Barbarian King’s Mate by Ivy Sparks

Chapter Twelve

Garath

I carriedDaphne down the ramp to the ceremonial hut next to the Central Court of Caverncall. Someone had left the door open, and I carried her inside. Clansmen lined the walkways and catwalks of the village, but no one made a sound.

I angled Daphne through the entryway and kicked the door closed behind me. I shut out the rest of the clan. Now we were alone.

I carried her over to a steaming bath in the corner of the room, climbing inside as I continued to hold her close. I slowly lowered myself into its depths, and carefully placed her in my lap.

She sighed dreamily as I massaged her scalp and poured warm water over her hair. After bathing her, I saw to myself as well, then stood and brought us both to the nearby bench and towels.

She was so weak, the poor thing, barely able to sit up as I dried her body and hair. After drying us both, I scooped her back into my arms and took her to the bed.

When I laid her down, her eyes hardly opened. She didn’t react when I covered her with a blanket. She didn’t even look at me.

I sat down on the edge of the bed, but that didn’t feel right, so I switched over to the fire. Someone had lit it and left plenty of food and firewood. Two sets of clothes hung from a hook on the opposite wall. One set was mine from home. The other was a set of clothes intended for a Kavian female, but they were tied to make them smaller. Nissaya must have brought them for Daphne when she set up the warm bath for us.

I occupied myself with putting fuel on the fire and setting a pot of water to boil. I glanced once toward the bed. Daphne had opened her eyes. She gazed through the window at the light coming through the slits in the cavern roof.

The sun was going down over the mountains. The light coming through took on the pastel colors of dusk. The voices coming from the rest of the village faded as people returned to their own homes. The excitement of the ritual was over.

Daphne still didn’t look at me. She must be traumatized by the ritual. Who wouldn’t be? Maybe she was planning to escape. I couldn’t fault her for that, either, even if…

I bent over my work. I should’ve been glad she didn’t want to talk, because I didn’t either. Something happened during the ritual, something way beyond what happened between our bodies. That was incredible enough, but this was something different, something I had given little thought to in the past.

No Kavian could know what the mating bond felt like until it happened to him. I didn’t think it could happen to me—not like this. For some reason, I duped myself into thinking that if I didn’t intend to actually bond with Daphne, that it wouldn’t happen.

It happened, all right. It happened in ways I couldn’t imagine. It was all too terribly real and now I couldn’t deny it. It happened. I mated with her, and now the bond tied us together forever. Nothing could break it.

She couldn’t have felt it, though, because she wasn’t a Kavian. Humans had a different physiology. I might not have been the galaxy’s foremost expert on humans, but even someone with a cursory knowledge knew they didn’t mate for life.

The worst part was that I could never confide it to anyone else—not without revealing that I never meant to bond with Daphne at all.

I cast my mind over the village. Nissaya? She already knew I didn’t bring Daphne here as my mate, but she would never understand about the ritual being real. She didn’t believe in all that magical nonsense. My friend, Tennar? He would laugh in my face. He would treat it as such a joke that he just might blurt out the truth to someone who would spread it all over the village. Father? Never in a million years.

The longer I thought it over, the more I realized there was no one I could tell. I would have to take this secret to the grave. And I certainly couldn’t tell Daphne. She didn’t deserve to carry the burden that she was my fated mate—not when she needed to return to her people.

I couldn’t turn around and look at the bed again. Daphne would leave this planet and leave me devastated and alone. I would never take another mate—I couldn’t. I would just have to become like my father, who had lost his fated mate. The lost bond would drive me out of my mind for the rest of my life, but there was nothing I could do to change it now.

The water started boiling, so I took the pot off the fire. I set it aside and reached for a tea cup when a hand appeared on my arm. I looked up to find Daphne bent down next to me.

She clutched the blanket around her bare shoulders. Her tousled auburn hair fell over her flushed face. She looked more beautiful in the afterglow of ecstasy than she looked during the ritual. “I’m sorry, Garath. I’m so sorry.”

I looked away. “You have nothing to apologize for. I wouldn’t let you die when there was something I could do to prevent it.”

“I… I feel like I took something from you in there.” She cast a glance toward the closed door. Were my clansmen out there, pressing their ears to the door for any sound of us continuing our mating? I wouldn’t be surprised. “I don’t know how the mating ritual works, but I know you didn’t want to do that. I’m sorry you had to go through that for my sake.”

I concentrated hard on pouring the tea. Looking at her hurt too much. “I’m not sorry, and you shouldn’t be either. You did it as much to save me from Father’s wrath as I did it to save you. We both did it, and now we can put it behind us.”

“Well, I’m grateful.” She sat down near me by the fire. “I promise I’ll get out of your hair as soon as I can. Then you can get back to your own life.”

I didn’t reply. I couldn’t tell her what that would do to me, her bonded mate.

I poured tea for us both and passed her one bowl of food. I made sure to hand it to her without touching her hand. The slightest touch from her might drive me out of my mind. I would fight to the death for her, but telling her that would only scare her off.

How did this happen? Simple. I went through the mating ritual and now we were bonded. Any idiot could understand that. How did I fool myself into thinking that something different would happen?

She always said she wanted to leave. She never lied to me about that. I lied to her, though. I lied by omission by not telling her that, by giving herself to me in the ritual, she would be bonded to me too. Would she be left devastated and insane when she went back to her own people? Could a Kavian ritual work on a human?

“So what’s next?” Daphne ventured. “How long do we stay here?”

I shrugged. “A few days. Or as long as we want, really. The clan will expect us to continue mating as long as we like.”

Her head shot up and her eyes popped. All at once, she snorted with laughter. “Really? Once wasn’t enough?”

I looked away. She wasn’t laughing at me. She wasn’t mocking my desire to continue to mate with her. She didn’t know how I felt. She was human. She couldn’t know.

She cut off her laughter and leaned in. She furrowed her brow, examining me. “Something’s bothering you. What is it?”

I stirred the hot coals for lack of anything better to do. “I gave you my word that I would get you off this planet, and I intend to honor that promise. We just have to figure out how to do it.”

She leaned back in her seat, apparently satisfied with this answer. “Well, like I said, Philippa had a communications device on her when the Vorlax attacked. I also had one in my pack on the hill where the Vorlax overtook us. If I had either one, I could contact the Quest—that’s the research vessel that dropped us off here. I could ask the ship to come and pick me up. I understand it’s too dangerous to return to either place, but…”

“If that’s what needs to be done, that’s what we’ll do. We just have to figure out how. We can overcome the Vorlax, but we’ll need help.”

She blinked up at me. “You really want to go back there? It’s too risky. You said so yourself.”

“I said I would get you off this planet. That’s all that matters. I gave my word of honor. Going back on that isn’t an option.”

“What will your clan think, though, of me leaving after the ritual?”

I nodded, thinking it over. “That’s right. For right now, we have to continue to play the part of bonded mates. When the time comes to get you off the planet, we could fake your death and smuggle you out of the village.”

“Do we really have to go that far, with faking my death?”

“Yes. There’s no other way for us to separate without causing suspicion. If anyone figured out that I planned to send you home from the beginning, they would realize that we faked the ritual too. They would realize I didn’t bring you here as my mate. The game would be up and there would be serious consequences for the both of us. The mating ritual can’t be annulled by any other means than the death of a mate.”

Daphne frowned. “Oh. I see.” There. I was right. She didn’t feel it. The bond didn’t affect her. She could walk away and go back to… wherever.

“What about you?” she blurted out. “Will you be able to mate with someone else after I leave?”

Telling her that I couldn’t was something I had intended on avoiding. “You don’t worry about me. I’ll find a way to get back to the glade or the hilltop. I’ll get the communications device and bring it back here. Then once you’ve contacted your people, we’ll fake your death and bring you back to them. Now stop talking and eat. We have to stay in this hut until morning at the earliest or the clan will question the validity of the mating. We don’t have to do anything. We can just relax here and get some sleep.”

I passed her another dish loaded with pastries. Now I knew for certain it was Nissaya who set up this hut for us. The savory smell coming off the pastries was unmistakable.

Daphne stared down at the dish for a second. Her brain hadn’t caught up with the rest of her. She looked at me. Her eyes glistened with the fading light coming through the window. “Aren’t you going to have any?”

I took one of the pastries and bit into it. “Happy now?”

She laughed and put the bowl between us. “Yes.” She lifted one out and took a bite, pausing a moment to savor it. “These are great. Thank you.”

I leaned back and propped one elbow underneath me. Now that we got the serious business out of the way, I started to relax. I had a few days at least before I had to worry about my mistake catching up with me.

She took one of the tea cups and drank. She stuffed the rest of her pastry into her mouth and grabbed another. “I’m starving. That drink the shaman gave us must have increased my appetite.”

In more ways than one. She took her third pastry and stuck her nose into one of the other bowls. “What are these?”

I stretched out on the floor to watch. “Nichi fritters.”

She looked up, breathless. “Nichi? That’s…”

“Yeah. The animal in whose skin we smuggled you into the village. This is the fried inner lining of its fourth stomach.”

She wrinkled her nose at the fritters. “Ew.”

“Try it. You’ll probably like it since the ceremonial drink increases your appetite.”

She looked back and forth between me and the fritters. All at once, she shrugged and snatched one. She took a bite and peered up at the ceiling while she chewed. I had to laugh. She looked so comical.

“You’re right. They’re good. What’s so funny?”

I threw my arm over my eyes. “Nothing at all.”

“You aren’t eating anything.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“How can you not be?” She explored the rest of the food Nissaya left for us. “You must be starving.”

“Hardly.”

She squinted into one of the other jars. “What’s this?”

“It’s a drink—a cold one. It’s called kwaga, and it’s slightly fermented, so don’t drink too much until you get used to it.”

“It smells good—kind of sweet.” She poured some into her empty tea cup and tasted it. “It’s delicious.”

“Take it easy. You’ll give yourself one whopper of a headache.”

“Cut it out. I will not. You make me sound like a lush.”

“Lush? I don’t know that word.”

“It means a drunk. It means someone who drinks too much and ruins their life because they can’t stop.”

I eyed her pouring another cup of kwaga. “You’re certainly living up to that description now.”

“Shut up. I am not. I just want to unwind after…” Daphne waved it off. “Anyway, you should have some.”

“No, thank you.”

“I thought you would want to relax as much as I do. You aren’t even eating.”

“You can see me relaxing, can’t you?” I sprawled on the floor to prove my point. “I’m as relaxed as I could hope to be under the circumstances.”

“You should lie on the bed. You’ll be more comfortable there.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. The bed is all yours.”

“I slept in your bed last night, so you should take it tonight. I’ll take the floor.”

I didn’t like where this conversation was going, so I got to my feet instead. I made a show of arranging things in the hut. “I’m not tired. You should get some sleep, though. Tomorrow’s another day.”

Daphne asked, “Another day of pretending to be mates, you mean?”

“Just so. I’ll have to talk to Father about the Vorlax. He wants me to go back to the glade, anyway. He wants me to bring back proof that I think they were…”

I broke off. How much should I tell her? She wouldn’t know anything about the Ranxi modifying the Vorlax. She didn’t know enough about the Vorlax to recognize anything different about them.

She nodded. “Your father will let you take some of your clansmen to the glade, right?”

“I doubt it.”

“You’re joking. He can’t possibly think of sending you back there alone.”

I shrugged. “If I’m not mistaken, he plans to do exactly that.”

“What are you going to do?” Daphne exclaimed. “You aren’t in all seriousness considering that. It would be suicide.”

I glanced over my shoulder at her. Her shining eyes caught the light, and it shone on her glossy hair. She gazed up at me with wide eyes, her worry apparent. Was it possible I misunderstood her? Was it possible she sensed the mating bond too? Was that why she didn’t want me facing the Vorlax alone?

I shook those thoughts out of my head. She was human. She just talked a few minutes ago about leaving this planet and leaving me to my own devices. She didn’t have the first clue what separating Kavian mates really meant. How could she possibly know?

I crossed over to the bed and folded down the sheet. “Come over here, Daphne. No, leave your cup. You’ve had enough.”

She shot back the rest of her kwaga and set the tea cup down. She stood up and wobbled on unsteady legs. Her hand flew to her head. “Whoa, I don’t feel so hot.”

I rushed to her side and caught her before she toppled. “I told you to take it easy. You’ll pay for this in the morning. Mark my words.”

She slumped against me while I supported her to the bed. “I didn’t even have that much. But now I’m feeling pretty woozy. Why didn’t you warn me?”

I laughed, saying, “I did warn you,” before I eased her down on the bed and pushed her onto the pillow. “You’ll be fine. Just go to sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

Her eyelids fluttered and her hair scattered across her cheeks. Her nostrils flared and her lips parted as her breathing lengthened. And with that, she was asleep. She didn’t even feel me pull the bedspread over her.

I combed her hair behind her ear. Now I could see her face softening into a deep rest. I could never look at her again—not ever in my life—without seeing the matchless ecstasy of the ritual. Those memories—the sensations and expressions and sounds of her climaxes—would be seared into my mind for all of time.

Long after she left this planet, I would remember. I could never forget. I didn’t want to forget. No other woman would ever take her place in my heart.