Page 13 of Rok’s Captive (Barbarians of the Dust #1)

A NAME IS A MARK. SHE HAS MARKED ME

ROK

I cannot look away from her.

The realization comes slowly, settling into me like the dust settles after a storm. She stands before me, small and fragile against the vastness of the desert, and something in me has…changed. Shifted. As if the very foundation of my being has cracked, allowing something new to take root.

The wind tugs at the strange coverings she insists on wearing, and beneath them, I can sense the heat of her skin, the rhythm of her dra-kir —strong and steady now, no longer fighting against the heat that had threatened to consume her. She moves in a circle and I follow her movement with my eyes, tracking each gesture, each expression that crosses her face. The way her brow furrows as she studies the horizon. The way her lips press together in what looks like concentration. The way the sun catches in her hair, turning it to fire.

I want to move closer. I want to breathe in her scent again, that strange, sweet smell that is unlike anything on Xiraxis. I want to press my face to the curve of her neck, where her pulse beats visibly beneath her delicate skin.

I want to taste her.

The thought crashes into me with such force that my claws dig into my palms. This is not…I am not… These urges are foreign, and yet they burn through me with an intensity that I cannot ignore.

Female .

The word echoes in my mind, ancient and powerful. A myth. A legend. A gift from Ain herself.

And yet, here she stands. Flesh and blood and warm, strange scent. Not Drakav, not of Xiraxis, but undeniably, impossibly, female.

“Okay, so we’re down from the cliff,” she says, her voice quick and light. “That’s good. Progress. But which way do we go now? I need to find my people.”

I watch her turn in circles, scanning the horizon with those strange, fragile eyes. No secondary lid, as far as I can tell. How will she protect against the storms when they come?

No need. I will protect her.

I will not leave her side.

“I think it was that way,” she says, pointing toward a distant ridge of stone. “Or maybe that way? I don’t know. Everything looks different now.”

The dust stretches endlessly in all directions, the same shifting sea it has always been. But she sees it differently. To her, it is a maze, a puzzle to be solved. She is lost.

Lost, and very far from home.

Perhaps Ain truly did send her. Perhaps there is purpose in her arrival, in our meeting.

Or perhaps the dust simply gives what it will, and takes what it will, and there is no greater meaning.

I try to mindspeak, focusing my thoughts into a clear image: “Where did you come from?”

But it is useless. She continues her restless movement, unaware of my question, her mind sealed away from mine.

She cannot perceive my thoughts. I have tried, again and again, to reach her mind, to share the images that would make her understand. Each time, I am met with silence—or rather, with the chaotic flurry of her own thoughts, sealed away behind a wall I cannot breach.

Yet somehow, she has given me her name.

“Jus-teen.”

The sound still feels strange on my tongue, unfamiliar and awkward. But when she spoke it, pointed to herself and shaped those sounds, an image formed in my mind—a bloom in the dust, delicate and impossible, yet somehow existing. Bright. Beautiful.

Names are sacred. We do not own them. A name is something given, not in sound, but in thought—a mark left in the minds of others.

My name was given to me long ago, shaped by my brothers, my kin, my tribe. The image of me that exists in their minds is simple, unchanging: a stone, steadfast and unyielding, braced against the storm. Alone, but enduring.

Rok .

That is what I am. That is what they see.

But when I think of my name now, with her warmth still lingering against my skin, her scent still in my nose, the image shifts. The winds of the storm grow quieter. The stone is no longer solitary.

It…frightens me.

I am not meant to change. Stones do not bend, do not waver, do not soften. Yet something in me has. Her name lingers in my mind, as if it has carved itself into the stone, leaving a mark that I cannot erase.

“I think I might just have to pick a direction and pray,” she vocalizes, eyes narrowing as she looks around. “Fuck. Shit. I can’t make a mistake in this.”

I do not understand her sounds, but her frustration is clear. It radiates from her in waves, as clear as if she were projecting her thoughts directly to me. She is afraid, though she hides it well behind her constant stream of sound.

She continues speaking, her voice rising and falling in patterns that have become almost familiar. I do not mind the sound as much as I did before. At first, her endless vocalizations grated against my senses, a constant, unnecessary noise. Now, there is something almost soothing about it, like the rhythm of the wind over the dunes.

“Hey,” she says suddenly, turning to face me. Her eyes find mine, and for a moment, it feels as if she can see into me. “I just realized—I don’t know what to call you. I’ve been thinking of you as ‘the alien’ this whole time, which is…well, accurate, I guess, but not very personal.”

I tilt my head, trying to understand. She touches her chest, the way she did in the cave.

“I’m Justine,” she says slowly. “Jus-tine.”

And there it is again—the image that forms in my mind when she speaks her name. A bloom in the dust, delicate and impossible, yet somehow thriving.

Then she points to me, eyebrows raised in question.

She wants to know my name.

I hesitate. Names are sacred, private things. They are not meant to be spoken aloud, to be cheapened with sound. And yet…

I focus on the image that has been my name for as long as I can remember: the stone, unyielding against the storm. I try to shape my lips around a sound that would capture it.

“Rok,” I say. The sound is rough, clumsy, but it is the closest I can come to sharing my true name with her.

Her eyes widen, her mouth opening slightly in surprise. “You spoke again! You…was that your name? Are you telling me your name?” She touches her ear. Not the one with the strange creature trapped in crystal on it. But the other. The one with a stone lodged in it. “I swear I heard it in English. Is this translator thing working? Please, please be working.”

I touch my chest, mimicking her gesture. “Rok.”

“Rock?” she repeats, the sound slightly different from mine. “Your name is Rock?”

Something must shift in my expression, because she laughs—a bright, unexpected sound that sends a strange warmth through my chest. I am not even worried about the shadowmaws hearing. I will fight them all if she would make that sound again.

“I mean, it fits,” she says, gesturing at me. “You’re certainly built like a—wait, no. That can’t be your name. Rock? Seriously? Like Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson?”

I do not understand her words, but I understand that she has misheard my name. I touch my chest again.

“Rok,” I say, letting the sound fall short, sharper than the noise she created.

She blinks, tilting her head at me. “Rok,” she repeats, slower this time. Her brows furrow, and I can see her turning the word over in her mind. It is strange. I cannot sense her thoughts, but…I can almost see them through her eyes. “Not Rock. Rok. Same sound, I guess, but…sharper. It feels different.”

Her brows furrow and I tilt my head, watching as she taps her fingers against her thigh. “Yeah, okay. I’ll spell it without the ‘C.’ That’s better. Cleaner. It suits you.”

Her words settle over me like a weight, and something deep inside shifts. She has taken my name—my true name, or as close as her kind can come to it—and made it her own. To hear it in her voice, to see her shape it into something she understands, feels strangely…good. As if she has reached into a part of me that no one else has ever touched.

“Rok,” she says again, softer this time, as if testing it.

The glow beneath my skin flares faintly, betraying me. I have no words for what I feel, but it is enough to know that she has claimed my name in her own way.

She bares her teeth in that strange way I believe is non-threatening, and the sight of it does something to my insides. Her teeth are small, flat, nothing like the fangs of the Drakav, and yet there is something oddly appealing about the expression. I find myself mimicking it, baring my teeth in what I hope is a similar gesture.

Her teeth-baring falters for a moment, as if caught off guard, and then returns, wider than before. She shifts on her feet, a slight hesitation, that strange redness growing in her cheeks again. “Are you…smiling at me? Oh my god, you are. That’s adorable. In a terrifying, wolfish way.”

I wish I knew what her words mean, but the warmth in her voice suggests they are no insult. I continue the teeth-baring, and she laughs again.

“Okay, Rok,” she says, and hearing my name in her voice sends another pulse of that strange warmth through me. “So we’ve established who we are. Now we just need to figure out where we’re going.”

She turns again, scanning the horizon, and I am struck by how small she seems against the vastness of the dust. So fragile. So alone.

Except she is not alone. She has me.

The thought comes uninvited, and with it, a fierce protectiveness that surprises me with its intensity. I found her in the dust. By the laws of Xiraxis, that makes her mine. Mine to protect. Mine to keep safe.

Mine.

The word settles into me with a weight that should be alarming, but instead feels right. Inevitable, even. There is no undoing this. It simply is. Like the sky. Like the dust. She does not know it yet, but she is no longer alone. She will never be alone again.

I move to her side, studying the terrain as she is. The dust offers little in the way of landmarks, but I know these lands well. I have hunted them since I was barely out of the Giving Stone.

She will need water soon. Food. Shelter from Ain, who is already climbing higher, its heat intensifying with each passing moment. The cave was safe, but she will not return there willingly. Not when she is so determined to head to the rival clan’s territory.

I make a decision. If I cannot convince her to stay where it is safe, then I will go with her. I will guide her through the dust, keep her from the dangers she cannot see, cannot understand.

I will keep her alive, this strange, soft creature who has somehow spoken my name aloud and made it sound like something precious.

“Rok,” she says, and I turn to find her watching me, her head tilted slightly to one side. There is something in her expression—uncertainty, perhaps, or vulnerability—that makes me want to reach for her, to draw her against me as I did when I held her all through the dark. To press my face to her and breathe in her scent. To taste the salt on her skin.

But I do not. I stand, unyielding as my name, and wait for her to show me where she wishes to go.

She points toward a distant ridge, the pale spire of stone barely visible against the hazy horizon. “I think that’s where we need to go. That looks like the place where…” She hesitates, then waves her hand dismissively. “Well, it doesn’t matter what I think it looks like. It’s the only landmark I can see, so it’s our best bet.”

I follow her gaze, recognizing the formation. The Ridge of Shrieking Winds, we Drakav call it in our thoughts. A place where no living creature lingers long…and the last place I would take one I intend to keep alive.

It is a dangerous place, where the sand whips sharp enough to flay skin from bone, where the narrow passages between the stones amplify the howling of the wind until it can drive even the hardiest hunter to madness.

She starts walking toward it without hesitation, her stride determined despite the way her feet sink awkwardly into the sand, even with those strange shields she wears on them.

I do not move.

She takes several steps before noticing that I am not following. She turns, her face pinched as those piercing eyes find mine.

“Well, are you coming?” she calls, gesturing toward the ridge.

I remain where I stand, feeling the heat of the sand beneath my feet, sensing the danger that awaits in those distant ridges. No hunter would willingly approach the Shrieking Winds. Not alone. Not without preparation. And certainly not with a fragile, defenseless female in tow.

She must be protected at all cost. Not put in danger.

“Rok?” she says my name again and my glow reacts as if called, too. “Well?”

I tilt my head, trying to convey without words or shared thoughts that the path she has chosen leads only to death. But she cannot hear me, cannot feel the warning I am projecting with all my strength.

She looks back toward the deadly ridges, then to me again, a sigh escaping her lips. “I have to go, Rok. If you weren’t here, that’s where I’d be heading to.”

Her expression hardens suddenly, eyes narrowing. “But wait, I wouldn’t be here if you didn’t trap me on a cliff . Granted, it was to save my life,” she crosses her arms, pushing up those soft gourd-shaped protrusions on her chest, “so you get a pass for that.”

I understand the frustration in her voice, if not her words. She is worried.

She turns again, taking a few determined steps toward the Shrieking Winds. Then she stops, her shoulders slumping slightly. She does not look back at me as she speaks, but something in her posture, in the sudden softness of her voice, makes my dra-kir ache.

“I guess this is goodbye then, Rok. And…” Her shoulders slump. “Thank you.”

Her tone. The resignation. The disappointment. The touch of sadness. It all cuts deeper than any sandfin could. She intends to leave. To walk into death, alone.

I will not allow it.

She huffs and begins walking again, her stride stiff. I let her take three more steps before I move, closing the distance between us in just two strides.

I catch her easily, lifting her off her feet and into my arms. Her body is lighter than it should be, fragile bones wrapped in soft skin, nothing like the dense, armored forms of the Drakav. She fits against my chest as if made to be there.

Her vocalizations turn sharp, piercing. I do not need to understand her words to know she is not happy with me. Her small hands push against my chest, ineffectual but insistent.

I ignore her protests. I will bear her anger, her resentment, her futile struggles. I will bear anything if it means keeping her alive.

I turn away from the deadly ridges, carrying her toward the safety of the eastern caves. She will not understand. She will fight me. But she will live.

And perhaps, in time, she will understand that I could not let her walk to her death simply because she could not hear the warnings in my mind.