Page 13 of Unleashed

Though slightly shorter than Aduun, Balir was at least a foot taller than Nina. His skin was the color of cooled ashes, made up of fine scales. A ridge of bone swept back from his forehead, terminating in two dull points that weren’t quite horns, and similar plates rose from his shoulders — just like on a shrieker. The points of red luminescence on his neck were dulled by the ambient light in the chamber. He was well muscled but lean, with long limbs. His fingers each had an extra joint, and both fingers and toes were tipped with wicked, curved, black talons.

His eyes were at once disconcerting and soothing; his irises and pupils were an unnaturally pale gray that looked ready to fade completely into white at any moment. They were unfocused and directed away, but she sensed he was fully aware of her all the same. He produced a series of soft clicks in his throat. Under any other circumstances, that sound would’ve chilled her blood; it was the noise shriekers made while they were searching for prey.

“What are you?” Balir asked.

“I’m a human,” Nina said.

The sound of claws and hooves over stone had her glancing behind to see Aduun and Vortok drawing nearer.

“What is ahoomin?” Vortok asked.

Aduun stared at Nina with hard eyes. “Some part of Kelsharn’s punishment for us.”

“No, I have nothing to do with Kelsharn,” Nina replied, frowning.

“How is it you speak our language?”

“From my father. He is—was—like you.”

Aduun narrowed his eyes and stepped closer to her. His size wasn’t intimidating — she was used to feeling tiny next to Orishok — but his bestial features and palpable intensity made her heart race.

Balir moved between them, blocking her view of Aduun, and pressed his palm to her chest. Her breath hitched at the sudden contact. He turned his face to the side, directing his eyes elsewhere, nostrils flaring with a deep inhalation.

“Her heart beats in time with my own,” he said after a few moments.

“What?” Confused, Nina dropped her gaze to the place on his chest where his heartstone had vanished.

Balir took her wrist with his free hand. As strange and as lethal as his fingers looked, his touch was gentle. He guided her palm to his chest and pressed it there. His scales were surprisingly smooth and warm. To her shock, the rapid thumping under her hand matched what she felt in her own body.

“That is unnatural,” Aduun growled, “like all of Kelsharn’s tricks.”

“Weare unnatural,” Balir said softly. “But this is no trick, Aduun. She is mine. She blooded my heartstone. We are bonded.”

“No, that can’t… I didn’t…” But she knew even before she pulled her hand away, before she turned it to see the blood smeared on her palm. She knew because shefeltit, felt a connection to each of them, unlike any mind-to-mind connection she’d made with her psychic abilities; this was deeper, more primal. No matter how hard she tried to shut the sensation out, they remained a steady presence within the recesses of her mind.

Vortok’s massive hand closed over Balir’s shoulder plate, and the big valo shoved the smaller one aside. Balir caught himself against the wall, swung his head around, and hissed, the red spots on his throat flaring brighter. Vortok grunted but otherwise ignored him.

He crouched slowly; even that change of stance had her looking up at him. His wide-featured face wasn’t an attractive one. It was framed by a thick, dark mane that fell over his head, shoulders, and chest, from which jutted large, pointed ears. Horns of varying sizes extended from the top of his head and the bottom of his chin, with another on each side just below and behind his cheekbones. He had the same bony nubs along his brows and below his eyes as Orishok. It was those eyes she stared into; they were as rich and dark a brown as freshly tilled soil. Gentle eyes, Kind eyes.

They almost made it easy to ignore the blood around his mouth and staining the tusks protruding from his full lower lip.

He raised an arm. He possessed only three fingers and a thumb, but each finger looked as thick as Nina’s wrist.

With surprising delicacy, he settled his palm on her chest and was silent for several seconds. “Her heart beats along with mine, as well.” Leaning closer, he drew in another deep breath and released a soft rumble.

Balir approached from the edge of Nina’s vision, falling into place just behind her and to the side.

“That makes no difference,” Aduun said.

“Of course it doesn’t,” Vortok snapped, twisting around to glare at Aduun, “not for one who has given up on his own—”

“I have not given up on our people!” Aduun’s shout was punctuated by the deep tones of a bestial roar. “I have not abandoned them or betrayed them. If there is the slightest chance they yet live, I will take it. But Kelsharn’s greatest lesson has ever been that hope is false. Hope is meaningless. I will not allow him to trick me into hoping.”

Balir combed his fingers through Nina’s hair, drawing her attention to him. The contentment pulsing from him seemed disproportionate to the simplicity of his action. She frowned; why wasn’t she afraid? Why wasn’t she pulling away from them? They were beasts, wild and untamed.

But that wasn’t true, was it? She shifted her gaze between the three of them. Their savagery bristled on the surface, but they were men beneath that, struggling for control.

Vortok grunted dismissively. “I will hold onto my hope. Do as you please, Aduun.” He turned back to Nina and sniffed at her again. “Mmm. I like her smell. She is mine.”

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