19. Holoth

nineteen

Holoth

Fifteen Minutes Earlier

I follow Phial back into the ship, hoping he's done with all these stupid ideas about checking on Avery. I understand it. I do.

He wants to make sure she's safe. He's been the one she's leaned on and talked with since she's been on the ship. I don't know what their relationship is, but they're at least friends. He doesn't like that he's being kept from his friend.

"She'll be through the heat in a couple of days," I say, patting Phial on the shoulder. He doesn't shoot me a glare that tells me he wants to kill me, so I think we're making good progress.

"Want us to stay in tonight?" Jovi asks and is hit in the arm by Alik for even suggesting not being with their mate. "Ow! What? I meant we'd get the females and do a movie night. Fucking hitting me? Really?"

"No, I'm fine," Phial says through tight lips. I keep my hand on him because he hasn't shrugged it away. "I'll go to the nest and find something to do. I don't want to go to the great hall tonight."

"You're sure?" I ask.

It's not that I don't believe him. I believe him completely.

Phial's been my friend for the last six years since I joined the ship. He taught me how to pilot and how to sneak away once every few months to ride out my rut all alone.

I don't want to leave him on his own when he needs us, not when he'd never leave any of us.

"I'm positive." Phial's lisp is extra strong when he finally shrugs away from me. He turns to face us, forcing his lips into what I'm sure he thinks is a smile. "I'll stay in my nest, I promise. Maybe check on me in the morning. I plan on drinking in excess and watching movies."

"You can come drink in excess in the great hall," Jovi says, crossing his arms over his chest and abdomen. "Come watch the unmated females dancing. The males around us seem to enjoy it while we watch Sloane."

"I don't want to watch the unmated females dance." Phial shakes his head. He runs his talons through his feathers, flattening them down his head and neck to where they disappear underneath his shirt. "I'll be fine, seriously. Go have fun. You've left the females for long enough. You're going to have to fight many males at this rate."

Alik growls low in his throat at the reminder that our females are all surrounded by males who are more than willing to see how compatible they might be. I'm surprised I can stop the growl in my throat.

Phial's words have their desired effect, though. All three of us are itching to return to our mates' sides.

"Fine, but I'm checking on you in the morning," I tell him before turning to leave the ship.

Phial grumbles something under his breath that I miss because I'm heading out, followed by Jovi and Alik. I have to trust that Phial's telling us the truth.

There's no way I'm staying on the ship all night. Not when K'Vella is out there, waiting for me. I'm throwing her onto the table tonight and eating her until she begs me to knot her. Plenty of matings will happen, so hopefully, it sets the mood just right for her.

"There's more here than last night," Jovi scowls as we head deeper into the clan.

He's not wrong since there are already females dragging males through the clan with giggles and seductive looks. Males who come to the tribe for the run have temporary housing near the fields. Not much sleeping gets done there.

"The run is in two days," I remind them. "The clan will get pretty full."

Alik opens his mouth to say something else, but then his eyes narrow, and his arms cross over his chest and abdomen. His body language clearly states not to bother him, and Jovi follows suit. Their postures are strange until I feel a female wrapping her arms around my neck, pulling my attention back to in front of me, where three females have approached us.

"Get off!" I snap. My teeth click loudly as I bite at her. "I'm a mated male."

"No, you're not, Holoth." The female giggles and presses herself tighter against me.

The two females behind her don't seem nearly as confident in whatever this plan is as their friend. In fact, I'm almost positive that they were somehow led to believe that Jovi and Alik might be interested in them. Sure, they're large, powerful males and could keep them safe, but they want nothing to do with anyone who isn't Sloane.

"Get off," I growl. "Do not make me use command."

"Holoth," the female whines but starts to push her body away from mine. She's almost removed herself when she reaches her hand up to cup my cheek. I bite at the hand, wanting it to touch me about as much as I want to cut my cock off. "You'd be more fun without this."

I don't know what she's talking about until she moves her hand from my cheek to my nose. Before I can do more than snarl at her in displeasure, she's pulling the blocker from my nose.

I'm a good Rytharian male. I've always been respectful. I've never hurt a female. Thankfully, when her friends see the murder in my eyes, they grab her and pull her away from me before I have to force her away.

"What the fuck did you just do to my brother?" Helna's voice comes from the darkness on the path that leads to the sanctuary, and then she's on top of the female who removed my blocker, her fists flying as she follows the woman to the ground.

I cover my nose with my hand, pinching off my airways and turning back to the ship. We're so far, I don't think I can make it to the airlock before I need to take a breath, but I'll be damned if I don't try.

"Get off," Jovi argues with the females, who are all quarreling.

My sister can hold her own against them. I'm pretty sure she could take on all three without help, but it's good that Jovi's there to break it up. I can hear Alik's footsteps behind me, following, unsure of what he's meant to be doing.

I keep my fingers pressed hard to my nose, my lips locked tight. I roll them between my teeth and bite down hard enough that I'm close to drawing blood.

"If you start passing out, you tell me," Alik says, not realizing that if I'm close enough to passing out to ask for help, then I'm definitely going to suck in a deep breath.

My lungs are burning, and my chest is making weird hiccup movements like it can force me to breathe. The ship's still too far. Way too far.

My footsteps stutter as my body revolts at the lack of air. Alik grabs me around my waist and hoists me over his shoulder. He's doing it to be helpful because he can move faster than me. It would've been better if we'd thought to do it before I was this far gone.

I can't stop myself as my body finally revolts, and my teeth can't bite down any harder on my lips. I gasp a deep, long breath, and all of my senses are heightened.

"How fucked are we?" Alik asks, still jogging back to the ship.

I don't hear him very well. My body is too busy responding to the pheromones in the air. The ones calling to me. The ones making my skin feel too tight, too warm.

I growl low in my throat, thrashing around in Alik's hold until he drops me to the ground. I try to get up to follow the scent deeper into the clan—the scent that has my body singing. Something's wrong. I can feel it in the rational part of my mind, the part that's screaming at me to remember K'Vella.

Alik pins me to the ground. Two of his hands pin my arms down while the other two press on my chest while he straddles my abdomen. There's a look of heartbreak on his face that matches how I feel inside.

"Get K'Vella somewhere that's not the great hall." My words are a deep growl, but my voice is pathetic underneath it.

My K'Vella, my mate, the one thing I wanted for myself for the first time in so many years. She's going to be broken by this. Her worst nightmare, the worst thing that could've ever happened.

I told her nothing bad would happen here. I told her I wouldn't ever care about my scent match. Now I've smelled it. I can't help how my body responds. I might hate every move my body wants to take toward the female who calls to me, but it's not enough to stop the need.

No, I'll fight it. I'll find the female. I'll tell her we can't be with one another, that I'm mated to another who I'm devoted to. My body will respond to her, crave her touch and her warmth, but I can fight those instincts.

I think I can fight those instincts.

"Fuck," Alik says through gritted teeth. He moves his lower hands from my chest and starts typing out on his comm as he keeps me pinned with the rest of his strength.

"Fuck!" Jovi yells as he comes running up to us. "What can we do? Can we get you in the airlock now?"

"I need to go to her," I say, my growl still rumbling. My mind is at war with my body, and everything is conflicting. I don't even know which her I'm talking about as the words leave my lips. "I need her."

"You don't need anyone but that Varon you bit into. She's never going to be accepted by one of her own kind." Alik snaps his teeth at me, his lips pulling back in a snarl.

"I can't stop this," I snap back at him, lunging at him as best as I can with how he has me pinned. "I don't want whoever I'm smelling more than you want me to want her. I can't stop my response, though. I'm going to go into a mating frenzy if I'm kept from her, and then I'll be forced to rut her."

"And your plan right now?" Jovi asks. "Because I'm not about to let you go free right now to rut some female when K'Vella is still thinking she's going to carry your young."

"I won't rut the other female. I'll figure something out. I'll fix this. Helna would've gone to tell K'Vella what happened. She won't be surprised," I say, jerking my body in Alik's grip, trying and failing to free myself. K'Vella is just as strong as me, which means Jovi and Alik are way stronger than me. They've never had to restrain me, though.

"So what?" Jovi asks, running his hands through his hair and pacing next to where Alik and I are lying on the ground. "You're just done with K'Vella?"

"I don't want to be," I snarl. "I can't stop how my body responds, though. If I could, I would, but it's done now. There's nothing to be done about it."

"So she means nothing now?" Alik asks, his tone disgusted, and I don't blame him.

"She means everything!"

Alik shakes his head, disbelieving what I'm saying. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. When he releases the breath, he releases my wrists and then pushes himself off of me. I don't give him a chance to rethink letting me go.

I bolt upright and sprint for the great hall. I follow the scent of the female who's calling to me. I'm so caught up in the running for the great hall that I don't notice the way the air seems to shimmer unnaturally until Phial tackles me, and Essa emerges from the dark, looking scarier than ever before.

"Your venom makes them complacent, right?" Phial asks.

He struggles to keep me down since he's not nearly as strong as me. The one thing he has going for him right now is the murder in Essa's eyes. The way her pupils are thin slits that vibrate softly, calling her prey in, making them docile. My spine is frozen, and if it weren't for the desire to be with the female perfect for me, my whole body would shut down in fright.

"I don't think it'll work, Phial," Essa says, her voice soft, a melody that soothes and charms even as the fear continues to flow through me. "He should be calm now, but he's still fighting you." She licks at one of her elongated fangs, grabbing some of the thick, clear liquid from the tips and collecting it on her tongue. "It might make him disoriented, but he won't be docile."

"That'll be easier to deal with than this," Phial groans as I hit him in the chest.

"Let him go," Alik barks at them while they're trying to decide if they're going to drug me or not. "We can't stop this. It's already been put into motion. We can only be here to help with the fallout."

"He's going to hurt my friend," Essa snarls, her eyes snapping up to look at Alik, who flinches away from her gaze.

"He's your friend," Jovi says, covering his eyes with one palm and doing the same for Alik. "We need to be there for both of them, and friends don't drug other friends unless said friend asks to be drugged."

"Stupid rule," Essa spits. She forces herself off the ground away from me and keeps her eyes turned away from the rest of us. "I need to calm down."

"Go back to the ship," Alik says.

Essa doesn't even argue with him. She mutters something about wasting how hot she looks tonight before kicking at the dirt path and stomping back toward the ship. Phial gives me a sad look as he slowly extracts himself from me.

"We all really liked K'Vella," Phial says, his talons twitching at his sides like he wants to say more.

Too bad I don't care about much other than finding the female who my soul is calling me to be with. My mind might hate how I'm responding to her, but it doesn't stop my body from moving.

"Please let her understand," I murmur under my breath. I make it to the doors of the great hall and work to straighten the fur on my shoulders and smooth down the flyaway hairs from my braid.

I suck in another deep breath and my brows furrow. I sniff at the air again. Soft, sweet florals of my mate definitely lead into the great hall, but there's another trail of them, a stronger one. She came back out at some point and moved deeper into the tribe. Maybe she was going home?

I sniff the air, following the scent as I jog through the clan. Plenty of females are dragging their conquests toward their homes or toward the temporary housing.

A few of them look at me, and I don't miss the way a few of their eyes darken in rage and their lips pull back. K'Vella was a part of the clan even if she didn't realize it, and I'm doing the worst thing a male can do: making promises he could never keep.

I growl when I step onto the porch, where the scent leads me. I bang on the door, looking around, trying to figure out in my scent-crazed mind why this house looks familiar. I snarl at myself and wipe my hands on my pants.

I adjust the fur on my back, and it reminds me of K'Vella. I rip it off my shoulders and fold it quickly, lying it on the porch next to the door, hoping the female on the other side doesn't ask about it, hoping she doesn't ask me to wrap her in one of my furs.

"What the fuck do you want?" Helna swings the door open with the broom in her hand. She wields it like a weapon, reminding me she's definitely our mother's daughter.

"Where is she?" I choke out, trying to figure out which of Helna's friends I've scent matched. "You got your wish. Where is she?"

"What fucking wish, you stupid fucking asshole?" Helna pushes at my chest, but I push past her into the house, sniffing loudly.

"Where's your friend?" I ask. "You wanted me to scent match one of your friends. Congratulations."

"Fuck you!"

Helna swings the broomstick at my face and catches me in the jaw. My eyes snap down to her, and I pull my lips back in a growl. I step back when my eyes settle on her face, and I see the bruises forming. I forgot about her fighting the three females who ripped my blocker from my nose.

"I'm sorry," I say through clenched teeth. "Where's your friend? I need to figure out how to make this work."

"Make what work?" Helna asks, tapping her foot on the ground and looking at her nails as though she has no interest in helping me.

"Being with K'Vella and finding a way to break this scent match," I snap at my sister, who seems taken aback by my words.

I don't wait for her response before looking through the house to find the female. It's not like there's anywhere to hide here. There are only three rooms, and she won't be in my mother's.

I'm surprised my mother isn't out here with a second broomstick. I only know of us owning one broom, but I'm sure she could conjure one up.

The smell is strongest in Helna's room, but when I open the door, Sloane's sitting on the bed, her face in her hands as she cries. She looks up at me, her bloodshot eyes narrowing on me.

"I'm sorry," I tell her, sucking in a deep breath to make sure it's not somehow her. That would be even worse than it being a Rytharian. I never responded to Sloane's scent before, and thankfully, I'm not responding to it now. "I promise no one's more upset about this than me."

"I can think of someone more upset," Sloane says, her cries making the harshness in her words not as strong.

I inhale deeply, growling low in my chest when the female isn't here. Sloane's eyes move to the window, and I realize why my sister was trying to hold me off from coming back here.

Whoever the female is, she ran from the house. How she knew I was coming for her, I don't know, but maybe it means she's as unhappy about this scent matching as me. Although she should be drawn to me, she shouldn't be able to run from me.

I open the window and crawl through, rolling into the garden with the grace of a child just learning to walk. Sloane leans out the window, her eyes wide, and some other emotion flickers over her features. I'm up on my feet and following the scent trail before I think to ask about it.

I follow the scent four houses down, and this time, before I bang on the door, I slow my movements and frown.

This is my house. The house I built with my uncle before I went through my first rut. The house I planned on living in once I reached adulthood. The house I—

A loud crash followed by a scream has me moving again. I push the door open, not needing to be invited in since this is still my home, and whoever's in here is intruding.

My scent match or not, I didn't invite them here and they shouldn't be inside. There's another crash, but it's in one of the back rooms. Another crash, a sound like someone's throwing something against the wall. There's another scream right as I open the door and see the most beautiful sight I have ever seen.

K'Vella's in the middle of swinging a club with her upper arms, beating a fifth or sixth hole into the wall as she growls at it. She turns around to face me, her violet chest heaving in angered breaths, her eyes wide with a wild fury, and her lower hands clamped possessively over her abdomen.

I sniff deep and let a smile pull up on my lips. My beautiful, perfect mate. This sweet Varon has been keeping secrets from me.