Enthralled by Tiffany Roberts
Chapter 1
“The Queen’sKhan’ul Claw is dead,” Ketahn rasped in vrix. “By the Eight, what have I brought upon us?”
Ivy clutched the spear shaft against her chest. Darkness was closing in around her, made deeper and more sinister by the blood red light in the corridor, and she found herself battling an irrational certainty that it would swallow her up.
Her chest constricted, making her rapid breaths painful, and the pounding of her heart echoed in her ears. Fear and adrenaline were bitter on her tongue.
Please don’t let him be hurt.
Taking in a slow, shaky breath, she set the spear on the floor and eased toward Ketahn. The stench of rancid water thickened as she neared the jagged break beyond which the floor sloped down. It was impossible to tell the difference between the blood and the black water pooled on the floor. Fortunately, the gloom made the vrix body lying beneath Ketahn indistinct enough to prevent Ivy from fixating upon any details.
A strained growl rumbled in Ketahn’s chest. That growl culminated in a torrent of snarled words in his language, all spoken too quickly and ferociously for Ivy to make out much of anything.
Ketahn stomped two legs on the dead vrix, grasped his spear, and tore it free from the corpse’s back. There was no pretending the dark liquid that spurted out was anything but blood. Ivy gasped and stumbled back as the blood splashed at her feet.
A sharp shake of Ketahn’s weapon flicked the gore from its head. The sounds of little bits of flesh hitting the water were sickeningly mundane.
“He will not have you,” Ketahn said. “She will not have me.”
Ivy swallowed hard and lifted a hand to touch Ketahn’s arm. “Ketahn?”
He stiffened for an instant; that stillness offered no warning of what came next. She was only vaguely aware of the sound of Ketahn’s spear falling as he spun around, swept Ivy into his arms, and pulled her against him in a crushing embrace. Ivy wound her arms and legs around him as though it was the most natural thing in the world, as if she’d done so a million times over a thousand lifetimes.
None of the unpleasant smells in the air mattered now. When Ivy inhaled, she filled her lungs with Ketahn’s spicy scent, and it was enough.
One of his hands petted her hair, smoothing it down, as he buried his face between her shoulder and neck. After a harsh exhalation that warmed her shoulder and blew strands of her hair backward, Ketahn drew in a ragged, desperate breath. He slipped his forelegs around her and brushed them along the backs of her thighs.
Catching a fistful of her hair, he tugged back on it, angling her chin up as he strengthened his embrace. “And she will never have you,” he rasped against her throat.
“No one is taking me away.” Ivy closed her eyes. “I’m yours, Ketahn. No one has me but you.”
He shivered, and the vibrations rippled through her. Ivy knew she was all that was keeping Ketahn together, all that was keeping him calm. Tangling her fingers in his hair, she held him, taking comfort in his nearness, in the way he stroked her hair, her back, her body. She longed to will everything away, everything except him, but all this was no less real than it had been when she’d first awoken in this alien world weeks ago.
She’d boarded the Sominium to escape her past. There was no escaping the present.
“Are you hurt?” she asked.
“No.”
There were more layers woven into that simple word than Ivy could possibly unravel, but she knew at least that he was being truthful.
“Who was he, Ketahn?”
His hold on her strengthened a little more as a fresh growl rolled through his chest. “Durax. He was the queen’s. He was her Khan’ul Claw. Her hunter.”
“And he wanted to take you to her?”
Ketahn grunted affirmatively. The sound was cut through by a low buzz, a bitter edge, a hint that there was still more he wasn’t saying—or wasn’t yet ready to say. “We must go, Ivy.”
He straightened and lifted his head, meeting her gaze briefly before raking his eyes over her. His mandibles twitched. They glistened in the hellish red light, and Ivy had no doubt of what they were covered in.
She had no doubt of what she was now covered in.
With another frustrated growl, Ketahn cast a final glare at the fallen vrix, removed a hand from Ivy to collect the spears, and carried her into the stasis room through which they’d entered the ship.
He set her down on her feet, though he didn’t take his hands off her.
Ivy was just as reluctant to release her hold on him. An emotional maelstrom raged inside her. She’d seen, done, and felt so much today that it seemed like a lifetime had passed since she’d woken in Ketahn’s arms that morning. Part of her longed for numbness; the death, the sorrow, and the fleeting taste of hope had been too much.
But numbness was an all-or-nothing deal, and she didn’t want to dull her feelings for Ketahn even a little. Her bond with him was all that kept her going.
Frowning, she looked up at him. “We…we can’t just leave the other humans.”
“We must.” He withdrew from her and sank down on the debris-strewn floor. “Come, my heartsthread.”
Without his hands on her body, the cool air swept over Ivy unhindered, leaving an uneasy tingling beneath her skin. She shivered and glanced over her shoulder. The gash in the hull was like the toothy maw of a huge monster, leading only to darkness and the unknown.
Ivy hurriedly stepped around Ketahn and climbed onto his hindquarters, scooting as close to his torso as she could. She wrapped her arms around Ketahn’s middle. He rose, settling a big hand over both of hers. She didn’t care that his skin was sticky with blood—she just needed the comfort of his touch.
“Do you think there were more hunters with him?” she asked.
“If so, they are not close. Not yet.” Taking a spear in each pair of hands, he strode forward.
“Are…are the other humans safe here?”
Somehow, fresh tension rippled through him, and he made one of those low, inhuman sounds that Ivy felt more than heard. “You are safe. I cannot say more.”
Were it not for the blood—Durax’s blood—drying on her skin where Ketahn had unintentionally smeared it, Ivy might have pressed him on the matter. But she’d seen more than enough to understand this wasn’t the time or place to do so.
She held tight as Ketahn passed through the opening. He moved with deliberate slowness and care, both spears at the ready. Even when he pushed aside the dangling pieces of conduit and cabling, he was entirely silent. But she knew his outward calm was a façade.
His hearts pounded, their pulse flowing into her through all the points of contact between their bodies, faster and stronger than usual.
There’d be a lot to talk about when they got home. She could only hope Ketahn would be open with her.
The air was immediately hotter and thicker outside the ship. Ivy had an unnerving sense of crossing into a new, alien world for the first time, and a pang of all the associated horror and excitement struck her chest, but it was backward.
The Somnium seemed alien and otherworldly to her now. This jungle, for all its dangers…well, it was hers.
Ketahn ceaselessly scanned their surroundings as he walked to the side of the crater, seeming to focus especially on the walls and tangled plant growth overhead. Ivy kept her gaze moving too, though her vision was filled with shadows upon shadows, contrasted only by glimpses of blue sky stolen through breaks in the vegetation.
At the side of the crater, Ketahn passed her the spears. Ivy didn’t look at their black stone heads, knowing Ketahn had yet to clean them. She laid the spear shafts across her thighs and handed him the silk rope. Working in unison, they secured the rope around their waists, lashing their bodies together.
Surprisingly, her hands had only trembled a little as she’d worked the knots and twists.
Climbing out of the pit was slower than descending to the bottom, but Ivy was grateful that she wasn’t forced to look down at all. She didn’t dare look back until they were perched on a wide, solid rock at the top.
For an instant, she spied the dull orange glow of the ship’s exterior emergency lighting far below, making it look like the pit was filled with hungry flames beneath the plant growth.
Ketahn took the spears from her and strode away from the crater at a brisk pace. Even with the ship out of sight, Ivy felt it; it was the lingering fear of a potent nightmare, it was the flickering flame of hope for a brighter future. And she was bound to it as surely as she was bound to Ketahn, the tether stretching with each of his steps.
He wasted no time in ascending the trees and delving into the jungle, moving with a blend of speed, alertness, and caution that suggested thinly veiled paranoia. His eyes were in constant motion as though he were trying to watch every direction simultaneously, and he treated every sound like it had been made by a potential threat.
And none of that seemed to slow him down much. Within a short while, what meager sense of direction she’d managed to establish was obliterated, and she had no idea where they were or where they were heading, only that his route was drawn-out and almost circuitous.
Thanks to all the time she’d spent with him in the jungle, she knew what he was doing—obscuring his trail, making it as confusing as possible for any would-be pursuers.
When Ketahn descended to the jungle floor and stopped on an unfamiliar stream bank, the sky bore the first orangey tinge of evening. Had they truly been out for so long?
He shifted both spears into one hand and began untying the rope from around their waists. Ivy helped him, their hands moving in concert. Ketahn was still searching their surroundings as he wound the rope into a small, tight coil.
“We will wash and drink. Then we go,” he said.
Climbing down from his back, Ivy swept her gaze around before bringing it to rest on Ketahn. “What does Khan’ul mean?”
“It is like first, but more. The Khan’ul Claw leads the queen’s hunters.”
She cringed. An important vrix then. “Are you in trouble, Ketahn?”
He chittered, and Ivy wasn’t sure whether she should be reassured by the hint of humor beneath the bitterness in the sound. Turning to face her, he removed the pack she was wearing with his free hands, set it aside, and flattened a palm on her lower back, nudging her toward the water.
“Much before he came to us, my heartsthread.”
With a frown, she bent forward and lifted her feet one at a time to untie the soiled strips of silk wrapped around them. “Because you wouldn’t mate the queen?”
Ketahn caught one of her elbows, steadying her as she removed the strips. His gaze continued to roam. “Yes.”
“But it’s worse than that now, isn’t it?”
“It is…most worse.” He fixed his eyes upon her, and his mandibles twitched. “I was to claim her yesterday.”
Ivy’s brows creased. “What?”
With an unhappy trill, he stuck the spears in the ground, turned away from her, and strode into the stream. He sank down until the water was up to his waist and plunged his hands in, scrubbing the blood off his hide. His movements conveyed a touch of urgency and aggression.
As soon as he’d cleaned himself—including his face and mandibles—he glanced over his shoulder. “Come, Ivy.”
With her stomach in knots, she stepped into the cool stream and waded toward him. The water gradually rose around her legs and hips and was nearly to her chest when she drew close enough for Ketahn to pluck her up and sit her on his folded front legs, putting the waterline back at her belly. The wet silk dress molded to her body.
Ketahn’s hands were as gentle as ever despite the restlessness thrumming in him as he washed the blood from Ivy’s hair and skin, caressing her cheeks, massaging her arms and hands. It was a lover’s touch, and it spread warmth through her. But when he looked down at her dress, his mandibles fell, and the growl he produced was equal parts frustrated and sorrowful.
He delicately caught some of the fabric and drew it away from her skin, brushing his thumb over a red blotch on the silk. “There is nothing she does not stain with blood.”
Ivy frowned. Cupping some water in her hand, she brought it up to his cheek and washed away the bit of blood seeping from the wound. She didn’t care about the dress. All that mattered was that Ketahn hadn’t been seriously hurt. A dress could be replaced; he could not.
She captured his jaw between her hands and forced him to meet her gaze. “Tell me what’s wrong, Ketahn. Don’t keep secrets from me.”
Ketahn huffed and lifted a hand to Ivy’s hair, combing his claws through it slowly. Even if his face couldn’t convey much emotion, his eyes were brimming with it. When he spoke, there was a resignation in his voice that seemed so at odds with the male she knew. “Yesterday was the High Claiming. It is a day when worthy male vrix try to claim mates, just before the great storms bring the flood season. There are…althahk that must be followed. Things that must be done, that are always done. Gifts and shows of strength and skill. Yet it always ends in conquering. In claiming.”
“And the queen wanted you to claim her?” Just saying those words made the knots in Ivy’s belly tighten further. She didn’t like the thought of Ketahn being with someone else, of those gentle hands stroking another body. She knew this emotion—jealousy—and it made her feel ill. It also made her even more conflicted about what she felt for Ketahn.
“More than want.”
“Why didn’t she just claim you herself if she wants you so badly?”
“She wants only the most strong male, and wants all vrix to know her male is the most strong. If she claims me, I will seem weak. But if I conquer her, we will both prove strong, and it is known that our hatchlings would carry that strength.”
Ivy stroked her thumbs along his jaw. “And now? What will happen now that you didn’t claim her and killed her lead hunter?”
“Her anger will shake the Tangle,” he said, mandibles falling. He tipped his forehead against Ivy’s and wrapped his lower arms around her, drawing her close against his chest. “But she will never know of you. She must never know. I will keep you safe, my heartsthread, from the queen and everything else.”