Chapter 48 Dance
DANCE
AMARA
“DO YOU THINK Steinarr can actually pull that off?” I ask as Vexar finishes his fourth cup of tea and sets the empty mug on the galley table. “I mean, does he have the skill to do it?”
Fist pressed over his lips, Vexar leans back in his chair and says, “I have no concern over his capabilities, only over the allegiances of those he chooses to join him.”
Every step I take sends a sharp stab of pain through my feet, but I can’t stop pacing. “Who would Steinarr ask to join him?”
“His Sjalbanath. His personal killers.”
I stop pacing and stare at Vexar. “Your brother has personal killers?”
He grimaces and bobbles his head. “It is a poor translation. They are more like an unofficial army. He has been training with them since we were children, and I have no doubt they are loyal to him, but I do not know if they would be loyal to us.”
“How many people are in this ‘unofficial army’?”
“Approximately 300. Maybe more.”
That’s fewer soldiers than I was imagining, but it’s still a lot. The variables and logistics alone will be a massive challenge, and if any of them aren’t fully on our side, we’ll be screwed.
“It’s a risk. A big risk,” I say.
“What other option do we have?”
I groan and sink into the seat opposite him.
He’s right. We don’t have a better option.
Stienarr’s message included a wealth of intel—everything from news articles to video clips to personal communication logs—and all of it’s bad.
The capital of Vhorath has fallen into chaos.
Aelrith has assumed power. The Senate is fully behind her.
Warrants have been issued for our arrest. And heavily edited videos of the events in the arena have been distributed, making Vexar look like a traitor who was willing to throw away his throne for a little piece of ass.
If we go to Vhorath, we’ll be executed. If we go back to Calidus, we’ll be executed.
And we can’t go anywhere else, because Aelrith has ordered the Vhorathi fleet to ‘protect’ nearby populated planets by killing us on sight.
So, we’re stuck with two options: One, we accept our fate and die by execution or starvation.
Or two, we agree to Steinarr’s proposal and accept the risks that come with it.
The biggest issue is that we don’t have the luxury of open communication with Steinarr.
I don’t understand the technical side of it—something to do with the clerks and message codes—but we only get one shot.
That’s it. Any other message we send will broadcast our position to everyone who wants us dead.
“Your sister’s an asshole, you know that?” A very scary, asshole.
“She has always been like this,” Vexar says.
“I bet that was fun to grow up with.” I slide down in my chair, straightening my legs out in front of me until I’m hunched like an old walking cane. “So what do you want to do?” At the end of the day, this has to be his decision.
He stares at his hands for a long while before looking up. “I think we must trust Steinarr and let him do what he does best.”
I slap my hands on my thighs. “Alright. Let’s write the message.”
The following morning, I learn the ship has a gym.
It’s a decent-sized room, hidden beneath a hatch in the passageway, and it’s well equipped with a range of odd-looking resistance machines.
Vexar walks through the space and stops next to a panel on the bulkhead.
With a devious grin, he asks, “Are you ready?”
I stare at him blankly. “You do know my feet aren’t ready for a workout, right?”
His brows wiggle. “I have something better.” With a touch to the panel, the room fills with a strange, upbeat music.
My eyes go wide.
“What do you think?” he asks.
I haven’t heard music in so long that, despite the overall alien vibe of the tune, I’m enthralled and start dancing in place. “Music!” I shout, pumping my fists like it’s my first time at the club.
His eyes light up, and to my surprise, he joins my impromptu dance party. His hips sway, feet tap, and arms wiggle as he moves towards me with a huge, infectious grin. This massive, horned warrior is dancing his way across the room, and it’s both endearing and hilarious.
Aware of my sore feet, he scoops me up, wraps an arm under my ass, and starts dancing me around.
Laughter fills the room, blending with the strange melody as we spin and bounce with abandon.
Concerns about Steinarr’s newest mission and the perilous situation we’re in melt away until the only thing left is the overwhelming joy that we are together and alive.
By the time the song ends, we’re both out of breath and grinning ear to ear.
We spend the next hour discovering that none of the exercise equipment is rated for someone of my size or weight. The whole situation is endlessly entertaining. It’s clear Vexar’s laughing because I don’t weigh enough to use the machines, and I’m laughing because of how hard he’s laughing.
Hanging from a machine that looks like a fancy pull-down bar, I say, “Yeah, I’m gonna need a few more pounds to make this one work too.” My feet are dangling at least a foot off the ground, and this machine is meant to be used while sitting.
Vexar wipes his eyes as he fights back another laughing fit and helps me down. “You may be a Vhorathi at heart, but you are not a Vhorathi in body.”
“And that’s why I have an affinity for really big guns.” I give him a wink and settle down on an empty bench.
“We will have to find another way for you to exercise,” he says as he joins me.
I lean my back against Vexar’s good shoulder and look up at him.
“I can do bodyweight exercises or something. We’ll figure it out.
” After I mentioned how much muscle I’d lost on Calidus and how I’d like to gain it back, he instantly vowed to help me “get back up to strength.” It’s sweet, and I can’t help but feel all warm and fuzzy every time I remember how much he cares.
With a squeeze to his massive thigh, I ask, “Are all Vhorathis as muscly as you?”
“Some, but not all,” he says, tilting his head down to see me. “How are your feet today? Any better?”
“They’re sore. How’s your shoulder?”
“It is fine,” he says as he kisses the top of my head.
A few minutes later, he’s grumbling at one of the machines as I stretch while pretending I’m not eye-fucking him. “I do not understand. I think these machines may be broken,” he says as he ups the tension again. “I have never needed this much weight before.”
“Did you forget how easily you bent that fence?” I ask.
He grunts a sound of frustration and moves on to the next machine, and then the next. Each one, he maxes out the resistance and says it still feels like he’s doing nothing. It would be funny if he weren’t so freaked out about it.
“This new strength is strange,” he says as he walks away from one of the ‘broken’ machines. He tosses his towel over his shoulder and frowns. “I do not know why I got it and you did not.”
I don’t mention the fact that he’s also healing faster than me too.
The following morning, we land on one of the small moons orbiting the furthest planet from Calidus’s star.
The planet is a smooth marble of reds and whites that fills the display and hasn’t moved since we landed.
That’s what Vexar meant when he said the moon was tidally locked.
It doesn’t rotate. The side we’re on will never face open space. Good for hiding.
That afternoon, Vexar changes the bandages on my feet with a solemn expression. “Your feet are healing too slowly,” he says, smoothing another strip of regen-tape over one of the deeper gouges on my left heel.
“It would seem the magic-bond did not see fit to grant me the same special healing powers as you.” I glance at the nearly healed wounds on his shoulder and shrug. “It’s fine. I’ll heal eventually.”
He tenses. “Maybe it is because we never finished the sasi-temwá? The blood-binding?”
“Why would you think that?”
He uses his teeth to tear another strip of tape from the roll.
“Many things about our bond seem … incomplete. I can hear your voice in my head; you cannot hear mine. I am healing quickly; you are not. I have increased strength; you do not. And your eyes go black, but not fully. I do not know if completing the sasí-temwá would change things, but it might.”
Weeks pass, and we fall into a comfortable routine as we wait for a response from Steinarr.
Every day, after we’ve eaten, exercised, showered, and reviewed some Vhorathi vocabulary, we sit on the bridge while I read.
Vexar had the ship’s electronic library translated into English, and I’ve been learning as much as I can about the Vhorathi people, their medicine, politics, culture, and warfare, while looking for information on the Zhyrrak.
First off, Vexar’s physiology is way stranger than I thought.
His super slow heart rate has a range of about 6 bpm up to 240 bpm.
Also, he can breathe through his skin. Which is weird.
When I asked if that meant he could breathe underwater, his answer was, “Sometimes.” So, there’s that.
Unfortunately, we haven’t found much information on the Zhyrrak.
The only mentions are buried deep in history books, and the references are either super vague or completely fantastical.
“I don’t know if we're going to find any more information than we already have,” I say as I swivel my seat while staring at the overhead. “Wait,” I frown, “is this a bridge or a cockpit? I mean, technically, this is a ship, right? So it would be a—”
Vexar clears his throat, interrupting me, and says, “Come here.”
I raise a brow. “Are you gonna give me an answer?”
“In Vhorathi, we have only one term for this, gutejarve. I do not care what you call it in English.”
“Gutejarve?” That’s a weird one. “Well, I’m gonna keep calling it a bridge.”
“Perfect. Now come here.”
I climb onto his lap, and instantly, the anxiety I didn’t know I was carrying floats away. I swear, a single sniff of this man is like a hit of opium for my nervous system. My muscles relax, heart slows, and a deep sense of calm fills me.
“That’s better,” he whispers, letting his eyes close while his hands slide around my waist.
I rest my head against his shoulder and wrap my arms around his neck.
“What do you want to do?” We’ve been talking about completing the blood-binding for a few days now.
Neither of us really knows what will happen, but I can’t deny I’m curious.
Curious, and a little nervous to mess with something that already seems pretty good.
His fingers trail down my spine. “I think this choice has to be yours. I have made enough decisions for you to last a lifetime.”
I lean back to look at him. “You didn’t make any decisions for me, the bond just …
happened.” He didn’t mean for me to be covered in his blood and cut my knee.
He had no idea we were going to bond at all.
None of it was planned. Besides, the bond didn’t affect how I feel about him.
Sure, it made me a little more desperate, but that could also just be from how touch-starved I was and how insanely hot he is.
He strokes my hair and says, “And yet, too many choices have been made for you.”
My teeth work over my lower lip. He’s not wrong, but this is a partnership. “If the choice were up to you, what would you do?”
He’s reluctant to answer, but does so anyway. “I would want to complete it.”