Orc’s Forbidden Claim (Red Planet Dragons of Tajss #33)

26. Saylor

26

SAYLOR

A s much as I never want this moment to end, anxiety presses in as time and awareness of how incredibly screwed we are increases. Sek’su is hurt, badly from the looks of it and we’re still trapped in this endless maze of tunnels with no clear-cut way home.

“What happened?” I ask, looking up from where I’ve been resting my head against his chest.

The steady beating of his heart is a reassuring regularity. He isn’t anxious or worried or even seems to have exerted himself. Calm, resilient, and in control. There is no keeping the smile from my face, and while it’s not a lie, it also is incongruous with the wings of fear battering around my skull.

“A cudov,” he says, but doesn’t explain further.

The only thing that tells me is it wasn’t more Urr’ki, which is good, but how bad must a cudov be if it managed to do that much damage to Sek’su?

“Oh,” I say as he eases the grip of his arms and takes a reluctant step back, turning to look at Sek’su.

“We need to move, can you?” he asks.

“Yes,” Sek’su says, pressing one hand to the floor and the other to the wall, forcing himself up.

Wren helps as much as she can considering she’s a third of his size. He gets to his feet, wavers only a moment, then he seems steady. He rubs the bandage over his wound and then rolls his shoulders. The grimace of pain on his face is the only outward sign of how he is doing. I don’t know Sek’su well, but judging by that look, he’s in a lot of suppressed pain.

Khiara stares with a hard, judging look. His jaw tenses and I think for a moment he’s going to tell him to sit back down but then he looks down the tunnel and shakes his head.

“We have to move,” he says. He looks from Sek’su to me then to Wren. “You two bring up the rear. Say, stay right behind me, okay?”

I nod understanding and he walks over to the lantern, picks it up then hands it to me. Feeling tentative, I take it, finding at least a little pride in the fact that my hand doesn’t shake, too much at least.

Khiara looks us all over with a deep grimace then turns and leads the way. I don’t blame him. What are we going to do if we do run into a patrol? Or another… cudov… or anything else? Sek’su is badly hurt, and Wren and I are not fighters. We’ll be worthless if it happens.

I swallow my fear and follow. Every step must be painful for Sek’su. He doesn’t groan or make a lot of noise, he’s too smart for that, but I hear it in his breathing. It hitches with every step.

I’m a terrible person.

I don’t want to be, but once again I am glad it was Sek’su who got hurt and not Khiara. Which makes me a jerk. The lantern grows heavy in my hand as our journey through the tunnels continues. How far did they bring us? I guess it’s not how far they brought us, but how we find our way back with the simple way blocked.

The lantern bounces off my leg, too heavy to hold it up and out any longer. The dancing tight beam of light causes shadows to dance around. It’s kind of scary. Not scary right off, but more in a ‘creeping in on you’ way of slowly becoming aware that something is watching you and you don’t know what or even where it is.

Khiara stops, holding up a closed fist, and we all hold our positions. He turns to me and holds out his hand, so I give him the lantern. Just as well, the back of my neck is a constant prickle of fearful imaginings.

He raises the lantern and moves it along the wall, clearly looking for something he expects to be there. He goes back and forth two times then growls as he shakes his head. I slip up next to him, doing my best to be as silent as possible.

“What’s wrong?” I whisper.

“It should be here,” he murmurs.

He sets the lantern down then presses his hands flat to the wall and slides them along the stone. There is just enough light that I can see he has his eyes closed and he is humming, oh so softly, to himself.

I step back to let him do what he is doing, which I can’t even begin to comprehend. If I were to hazard a guess it looks like he’s communing with the stone, which seems silly but on some level, it also feels true.

Instead of staring and wondering, I turn my attention to Wren and Sek’su. I move in close to avoid any unnecessary noise. Wren looks the worst I think I’ve ever seen her. The drawn look on her face at least competes with how she looked right after the ship crashed and we all woke up spread across the desert sands, desperately looking for one another and the rest of our friends.

Sek’su is hunched over, the injured shoulder curving in towards himself. He keeps his head bowed and is breathing heavily. I move until I can get a good view of the bandage and see the dark stains that are soaking through. It needs changing, but with what? Wren and I are wearing the bare remnants of our shirts, which now barely classify as midriffs.

All of Wren’s attention is on him and he seems to be consumed by the effort to remain upright. The wound was bad, but this seems worse than it should be. I put my hand on his arm, and he looks up. Zmaj don’t sweat but one look and I know if he was human he’d be pouring sweat. The pain is written large all over his face.

“Any help?” I ask.

He shakes his head, breathing heavily, his mouth twisting into a grimace.

“Poison,” he says.

My stomach drops and Wren makes a tiny gasping sound. She didn’t know that either. Feeling sick and scared, I go back to Khiara. Before I can say anything to him though, he balls one hand into a fist, raises his arm back, then strikes the wall with the side of his fist.

I expect him to cry out in pain or something, but he doesn’t even grunt. What I didn’t expect was for the wall to crumble under his blow. Yet that’s exactly what happens. It turns to dust and streams down the wall. He grunts softy, nods his head, then repeats the action. The wall continues to crumble, but it’s strange. I squint in the dim light, turning over why this is odd.

It’s not stone.

Once I see it, I can’t unsee it. Someone hid this passage with some kind of material. It must have mimicked the stone, but Khiara found it. Maybe he was communing with the wall, how else would he know that the passage was there?

When he finishes, the opening isn’t very wide at all. I’m not sure Khiara can fit through it, much less Sek’su who is quite a bit bigger. Khiara steps back, assessing it and I know he’s thinking the same thing, confirmed when he looks over at Sek’su.

“Come,” he says softly.

Sek’su shuffles forward, stopping to look at the opening. He doesn’t say anything, seeming to know this is what we have to do. He straightens himself, turns sideways, and presses himself against the crack in the wall.

Nothing happens at first. My stomach clenches. Wren is at my side, and I take her hand. She squeezes mine so tight it cuts off the blood flow. There is a scraping sound that makes me hurt to hear it, but Sek’su slips through the opening, all but where his tail connects to his back or spine or however it is part of him.

He shifts, pushes, then groans but nothing changes. We watch him twist and try but no luck. Wren’s hand on mine is shaking. I don’t think either of us has dared to take a breath since this began.

I look over at Khiara but he’s staring at the now blocked passage with a grim look on his face. He runs his hand through his hair and then shakes his head. Instead of moving over to help, he takes a step backward. I watch, unsure what he is planning, and then he rushes towards Sek’su.

His foot comes up at the last moment and he kicks Sek’su in the hip. Wren and I both gasp in surprised shock but it works. Sek’su disappears into the opening with only a muffled grunt of pain.

“Heh,” Khiara grunts, looking at the two of us.

I know my eyes are wide with shock and feel certain that Wren’s must be too. She keeps it cool though, not going off on Khiara for kicking her already injured mate. Which is good, if anyone can cut someone down with their words, it’s Wren. Khiara waves us forward, sending Wren through the opening first.

She fits easily and I follow right behind her. Khiara comes after me and has some trouble, but nothing compared to what happened with Sek’su. The passage is tight, narrowing and widening randomly. Sometimes the walls are so close I have to turn sideways, other times I could stretch out my arms and barely touch both walls.

Sek’su’s massive form leads the way. He remains sideways, slipping along with a surprising degree of silence. It’s always surprising how quietly the Zmaj can move when they want.

Khiara is close. Close enough that we brush against each other almost constantly. His presence is reassuring. Silent, I extend my hand back and no matter how dark it is in here he takes it in his and we continue forward, hand in hand.

Exactly the way I want my life to be. He and I together. I’ve been scared. Scared of telling my friends. Grimacing, I shake my head. Friends. How could I be scared of telling my friends? How does that come anywhere near the definition of ‘friend’?

Wren went through this with Sek’su, and I thought I understood. The problem then was that I was only looking at the bigger picture. Our reputation, that precious ephemeral idea that we are the elite. Somehow better than anyone else. An illusion that should have shattered with the breaking of the generation ship and our crashing here.

It did too, for a while. But the moment we moved from surviving minute to minute to some semblance of being okay it was back. And I embraced it every bit as hard as all the rest of our group.

It was comfortable, but that comfort wasn’t real. It was familiar, sure. What we’d always known. Wren called it our gilded cage. I’ve never had her confidence or composure. For me this life has been nothing but struggle, worry, and anxiety. Knowing I was only one step away from losing everything and before Khiara, it was all. Not only all I knew, but all I had.

A part to play that defined who and what I was, but it wasn’t me. I was a poor actor thrust into a role I was unprepared for. Faking my way through every day and crying every night. As close as I am to Wren, more than ever after we lost Ziva, I did my best to never let her see my insecurity. I think she suspected it, but that wasn’t a topic of polite conversation. Even in our most intimate moments, she would studiously avoid it while I would do my best to bury it.

Not out of meanness. She was never mean, to me at least, but I honestly think that neither one of us knew what to do with it. What else did we know, except the expectations that were thrust upon us by the unwashed masses?

I know what I have to do. It’s so simple.

My stomach twists, churning, and for a moment I’m feeling faint. It passes as quickly as it came and in its wake is certainty. Is it scary? Of course, it is. Wren burst free of the cage when she announced her love for Sek’su. At that moment, she changed the game and expectations.

How can I be afraid when none of these expectations are real? Khiara’s hand holding mine, that’s real. And oh god his lips… his hands over my body… that is real. Why have I lived my life worrying about other people’s opinions?

It’s more than that though, isn’t it? With him it is.

I tighten my grip on his hand, seeking reassurance. He returns the grip and grunts softly. A smile plays over my lips. That’s my Khiara. A grunt. It’s all I can do to keep from chuckling out loud.

What the hell is happening to me?

Any guy I ever dated in all my life who grunted, ever, I would never have let him live it down. One guy, Jacoby, used to grunt when we had sex. I think he thought it was sexy, but for me, it was the biggest turn-off. The girls and I used to make so much fun of him because, of course, I was a shallow idiot and told them all about it. We called him an animal and, in due course, I dumped him, never telling him the real reason.

What’s changed? Why is it okay that Khiara grunts? More importantly, why does it make my clit throb and my stomach tighten while my lips tingle?

It’s not an affectation when he does it. It’s who he is.

Simple, isn’t it? Now that I’m stripping away the layers of pretense from my life, things are coming to a level of clarity I never could have achieved before. Maybe this entire adventure, being kidnapped, as terrifying and dangerous as it’s been, will be worth it.

Tajss provides.

I bite down on a snort. It hits my throat, and I barely clench my teeth fast enough to keep it down, making only a soft choking sound. Oh god, how am I going to keep that from happening forever? Sooner or later Khiara is going to hear it. What will he think of me then?

Am I really an idiot?

Everything I’ve realized, and here I am falling right back into the trap. He won’t care and even if he does, he will be okay with it. We will be okay. This is what love is, isn’t it? Accepting the other one not only for their best traits but all their flaws too. I look back and his eyes glisten in the dark, reflecting the dim light. They sparkle and dance and my heart speeds up.

The urge to throw my arms around his neck and squeeze him with all I am is so strong I stumble. Khiara grabs onto my arm with his free hand, steadying me. His eyes narrow with the obvious question of ‘are you okay?’. I nod, keeping the silence we’ve been traveling in. Rather than risk another problem, I turn around, but we continue holding each other’s hands.

The passage widens as we go until even Sek’su is able to move ahead without any issues. Wren moves to his side and Khiara comes to mine. Soon we’re in a cavern or something like that. It’s big enough that the light of our lantern doesn’t reach the far walls. Khiara grunts softly and we huddle close together and wait while he looks around.

“This way,” he says, pointing to his left.

“How far?” Sek’su asks.

He’s breathing heavily and he’s curling over again, clearly in extreme pain. Wren has a look of such intense worry that it breaks my heart for her. Khiara stares at Sek’su for several seconds, then unexpectedly he puts his hand on Sek’su’s good shoulder.

“Bad?” he asks.

Sek’su looks up, panting, and nods. Khiara grunts and then looks around, but for what, I’m not sure. He grimaces, then he’s looking at me. The downturn of his lips eases, but the worry in his eyes doesn’t. I know him well enough that I know he’s thinking over something.

“I can make it,” Sek’su huffs.

“Good,” Khiara says, not looking away from me.

I can read the look in his eyes too easily now. Doubt. He doesn’t think that Sek’su can make it, and he has no idea how to help. My stomach clenches into a hard ball. Khiara closes his eyes as he takes my hand in his. It’s a brief moment but understanding passes between us. We both know it could have been him that was hurt. Now we have to do all we can to get Sek’su home.

“Can we just go?” Wren asks, her voice trembling.

“Yes,” Khiara says, his voice deeper and even more grumbly than usual.

Reluctant, I let go of his hand. He keeps his grip on mine a moment longer than I do him before turning and leading the way.