Page 80 of Taken to Heimo
“Xok,” Raku curses, lunging up onto his feet. He grabs Miari and starts to tug her down the hall while his ridges flare in deep lavender.
Kiki hurries to my side while and whispers in my ear, “Let’s get you out of here.”
“Take me to Krisxox. Please.”
“Comets, come on.”
She wrenches me up onto my feet and pulls me towards the front door.
“You are dismissed,” Raku barks over his shoulder from the hall where he continues to glow lavender. Just before he disappears and right before my whole body buckles, I shout, “I accept the position of Hu’Raku.”
“Thank the stars for that,” Miari shouts.
Kiki laughs and drags me back outside under the sun. An arrow is loosed through my stomach and it’s aimed at Krisxox, a male once so full of hate, just as Kiki was.
Perhaps, there is no such thing as hate, only gardens not yet tended to.
Every place I step, a flower grows as Xana finally grants my Xaneru peace and settles my soul.
The Xanaxana is complete. Or, it will be. I just need him.
“Krisxox,” I call and I know he will come for me.
He always does.
23
Hu’Raka
The human called Jaxal and I find ourselves in mirrored positions. He hated Voraxians until his Xanaxana shone for the Nobu female, Lisbel. I hated everyone until Xana punched me in the face and knocked me down, bloodying me in a battle I was too stupid to surrender. Until now.
“Take over,” I tell him while I move to the youngest fighters training here. They are kits themselves, but they spent all solar watching me at the perimeter of the training grounds and, since I trained as a kit, too, why not let them?
Jaxal gives me a firm nod, then shouts, “Drugh!” He punches his left fist forward, then ducks and sweeps his training staff around.
I’ve been showing him a new defensive move for the past two solars — since I first cleared this space just outside of the Droherion Dome and claimed it for our training grounds — and he has mostly mastered it, so I feel confident in his ability to teach the other fifty hunters gathered here. Thirty of them are human. Twenty of them are my disciples. Among those, half are Drakesh, though I weeded out the ones like Vendra, who I thought might pose harm to the humans. I won’t tolerate that insolence and I won’t stand for that threat, not when it means my Xiveri mate’s wellbeing or her happiness.
The soldiers mirror his movements — even mine, who likely never thought they’d ever see a human training captain in their lifetimes. They better get xoking used to it.Ibetter get used to it. Because neither did I.
I move to the edge of the dome where the younger fighters train. I keep them positioned here in case we are attacked by any of this moon colony’s creatures. They will be able to step inside courtesy of the life drives they have embedded in their wrists.
For now, I approach the boy called Mahmoud and take his stick from him. I hand him a training staff that’s blunt on both ends and sturdier than his stick was. I show him and the other kits how to hold their new weapons and I’m not at all surprised that there are more female kits here than males.
These human females are savage, in my experience. Bloodthirsty. Every single one of them.One more than most…
“Krisxox…”
I tense and look up, but the sands are empty except for my warriors. Empty, except for the aching burn in my chest. Empty, except for my wounds, that are struggling to heal with how I push my body.
Empty, except for the solitary heart in my chest, which beats, beats, beats.
“Krisxox!”
My breath catches in my throat and gusts out of me on a moan. I’m running now, feeling like I’ve lost my xoking mind as I issue orders to the warriors in training and enter the dome.
I won’t be back for the rest of the solar. Perhaps the next. Or the next one…
“What happened?” I roar as the Va’Rakukanna carries most of Svera’s weight. Svera reaches for me, her hand like a claw as she grabs onto my shoulder. And then I understand.
