
This girl—this tiny, fierce-hearted creature—ignited something I’ve never known. Not dominance. Not hunger. Something… woven. Binding.
I sit again, resting my elbows on my knees, palms pressed together. My breath comes heavy, controlled only by practiced discipline.
Yorta studies me with a mixture of awe and worry.
“She will fear you,” he warns.
I smile—slow, teeth glinting.
“She will not.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw the way she looked back.”
The room quiets. The ship hums. The shadows on the walls seem to pulse in time with my heartbeat.
Soon, I will stand in her doorway. Will breathe her in without walls between us.
I will hear the little sound she makes when the world narrows down to just us.
I lean back, eyes half-lidded, letting the anticipation settle deep in my bones.
“She is mine,” I whisper to the dark.
And the dark agrees.