Mother of the Drackan: Gyenona's Children, #2

CHAPTER 1

They rested as the sun fell behind its own veil into darkness, no longer forever dampened by the endless sameness of the marshes. Rokien and Avmir had made it out of the Forgotten Lands, out of the darkness and the chaos of nothingness, and their first night in the open seemed a privileged experience in which they both reveled.

Rokien could finally make a fire. The warmth of the flames pleased him, and he stared into the blaze with a clear head. The fire always helped him to think, and he had missed it in the interminable expanse of the Forgotten Lands.

They had no reason to speak as they relished in the clear air and the overwhelming sense of freedom. When they looked at each other now, it was not with a doubtful curiosity or in fear of the other discovering something they had worked so hard to hide. Rokien saw in Avmir’s face that leaving the Forgotten Lands had forced a decision upon her—one he felt himself but didn’t quite understand. He wanted her to come with him, all the way to the end, and somehow he was sure she, too, was ready to change the way she traveled—alone, unimpeded. Untouched. Without ever having shared a meaningful touch or spoken more than a few words at a time, he felt he knew her. Perhaps not her past, or the details of her life, but he knew who she was in the most hidden places, buried almost too deep to be found. Something had existed there between them longer than he could imagine, far before he’d laid eyes upon her the night she ran into him out of nowhere. 

He had known that night the bandits themselves had not driven her from the forest. It had been something much greater. From the moment he saw her, he noticed the dark charm surrounding the woman, some wild passion he had never seen before. Whatever it was that had pulled her to him that night, whatever had made her run from the forest and into him, still nagged at his consciousness from time to time. It hinted at something in him that had drawn out the same thing in this woman. 

Rokien awoke some hours later when his body remembered the pangs of hunger. They hadn’t eaten in the mist-shrouded marsh—there had been nothing to eat—but Avmir never said a word about it. He had always been able to go long periods himself without eating, but until then he hadn’t thought it at all strange for a woman to manage the same.

He sat back on his heels and watched Avmir sleep, knowing she could awaken at any moment with full alertness and perception. He had tried to keep his eating habits a locked secret from the rest of the world; what felt natural in him struck an unprecedented horror in others. It was one of the reasons he had left his home and his family, to travel away from the cities and the roads and roam free. He silently set off into the rolling hills to find whatever he could to fill his belly. 

When he returned a short time later, licking the blood from his fingers and lips, he brought a satiated contentment only provided by hunting and killing. He wiped his hands on the ground as he sat on the other side of the fire. Why hadn’t Avmir mentioned food? If his own hunger had grown enough to wake him, she must be starving. Then he saw it. 

Only feet from where Avmir lay sleeping sat the stripped, gnawed carcass of a blackbird. Where any other man would have thought some animal had left it, Rokien knew it was no animal. It belonged to the woman sleeping before him, who breathed in her dreaming the same contented breath he felt now. She had eaten the bird, as he had done with a rabbit moments before. He sat back in disbelief. She hadn’t brought up food because she didn’t need him for it, and she obviously didn’t care if he knew. He’d been right; he wasn’t the only living thing to hide a secret too dark even for the lowest drudges of humanity.

KEELIN AWOKE WITH A glorious realization that the sun touched her skin, that there was clear land ahead of her, and that she had finally eaten. Sitting up, refreshed and relieved, she found Rokien sitting opposite her with his arms resting on his knees.

Last night had made her even more interested in the man. She had finally eaten, having caught a plump blackbird, then had tried to get some sleep. Instead, as she lay thinking of her dreams, she heard Rokien stand and leave. When he returned, she’d smelled the blood on him, heard him suck on his fingers, and pretended to sleep.

She could still smell the kill on him from where she sat. And she thought she had been the only human thing to do this. When he looked at her, she couldn’t help but give a small, curious smile. He returned it. She looked out at the sparkling green of the hills and breathed in the air. She smelled water.

Rokien voiced her thoughts. I’d like to find a river or a lake, he told her. I don’t think anything would be better right now than a swim.

Keelin could handle the darkness, the pressure of the looming black forest, and the consuming fog of the Forgotten Lands. But here, she felt neither of those things holding her back. She felt like running, like overturning the world around her in the attempt to exhaust herself. The same energy glowed from within Rokien, and she couldn’t help but smile back. 

I think if we keep walking we’ll find something, she said softly. She had an urge to touch him. In response to that urge, she stood up and held his gaze, motioning for them to continue. She smelled water somewhere close by, imagining the cool wetness of it against her skin. And she felt how badly she wanted to share it with the man beside her.

No, he wasn’t a man. He was something different, something like her, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so at peace.

THE SUN HUNG ONLY JUST above the horizon when they came to the lake. It’s blue, crystal-clear water sparkled as it reflected the low orange light of the sky.

Keelin flung the clothing from her body and ran toward the water. With a splash, she plunged under the lake’s cooling touch. She thought of the Great Lake of her home, how it had been her most useful place for thinking. There had not been a body of water since she’d left her home, and she only now realized how much she had missed it. Thoughts of D’ruk followed the memories, and she suddenly missed the white drackan’s companionship. For so long, he had given her nothing but kind words, always knowing what she thought and how she felt without needing to be told. He had stood by her side and defended her, no matter what she put him through.

D’ruk was part of the Council now, and she wondered if that kept him busy and content. She hadn’t opened her mind to him since the last time they spoke, but she still didn’t want him to find her. She couldn’t let him come after her, which he would undoubtedly do if he ever discovered where she was. Still, she longed for him in a deeper part of herself, planned to return to him in the end and repair the delicate rift there.

She stood in the water, dipping her hands into the coolness and washing her body with it. She walked at the edge of the lake until she came to a bent, hardened tree growing out of the water. There were others around the lake, but this one stood alone, fighting for its own life as it immersed itself in the lake. Its shadow mingled with the shimmer of the sunlight upon the glassy surface, and she reached out to touch it. The leaves were soft, fresh, with plenty of life.

Keelin heard a splash behind her and she swayed as the ripples pushed toward her. She didn’t turn but played her hands in the glimmering reflection of the sun on the water, and Rokien came to join her. She didn’t even realize it when her thoughts shifted drastically. She might have missed D’ruk, but Rokien was something else to her entirely. Nothing had ever made her feel more accepted, more at home in a state of being where she belonged. She and Rokien had found something without a name.

She felt his movement through the water. When he stopped just behind her, a wanting grew in her, some shuddering pit below her stomach. His breath brushed over her shoulder, and she was overcome with jesting words that would have never suited her before.

If you come any closer, I might bite. It sounded light, but the distinct possibility existed that she was serious. And she wanted him to be closer. She wanted to touch him, to grab him to her and do something. She had been with other men, but this time she wanted it. The expectation made all the difference. A small smile bloomed on her lips.

Rokien didn’t stop walking through the water. Then I’ll bite back, he said into her ear, his voice low.

She heard the smile in his voice and she loved the way it sounded. His hand found its way through the water to her thigh, and she froze in surprised pleasure. But she didn’t stop him. He touched her again in ways that would have gotten any other man killed. His face was at her neck, his breath in her ear.

She spun, grabbed his face to hers, and did bite him. She bit his lips, and nothing on earth would get her to let him go. Rokien pulled her to him. The calm water now moved in splashing waves around them, and he bit her back. He bit her lips and her ears and her neck, and Keelin grabbed him to her with all of her wanting. Her fingers dug into his back as he carried her through the water, stepped out of the lake with the body of a wild woman clinging to him, and held her until she pulled him to the ground. 

They writhed together in the shade, clawing at one another with an unmatched hunger. Keelin found herself filled with an energy unlike any she’d ever known. They were equals here, in strength and yearning, no matter how hard their bodies fought. The air around them echoed with animal scuffles and growling. It might have been a struggle for power, but Keelin didn’t want to defeat him. She wanted to share this sudden force inside her, whatever it was, with him. He only filled her with more when he touched her.

They wrestled upon the ground, and when she pinned him beneath her so he couldn’t move, she had only seconds to leap away and run toward the small stretch of trees at the edge of the lake. Nothing could overtake her. Not just yet. 

She pushed her body to its limits, ignoring the scratching of the branches as she passed. Rokien would be quick on her heels, she knew. She would run, he would chase her, and whatever came next would happen. She had never felt any knowledge truer than this. Finally, she did this the right way.

She waited for the sounds of pursuit behind her, and when she did not hear them in those split seconds, she stopped. Turning around, she searched for the one she wanted. Her heart pounded in her chest, her ears filled with the sound of her excited, hurried breathing. She scanned the hills, the shimmering lake before her. Where was he? 

She wanted him now; she wanted him to find her and resume the chase, because she finally knew what she was doing. If he did not meet her in this, if he could not accept her challenge as her equal, she would be wrong about everything she thought she felt in him. The small possibility of her having been wrong, of having misjudged him, distracted her. 

A hand wrapped around her waist and quickly whisked Keelin from her thoughts. She stood staring into Rokien’s face, gripping his arms as he pulled her to him with fire in his eyes. He would not let her go. A smile crept over her face. He had been the first one to catch her fully off guard, without a sound or hint of his presence even when she searched for it. In that moment, she knew she’d been right about him. He could do what no other man had ever been able to imagine; he could meet her where she was—as she was.

He pulled her closer and pressed his lips to hers, the pressure of his fingers on her back and his arms about her body fueled with unabashed force. He was not afraid of hurting her. She tried to slip from his hold. She had so much energy and was not ready to give in to him. But he would not let her go, so instead of pushing, she pulled.

Rokien followed the power of her pull as she wrapped her arms around his neck, trying hard to keep his footing. They moved across the ground, struggling tightly in each other’s arms, until she backed up against a tree, pinning herself. He pressed against her and she gasped, feeling both the uneven bark of the tree biting her skin and the hardness of his body tensing against her. They came together again in a whirlwind of biting, clutching, growling, and she felt the resistance of her energy flow from her into him. He had been able to hold her, to chase her, and to catch her. This was different than any other pathetic excuse for interaction any other man had given her. This was how it was supposed to be. With Rokien. 

He lifted her off of her feet, spinning her away from the tree at her back, and brought her to the ground. He withstood her struggles of wanting him as she held him with her entire body. They moved upon the ground together, having pushed, pulled, and tested each other to their physical limits. He brought himself into her, and she screeched in pleasure and triumph. Finally, she had taken him for her own. Now he was hers.

THE WHITE BEAST STOOD at the edge of his perch and watched the setting sun. Lately, he had lost some faith in his own decisions. He worried and feared for the future.

A familiar, nostalgic mind pattern interrupted his thoughts, bursting into his head without warning. Grasping onto some hope, he tried to respond to the sending, but there was no path open to him. It was only a mind burst without form of direction or purpose. He knew who had sent it.

For so long, he had waited with an open mind, ready to accept anything she might chose to send him. Now, of all times, her thoughts spun out into space, giving him no warning and no means of escape. He kept his mind open to the random images, hoping they might give him some insight—hoping he might see where she was.

The pulsing images increased in frequency and intensity, and he was sucked into the stream of sending, wanting above all else to find some hint to help him reach her. The messages were not meant for him and they carried things he never wanted to see. He realized what was happening; the very thing he had feared since the day she discovered the human world. He caught patterns of desire and pleasure, and the hope that had risen in him abruptly shattered and died.

His heart raced as he now had an open view to the inner workings of the one he loved; the one whom he had hoped, in some way, to keep for himself. But their differences would have made that a lonely promise for her. He had tried with all he had to shelter her and keep her from that other world. She had found it all on her own and now fiercely went through with it.

The mind bursts flashed inside his head. She was with a human. It angered him, and then it broke him, and he wished he had never let her leave. She had chosen another over him, was giving herself away in body and mind, past and future. The white drackan was no longer the closest one to her.

He regretted never having actually told her how much he cared for her, how willingly he would have done anything if it meant her protection. But that would no longer mean anything to her, because on her own course she had taken her mate in the Drackan way. 

The sky echoed with the drackan’s heavy breathing, the pain of these realizations, and he instantly closed his mind to the open stream of images. They played continuously in his memory, and the agony overpowered all attempts to withstand the torment. For the first time in a long time, he let himself focus on his own pain in place of hers, and she wasn’t here to help him through it.

In a burst of anguish, the white drackan lifted his head and bellowed at the orange sky. His vocals bounded off the rocks and tore through the air as everything he felt he was seemed to shatter. He had never had something he wanted so badly ripped from him. And now, he had lost her. 

ACROSS MILES OF MOUNTAIN, plains, and countryside, a white drackan screamed for his loss, for the stolen hope of a timeless bond now taken from him. Across time and unknown fears, another struggled in passion, giving herself simultaneously to two worlds and a human who was more than what he seemed—tying the bonds she never knew she wished to cut.

CHAPTER 2

The fire crackled as it cast its shadow across the stone walls. The boy watched the flames flickering, wondering why he loved it so much. He heard his father’s words—those strong, deep words—and listened to them as intently as he always had. The story regaled his ancestors—five long generations of men who ruled with wisdom and compassion throughout Asread and the land. 

Your grandfather was always a man of justice, his father told him.

The boy wondered what the land would be like without any rule of justice, and proud of his family for always having done so well, he turned to look up at his father. 

The chair in which his father sat was not a royal chair, not expensive or of intricate decoration. It was a simple, straight chair with plain fabric. Even still, his father looked like a king. The man held a flask of warm wine in his hand and smiled down at the boy through a thick beard of dark brown. The smile was worth more than all the riches of any other ruler. His father was different. His father valued morals, justice, honor, and family. Riches meant nothing.

I think it’s time for rest, his father told him, still smiling, and stood slowly from his chair. The boy rose to his feet, leaving the stone floor beneath him, and obeyed his father’s wishes. He headed for the door, but when his father called his name, he froze. The alarm in his father’s voice hit a nerve in the boy. He had never heard his father speak in such a tone, and he turned quickly back to see what was wrong.

The boy’s father searched around the room slowly, holding out a hand for his son to remain still and quiet. A dark streak dashed from the doorway on the opposite side of the room. The boy barely had time to realize what was happening before his father made a quick spring for the indiscernible shape. They made no noise, nor did the struggle last longer than a few seconds. The boy had never seen his father move in such a way, and it startled him.

A shout rang out, and then stillness. Relief flooded over the boy as his senses caught up to him. A strange, dark-looking man lay on the floor at his father’s feet, and in his father’s hands was a sharpened, sleek dagger he did not own. The man on the floor scowled in pain and defeat, breathing heavily as he stared up at the king. 

Kill me now, the strange man told him.

The king had the dagger pointed at the intruder’s throat. Guards, he called, and within a few seconds, three large men appeared in the doorway. A look of surprise covered each one of their faces as they slowly realized what had happened. Seeing their king untouched, they looked to him calmly for further instruction. Take him under custody, he told them, holding the dagger as though unaffected by its presence. I’ll come tomorrow, and we’ll start with questioning. The guards nodded and seized the man on the floor, who struggled and then fell still as they struck a blow to his head. 

The boy felt himself growing rigid with anger. This strange man had tried to kill his father. In a flurry of unadulterated rage, the boy flew at the guards carrying the strange man, growling. He was stopped by his father’s strong arms, unable to escape, and the guards left the room. 

Why didn’t you kill him? the boy hollered, still struggling against his father’s hold. He felt more anger and rage filling in him at the fact that anyone would even attempt to kill a man as good as his father. He tried to murder you! And you’re letting him get away!

The king held him back, repeating his name with patience and alert care. My son, that is not the way this family rules, he responded, but the boy did not want to listen. He struggled until his father took him by the shoulders and gave him a firm shake. Panting, the boy ceased his struggling, staring with livid hatred through the doorway. If he had the chance, he would have killed that man on his own. 

He felt his father kneel down beside him, the firm grip still on his shoulders. The man looked his son square in the eye and placed a hand on the face scowling back at him in indignation. 

I would have killed him, the boy told his father, tears welling up in his eyes. He did not want to admit it—he tried to be a man, as his father had taught him—but he had been afraid. Someone had tried to kill his father, and if they weren’t killed themselves, they would come back and try it again. He wanted to kill you and... what if someone else comes to do the same? The boy’s anger turned again into fear, and his father sighed, gently bringing both hands to his son’s face.

In this family, we rule with justice. Killing without knowing the reason is not an answer, and even those who do not act honorably deserve justice. 

The boy sighed and stared at his father. But you could have killed him, he continued. You had the knife and you got him on the floor. You’re powerful, and you’re the king, and you can do whatever you want. 

Yes, I could have killed him, the man answered, and the boy felt a sense of pride. He was right, and his father now felt it appropriate to have a serious conversation with him. But I did not. Strength cannot be used simply because it exists. There are choices everywhere around us. We can let our instincts get a hold of us, or we can harness the strengths we are given and use them only when need be. Killing is not a game, son.

Even when they have wronged you? the boy asked. He did not understand why, if his father had had the same hatred for the man, he did not simply slit the assassin’s throat. 

Even when they have wronged us, his father replied and smiled.

The boy nodded in response. He had to accept what his father told him. After all, his father knew best.

The man stood again to leave the room, and the boy turned to follow. Then he caught sight of the assassin’s dagger lying on the ground, and for the first time, the boy realized it had blood on it. Streaks of crimson smeared the floor where the king had pinned the killer—from a wound his father had inflicted—and the boy felt something strange come over him. He stared at the blood, overwhelmed by a sickening sensation as he noted the thickness of it, the way it sparkled in the firelight. He felt frozen, unable to move, and only wanted to stare at the blood forever in the hopes of discovering what exactly about it pleased him so. His heart raced.

The boy did not hear his father calling his name until the man shouted, and then he turned from the sight of the blood to look fearfully at his father. His father frowned at him, and where he had been patient with his son for wanting to kill the assassin, he now looked as upset as the boy felt he should have been.

I will only say this once, the man told his son, having transformed from his previous patience into a pillar of stern warning. There may be pleasure found in such things as that, but there is doom fated in the practice of it. Control it, or you will not live under my roof. Is that understood? 

This took the boy completely by surprise, and he nodded in confusion and fear. The discovery of what had overcome him in the blood terrified him, as did the fact that his father knew what had happened and remained so adamant about stopping it. He did not turn back toward the blood but looked at his father. The king stared at him with the strict gaze of parenthood until the boy lowered his own eyes respectfully. Then his father walked through the door and left him to find his own way to bed. 

The boy knew he had learned a lesson that night but was unaware of the true weight it carried. He felt ashamed for still thinking that, somehow, his father was wrong. The boy had been consumed both by the desire to kill the assassin and by the newly addicting vision of blood. His curiosity grew far too great to let his father have the last say. He wanted more.

CHAPTER 3

She had never felt anything like this. Rokien moved with her upon the ground, and they struggled to satisfy their animal hungers. Her body exploded with wave after wave of energy she never knew she could possess. With that energy came a burst of mind-thoughts she knew were not her own. Memories, feelings, fears, thoughts, flashes of color all filled her mind in one gigantic heap. It felt like the last gift E’Kahlyn had given her before she died.

They fell still beside each other, panting in satisfied exhaustion, and Keelin tried to sort through the new package of thoughts. A particular memory stuck out to her, of a boy and his father, of an assassin and blood and...

With sickened panic, her mind reeled in confusion, and she sat up. That memory. The man with the beard and the son—that man and those eyes! She didn’t care where the thoughts had come from but focused instead on exactly what they told her.

Rokien looked up at her with curiosity and gave a half smile of his own self-satisfaction. What’s the matter? he asked her and rolled over toward her.

She looked down at him and stared again into his eyes. He met her gaze, and she knew just why she had always felt drawn to those eyes. The minute she had met Rokien, there was something familiar about him, something she couldn’t quite place. Now, she knew exactly what it was. She knew where it had originated.

The memories had been Rokien’s. He had