Page 13 of Taken to Heimo
Tur’Roth nods and meets my gaze. “My regrets, Krisxox. I…did not know.” He nods again and I stare ion rounds through him until he eventually turns and pushes his way through the crowd, disappearing for his own safety.
I hoist the male higher on my shoulder and turn to the railing at the edge of the platform. There are thick, retractable stalyx ropes mounted at even intervals that allow for quick escape. I grab one now, hit the release and it unfurls in my palm.
Jumping from the platform’s edge, I let the rope propel me downward at its maximum speed. I kick aside branches threatening to incapacitate me and, twice, have to pull the mechanism to slow my descent so I don’t kill us. Nox, I need the whimpering, crying coward in my arms alive for this.
We don’t even reach Qath’s mossy ground before the first cavra leaps for me. I swivel the coward’s body around mine, using him as a shield as the cavra king sinks his claws into the coward’s thick hide. He takes the coward from me and I listen to his shrieks as the cavra male feeds his pride.
I yank on the rope and shoot up, up, up.
I repeat the process with the other male and by the time I get to the leader, the cavras are sated, returned to their den. The leader’s shrieking corpse is left to the gevrao, then — large rodents who follow the cats at the top of the food chain, but who eat slow.
I watch them feast on his legs and arms first, tunneling their way in. They get tired after they chew through his thighs and that’s when the shock sets in. He passes out. I’m sure he’ll wake again at least once more before they kill him and am satisfied.
I breathe.
I climb the rope, retract the cable and kneel on the platform outside of my open door. Like a valve releasing steam, I feel more capable of moving, but little else. I stand and hold onto the wall so fiercely my claws sink into it.
It isn’t rage that’s suddenly made my legs so wobbly, and it isn’t fear. It’s the Xanaxana. Now that I’ve released it, it doesn’t want to go back into the place I’ve hidden it. It wants to beknown.
The battle is fierce but eventually I win and stagger inside, colors gone. I stumble into the hall and reach the door and when I look inside, Svera is standing at the foot of her nest, looking shaken and fierce and vulnerable.
She’s holding onto the edge of her nest with one hand. The other reaches up to touch her head scarf which has fallen to one side, revealing a batch of fuzzy curls combed back into a ball at the nape of her neck.
Her throat works. She touches the symbols hanging on worn beads in the center of her chest. “Thank you,” she whimpers and her voice breaks.
I forgot that Xana and I haven’t been locked in a battle, but a war. She surges again, this time with even greater force, and my colors glow, showering the room with light.
I roar away from the wall where I stand and advance on Svera. I capture her in my arms and I take her entire weight as she gives it up to me.
“Are you hurt?” I say, voice jerking as my palms skim her body, moving over her shoulders and back, her waist and hips.
She looks fine. She’s got tears on her face, but she’s alive and here and with me.
“Svera?”
She nods. “Hexa. Are…are you fine? You have blood…all over you.” Her chest hitches in a way that makes my ridges glow pink.
“Can you breathe?” I place my hand on her chest where I can feel her lungs struggling.
“He…hexa.” But she still hitches.
“Svera, breathe.” I capture her against my chest and let her wet, watery eyes leak all over my neck, soaking into the strands of my hair that fall there, smelling like salt, like metal.
I brush my thumb over the cartilage in her ear. It’s so soft, so strange how it moves for me like rubber. “I shouldn’t have pushed you away,” I growl against her skin. Soft as ash. Dreadful. Despicable. Human.Mine.
I taste her hairline, the sweat that’s formed there. It’s something that shouldn’t fill me with want, but does. Just like everything else about her.
I start, “I shouldn’t have…”
“I shouldn’t have kissed Tur’Roth.”
Surprise. I wasn’t expecting this from her, and feel my xora do a little dance. I trace my claws down the curve of her face… slide my hand around the back of her neck, wrench her head back.
“Nox, you shouldn’t have,” I growl.
Her fingernails scrape down the outsides of my arms. Her mouth and eyes are puffy and swollen and she’s never been so beautiful. She licks her lips and my xora hardens. I snarl and quickly shift my hips away from her so she can’t feel it, but she follows the line of my body with her own, plastering herself to my chest.
“Easy, Svera…”
