Chapter 13

Varek

I ’m on the mountainside, meeting with Draxel in the privacy of the rocky heights.

Except now all I can see, smell, taste, and think, is her.

My mate.

They way she watched the skies like she’d never seen anything so beautiful. The way her cheeks flushed every time I touched her. She’s divine. I couldn’t have made her more perfect if I tried.

“I left the provisions outside the ship and watched. No movement. When I returned last night, the food was still there. Untouched,” Draxel reports.

I frown. Humans as Paige calls herself. They are either stubborn creatures by species or unobservant.

Judging by the troublemaker in my furs, it’s the former.

“And this morning?”

“Untouched. And there was a strange scent.”

I cock my head.

“Sickness. Rot,” Draxel clarifies.

“From the land?” I press. We are no strangers to pruning the marshes when they reject the mists, but they have never turned so soon. It was but two years ago that our harvesters turned over that entire zone.

Draxel shakes his head, his jaw firm. He carries his weapon of choice over his back—a spear longer than he is tall. On the leather weapons strap across his chest are luminite daggers, sharpened to slice the beard off a strid in one swipe.

“From the… humans ,” he grits out the word as if it’s dripping with acid. He snarls and spits on the ground.

His dislike of my mate’s kind has my spinal bristles flaring.

I widen my stance and level him a look. I’m not here to chat about the shortcomings and weaknesses of the human race. I’m here to get an update on the females my mate wants to protect. I promised to do my best, but I’m going against my duties as Highseer here.

Something I never thought I would do.

“Get closer,” I say. “Confirm that the rot is coming from them and see if you can’t figure out the issue. Or if there are more coming.”

Five other females.

The odds are stacked against us, but I never thought I would encounter my mate inside the strange vessel. There’s a chance—however slim—that some of my clan’s mates are also on that ship. We can’t let them die.

Paige would never forgive me.

But we can’t bring them to the glowhollows to protect them either.

Again, my Mate is a stubborn female.

She doesn’t understand that the marshes, the expanse, is a dangerous place. The luminite keeps us safe here, we can harness it to ward away the Thachiens and the strids steer clear of populations larger than a family of nomads. There is strength in the togetherness.

And those women are not safe.

“We should hand them over to the rest of the council,” Draxel suggests, his jaw tight. “Let them decide what to do with the women. They are none of our concern.”

I hold up a hand to silence him. “You are a hunter. Not a Highseer.”

“And you aren’t acting like a Highseer.”

My chest flares bright, a coil of anger tearing through my bones. “You are not mated, Draxel.”

“And I hope I never am!”

The male puffs out his chest in a challenge. I swear if we weren’t spryts together, chasing each other through the glowhollows until my father dragged us back to the chamber and swatted us on the mane, I would take him on. He’s selfish and bull-headed. A perfect hunter.

A flawed male.

I step forward, challenging him in return. “One day, you will—”

My mane stands on end, the hairs shooting straight up as I sense something is wrong.

Draxel notices right away, his brows knitted. “What?”

“I think it’s—”

And then I hear her voice.

Paige screams for me, her voice strained with pain. I flinch and then sprint to the shortest route, jumping straight down through the tunnels and sliding down the jagged, rocky shortcut.

Pain flares through my chest as she screams again, this time even more desperate. She’s inside the glowhollows. I can sense her pain, her need, but I can’t pinpoint her.

I find my footing on the soft, dirt ground and take off, pumping as hard as I can to get to her. Fear claws at my chest as her screams morph into something I haven’t thought of in decades.

My mother.

My desperate mother.

I push myself harder, pounding the ground with my feet and heaving in the air as I run to her. My glows are on fire, burning through my veins like boiling water. This feeling—this intense vice around my heart—unlocks my instincts. I quiet my breathing and hear murmurs up ahead. Males.

But no Paige.

I sprint around the corner to find a grouping of males standing around looking at something on the ground. I catch a glimpse of her, collapsed in the dirt with her hand clutching her heart and mine nearly stops.

“Move!” I shout.

The males disperse, scattering like moths.

I throw myself on the ground next to my mate and wrap her up in my arms, cupping her cheek and shaking her softly.

“Paige?” I beg her to wake up. “Paige? I’m here.”

She whimpers but her eyes don’t open and I’m terrified. I can’t breathe. I squeeze her to my chest and lift her up, shoving the onlooking males out of the way.

“Selvara!” I scream out as I make my way to her private chambers. She usually does not accept us into her private quarters for healing, but I don’t care. She’s going to take Paige and she’s going to figure out what’s going on with her.

My heart pounds in my chest as I call out to Selvara again and sprint as fast as I can, cradling Paige’s limp body as close as I can to mine. I can hardly see straight when the healer’s leathers come into view and I yank them aside, striding in to find Selvara bleaching a hide.

“She collapsed. She called out to me. I—”

Selvara rises and points to her hammock.

I cross the room and lay Paige down, nuzzling her as Selvara makes her way to the other side. As I caress her flushed cheeks, she groans and her eyes flutter open.

“Varek?” Her voice cracks and I swear I could die.

“Mate. I’m here,” I tell her.

She can barely move, but her hands raise and wrap around me, clinging to me like she might die if she lets go.

“Please,” she whimpers. “Take the pain away.”

“Paige, I—”

My mate grunts in agony. Her eyes flutter shut again and I can’t take it any longer.

“Save her!” I shout at the healer across from me.

Selvara’s eyes snap to mine. “She is feeling the bondburn.”

I shake my head. “But she’s in pain? She’s not—”

The bondburn doesn’t manifest like this. The bondburn is not something to fear. It’s inconvenient, sure, but it shouldn’t have caused her to collapse in pain. To pass out and cry out for me like this.

“She is not Vrut,” Selvara says calmly. She gets up and goes to her many pots, gathering materials as she continues. “In Vruts, the bondburn is much like an aphrodisiac. It stimulates arousal and pushes two mates into making the bond official. It is pleasurable. Annoying.”

Paige has a sheen of sweat all over her body. Her hair sticks to her sweaty neck and her breath is ragged, like she can’t get enough air.

“Her body has recognized that she has a mate. But you two have not bonded and her body is rejecting itself.”

“Rejecting itself?” I cuddle her closer to my chest, practically still holding her in my arms as she lies in the hammock.

Selvara uses a rock tool to grind up some dried herbs. She’s too calm, working too methodically compared to my heart pounding in my ears.

Paige shivers against my chest.

“You need to mate with her,” Selvara says plainly.

Anger rolls through me as I look down at the limp creature in my arms. “You think I’m not dying to make her mine? To claim her in front of the rest of the clan and end my misery?” I ask.

Selvara shrugs her shoulders, her back still turned to me as she finishes making something I’ve never seen before.

“Until you bond with her,” she says, turning with a small bowl in her hand. She pours a splash of water into the bowl and moves it side to side, mixing up the mixture inside. “This will wake her. It will take away the pain.”

“For how long?” I wince.

Selvara meets my gaze and shakes her head.

Not long.

I look down at Paige. My mate is too pale—the usual pink color of her cheeks is all but gone. Her lips are nearly white. Pain lances across my chest as I look down at her.

I did this. I allowed this to happen.

Selvara joins me at the hammock and I raise Paige’s head enough to allow her to drink. The dark gray, chalky mixture dribbles down her chin as she grimaces.

“I know, troublemaker,” I whisper into her hair. She smells like the blooms of the dainty flowers on an aged voralith. A sign of life. Of growth. Of strength. “I know.”

My chest constricts as Selvara forces more of the liquid down. It stings my nostrils and I massage Paige’s throat, forcing her to swallow it down.

“This helps curb a Vrut female’s desires. It will bring your mate back to you,” Selvara says low. She takes the bowl away. “I will bring you another batch. Make her drink every day until she wakes.”

Paige groans as I lift her off the hammock, holding her close to my chest. Just feeling her in my arms helps ease the pain, but I can’t face the fact that I caused this pain in her. I’m the reason she shivers and winces.

Our own unfulfilled bond is killing her.

“Thank you.” I bow my head, the words souring in my mouth. Selvara is the only healer I trust, but I can’t bring myself to look her in the eyes. I’m shamed. Three days with Paige and I am already hurting her. Neglecting her needs.

Bile rises in my throat.

I turn to see myself out, walking slowly so as to not disturb my sleeping mate.

When we are back in our chamber, I lay her down in the furs, covering her weak body and wiping the sweat off her forehead.

I wanted to give her a choice in the matter. I was trying to see things from her perspective—not take too much from her. But in the end, I was endangering her life. I should have taken her that first day in the spring. Sealed her tight with my bulb and seeded her as mine.

I’m a failure.

Quick footsteps approach my leathers and I bark out a grunt. “Who is it?”

Draxel steps inside, his eyes finding Paige and then averting his gaze.

“Leave us,” I say.

I can’t give my attention to anything he has to say. I gave him his instructions to protect the females, to find out what’s wrong with them, but right now all I can focus on is the female in my furs.

I need her to get better. I need her color to return.

And I need to make her mine.

Even if it angers her to do so, I will not let her die.

I can’t.