Alien storm, p.20
Alien Storm, page 20
His words were literally crushed out of him. Errok’s huge fingers closed around Lerokan’s throat. Lerokan was clearly a strong guy, but he was definitely smaller than Errok. Errok infused his grip with furious strength, driving Lerokan backwards until the younger brother collided with a nearby wall.
“Oh my God, Errok, stop!” This felt like the taklok all over again. Me begging Errok to stop shooting. Or, in this case, stop squeezing.
“Erm, why don’t I take you on a tour of the mountain?”
I couldn’t believe what Priya just said.
“Are you insane? He’s about to kill your mate right in front of us!”
I moved to run towards them, but Priya grabbed my arm with surprising quickness and drew me back. She glanced over at the brothers, her gaze appraising, then she shook her head.
“No, he won’t. Lerokan can wiggle his way out of just about any situation. Besides, even though they can both be complete fucking knobs around each other, they do actually care. At least a little bit.”
It was hard to believe her considering Errok was fucking vibrating with fury and was currently taking that fury out on Lerokan’s windpipe. But... Lerokan was somehow grinning? So maybe she was right.
“They’ll sort themselves out. I’m serious. Let’s give them some space.”
“Fine,” I muttered, letting her lead me gently out of the hall. I was tired of trying to control Errok. Tired of feeling responsible for him. Let them duke it out. And if Lerokan ends up shooting him, he can find somebody else to heal him, thank you very much.
But despite those thoughts, despite my attempt at indifference...
I twisted to watch them even as we walked away.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Errok
“Everyone else out!”
My warriors dispersed with obedient quickness. It felt good to finally have people acknowledge my authority again. After days with Gahn Thaleo’s men and Zuh-Tephanie fighting me, and now Lerokan’s mouthiness, I’d felt as if I were no longer Gahn at all.
“Don’t want witnesses when I best you, older brother?” Lerokan choked out. My lips twitched, and I tightened my grip, wanting to strangle that hideous smile right out of him.
“Tell me,” I hissed, getting so close that our noses nearly touched. “Tell me how you won your mate.”
Lerokan’s sight stars pulsed, and then, somehow, despite the force I applied to his stupid neck, he laughed. Clearly, I needed to squeeze a little harder.
But I didn’t. Because I wanted, needed, him to speak and answer my question. My foolish younger brother was the only man in the Deep Sky who had won his human mate. I hated that fact with every taut fibre of my being. Hated him for besting me in this.
“Ah, I see,” he grunted. “You sent the men away because you did not want to admit she has not accepted you and beg for my help in front of them. It is-” He stopped to cough, his throat convulsing under my fingers. “It is a little late, brother. She already said it in front of everyone. She is not your Gahnala.”
My breath heaved. For a moment, I worried I’d lose control and that I really would snap his neck. I did not need to be reminded of what had just happened. Her words had been harder than Thaleo’s arrow. Even worse was the shame that had coursed through me afterwards. She had not only rejected me yet again, but this time in front of my men. I was supposed to be the strongest, the cleverest, the king.
And I could not even control one tiny female.
“Answer my question,” I hissed savagely, “before I toss you out of my hall with nothing to catch you but the sharp fangs of the rocks below.”
Lerokan tsked. “I do not think killing me will help your sorry cause.” His eyes narrowed, his smile disappearing. “You did not see your mate’s look of hateful disapproval when you grabbed me by the throat. But I did.”
As if burned, I snatched my hand away, stumbling backwards. I whirled desperately, searching for Zuh-Tephanie. Look, see? I let him go. But she was not there.
No one was.
No one but my brother, rubbing at his throat.
“Cursed skies, Errok. You nearly tore my head off, there. I do not know how I will manage to fight through the pain you’ve caused to pleasure my pretty mate tonight.”
“It is not my fault your neck is so weak,” I snapped. I knew that he was goading me, and I knew that I was weak for falling into it, but I could not help it. I was half-crazed with need for a mate who did not want me and Lerokan reminding me of that fact every other moment made me feel like my skull was about to explode.
“You still have not answered me. Tell me how you won your mate,” I growled.
Lerokan stopped rubbing his neck and gave me an odd look.
I knew exactly what the look meant.
He was shocked, maybe even disturbed, by the reedy, panicked note of weakness that had wormed its hateful way into my words. I was no longer commanding him.
I was begging him.
Skies alive, if I have to endure Little Lerokan’s pity on top of my mate’s then I will hurl myself off this ledge myself.
To my immense relief, a look of pity never came to his face. Instead, he gave me one of his characteristic cavalier expressions.
“I have no answer for you, brother. I did not even have the Vrika’s mate bond upon me when I began to feel love for Priya. It was the same for her, of course, since the new women do not feel the Vrika’s bond.”
“But clearly, she feels a love bond for you now,” I said. Priya smiled at him. She let him touch her. And, bizarrely, she seemed to care not a whit about all his absurdness and shortcomings.
“Yes,” he said simply, his voice hard. Hard as a claim. “She does.”
“So, in short, you are telling me that you have no idea how you won her?” I muttered, staring into the fire.
“Please. Clearly, she could not resist my numerous charms. Charms I am afraid that you do not possess.”
I wish I’d ripped his head off after all.
I was getting nowhere with Lerokan. Nowhere apart from the sprawling lands of insanity, that is. I should have known talking to him would be useless.
Without another word to the loathsome man who somehow shared my blood, I grabbed Zuh-Tephanie’s pack and then stalked from the hall. There was only one person I wanted to be around, even if she was the origin of every one of my misfortunes.
My mate was somewhere in this mountain without me.
It was time for me to find her.
Find her.
And finally make her love me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Stephanie
“Are you sure they’re going to be OK?” I asked as Priya led me by the hand through tunnels she’d obviously memorized during her time here.
“They’ll be fine. Honestly, what you just saw was pretty typical for their interactions. Did you know Errok exiled Lerokan for months, just because he wouldn’t answer the Vrika’s call?” Her voice softened. “But like I said, they do care about each other. I don’t know if you know this, but they were called to the Vrika’s peak at the same time when I was with Gahn Thaleo. They were climbing together and Lerokan slipped. He would have fallen to his death, but Errok grabbed him. He saved him. So, no, after all that, I don’t think he’s going to turn around and strangle my mate. Besides, if he has any sense at all, he’ll know that if he does something that stupid, he’ll have both of us angry human ladies to deal with.”
It was hard for me to imagine Errok saving anybody except for maybe himself. Or me. But then again, I clearly didn’t know everything about the confusing, maddening Gahn.
Priya dragged me around the massive mountain, knowing her way despite the darkness. I made a mental note that we’d have to install lanterns like Gahn Thaleo had done. She showed me the beautiful cave she shared with Lerokan, and I told her honestly how lovely I thought the space was.
“Apparently Errok’s cave is even nicer,” Priya said.
I rolled my eyes.
“Of course, it is.”
“I could show it to you.”
Priya and I both jumped at the sound of a new voice in the mix. At the entrance to the cave, someone stood watching us.
“Hi, Tilka!” Priya said, jogging over. “Here, come meet Stephanie.”
Priya led someone – a woman – towards me. The Deep Sky woman looked slightly familiar, even though I knew I’d never seen her before. I definitely would have remembered seeing a Deep Sky woman with a shaved head like she had.
“I am Tilka. Lerokan and Errok’s aunt.”
That was why she looked familiar. Family resemblance. She had the same white burst of sight stars in her dark gaze, and a cocky mischief in her smile that matched Lerokan’s.
“Come,” she said. “I will show you the Gahn’s quarters.”
“Oh, no, that’s OK. I don’t want you to get in trouble.” Something told me that going to Errok’s room without him had to be considered a no-no.
Her sight stars pulsed, then she threw her head back and laughed.
“There will be no trouble. Errok may be Gahn, but even he knows better than that.”
I decided instantly that I liked this woman.
“I mean, it’s not like I’ll be sleeping there or anything,” I told her. “So, I don’t need to see it.”
Tilka stopped laughing, looking surprised.
“Yeah, I know,” I muttered, annoyed by how the hurt of Errok’s rejection still poked at me. “But he wouldn’t even let me sleep in his cave when he was injured, so I don’t see why that would be changing now.”
Tilka’s gaze sliced through the dim, firelit darkness.
“That does not make sense,” she said. “Errok has gone near out of his mind waiting for a mate. You cannot tell me that once he found her, found you, that he did not do everything in his power to keep you by his side.”
“Yeah, well, he didn’t,” I said, crossing my arms and hunching down into myself, feeling oddly defensive. As if I somehow weren’t good enough to make him want me. Which was absolutely stupid.
But my feelings didn’t care about how stupid I thought they were.
“Priya,” Tilka said with the decisive force of a soldier commanding an army, “I am taking Zuh-Tephanie into my care now.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the cave just as Priya had done earlier. “You will explain this to me,” she said, as if stating a simple fact. “And together, we will figure all of this out.”
I laughed, though none of this was funny. “Well, you’re going to have to be the one doing the explaining. That Gahn is a total mystery to me.”
“I have known him since birth,” Tilka said. “He may like to think he is unknowable to a mere aunt such as myself. But he is no mystery to me.”
I squeezed her hand involuntarily. There was something so comforting about her words, and about the way she seemed to be taking charge of the situation. Maybe she can actually tell me what the fuck is going on.
I filled her in on pretty much everything that had happened between Errok and me. I told her about our fights, about the taklok and his injuries. I told her about his nightmare, though I left out the details of the kiss afterwards.
“A nightmare?” she asked sharply, her steps faltering for a moment.
I nodded, and she began walking again.
We finally stopped for good, and I realized we were in the most breathtaking place I’d ever seen.
I dropped Tilka’s hand, my head straining back as I took in the space.
We had to be in a cave atop some sort of peak or crag on the mountain. Because the entire spike of the arching, cathedral-like ceiling was clear stone. Aguir or kaktuir, I couldn’t be sure. But either way, the result was astonishing. It felt as if there was nearly no roof at all, the cave arrowing up right into the sky.
It was only Tilka’s voice that made me stop staring.
“I did not know he still had nightmares.”
I looked at her questioningly.
“He had them as a child,” she explained. “My sister, his mother, used to tell me about them. About how he’d cry out in his sleep and wake in such a state she could barely calm him down.”
I remained silent, knowing exactly what she was talking about. I’d seen it myself.
“They started up again after his parents died,” she continued. “He fell asleep in the hall, once, and I happened upon him during a dream. I tried to wake him, to comfort him and... Let us just say, it did not go well.” She sighed. “If I remember correctly, he told me he was simply hunting in his dream, and that if I wanted to extend my pity to someone, it should be to the beast he’d just slaughtered in his sleep.”
That certainly sounded like something Errok would say.
“Well, he admitted to me that he’d had a nightmare,” I said. “He told me... He watched me die in the dream. And he couldn’t help me.”
Once again, Tilka looked shocked.
“Then he has already changed more than I would have thought possible. He never would have admitted such a thing before.”
I decided not to tell her that he’d kind of had to, to explain the reason he’d kissed me when neither of us had seemed to have expected it.
“Well, it doesn’t even matter,” I said. “Because the next day he basically told me to go away.”
I wandered over to the massive, heart-breakingly comfy-looking bed and hopped up onto it. Damn it. He was right. This mattress was better than the one in Thaleo’s mountain. And instead of being a bed carved into the floor, it was up high on a gigantic slab of stone. A bed fit for a king, that was for sure. Beside the bed was a large heated pool, its steam rising up to stain the darkness. There was no fire – likely because Errok had been gone so long.
Tilka came to sit beside me on the edge of the bed.
“A nightmare would have sent Errok spiralling back into his helpless childhood. And back into the even more helpless moments after his parents’ deaths. He certainly would not have wanted you to see him like that.” She took a strained breath. “My sister... Lerokan and Errok’s mother... She died first. And their father entirely fell apart. He died soon after. The two brothers reacted in different ways. Lerokan reacted by rejecting the Vrika when it called him, because he never wanted to love and then lose everything like his father had. Errok... Errok just grew harder. And he was already not a man anyone could accuse of having soft edges. He leaned more furiously into his power as Gahn. Grew more commanding. As if he could command the world, command fate itself, the way he’d command a simple warrior.” She gave a small laugh. “Clearly, that did not work. His greatest wish was to have a mate, and no matter what he did, he could not seem to make the Vrika come. It came to his younger brother first, the brother who did not even want a mate, but not to him.”
For fuck’s sake. She was going to start making me feel bad for Errok again. And I didn’t want to feel bad for him or to understand him. It was easier to be angry with him. Because that meant I was justified in keeping the distance between us.
“Well, he could have told me all of that,” I huffed. I flopped back on the mattress, closing my eyes. This had been an incredibly long day.
“You think he could have?” Tilka asked. “Really? Errok has certainly begun to change, thanks to you, I am sure. But even so, I doubt he could bare what he perceives as his weaknesses so easily. It would make him feel too vulnerable. He did not even want me to see him have a nightmare, so I can only imagine how he felt knowing you, the one person he wants to please but cannot, had seen him in such a state.”
Neither of us wants to look weak in front of others.
I knew in my bones that she was right.
“If he kept you away from him after that, it was only to protect himself. He has likely been quite frantic, trying to pull himself together enough so that he can feel safe around you once again.”
Goddamnit, I felt like crying. Again. The fact that Errok didn’t feel safe around me hurt. A lot. Especially after he’d vowed so fiercely that I would always be safe with him.
“But he is safe with me!” I didn’t want him to feel weak or exposed. But I did want to see the real, vulnerable part of him again. The honest part. “Why can’t he just talk to me about this stuff instead of barking at me and telling me he doesn’t need me to look after him?”
Tilka looked down at me from where she sat beside me.
“I do not know enough about your people,” she said. “Are such confessions easy for your kind? For your males?”
“Well... No,” I admitted. Hell, it wasn’t even easy for me! Hadn’t I been the one who’d cried on the flight here with Errok all while hoping that he wouldn’t see? Plus, I hadn’t even been able to tell him how he’d hurt me by sending me away. I’d just retreated into anger. Like I always did.
Am I asking more of him than I’m even capable of myself?
Now, that was an uncomfortable question. Especially considering how, in a way, Errok had already given me more than I’d been willing to give back. I knew I was developing feelings for him. And yet, I hadn’t told him that. I’d hidden it behind constant rejections, even as he hammered me with unrequited expressions of his love and devotion. I’d been furious at Errok for not breaking down the protective walls of his pride all while adding layers of bricks to my own.
If I want him to be honest with me, then shouldn’t I have to do the same thing? Isn’t that only fair?
If the sheer terror that ran through me at the prospect of opening up to Errok was anything like what he’d been feeling, I could suddenly understand why he’d pushed me away. Because, right now, all I wanted to do was run.
Tilka interpreted my silence as exhaustion. She bid me a quiet goodnight and stole out of the cave.
And maybe her interpretation had been right.
