Page 41 of Taken to Heimo
“Or it could have none.”
His expression is ghastly. Ghostly. “I do not believe that this would be the case.”
A rumbling beneath my chest fires my mind to life and rips the memory away. Where am I? I’m not on Qath. What happened? All I feel is pain.
I suck in a breath that tastes like pain and fills me up with it. Scorching heat touches my insides, then spreads to consume the outsides. I roar into whatever ground is beneath me.
What happened?I’m not in Li’Lemoria’s cabin. Ididresist the Xiveri bond, but only for as long as it took for her to feel it. Nox, when she wanted me, there was no question of what I would do to her.Feast on everything.I took her virginity and she looked so wounded afterward. I…tried to tell her, I’d take her for a mate, but then…then what? What happened next?
She said nox.
I passed out. I xoking fainted.
The Krisxox of Quadrant Fourfainted.
“Well, this is a sight. Isn’t it, my Okkari?”
My neck feels like it’s been sawed off and sewn back together with barbed stitches when I turn to look over my shoulder at the pair walking towards me. The last xoking pair I want to see right now.
“Krisxox, your ridges,” the Va’Rakukanna says, looking up at her mate in wonder. “Are his ridges supposed to be like that?”
“Verax…” I roar.
Pain.
It rips through me like a knife through the gut. I can tolerate any amount of pain — I have trained for it — but the sensation destroying my body from the inside out is pure, unfettered agony. I grab for my chest where I can feel my third heart, much larger now, too engorged to fit the space left for it, beating out an angry pulse.
I broke the bond. Nox, I didn’t. Then what is this?
The answer comes to me after a second ripple of pain rages through my body.Failure, it says, and it speaks in a female’s voice.
“Nox, I do not believe they are supposed to be like that. I don’t think Krisxox has any control of them at all anymore.”
I stagger to one knee and grab my ridged forehead with my left hand. I open my eyes and look at the carpeted floor where I can see a cascade of colors shining down from my face onto it. The backs of my arms aren’t immune either and are blooming with color. I bet if I looked, my xoking xora would also be putting on a light show.Xok! What is happening to me?
“I believe he is being punished.”
“Punished?” The female asks.
“Punished by Xana for denying his bond.”
“Nox! I didn’t deny her. She is the one who deniedme.” The pain twisting in my gut twists tighter, harder. My xora shrivels, but my stones jerk beneath it, wanting release that I only get at the touch of one female. The one who says she hates me.
“Ah well, that explains it.”
I turn to glare at the two of them, but Va’Raku watches me without a hint of emotion while his xoking queen hides her laughter behind her hand.
I try to turn my emotions off, but like a faucet with no valve, I can’t. She steps past her mate and waves the hand she had pressed to her lips at me dismissively. The gesture would enrage me if she weren’t one of the few humans I tolerate and I only tolerate her because of her fighting acumen. She’s nothing like Svera. Hopeless in combat.Hopeless because she is mine and I am unworthy.
“Let your ridges run wild, Krisxox. You’re not fooling anybody. We’ve all known for fifty solars that your Xanaxana is on the fritz for Svera.”
Alright, perhaps I can feel rage towards this female, then. I start to stand, but she doesn’t manage to look intimidated and Va’Raku makes no move to intercede. This deflates me.
“More than fifty. Since he first saw her on the transporter that took you off of your human colony, would be my guess.”
“How long has she known?” I snarl, trying to tamp the colors in my ridges again and failing. What is this for a punishment? How long will it last? Why was it structured specifically to shame —
Shame.
