Alien Storm, page 17
Like a man who hated himself and hated what he’d just done.
I am lost, beloved.
“I should be asking you that,” he forced out. “I did not mean to... I cannot even say I was asleep, for I was not. But all the same, I would not have... That dream made me so desperate with fear, and when I woke and saw you still here with me I...”
His words ground to a halt. His eyes were open again now but still fastened upon the bed.
“I am sorry,” he finally whispered down at his hands.
Two in one night. First time I’ve heard him say please, and the first time I’ve ever heard him apologize.
He thinks he pushed me too far.
Little did he know there was no need for his apology. I’d held onto him. I’d felt the rush of heat. I’d only shoved him away because I’d remembered what a state he was in.
He thought my voice had trembled because I was terrified. I mean, I was. But not of him.
I was terrified of my reaction to him. The way I’d clung to him. The way I’d let him smash through every barrier, every wall. The way I’d wanted him. Needed him.
If he weren’t injured, just how far would we have gone?
“Errok,” I said softly. I moved to my hands and knees, crawling forwards. I came to a stop between his splayed thighs, right in front of his fists. “Would you please look at me?”
His throat worked. He let out a strangled gasp.
“It hurts.”
He looked younger like this, unhappy in the darkness without his customary sneer. It made me want to soothe him. To wrap my arms around him.
So, I did.
I kept my arms light and gentle as I circled them around his shoulders, leaning forward on my knees. I rested my cheek against the place where his shoulder met his neck, my nose brushing the side of his throat. He smelled of leather and blood and harsh mountain air.
“You didn’t push me too far,” I told him.
Shock at my words made his shoulders clench under my arms.
“I could have stopped you sooner. I should have stopped you sooner. I didn’t push you away because I...”
I didn’t push you away because I wanted you to stop.
But I couldn’t say it. Instead, I changed course. “I’m worried about your wounds. You really should lie back down.”
He didn’t fight me. Without argument, he laid his huge body back in its place. I knelt beside him, placing a tender palm over the wound on his chest. I was no longer worried that he’d done any extra damage to his wound. He was alert and didn’t seem to be in any worse physical pain than before, but I still wanted to make sure he was alright.
“How do you feel?” I asked. I shivered when one of his hands came up to cover mine.
“Like I have spilled far too much of myself tonight.”
I knew he didn’t mean his blood. He meant his words. The terrible, vulnerable ones he hadn’t been able to hold back.
I am lost and I wish that you would find me.
Don’t leave me behind.
“What were you dreaming about?” I kept my hand where it was and wriggled down until I was lying on my side facing him. He remained on his back, staring grimly up at the cave’s ceiling.
For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t tell me. Just when I assumed he’d shut down entirely, he answered.
“I dreamed of the taklok. Only when you called out to stop it, Thaleo shot you instead of me.”
I stilled against his side.
“You are so small,” he said gutturally, as if that fact physically pained him. “The arrow was so big. It tore right through you. Destroyed you. You were bleeding out on the stone and no one stopped to help you. I ran towards you as fast as I could, but the distance between us widened with every step I took.”
I remembered his feet moving in his sleep. I’d wondered if he’d been running away from something in his dream.
But it was towards something. Towards me.
“I knew that you were dying,” he continued. “I was losing you. And I cannot... I cannot even begin to explain that fear. And then when I awoke and saw you above me, strong and beautiful and alive, I... I was overcome by relief. Relief so blindly overwhelming I could barely tell it apart from despair.”
I knew that. I’d felt it in his kiss.
“I thought you said you weren’t afraid of anything,” I whispered.
His fingers twitched, then curled around mine.
“I lied.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Errok
I could not make myself look at Zuh-Tephanie. Could not even enjoy the balm of her touch on my skin. I was too wrapped up in how hatefully weak I’d become.
No wonder she does not want you.
The first time our mouths had met, it was not because she’d given me leave to claim her. It was not because she wanted me. It was because she’d seen me trembling and terrified like a child. She was too good, too generous, and she’d let me touch her out of pity.
Pity.
The word hissed in my brain like scorching metal plunged into cold water. It made my insides curdle.
I would take her insults and her judgments and her pain. Her hate. Her claims that she would never love me. I would take it all.
But I would never accept her pity.
Soon, Zuh-Tephanie’s breathing changed. Growing rhythmic and deep. She’d fallen asleep once more. I knew I needed sleep, too. I needed to recover, and quickly.
I needed to gain back my strength, come into my full power once more.
So that I could be worthy of her love.
I wanted her love. Was desperate for it.
But even I would not accept scraps of love that were not really love at all but rather condolent charity.
I refuse to be pathetic. I refuse to be pitied.
I am Gahn Errok. I will remind my mate of my power and prowess, over and over again, until the pity is ripped away and she is helpless to do anything but love me.
Or, at the very least, I vowed to continue in my attempts until the day I died.
Whichever comes first.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Stephanie
Perhaps expectedly, Gahn Errok became the most obnoxious patient anyone could ever have imagined after that night. I hoped it was a good sign, that it meant he was gaining strength and energy back. Because, Jesus Christ, you needed a lot of energy to bark and snarl and complain as much as he did.
What was unexpected, however, was the way he now began to push me away. All the humour, the softness, the vulnerability we’d experienced together that night seemed as if it had never even happened at all. Errok made no mention of the kiss, and, confused and feeling weirdly rejected, I didn’t either. Instead, I dutifully brought him food (which he complained about endlessly – too burnt, too dry, too little, too much) while I seethed internally. In the span of a few hours of sleep after his nightmare, he'd somehow gone back to the first Gahn Errok I’d met. Maybe even a worse version of him.
I knew that part of it had to be the fact that he was in pain and hated being cooped up in Thaleo’s mountain. It was obviously making him miserable. Gahn Errok was the kind of guy who squatted with a boulder on his back all night and carved his way through the cold, clear sky all day. I could tell that lying in bed, especially a bed belonging to his enemy, was driving him out of his mind.
But that didn’t explain why he didn’t want me near him. Shockingly, he even suggested that I no longer sleep in the cave with him after that first night. Even though I agreed with him that he appeared to be out of the woods, I took issue with the way he said he “no longer needed me hovering about like some typically over-worried female.”
I more than took issue with it. I was furious.
“If I’m worried,” I’d snapped, “it’s because I’m worried that I’m going to end up killing you myself!”
Then I’d stormed out of the cave.
And hadn’t gone back for four days.
I spent those four days busying myself with work. That’s what I’d actually come here for, after all. To work. To help track and predict the weather in the mountains. I didn’t come here to get distracted by a gorgeous injured Gahn who was giving me a serious case of emotional whiplash. I made use of the equipment we’d brought, and I sent out drones that would be able to send data back to Valeria’s ship and its portable data tablets. Of course, monitoring the weather patterns would have been much easier with access to the orbiting research vessel’s scanners. But considering the people on that vessel might have been planning an attack on us at this very moment, it wasn’t like we could ask them to share it. So, drones and short-range scanners it was.
The work was a welcome distraction. Even if I did it all with a black cloud of rage swirling in my chest.
And the rage just got worse, turned murderous, when I thought about the reason I was so freaking upset with Gahn Errok.
I wasn’t angry at him for being his usual arrogant idiot self. I was angry because it seemed like we’d gotten somewhere. Like I’d glimpsed something more than that inside him.
But now it was gone. He’d pushed me away
And I didn’t know why.
It doesn’t matter why. I never wanted to be with him, anyway. I should be glad that he’s not being so pushy and clingy with his caveman “you’re mine” bullshit anymore.
I should have been happy.
Should have been.
Wasn’t.
Shit.
And that just made me even angrier. Nothing about this – about his reactions, or mine – made any goddamn sense.
I threw myself into work with such intensity, and was so distracted by my extremely annoying feelings, that I’d forgotten about the reason for the taklok. I’d forgotten all about Gahn Thaleo’s underhanded methods of trapping Errok.
Gahn Thaleo didn’t always share the evening meal in his Sky Hall. He was often out assisting his hunters or patrolling parties, or hosting meetings with his closest warriors deep in the mountain. But when he strode into the Sky Hall on the evening of the fourth day after I’d left Errok’s bedside, it all came crashing back. This was the first time I’d seen him since the taklok. Since he’d sent his arrow through Errok’s chest.
“Gahn Thaleo,” I said, jumping to my feet when he entered the Sky Hall. “I have a bone to pick with you.”
Thaleo stopped his precise march into the hall, watching me with expressionless eyes. I could hear Fiona whisper, “Girl, what the fuck?” from the floor where she was seated beside me. Valeria stood, too, obviously uneasy with my proclamation. Grim and Tok both got to their feet as well. Zaria tried to catch my gaze from across the fire, throwing me a very clear stop right now you dumbass human look which I ignored.
“Oh?”
That was all he said. He wasn’t telling me to sit down or denying me the chance to speak, I had to give him that. But the simple, almost careless, “Oh?” sent me into a blinding rage.
“What do you mean, ‘Oh?’ You know exactly what I’m talking about!”
Valeria was at my side in an instant.
“What the hell is going on?” she asked, her gaze swinging anxiously between Gahn Thaleo and the group of warriors who now stood around him.
“Ask him,” I said, my hands balling into fists. “He knows exactly what he did.”
“I know everything I have ever done, this is true,” the Gahn said. “But you’ll have to enlighten me about the precise action you speak of.”
“The taklok!” I cried.
Fiona, once again, was asking me, “What the fuck?” from below. Valeria was also looking at me like I’d gone more than a little crazy.
“Errok is the one who started that. He called the taklok,” Valeria said slowly, as if I was fucking stupid.
“Tell them,” I said to Thaleo. “Tell them that you knew this would all happen from the beginning.”
Thaleo’s chin lifted slightly.
“I have no reason to hide this. I knew that by inviting your party here, which included his mate, that he would come and call a taklok.”
“Well, maybe we should have predicted that, too,” Valeria said. “Gahn Errok does seem to be a bit of a loose cannon.”
“No!” I said, whirling on her. Errok had been right. Gahn Thaleo’s plan had worked out perfectly. Thaleo came out looking stoic and noble while Errok came out looking like the insane, violent one who couldn’t be trusted. The loose cannon. Which he kind of was, to be honest, but not in this specific instance.
“That’s not true, is it, Gahn Thaleo?” I looked at him once more. “Tell them that this had nothing to do with Errok’s personality and everything to do with your culture and ways. Tell them that he had no other choice but to call a taklok to preserve his honour. Your men know it’s true, but my people don’t. So, tell them how you used me to lure Errok here so that you could have the chance to kill him in the taklok without making it look like you’d done something wrong in the eyes of the alliance.”
Valeria stiffened beside me. “Is this true, Gahn Thaleo? That by bringing us, her, here you forced Errok’s hand?”
“Yes.”
I blinked, shocked he hadn’t even tried to deny it.
But he kept going, which shocked me even more. I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard him put this many words together at one time.
“I knew Errok would call a taklok the moment you entered these mountains, yes. Our ways demand such a response. No man, especially a Gahn, would allow his enemy to take care of his mate like I had done. However, I did not simply bring you here to lure Gahn Errok.” He passed his eyes over our group, his gaze lingering on Nasrin as he continued. “Enraging Gahn Errok was not the only, or the most specific, reason I brought you here. I truly wanted to show you my mountain. Wanted to foster trust and peace between us. Wanted to offer hospitality and care. The fact that I might have gotten the chance to finally shoot Gahn Errok was rather a bonus of it all, but it was not the main origin of my motivations.”
Valeria let out an annoyed breath. My heart pounded furiously at the way he’d so easily admitted he’d wanted to kill Errok. There was a small amount of comfort knowing that he hadn’t specifically invited us here just to instigate the violence, that we weren’t entirely pawns in his twisted game. But it wasn’t enough to cool my anger and the sense of betrayal.
“You said you wanted us to trust you. How can we trust you after this?”
The question came from Nasrin, making me swivel to her, surprised.
Gahn Thaleo’s reply was controlled thunder in the space.
“You cannot understand. You are not of our world and do not know our ways. And you were not at the negotiations. But she was.” He gestured his tail towards Valeria. “You ask me to tell them all the truth? Valeria, you must do the same. Tell them how, when Errok learned that the storms had battered my people and decimated our hunting grounds, he still refused to allow us to hunt in neutral territory. He would have let us starve before he’d bend to help us.”
My blood ran cold.
No, he wouldn’t... Would he?
Gahn Thaleo kept on going, every word like an arrow in my chest.
“You think I used you?” he asked, speaking to me this time. “Perhaps your own leaders should tell you how they dangled you in front of Gahn Errok’s nose in order to get him to submit to the terms of the alliance.”
“Now, hold on!” Valeria snapped. “That is not a fair characterization of what happened.” She turned to me. “We told Errok the same thing every Sea Sand Gahn’s been told. That he’d never see his mate if he didn’t uphold the peaceful terms of the treaty. We never used you as bait. There was no guarantee he’d ever get to be with you. Just see you. That’s it. It was the only way we could get him to agree to let Gahn Thaleo expand his territory to hunt and keep his people alive long-term.”
I took a shaky breath, nodding. I knew my people wouldn’t sell me out. Chapman, Valeria, and all the others had always been adamant about the fact that no woman would ever have to be with a man she didn’t want to be, mate or not. But even so, the idea that I was part of the negotiations without even knowing it, that I was the only thing that made Errok bend his iron will to keep Gahn Thaleo’s people from starving, felt prickly and ugly in my guts.
It got even pricklier when it made me understand Gahn Thaleo’s actions just that little bit more. How could he not want to kill the man who would have turned his back while his people starved?
“I have to go,” I said. Fiona tried to grab for me, and Valeria called out to me, but I ignored them. I stumbled into the tunnel, turned my feet towards Errok’s cave, and ran.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Errok
On the evening of the fourth day of healing, I began to fear that I might have made a mistake. A rare occurrence for me, to be sure. But every day that went by that my mate did not return to the cave sent dread’s claws slicing through my guts. I’d sent her away myself. Told her she need no longer sleep here. Not because I didn’t want her, but because I’d not been able to stomach the idea of her seeing me afraid and vulnerable again. The thought of having another nightmare in front of her, skies forbid, made me want to drive my head against a wall until consciousness fled. I’d had to send her away.
But I did not think I would make her so angry that she would refuse to see me at all. A Sea Sand warrior had been bringing me my food. And I’d been sleeping so hatefully, terribly, safely alone.
I missed her. More than I would have thought a man could miss anything. More than food, more than air, I needed her.
And yet, my pride kept me from going to her. Not because I was too proud to beg for her forgiveness – I’d discovered about three heartbeats after she’d left that I was not. As soon as she’d disappeared from sight, my insides had crashed in fear and my throat went tight, swallowing the sound of me calling out her name. No, I was simply too proud to go to her before I was entirely healed. If I went to seek her out, it would be with my full power. And she would agree to come to me because she saw my strength and wanted me. Not because she pitied me.
