Kraving Dravka by Zoey Draven

Chapter Eight

The moment Valerie left, Dravka stood in silence for a brief moment.

Then his gaze turned to the door that led down to her room…and the other room that lay below.

Keriv’is’ senses were better than humans’. He’d smelled the smoke shortly before Valerie arrived on the lobby floor.

Pressing his lips together, he journeyed down to the basement, his bare feet padding on the smooth stone of the staircase. The smell of smoke filled his nostrils and he turned left at the base of the stairs, slowly striding towards the black door at the other end of the hallway.

When he pushed it open, his eyes focused on the smoldering pile of…

He frowned, his mind beginning to whirl.

Why had Valerie burned her aunt’s whips? Those same whips that they had all felt lashing across their backs now were blackened from fire. A horrible stench was in the air. There was very little ventilation down in the basement and Valerie would smell the lingerings of smoke for many weeks.

Fear made him freeze.

Not for himself. But for Valerie. Her aunt was vicious. A sadistic monster who hid behind her smiles and her lies. Dravka was ashamed to admit that he’d fallen for those lies once. But the promise of a better life on Everton, of the life and promises that Madame Allegria had made to him and the other Keriv’is, had been too tempting.

Madame Allegria would no doubt punish Valerie for this.

What possessed you to do this, Val?Dravka wondered, staring at the smoking pile. The fire wouldn’t spread. There was nothing for it to catch on down here, but Dravka watched it in disbelief until the majority of it was snuffed out.

The only thing he could do was take Madame Allegria’s fury in place of Valerie. He would tell the older human female that this had been his doing. There was no way around it.

He left the basement with his mind made up and he ascended the staircase back up to the Cluster in partial relief, knowing that at the very least, Valerie would be spared from this.

When he entered the Cluster, he saw Tavak and Ravu in the main sitting room. When the two brothers saw him appear, their heads snapped up from the Nu device they’d been reading from, strange expressions on their faces.

“What?” Dravka growled, his mood already taking a turn for the worse. Valerie was acting strange. He was worried about her. And her actions downstairs…they were reckless. Not for the first time, he wanted to know every little thought that ran through her mind. Even then, Dravka didn’t think that would satisfy him.

Ravu leaned away from the Nu device, exchanging a look with his brother that irritated Dravka. The two brothers were exceptionally close. Dravka, on more than one occasion, had felt envious of their bond, had felt envious that they’d escaped Kerivu together when it was destroyed…when so many had been lost. When Dravka had lost his own sister and father to that senseless crime.

“Have you seen Valerie this morning?” Tavak asked, watching him carefully.

The back of Dravka’s neck prickled, unease beginning to curl in his belly. The smell of smoke was still in his nostrils, smoke that Tavak and Ravu could no doubt smell coming off his clothes and skin.

“Why?” Dravka asked quietly.

Tavak hesitated. The Nu device, the slim tablet that he read from whenever he had a spare moment, was clenched in one of his palms.

Then Tavak tilted the device towards him. Dravka stepped forward to take it.

And right there, on the screen, was a flickering image of Valerie with a human male. A brief, five-second moving picture that played over and over again, underneath a headline that read: Gabriel Larchmont, heir to Larchmont Imports, to wed Valerie Browen.

The Cluster seemed to shift around Dravka, his claw scraping across the Nu device’s surface. He couldn’t hear anything except the blood rushing in his ears and the thundering of his two hearts, which had momentarily stopped before speeding up rapidly.

“This…” He trailed off, his gaze flickering to the looped picture and the headline. “This has to be a mistake.”

“Dravka…” Tavak started.

But he didn’t hear whatever it was that the other Keriv’i male said because his gaze shifted to the short and brief statement below the picture.

Derek and Celine Larchmont announce the engagement of their son Gabriel Larchmont to Miss Valerie Browen, niece of socialite and philanthropist Madame Allegria North. The wedding is set for Summer Date 0615 on Everton.

Two sentences.

Two sentences that made Dravka’s whole world turn upside down, until nothing seemed right.

His eyes flickered up to the picture again.

The human male had dark hair, blue eyes, and a wide grin. Valerie was wearing the pink dress he’d seen her in yesterday. Dravka’s hands around the device squeezed when he saw the way the male’s arm was snaked around her waist. Her side was pressed into his.

She was smiling, staring into whatever camera had been shoved into their faces.

And yet…

Dravka knew her well enough to know which smile of hers that was.

Realization went through him, but it was the kind that made his stomach lurch and his shoulders sag.

Her mood last night—the way she’d pushed him away, her gentle sobs coming through the closed door between them, her wide and glassy gaze—now made sense.

Even still, staring at the picture, watching it loop back around, watching the male’s hands on her body, filled Dravka with a rage that he hadn’t felt since his planet was destroyed, since his family was taken from him.

Isn’t this what you wanted?came that treacherous voice inside him. It was that voice that prevented him from throwing the Nu device across the room and storming from the brothel to find Valerie at that very moment.

“Dravka,” Tavak said.

The other Keriv’i male was in front of him, had been trying to get his attention, it seemed. When Dravka refocused his gaze on him, Tavak’s lips were turned down into a frown.

“This is good,” Dravka said, his voice quiet. Level. Lifeless.

“Kruvu?” Ravu asked, disbelief in his tone.

“She…she can finally get away from her,” Dravka said, the words falling from his lips even as his chest felt like it was being torn to shreds. “She can…she can have everything she wants now.”

He didn’t know who Gabriel Larchmont was but the human male could sure as hell give Valerie more than Dravka ever could.

Tavak’s lips pressed together firmly, his pupils flickering back and forth between Dravka’s. Dravka couldn’t tell what the other male was thinking. Frankly, he didn’t care. All that mattered was Valerie. All that mattered to him was her future, a happy one…and she would never find it here. She would never find it with Dravka.

Dravka reminded Tavak, “You said to cut her loose.”

“Pax, but…” Tavak trailed off, his tongue darting out to wet his slim lips.

“Vauk,” Dravka rasped, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment, his mind still whirling. He still smelled smoke, all around him. “I need a drink.”

He needed to get out of this room. He couldn’t stand to feel the stares of Tavak and Ravu on him. He couldn’t stand to feel their pity.

Dravka was already stumbling towards the door, dropping the Nu device on the threadbare rug with a gentle thud.

The door to the Cluster slammed shut behind him and he stalked back down the staircase, the brothel’s hallways and walls going past in an endless blur. Once he was back down to the main lobby level, he eyed the cart of glass decanters in the sitting area, filled with the golden, thick liquid he sought.

He sank down into the armchair, snagging a heavy bottle off the trolley cart. He didn’t bother to pour himself a glass of it. He hadn’t had alcohol in a long while but he took a healthy swallow of it now, letting the liquid burn down his throat.

It took a lot to get a Keriv’i male drunk.

Dravka intended to find out how much of Everton’s liquor it took to get him there.