Chapter 36

ATOX

“It’s only been a month, Grak,” Verig says as he rides beside me south from Mount Racha. “Are you sure you’re healed?”

“We’ve waited too long already. Our response should have been that very day.”

“Agreed, if we were still on Orcos. Here, the rules are different, as are the players.”

“The only rules are those we make.”

He clamps his mouth shut but I see the unease in his face. “Speak, Verig. I made you second for your insight as well as your skills.”

“You promised our warriors females, Atox. And, while I hate the idea of having human females, we need them. We have too few orc females to survive. If we decimate the humans, then we destroy our own future.”

The hooves of the legion of gorjas behind us strike the ground in a rhythmic pattern that used to soothe me, as did the thought of crushing the enemy. But not this enemy. Not while my female is with them. She could get hurt.

You’re weak. You will fail, Atox.

I wonder if my memory of my father will ever fade.

Then a voice I haven’t heard in a month, one I long to hear more than even my mother’s, fills my soul.

You’re nothing like your father, Atox.

I know you. I see the male you are. You make me stronger.

Why her words haunt me, I do not know. My female left me.

“There are other females. The moxxels.” All I can envision after weeks of pain is dead humans littering the ground.

Except my female could be among them.

Anger and confusion fill me at the thought of her broken, lifeless body.

“If you never planned to spare the humans, Atox, then why did you not order me to lead an attack the day they attacked you?”

I want to see her one last time. “She doesn’t want me, but she’s still mine, Verig. I have a duty to her. I must ensure she doesn’t get hurt in the battle.”

“Even though she left you.”

When I do not answer, he adds, “Why not take her back from the humans by force?”

I miss my female, and I cannot even tell my second. He would think me weak. And he’d be right.

Every night, I fall asleep, the image of Paloma walking away from me seared in my brain. The pain from that moment will last longer than the burns, with deeper, biting scars that none of Ossa’s salves can heal.

I wanted more with Paloma than her body in my furs. I wanted all of my female, standing at my side, completing me with her strength, wisdom, and compassion. She was right. I am not anything like my father… but that was because of her.

If she cannot be with me, then I’m at a loss as to what my future holds. I cannot turn my anger on her. I just… can’t. I pray to the gods my female finds the happiness and peace she seeks even though I never will, not without her.

I straighten atop my gorja. “I will not explain myself to you.”

Verig growls. “You’ve changed, Grak.”

He rarely uses my title. Doing so now sets me on edge more than I already am. I lost my female, and now I risk losing my second’s respect and support. A male whose opinion I value above all others.

Except my female’s.

Vek, why can’t I forget about her?

“Speak, Verig. Do not hide your thoughts from me. Tell me I’m as bloodthirsty as my grak.”

He snorts. “No, Grak, you are nothing like him. But you have changed. You are more patient. Less hungry for the blood of our enemy.”

“She’s not the enemy.” Vek, I didn’t mean to say that aloud.

“Our graka? No, she’s not. But she’s among them. She may be killed, as may many of the females. Females we need. Would it not be better to take them and leave the human males without? They will suffer more in life than in death.”

His idea has merit. And it would solve two problems. “The humans agreed to five, so we will take ten,” I say.

“In addition to our graka.”

“She will remain with the human colony.”

“Grak, she is your female! You performed the risha. You should?—”

“Enough! I have my reasons.”

It has taken me weeks of lying in bed, healing, to figure out why she walked away. I once told her I’d never hurt her. I always thought protecting a mate meant keeping her from physical harm, but she’s shown me there is another type of pain, that of being ripped from those you love. Like how I took her from her sisters and her people.

If you care about me, even a little, then let me go. That’s what true love is, sacrificing for the happiness of another.

Her words haunt me as I remember my mother taking my father’s sword in her belly, to save me. She sacrificed for me, as I’ve sworn to do for my mate.

Paloma’s chosen her people over me because she needs them.Not me. She will not thrive without them. I don’t care if Verig, Ossa, or any of my people understand. I won’t cause my mate more pain by taking her again, by keeping her from or destroying those she… loves.

“Instruct our warriors not to kill the human males. The females will be difficult until they adapt to our ways. Killing their kin will only make that task harder, if not impossible.”

There is only one female for me. I won’t take another for myself, but my warriors deserve what I promised them.

“Yes, Grak. It will be done.”

Verig rides his gorja to the rear to convey my orders. A new energy surges in the ranks, making me sit straighter on my mount. I may have failed as a mate, but I won’t fail as a grak.

PALOMA

Throwingthe plate of food at my father and Councilman Roberts who stand outside the bars of my cell does nothing more than make a mess of the eight-by-eight-foot area that’s been my home since returning to my former colony. The tray lands with a satisfying clank that gives me a fleeting moment of joy. The only joy to be had in this dismal cell previously used for drunks.

A wave of dizziness overwhelms me from overexerting myself, so I sit down on the cot, clutching the scalpel I stole from the doctor. I haven’t let go of my only weapon since my first day in this cell, when the doctor showed up with a surgical bag declaring he was ready to relieve me of my beastly burden. He thought he was funny. I didn’t, and I made that quite clear when I grabbed his knife and left him with a six-inch gash down his left arm. Poor aim on my part; I’d been aiming for his throat.

The man now refuses to come near me. Good!

“What am I to do with you?” my father says. “You are as stubborn and willful as ever. You insist on keeping that abomination growing inside you, and you still refuse to give me information I need about the orcs. Strengths and weaknesses. Location of their settlement. Placement of patrols. Anything, Paloma. This is your chance to be part of New Earth again. Prove you belong here.”

“But I don’t belong here. And I won’t keep repeating myself. You won’t get any information from me. I won’t betray my people.”

“We are your people,” Councilman Roberts says.

I glare at him and calmly say, “Release me.”

My father scowls, displeased of how my behavior is embarrassing him in front of the senior councilman. “We left her with the orc too long. They brainwashed her,” my father says.

“Hardly. I’m as sane and aware of everything happening here, Father.”

His eyes narrow. He can’t explain my sporadic behavior. Throwing my tray one minute and talking calmly the next. I’m making myself as unpredictable as the wind, intentionally.

“You’re as difficult as ever, Paloma. That’s why you’re in this mess.”

“Then release me. You’ll never see me again.”

“We don’t abandon our people,” Councilman Roberts speaks up, the ass. “Your father said you’d bring back intel about the orcs. Why won’t you even give us the most basic of information? I promise we won’t send you away again.”

Send me away… as if they’d sent me off to camp for the summer.

“This,” I point from Councilman Roberts to me, “Is not a partnership. I don’t work for you. I don’t want to talk to you or him,” I say, pointing to my father. “Nothing you can say will ever regain my trust.”

“If we had told you why we gave you to the orcs, you would have messed up. It was for your own protection,” the councilman says.

If he’s thinking of attacking the orcs, then he’s more of a fool than I already thought. Either way, I won’t betray my people. Orc or human. Giving Council logistical information about the orcs puts everyone at risk.

“Don’t try to convince me that I was only there to glean intel for you. You didn’t care what happened to me. Whatever you and Council intended aside, it boils down to one fact. You used me. And for that, I will never forget, forgive, or trust anything involving any of you. Ever!”

Earl Conners, my guard in this one-cell building, returns with another plate of food which he slides through the slot beneath the bars in my eight-by-eight-foot cell. “Here, Paloma. Nothing but fruit and water.”

Earl doesn’t get it. I don’t trust the food they constantly push at me. It’s drugged, I’m sure of it. My hand slides over my belly where my baby bump is finally visible.

“Eat,” my father orders, pushing the tray further into the cell.

He’s never once insisted I eat in my life. He always shamed me, because of my weight.

“You eat it,” I snap.

“If you won’t let us get rid of that beast growing inside you, Paloma,” Councilman Roberts says, “then we’ll be forced to give you to the vints where it will be their problem.”

“It’s a baby, not a problem.”

“It’s a monster,” my father says. “Perhaps that’s the answer, Mike. Give her to the vints. We’ll get the mine without having to sacrifice one of the women.”

“You’d be sacrificing me,” I remind him.

“You don’t count.”

“Why?” The question has bothered me for months. Of all the women in this colony, my father chose me, without hesitation. “You don’t want me here, do you?”

“I never said that.”

“No, you never say anything that would make you appear to be a bad father.”

“I’m an excellent father.”

“A father doesn’t sell his child! You’re a horrible person and an even worse father.”

“Watch your mouth!”

“Why should I? Show me one good thing you’ve done. You can’t because everything you do is for personal gain. You’re duplicitous and self-centered. You can’t even keep to the terms of a treaty that would have protected the people here. You reneged on the contract with the orcs—a contract which never should have been made in the first place. You sold me to them, and now you want to sell me to the vints!”

A wave of dizziness overcomes me, forcing me to sit down on the bed before I fall and hurt myself or my baby. For the past week I’ve had very little to eat. My guards, men I’ve never respected, started frisking my sisters for contraband—food—earlier this week. Someone figured out they’ve been sneaking food to me. This latest crackdown makes it clearer than ever that Council has been trying to drug me. At least I can trust the water, because the guards drink from the same tap they use to fill my metal thermos.

My father slams the food tray against the bars, the sudden clank making me jump and putting me further on edge.

“Do you know what I’ve had to put up with since you returned here? They all know you’re carrying a monster. It’s bad enough you let yourself get pregnant by an orc, but now you won’t get rid of it. It’s embarrassing as hell.”

“Let myself get pregnant? What did you think was going to happen when you sold me to them knowing they wanted a woman for baby-making purposes?”

“I thought you’d have the good sense to do the right thing. Get the intel we wanted, then escape or die trying.”

His words shake me. “What did I ever do to you? Why do you hate me so much that you’d want me dead? Is it because I look like Mom? I thought you loved her.”

“You don’t look like her. You look like him! That bastard who tried to steal her from me.”

All the pieces snap into place. His snide remarks over the years, his barely veiled contempt for me. Selling me so he wouldn’t have to look at me.

“You’re not my father…” The words leave my mouth in disbelief.

“I have three daughters. Three beautiful, bright daughters.”

Camila. Marta. Renata. My sisters. Who aren’t fully my sisters….

I hug the pillow to my chest and lean against the wall. I want to go home, to feel my warrior’s arms around me, to feel his love for me. Love that knows no bounds. Human, with extra curves, stubbornness… He loved me despite it all.

But I’ll never feel that love again.

My father… No, not my father… the man who raised me… killed Atox, the man I learned to respect and then finally to love.

And Javier Garcia will kill the only part I have left of Atox if I can’t stop him.

I must have fallen asleep.The next time I lift my head, my father and Councilman Roberts are no longer staring at me, talking as if I’m garbage to be dumped on someone else’s property. I’m not even sure what to call my father. The father of my sisters… Oh, god, they aren’t even my sisters, not fully. I’ve lost them in all of this.

As I sink against the bedding, clutching the blanket to my chin, the sun sets and sleep overcomes me once more. I pray I’m not harming my child by starving myself.

“What the fuck?” Earl rises from the desk on the other side of the jail. As he fingers the blaster at his side, he peers out the window. “The entire colony’s gone dark.”

Yelling and screaming reach the jail. “What’s happening, Earl? It sounds like a war zone out there.”

He draws his blaster. “Those animals are carrying off the women!”

“Animals? You mean racannas?” No, that doesn’t make sense. We don’t have any racannas in the river that irrigates our fields and those water beasts can’t survive on land.

“No. Them orcs you’re so friendly with.”

“They’re here?” Hope radiates through me, feeding me the energy to stand. “Earl, release me. I can talk to them. They’ll listen to me.”

“No way. Stay here,” he says as he charges out of the jail.

“Stay here? I’m locked in a damn cell, you fool! Let me out!”

He doesn’t return, but the screams outside intensify. Smoke pours in through the window high in my cell. “Earl, get me out of here!”

A huge male enters the jail. An orc so large he barely fits through the doorway.

Atox!

He turns, green eyes with yellow flecks, tall, muscular with long tusks and disheveled hair. Not Atox. I’ll never see my brooding, controlling, loveable warrior again.

As my luck would have it, it’s the new grak, a male who never wanted me among the orcs.