Page 27 of Sheltered in the Storm (The Fortusian Mates # 1)

CHAPTER 26

VOS

My Calla’s captors had left many false trails, but finally I found the one that led me to the raider camp—or what remained of it.

My rage had claws and teeth, and my thoughts were jagged.

I smashed through the door of the raiders’ hut and stood on the threshold, my tentacles ripping at the walls and my fists clenched. But it was not a group of raiders who greeted me.

Instead, I saw my mate, naked and covered in blood, pale, on her feet but her eyes unfocused, as though she might collapse at any moment. A chain bound her right ankle—the ankle my tentacles habitually cradled for their comfort and hers. A bolt-shaped J’Noran incendiary device was buried deep into my Calla’s shoulder, as if plunged through her flesh and bones with brute force.

An enormous Kurutan stood behind my mate, using her as a shield against my wrath.

My Calla. My Calla , bloody and badly wounded and possibly dying, with a bomb inside her. My fury seared me and wrenched a low growl from deep in my chest.

My tentacles flared around me, their tips facing my mate’s tormentor with claws extended. They could not penetrate the Kurutan's carapace, but they had other vulnerable places on their body.

“Coward,” I snarled. “Spineless coward, face me.”

To my surprise, it was Calla who spoke.

“Vos.” Her voice was strained and shaking. She reached for me with her bloodstained hand. The smell of her blood suffocated me. “Vos, take my hand,” she said, and now she sounded as though she might weep. “Take my hand, my love.”

My Calla did not call me her love. What kind of trap was this?

I snarled at the Kurutan. “Step out from behind my mate, scum who bloodies unarmed women and uses the weapons of a coward.”

The Kurutan made a grating sound.

“Vos,” Calla repeated. She stretched out her hand as far as she could, held back by that gods-damned wicked chain, and whimpered in pain. Her fingers trembled so badly that despite my rage, a coo rose in my chest. “Vos, listen to me. This is N’Mora, the child of Ambassador N’Vors.”

My body went cold.

The child I had carried out of danger in my tentacles had come to Iosa and taken my Calla. They had brutally plunged a bomb into my Calla. Had used my Calla to bring me here, likely to witness her death. I had saved this Kurutan, and in return they intended to take from me the only good thing I had ever had.

I hissed at N’Mora through my teeth, envisioning tearing each limb from their body and forcing them to eat the pieces so they tasted their own flesh .

“I told you he would not listen,” N’Mora said in Alliance Standard. “He is a beast, Calla Wren.”

“Stop it. He is not a beast. He’s listening.” Calla swayed on her feet. “Vos, N’Mora thinks you killed their parent. I told them the truth, but they don’t believe me. Please tell them what happened on Bordia the day N’Vors died. Tell them what you did and why.”

“I do not believe her,” N’Mora said, their voice harsh. “You are a murderer and a liar, Vos Turek. You do not deserve a true mate.”

“Perhaps I do not.” I took a step closer, calculating how quickly I could get to N’Mora. But I did not know where the detonator for the bomb was, and until I did, I could not risk an attack. “But my Calla is my true mate and I love her. If you wish to avenge your parent, I offer you my throat instead.”

Despite her condition, Calla bristled, her eyes fiery. “No. The hells you will.”

“It is not your throat I want.” N’Mora raised one of their clawed hands behind Calla’s head. Even at my fastest, they could snap her neck before I could reach them. “I want you to live with your pain the way I have lived with mine.”

“Vos.” Calla sagged and then fell to her knees, no longer able to stand. “My love, I told them to get behind me so you would talk to them. They deserve to hear the story of how their parent died.”

Nothing had tasted as bitter and sweet as finally hearing the words my love from my Calla while my body was full of the scent of her blood and her life hung in the balance.

My Calla looked up at me, her gaze pleading. “N’Vors gave you hope. You can give their child peace.”

N’Mora made a strange sound then—a kind of chittering song. The last time I had heard it, I was lying on my belly in an air duct on Bordia, and N’Vors was speaking to their child, not knowing only minutes later they would die shielding them. I thought perhaps this was a comforting sound, though who N’Mora wished to comfort, I did not know.

It was at least an opportunity to ask for the thing I wanted most.

I forced my tentacles to lower themselves and sheath their claws. “May I hold my mate? Please. She is hurting.”

“You may.” N’Mora raised their other clawed hand, revealing a small red disk. The detonator. “But do not attempt to take her and flee or remove the device, Vos Turek. I will give no further warning.”

Moving slowly so N’Mora would not think I planned to attack, I went to my Calla and gathered her in my tentacles. Gods, she was so cold and pale, and she shivered violently. My rage threatened to consume me, but instead I focused on wrapping her in warmth and comfort. And I cooed.

With her head on my shoulder, she gave me a fleeting smile. “Thanks for listening to me this time, my Vos.”

For a beat, I did not understand. Then I recalled our exchange in the garden earlier today—a lifetime ago, it seemed—when I had been lost in thought and not heard her talking.

I pressed a kiss to her hair. “My love, rest. I will protect you.”

“I know.” The words were barely audible. Her eyes drifted closed. When I pressed my fingertips against her wrist, I found her pulse weak but steady.

With my hand cupping my Calla’s face, I looked up at N’Mora. “If she dies, so do you,” I said.

N’Mora inclined their head. “I do not think she will, Vos Turek. Your mate’s will is stronger than yours or mine.” They settled onto the dirt floor, their legs bent beneath their bulk. “I am owed a story. Tell me of the day my parent died.”

The monster within me wanted to rend N’Mora into the smallest pieces, but my Calla’s life depended on me acquiescing to the Kurutan’s demand. And so I put my monster back in its cage and told N’Mora every detail I could recall .

When I spoke of the moment N’Mora, as a child, had asked me “ La ka na? ” the Kurutan made the chittering song again.

“I remembered your eyes,” N’Mora said after a very long silence. “They shone like starlight when you said yes. I recall thinking that you must be divine, because no eyes I had ever seen had shone like that.”

My Calla had said my eyes reminded her of starlight as well. I had always considered their glow to be part of my monstrous self, but perhaps I had been mistaken.

“I am sorry for lying to you. I did not intend to do so.” I adjusted my hold on Calla so her breath warmed my chest over my primary heart. The sensation reassured me. “Had I known what it was you asked, I would have said no.”

“But perhaps that would have been a lie.” N’Mora rose on all four legs and stretched, their joints popping. They dropped the detonation disk on the dirt beside us. “I believe your story, Vos Turek. You may remove the device from your mate.”

Given my Calla’s pallor, that statement did not offer me as much reassurance as it might. “She may bleed to death if I do. She has lost too much blood already.”

“If she is your true mate, you can heal her with your blood, can you not?”

I stared at the Kurutan. How would they know such a thing? I had not known of this myself until recently.

“No,” I said, feigning confusion. “That is not possible.”

N’Mora made a low grating sound. “There is no need to lie to me, Vos Turek. I know much of your physiology. I made study of you my adult profession. I suppose now I must find another.”

Would they seek their parent’s true killer, or seek peace instead? Would one lead to the other? I did not know what I would do were I in N’Mora’s place. The choice would certainly be a difficult one.

“I will leave you here to tend to your true mate,” N’Mora said. “Do we have an agreement that I will not seek you out again, and you will not seek me?”

“How can you demand that of me?” Fury swept over me. “Look what you have done to my Calla. She is innocent in this matter.”

“That is true, and for her suffering I am sorry.” N’Mora dipped their head. “But we all have survived this meeting. Perhaps someday we will do more than merely survive.”

My monstrous self would have preferred to follow through on my intention to rend N’Mora limb from limb, but my hearts knew Calla would not want me to. She was wiser and more good, and so I would follow her counsel. She had yet to steer me wrong. And as much fury as I still felt toward N’Mora, I knew the quiet bitterness of mere survival.

“I wish you a good life, then,” I said. And since I did not forgive as easily as my Calla would, I added, “And a swift departure.”

With one last dip of their head, N’Mora left through the opening I had made in the doorway and disappeared into the night.

“My Calla.” I cooed, holding her close and smoothing her hair back from her face. “My Calla, wake, please.”

She stirred. Her lashes fluttered but her eyes did not open. “What is it?” she murmured, her lips against my chest. “Are we home?”

“Not yet, my love.” I kissed her forehead. “I must remove this device. You are badly hurt. I need your permission to share my blood with you.”

“Of course.” She let out a sigh. “It’s all right. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

I could think of only one reason she no longer felt the agony of her injury, and terror like I had never experienced gripped me.

“It will hurt when I remove it,” I said, my voice rough. “But I will make it quick, and then I will heal you as best I can and take you home.”

“All right.” She snuggled close. A flinch crossed her features, and then they smoothed. “Then can we go back for more shells?”

In that moment, I came the closest to weeping as I had in my life. “Yes, my love. We will collect every shell your heart desires. The most beautiful purples and reds to be found.”

Before she could reply, my Calla lost consciousness again. Fury turned my vision dark around the edges. I breathed in her scent to calm myself. When I could think clearly again, I broke the cuff around her ankle into pieces and flung it and the chain away from us.

Cradling her in my tentacles, I rose and gathered every piece of fabric I could find in the abandoned bunkhouse. To my surprise, I located a mostly intact medical kit in a dented locker. I did not trust its contents to be viable or labeled correctly, even the painkillers that might have given my Calla some relief, but the scanner worked and the bandages were sealed and clean.

When everything was ready, I sat on a thin mattress in the center of the dirt floor with my supplies around me and my mate in my lap. Even unconscious, she smelled of pain.

N’Mora was very lucky I treasured my Calla’s love and counsel above my own monstrous needs.

Carefully, I coiled the end of one tentacle around the bomb’s bolt-like top, braced myself, and pulled it from her flesh. Blood gushed from the wound. My Calla made a pitiful sound that seemed to shred my hearts. My tentacles thrashed in grief and rage.

Cooing, I pressed a handful of cloths soaked with my own blood to the injury. I held her close as my blood went to work trying to heal her. Finally, she stopped groaning and went quiet again.

I understood how need for vengeance warped a person’s mind, but I could not comprehend how N’Mora could inflict torment on someone so good, who had done nothing to deserve it. And even after all her suffering, my Calla had put herself between N’Mora and me, knowing she risked death to do so, for N’Mora’s benefit. She wanted N’Mora to have peace, perhaps because we had known so little of it in our lifetimes.

“You are far better than either N’Mora or me,” I murmured, kissing my Calla’s cool, damp brow. “And yet you love me. You are a wonder and a miracle I will never take for granted.”

Her capacity for kindness was not the only wonder and miracle of the day. Within the hour, the wound stopped bleeding. Another hour later, she had healed enough that I felt I could bandage her wounds and move her.

Before leaving the bunkhouse, I burned everything that had our blood on it. I washed Calla’s blood from the bomb in the sea, destroyed the detonator, and left the inert device in the broken locker where I had found the medical kit.

Then I dressed my Calla in her flight suit and myself in my own clothing, put her pack on my back, and carried my mate home.