Page 13 of Taken to Voraxia
“You are not my Rakukanna.” I choke out the words, hating them and fearing them in equal measure. How long did she think she could fool me, the little snake who shed her skin in place of my Rakukanna’s?
Even if she has the same carmine skin and tight curls and full mouth that tantalize me, it is thescent, theeyes, thepullthat are all wrong. There is no Xanaxana between us. No mating frenzy. Nothing at all.
Has the Xanaxana left me? Punishing me for not claiming my Xiveri mate sooner?Nox…I do not think so.
Because I can still feel it there, swirling in my chest like a breath I just can’t catch. Only now I feel it pulling me away from the false Rakukanna before me…pulling me somewhere else, towards the shadowed side of the planet. What does it mean?She is not here…but she is close…
I curl my hands around the female’s upper arm and shake her roughly. “Who are you?” I snap.
I can hear the imposter’s fragile heartbeat through her chest, where just one heart beats. On a quivering note, she whispers, “I am here as you requested. I am Miari…”
“Your voice is not yours, and neither is your scent. My Rakukanna also does not understand the Voraxian tongue.”
“I…acquired a translator.”
“I did not include translators in the shipments provided, so tell me now. Who. are. you?”
“You’re hurting me,” she whispers and I glance down at the contact of my hand on her wrist. It trembles with barely restrained violence.
She wears my Rakukanna’s skin, and even her voice, through my translator, sounds eerily similar. It has been too long and I cannot remember. Seeds of doubt are beginning to sow.Maybe she is my Rakukanna. Maybe I am remembering it wrong. It could not have been so powerful. A magic like that is surely not possible…
I rip my head to the right and to the left, divesting myself of such thoughts. “Nox,” I bellow. “I know her.” With every inch of my Xaneru. Every ounce of my soul. And if this one brought harm to my Xiveri mate, it does not matter that she is female. She will die for her crimes. Slowly. Over rotations. Over eons.
“I am!”
“You are not. Now tell me that you did not harm her.”
It crosses my mind for a moment that my attention towards my Rakukanna could have put her directly into harm’s way — there are females on my planet who would have gladly disposed of her and, by some magic, attempted to lure me into believing she were they.
Pain skewers me like a spear through a wild tzyk. My mind momentarily blanks, hallucinating every scenario in which my actions have placed my own Rakukanna in harms way, until the little forged one before me says, “Nox, of course not.”
I exhale. I should not trust her words, but Ineedto. The alternative is too unknown, too great a pain to be endured. “Then who are you, you who did not harm Miari, but stole her face?”
“I…I am…I am…”
“Regrets of the fountain, Raku,” comes Va’Raku’s deep bass. “There is another female missing. One I do not scent. She carried the scent of your Rakukanna on her person in the last Hunt, but she is no longer present. In defiance of their Raku, it is possible that they have escaped together.”
I do not need to ask how Va’Raku knows this as dawning realization slashes through my thoughts. I ignore it — everything that does not help me now — and roar, “There will be no Hunt on this day! My Rakukanna will be found. Sweep the camp.”
I issue terse orders to my warriors, watching from several paces away. They charge towards the human settlement and immediately, those gathered disperse among cries and screams I remember.
History… I can’t seem to escape this cycle.Nox!I will have my Rakukanna this time. I willnotleave without her.
“You won’t find Miari or Kiki,” the false Rakukanna says, pulling against me when I rise.
“What do you know?”
“Nothing I’d ever tell you!”
I heave her up onto her feet, but she pulls and she yanks. I shake her once, forcefully, and the imposter swallows a scream into her mouth.
Va’Raku advances on us and takes hold of the imposter’s shoulders in a way that makes me want to tear his head clean off.Not my Rakukanna…she is not my Rakukanna…
“Raku,” he says, mouth turning down at the corners.
I follow his gaze to the traitor female’s arm. Splayed at an unusual angle, I feel shock.I broke her arm.I had not even intended to break it, but these little human creatures are so fragile. Too fragile not to be protected.And I left her here. My Rakukanna could be anywhere. At the bottom of a well, broken and hurt, abused by her people for the power I placed in her.
“Xok.” I release her arm and little one shivers.
