Chapter Ten
Zawara
“They’re going to love you, you know,” Kidd said, bounding up to me like an excited child. It was the first time I’d really seen her as anything other than hard, closed off.
“Right,” I said, looking around the nearly empty ship-deck. It was done up with candles and a large fire that seemed to glow the darker the night sky got. It was nearly summer, but spring rains still threatened to spill with the dark, purple hue in the sky.
Kidd had insisted to one of the Vithohn that they throw us some ridiculous welcome home party. There were Vithohn singing old songs, shouting loudly from atop an anchored ship.
Humans liked strange things. I was learning that more and more being around Kidd. She didn’t express affection but needed me to touch her, hold her to go to sleep. She said she didn’t like it in Rowan, yet she endlessly desired the opportunity to impress them. She wouldn’t share details of her life yet asked question after question about mine.
The whole thing made me feel strange, unnatural. But Kidd seemed to enjoy it. It was some sort of right that she felt she deserved.
“What… you’re not having fun?” Kidd asked. We were leaning up against the railing of the ship, her with a drink in one hand and me, watchful. She gestured toward me with the glass, something she loved having in her hands, and said, “If you’re not into parties, you’re not going to like it here.”
“I doubt that,” I said with a wave of decline. “It can’t be like this all the time.”
She looked up at me with her bright browns and wrinkled the corners of her eyes. “No.” She shrugged. “The younger crowd is more into this. Celebrations and stuff. Keeps morale up.”
“It’s also a hazard to your safety,” I said, eyeing her glass. “A bunch of incapacitated Vithohn? Loud drums? You guys are asking to be caught.”
“No, asking to be caught is stalking a sexy Vithohn until he shoots down your ship. Which, we’re still telling people was an accident, by the way. This is called having fun.”
“Meeting me wasn’t fun?” I asked, toneless.
“Oh.” She smirked and leaned over, kissing me. “The funnest.”
We looked over the deck, and I winced at the noise. I didn’t like the Earth. I never had. It was a hostile place with strange animals. I was never a fan of having to wipe out a planet before taking it over, settling in. Reminded me too much of leaving Udrenahine.
“Uh oh,” Kidd teased, flicking up a leg and pursing her lips. “You’ve got ‘mission-face’ on!”
I laughed, despite myself. “You don’t know me well enough to know I have a ‘mission-face.’”
“Hey buddy,” she flirted, crawling her fingers up my chest like an insect. “I know a lot of your faces.”
“Am I the only one who wants to leave?” Axen said curiously as he wandered back over to us. He exhaled, though I couldn’t hear it over the noise. He scratched his temple and offered me wide eyes.
“No,” I said at the same time as Kidd exclaimed, ‘Yes!’
“They don’t like us,” Axen said, pointing over to the Vithohn who watched us carefully, holding drinks but never sipping from them. They were ready in case we pounced. I wondered if it was always like this when new ones showed up, or just us.
Ignoring Axen, I said, “Kidd says I have a mission face on.”
“Best to make good use of the Vithohn while we’re here,” he agreed, looking around the deck.
“You can do that,” I said quietly. “Not me.”
“Why’s that?” Kidd asked, slipping her warm hand inside mine.
“He’s betrothed,” I said. “To the throne.”
“The… throne?” She cocked her head to the side and set down her drink. “I didn’t think the Vithohn had thrones.”
“They don’t,” Axen insisted, waving me off. “Don’t tell her that.”
“Not thrones, per say. He…” I stammered, unsure what to say or what Axen would allow me to reveal. “When we came to the Earth, the Vithohn split the Earth into territories to give each section to the Voths.”
She narrowed her eyes, and I once again caught sight of a red-haired Vithohn who was fixated on the three of us.
“Now they’re bringing them back together and assigning a new leader. One leader.”
Kidd twirled her fingers in the air. “Okay.”
“They want someone to decide what should be done with the Earth, now that so many humans have remained,” I explained.
“Was there ever any question of what should be done with it?” Kidd asked, and Axen raised his brows and smiled at her.
“There was for me,” he said.
“For some,” I agreed. “Some are happy to remain here.”
“And you?” she asked.
Axen scoffed and slapped me hard on the back. “He hates it.”
“Oh really!” she exclaimed excitedly. “And now?”
I looked at her genuinely then, watched her dark hair blow against her pale skin and her tight smile, guarded and sweet. I leaned in and kissed her again, feeling a hungry lust wash over me like I had to have her then and there.
“It’s getting better,” I said.
“Interesting,” she said in a husky voice, her index finger slid under my chin to try and entice me back.
“You were arriving at a point,” Axen interrupted quietly.
“Right,” I shook my head. “Axen has been made leader. Induction is… soon.”
“What?” Kidd said, wincing, genuinely surprised that she hadn’t heard this news from me already.
“As soon as we destroy the last Kilari hive,” I said with a nod and Axen looked… suddenly proud.
“Wow, that’s… that’s awesome,” Kidd said, and I could tell she was already calculating her next move. How to use that knowledge to her advantage. Too bad I was already one step ahead of her. “You jealous?” she teased me.
“No,” I answered genuinely. “I think if Axen is the… he’s the choice I would have made.”
“Ha!” she cheered loudly. “You have to say that now! He’s like, your boss or something!”
Axen looked at me, unimpressed, his eyes saying: eloquent. I laughed at his reaction and shook my head.
“Hey, I’m going to go find my sister, I want you guys to get to know each other. You too, Axen!” She grinned. “We may couple you up after all!”
“Should I come?” I asked, and she shook her head.
“Wait for me in there,” she said, gesturing to one of the crew cabins. The wooden door had been painted red, a lazy “BAR” sign painted to the left of the door.
We watched her scoot off into the distance, and I looked to Axen with a smile. “Coming?”
He widened his eyes comically once more and shook his head. “I’m going to go get a sense of the camp, see if there’s any Kilari lurking or burrowing nearby.”
“Let me know what you find,” I nodded.
With that, we went our separate ways. I walked into the bar, unsure if I should still go after Kidd. When I walked in, I realized her sister was already there, making her sister’s search a fruitless effort.
“Kidd is looking for you,” I said, walking past her and finding a tabletop for two, feeling lost.
“She’ll find me eventually,” she said with a honeysweet tone, walking over to my table and sitting down next to me. “We love new guys. Or like, we used to. But for some reason people don’t trust you, you know?” Libby said, sliding her long, slender legs under the table and crossing them.
I rolled my shoulders and stared down at the table, determined to wait for Kidd as instructed.
My mind was reeling from the attack. The Kilari had found us before we found them. My nightmare. Axen was off now looking for them, tracking down their true base with the pull we both felt when they were around.
Until then, I was stuck with the bullshit of dealing with this camp life and all these assholes questioning my every move.
“That’s fine,” I said evenly, looking up at her.
She grinned. “I do.”
“Good to know.”
“If Kidd trusts you, then I do. She’s not easy to win over,” Libby offered, rolling the glass on its base and lazily brushing her feet against me. “That’s how close we are.” She paused then, biting her lip and looking worried. She made a small swallow that caused a huge GULP noise to sound and then laughed. “She’s told you about me?”
I nodded. “Of course.”
She seemed satisfied, if not relieved by my answer, her long face curving into a deep smile. “So,” she began with a breath, “where are you from?”
I gave a small laugh, still not meeting her eyes as I looked down at the table and the dingy bar the humans and Vithohn had crafted. “What? Are we bonding now?”
“Something like that,” she said.
“Bolmore,” I answered slowly. “Do you know where that is?”
A small shrug from the girl, blonde curls falling down to her chest. They didn’t look like sisters. “Do you have family?” she asked with a sly grin. She looked down at my drink and took a large gulp from my glass, handing it back to me.
“I did,” I said, raising an unimpressed brow as I received the glass from her.
“How are the Vithohn born?”
An amused breath left my lips, and for the first time, I actually smiled. I looked up and met her gaze, narrowing my brows in a light, unspoken lecture. “You’ve lived with Vithohn for… how long? And you don’t know the answer to that by now?”
She giggled and widened her eyes, face flushing.
“Come on,” I goaded. “I can’t be the first one you’ve asked.”
Our conversation had gained the attention of a nearby Vithohn. He was sat at a table not far from us, ears perked, though he remained busied in his cards.
“Do you like… hug spires?” Libby asked, bursting into more giggles, clearly buzzing.
“Hug spires?” I repeated with genuine confusion. I wasn’t sure whether or not to be offended by the statement.
“Well, how does it work with a human then?” she asked, her tone turning a sour shade of curious.
“You’re not paired?” I asked with genuine surprise. She shook her head, and I continued, “I just assumed if you lived in Rowan you were paired up.”
“Kidd wasn’t,” she argued, pointing a long, slender finger in my direction.
“I guess that’s true,” I submitted.
“So… what happened to your family?” she persisted, crossing her legs in the other direction now.
“They were killed by the Kilari.”
She nodded and then pulled her chair closer to me, as though I needed some sort of comforting. She set a hand on my shoulder, but there was nothing soothing about it.
“I guess I can relate,” she said. It was the first time I heard actual emotion in her voice. “You know,” her shoulders sloped, “our camp.”
“Right,” I breathed. “I’m sorry about that.”
I wondered if I should have said something different, questioned my words. Wondering if my apology made me seem guilty somehow. Then I determined I didn’t really care.
“Thanks. I’m sorry, too, about your family.” She pressed her lips thin and then her eyes flicked up to mine, bright blue and shimmering. “So, Axen? He’s not…?”
I shook my head. “No relation. But it feels like it.”
“So, are there female Vithohn?”
I shot my eyes up at her and cocked a brow. “Sure.”
“Well, where are they? I’ve never seen any.”
I splayed my fingers on the table and offered, “They were left back on Udrenahine.”
“Wow!” she laughed, alerting the other Vithohns’ attention more openly now. “That’s one heck of a breakup!”
I shook my head, firm. “Females aren’t… like us. They’re for breeding.”
“You’re a real smooth-talker, you know that? Real romantic,” she teased.
“If you saw them, you’d understand,” I said, somewhat defensive.
“And you were tracking the Kilari?” she asked, and I nodded. “Were they on Udrenahine before? And you guys left your planet?”
I cleared my throat uncomfortably. “Right.”
“Come on, Zawara!” she announced, tossing a hand into the air. “You know I’m going to ask a follow-up question so you may as well just tell me what happened! Did the Kilari force you out or…?”
“We were overthrown by a sect of the Vithohn,” I said and then immediately regretted it. It wasn’t something Vithohn talked about. Not to each other, and certainly not to the humans. I hadn’t even told Kidd.
I looked Libby over, her breasts pushed together beside me and her leg caressing mine, and then all the sudden it didn’t feel like we were having an innocent conversation anymore. In fact, some of her questions seemed much more like an interrogation than anything else.
“How’d you lose your spire?” she asked, cocking a seductive brow.
I swallowed and offered a dismissive smile, taking a sip of my drink.
“Oh, come on,” she chided, pulling her legs up so that they laid across my thighs. “I think it’s sexy.”
I stared down at her legs, put off. An irritated smirk curved up the right side of my lips and I began to shake my head. “Time to go,” I said, pushing her legs off me.
“Relax,” she said, not taking the hint. She crawled onto my lap, her legs straddling either side of me like it was some adorable game. Her blonde hair was everywhere, like a waterfall between us. “What’s Kidd’s is mine, and what’s mine is hers. ‘Kay?”
“No,” I said, pushing her off until she stumbled back into the table.
“Hey!” she argued, defensively. “I’m just trying to make sure you have her best interests in mind!”
“Funny way of finding that out,” I said, still seated.
“Listen, you Kilari piece of trash, if you’re invading our camp or if you’re one of those freaks, we’re going to find out.”
I scoffed, pinching the bridge of my nose.
“Great, fine,” I said, waving her off. “Off you go.”
After some more shouting, the blonde eventually stumbled out of the bar, and I felt less and less inclined to stay and wait for Kidd. What a mess everything was turning into.
These humans were truly, truly ungrateful if they were attacking me after I had just helped save their camp.
“Trouble with the little woman?” the red-maned Vithohn quipped, slugging back a drink. That was one thing about Rowan, I noticed. While we were here, Kidd had an almost constant need for the drink.
I leaned back and lifted my chin to the Vithohn. This Nevir I’d seen before.
“Nope,” I said.
“Couldn’t help but overhear your—”
I flicked a brow up and gave a small annoyed laugh. “I’m sure you could have.”
“I happen to know the decibels that Libby can hit,” he snarked with a laugh.
My eyes shot up to him then, curious as to the truth in that. I had the sudden urge to hit him, smash him in the face repeatedly. I wanted to pick up the chair that he sat on and bash it across his smug mouth. Instead, I said, “That right? Well, that ain’t Kidd.”
I couldn’t imagine it was true. Why Kidd would have been with a Vithohn when we were the ones connected, I couldn’t imagine.
“Right, right. That’s her sister. Nah,” he shrugged obnoxiously. “Haven’t done that one.”
A long pause invaded the space between us. Just as I was done looking at him, the Vithohn spoke again.
“Nevir,” he said, extending a hand to mind from across the bar.
I looked over at it and then back down at the table. “I know who you are.”
He laughed. “Here I was thinking I should be introducing myself to the great and powerful Zawara.” He flicked a few of his cards onto his table, seemingly playing with two hands against himself. “So, she told you about me, huh? Huh. Guess we’re already off to a bad start.”
I looked down at the strange, bottled liquid and took a testing sip. “Guess so.”
“Come here,” he offered, calling me over with a finger.
With a heaving sigh, I stood from the table, walking over to him and, against my better judgment, taking a seat.
“Most of the Vithohn here are mated,” I said coldly. “Not you?”
“Who says that?” he asked with a plucky smile, eyes still buried in his cards.
“Me,” I snarled.
He looked me over, casually tossing his hair behind his back and then looked downtrodden, as though something occurred to him. “Ah,” he said. “Then Kidd hasn’t told you about me.”
The way he said it made my stomach churn. Then I knew there was some truth to his disgusting words.
“Safe to say, then, that Kidd and I are friends,” he simplified.
“That right?” I said, picking up his spare hand and tossing down some cards. He stared at them, irritated, and scoffed to himself.
“That’s right,” he said playfully. “An I intend to protect her.”
“Then that makes two of us,” I seethed.
He tossed a card down, a losing hand, and I slapped the cards across the table to myself, tossing them into a discard pile. We both drew new hands. New round.
Looking pleased with his new cards, Nevir tossed down a queen and gestured toward my broken spire. “What happened there, scout? Your spire snap off in the cold?”
“Yep,” I said, toneless.
“You know, the boys upstairs aren’t too fond of you,” he breathed. “But hey, that’s their complaint, not mine. You’re cool with Kidd, you’re cool with me, got it?”
“Mm,” I murmured, throwing down a king and swiping his cards off the table once more.
“D’uskaan’a,” he swore under his breath before grinning back up at me, giving a gentle shrug and drawing again. I laughed at the language, and he glanced back up at my broken spire—a sign of weakness and defeat in the Vithohn. Under normal circumstances, it shouldn’t have been something I was proud of.
“Old timers,” he shrugged, speaking of Tessoul and his group of Vithohn. The showrunners of Rowan. “They’ve got sticks up their asses if you ask me. But see, here’s the thing: I feel the urge to point out that I think you’re pulling one over on us.”
“That right?” I tested.
Neither of us threw our cards out.
“See… I don’t think you’re a Vithohn.”
“Aw, now you’re just hurting my feelings,” I mocked, pumping a fist against my chest in mock despair.
He raised a brow, his spire flicking back and forth, ready for a fight.
“Sounds to me like you’re just jealous because I’m with Kidd and you’re… what’s the word… not.” I spat and tossed down my hand.
Nevir looked over my cards with interest and looked up at me as I stood.
“Whatever authority you think you’ve found through the Voth…” he began as a warning, “doesn’t mean shit to me. If you’re a Kilari, we’ll find out. We have Exerott here ready to fry your ass.”
I narrowed my eyes at him and shook my head. “That’s not how it works.”
He grinned, leaning back in his chair. “Here it is.”
I stared down at him, careful not to portray whether his words had any effect on me. I did my best glare, staring at him so hard I knew he could feel my gaze burning into him. Then I spun on my heel. Inside, I was shaking.