Enthralled by Tiffany Roberts
Chapter 3
Calm enveloped Ketahn,easing the wasteful tension in his muscles even though it did not slow his pounding hearts. His perception expanded rapidly, like a jesan flower blooming to the silver moonlight. Every sound, every scent, every vibration and movement, no matter how small, was caught in the web of his awareness.
Including the dull, barely perceptible tapping of a leg on a branch somewhere below the den.
He felt Ivy’s breath upon his back, little more than a suggestion of moving air by the time it reached him, as he crept toward the opening. He felt the slow, ceaseless drumming of rain atop the den sending tiny pulses through the woven wood. His nose holes were filled with the varied scents in his den—the cloying smell of moist dirt and plants, the fresh fragrance of the rain. But stronger than everything else was a sweet, blended fragrance—that of his mating with Ivy.
Ketahn took hold of his barbed spear, which was leaning against the wall beside the opening, and grasped the hanging cloth.
He’d known time was short, that the Claws would eventually find this place despite its distance from Takarahl, but he never could’ve guessed they’d come so soon.
Ivy’s presence radiated behind him, coursing up and down his spine with skittering heat. He glanced at her over his shoulder. With one hand, he gestured for her to remain in place. He pressed the pointer finger of another hand over his mouth.
She nodded. Her skin was pale, her eyes wide, her stance stiff and uneasy. If not for her tousled hair and the lingering pink on her cheeks, she wouldn’t have looked at all like she’d been well mated only moments before.
As though in remembrance, his stem stirred behind his slit, flooding his pelvis with a deep ache that spread into his lower abdomen. His claspers twitched and drew in firmly against his slit, increasing the already building pressure behind it.
But there was danger outside. Not just this unexpected visitor, but a whole jungle full of threats to his mate—and within that jungle, an entire city under the command of the wrathful queen he’d defied. Ketahn pressed the tips of his mandibles together and turned away from his mate.
He shifted himself to the side of the opening, readied his spear—though he would not have a clear throw unless he exited the den—and tugged the cloth aside.
The jungle, currently drab, gray, and dripping, opened before him. He angled his gaze downward.
A lone figure stood on the thick branch below, a female vrix who appeared especially large and solid in the mist. She was wrapped in a swath of dark green silk that covered her shoulders, neck, and most of her head, but it did not hide many of her adornments—gold, beads, and gemstones. Nor did it cover her eyes, which were vibrant purple even in the gloom.
Ahnset stared up at Ketahn, holding a few rocks upon one of her upturned palms. Her war spear was in one of her other hands, standing tall beside her. While she maintained that posture, it was hard to see her as anything but a servant of the queen.
That last notion kept him from feeling much relief. She wasn’t a Claw, that was true, but a Queen’s Fang didn’t seem any better right now. Not even a Fang that happened to be Ketahn’s broodsister.
“Come down, broodbrother,” she called just loudly enough to be heard over the rain.
Ketahn grasped the frame of the opening, digging his claws into the woven branches. He swept his gaze across the surrounding jungle. “Were you followed?”
Ahnset gnashed her mandibles, making that new band around the right one glint with a dull reflection. “That is what you choose to say to me?”
Ketahn’s mandibles spread, and wood splintered under his fingers. He growled. “Were you followed, Ahnset?”
She folded a pair of her powerful arms across her chest, her eyes taking on the cold, stony cast of a Queen’s Fang. “No. Come down.”
The bitter heat that flowed through Ketahn was wholly unrelated to the heat Ivy had kindled in him earlier. His hatred of the queen only deepened in that moment. Would that Zurvashi had never existed, that he would never have found himself in a situation where he was forced to question his trust in his broodsister.
“Are you certain?” he demanded.
“Protector, shield you, broodbrother, for you are fraying the threads of my patience,” Ahnset grumbled. “I am certain, though your recent actions did not make it easy to accomplish.”
Had the Queen’s Claw already learned of Durax’s demise? Was it possible that the Prime Claw had already been discovered by his comrades?
A shard of panic pierced his chest, but he forced it away. Panic would not protect Ivy. “And what actions are those?”
“You know well, Ketahn. You have angered her enough this time that she has tasked the Claw with finding you.”
Ketahn cursed himself for a fool; of course Durax had not been found. The Prime Claw lay in a place no other vrix ever ventured, a place into which Durax had gone only in pursuit of Ketahn. Had Durax been accompanied by more Claws, they’d have been awaiting Ketahn at the top of the pit…and yesterday’s journey home would have been made through a river of bloodshed.
“She must value their lives little,” he said.
“Come down here, Ketahn. Such things should not be shouted into the Tangle no matter how far we are from Takarahl.”
Growling, he released his spear and began drawing himself through the opening. His movements roused a lingering scent, drawing it into the air anew—the mating scent.
He halted with only his head and upper shoulders through the opening. The light rain would not be enough to wash that fragrance from his hide, not that he wanted to do so to begin with. Should he draw too near to his broodsister, she would undoubtedly detect the scent—and she would know it for what it was despite the unfamiliar elements Ivy contributed to it.
“I am unwell,” Ketahn said, retreating into the den without removing his gaze from Ahnset. “I have no desire to worsen it in the rain.”
Another deception. How many more lies could he tell his sister, his friends, himself, before he was crushed under the weight of them?
Even with the distance between them, Ketahn saw Ahnset’s eyes soften, and her mandibles twitched downward. “What happened, broodbrother? Illness or injury?” She took a step toward the nest, tilting her head back farther to keep her gaze locked with his. “Come down, and I will tend to you.”
“No,” he replied quickly. “It is nothing that will not be healed with rest and quiet.”
“Allow me to at least—”
“Say what you have come to say, broodsister, and be on your way.”
Her mandibles sagged, and a shard of guilt pierced Ketahn. Again, he fought the instinct to go to her; again, his hatred for the queen intensified. But he could not blame Zurvashi for the way he had spoken to his broodsister.
“Ahnset, I—”
“No, Ketahn. I do not wish to hear your excuses or apologies. What good are they?”
Her words latched onto that shard of guilt and twisted it in the wound. Part of Ketahn knew he deserved the pain. But that did not eliminate his anger or fear—his fear that he might lose his mate so soon after finding her.
Ahnset pulled the cloth hood back, revealing more of her head. “It is nothing I have not said to you already. It is nothing you wish to hear.”
“I have told you, Ahnset. Allow this to remain between me and the queen.”
“That is not the way of things, broodbrother, and you know that.”
Ahnset’s words echoed Ivy’s so closely that Ketahn found himself unable to produce a response; for an instant, he could almost see the strands of fate binding everything together, arranged intricately by the Weaver in ways no vrix was meant to understand.
“What happens to you affects those who care about you,” Ahnset continued. “You cannot pretend otherwise. And the queen…she slew three of the males who attempted her during the High Claiming. I will not see your mangled remains wrapped in a shroud to be laid beside them.”
Ketahn’s mandible’s trembled, his teeth ground together, and his claws again sank into the den’s branches. “Ahnset, do not—”
“You must make this right, Ketahn.” Ahnset’s voice had taken on a tone somehow firm and gentle at once, the same sort of tone their mother had sometimes used when her broodlings had tried to defy her. “There is still a chance to appease her. She sees you as hers already, and she will forgive you should you atone.”
“Atone?” Ketahn snarled, drawing himself partway through the opening again. “The only one who has done wrong is Zurvashi herself.”
Ahnset was as unmoving as the statues in the Den of Spirits, her gaze fixed upon him. “We are all that remains of our bloodline, Ketahn. The others have long since been laid understone in their shrouds or claimed by this jungle. And you tell me by your deeds that I must lose you too.”
A low, troubled trill sounded in his chest. The rain falling upon his hide was colder than anything he’d ever felt, but he did not allow himself to shiver. “I will not join them, Ahnset.”
She released a heavy breath and adjusted her hold on her spear, letting it lean at a skewed angle as her rigid stance crumbled. “You need not continue along the strands you have spun, broodbrother. It is not too late to stride a different path that will not end in your destruction.”
Ketahn had not heard such resignation and sorrow in Ahnset’s voice in years—not since she’d learned of their mother’s death.
“This will not be my end, Ahnset,” he said, the heat of his fury warring with the chill of his guilt. “Zurvashi will not be my end.”
Ahnset stared at him for a few more heartbeats before tugging her silk wrap back over her head. “You cannot hide from this, broodbrother. Not for long.”
She turned away and strode along the branch. The blunt end of her spear thumped on the bough with a steady rhythm that faded as her form grew indistinct with distance. Rage and sorrow tore at Ketahn’s hearts from all directions, pulling and shredding like a pack of xiskals fighting over a fresh kill.
The queen had threatened the threads still tying Ketahn to Takarahl; it felt as though one of them was already frayed. The thread he’d foolishly believed could endure anything.
A small hand settled on his hindquarters. The gentle touch roused Ketahn from his dark thoughts. He blinked away the raindrops that had run into his eyes, shook his head to shed more water from it, and slipped back into the den.
He turned to find Ivy there, her eyes gleaming with concern and sadness.
You cannot hide from this.
Ketahn wrapped his arms around his mate and drew her against his chest. Emotions welled inside him, each more overwhelming than the last, each only heightening the rest, and all he could do was squeeze his eyes shut and curl over his little mate, seeking comfort in her warmth, her softness, her scent.
He tightened his embrace as Ahnset’s words echoed in his mind.
You cannot hide from this.
Ivy clung to Ketahn, her strong hold expressing everything he felt. Finding her had been like discovering a new world—and now it felt as though that world were crumbling.
You cannot hide from this.
We are all that remains…
“They are all gone,” he rasped, only then realizing that he’d never mourned the family and friends he’d lost to Zurvashi’s ambitions—he’d allowed himself only to hunger for justice. For vengeance.
“You’re not alone,” Ivy whispered, her breath hot across his hide. “You’re never alone, Ketahn.”
You cannot hide from this.
You’re not alone.
Ketahn drew in a deep breath, filling his lungs with Ivy’s scent, with the heady fragrance of their mating, with the familiar smells of the place that had been his home for seven years. Takarahl had been his home before this den, and…and there would be another after this. A place with Ivy.
He could not hide, but he was not alone.