This wasn't how I wanted her body.

I was supposed to gut her and wade my claws in her blood. The Dread rarely went as planned and this one had surpassed all my inclinations. My prize was finally in my possession, but according to the law and my blood oath, I couldn't claim it as my own.

It was a long walk back to my ship and I was eager to review the recording of our battle. Naturally, I intended to evaluate every detail in large-scale, but there were multitudes of input to analyze.

I had to readjust Mourning Crow's lifeless body slung over my shoulder while trying to access the keypad on my recently retrieved left wristcomm. Actually, I needed to rearrange all of my cargo. Her body, redressed, of course, my wristcomm, her guitar, my scorch-pike that was now permanently bent and wouldn't compress, all balanced together with only one functional hand.

I clipped Mourning Crow's tiny skull helmet onto my belt. It was an odd little armament. It was an old, non-electronic faceplate, deliberately designed to force the wearer to shut their eyes. Also, the internal configuration was faveolate in structure, as if to amplify three elongated sections running along her forehead. This crucial discovery offered a new perspective into Mourning Crow's final showdown with the Graven.

I gave into a gruff chuckle. "The little psycho killed that fucker with her eyes closed."

A half-size recording materialized within my helm's monitor. I fast-forwarded with my short touch-quills to when the first pink goat appeared and zeroed in on Mourning Crow. I should have recognized sooner why she was so at ease with fighting the Graven.

No uncontaminated person could be so righteous.

I growled and shook my head. The memory of her deliberately opening up her veins made my chest sink. I was all too familiar with circumstances necessitating suicide. My own sire preserved his honor with such a maneuver. I may very well have seized control similarly had I been the one infected.

Regardless of my interrupted Dread Trial and the Graven cadaver that disintegrated immediately after death, there remained numerous momentos to officiate. I couldn't claim her bones but I would cryo-store Mourning Crow's body and transport it to Sahei. The Institute would demand detailed records of this encounter and then perform detailed scans of her anatomy.

Nothing would be wasted.

An elusive melody wriggled in the back of my mind. The song she sang this morning, it... I froze solid and then scrambled to rewind my personal archive further. This morning I wasn't listening. I was irritable and impatient. But there it was, clear as the sky above the forest canopy recorded in the video. Mourning Crow was singing her plan to me.

Back then, I turned my back halfway through, but that didn't stop me from raising the volume now.

It was an upbeat ballad about the end of an endless contest and a lake she couldn't swim through. Many of the lyrics were colorful, self-deprecating quips, but each section contained explicit details.

If only I had been in tune with Mourning Crow sooner.

I paused the image of her smirking while teasing me about a dance floor. Zhaguai had little interest in frivolity or dancing, but perhaps it was an activity we should yield a bit more credence.

I skipped the archive forward to my favorite section, the part where she killed the Graven, and slowed the replay down to more closely dissect her footwork. Midway, I glanced over at her long legs hanging over my shoulder, then nudged the slender appendages with my stumped left arm.

Flawless.

She was surprisingly light, considering the heft packed behind her punches. My mind flashed to her crouched over the Graven, ramming her fist through that monster's chest. I may have missed my opportunity to uproot her heart, but that kill... Her kill, was an experience that would satiate me for a lifetime.

I zoomed in on her blood-splattered fists and thrummed my chest amorously at the spectacle. All the while, absentmindedly flicking the tips of my black-forked tongue against my fangs. On impulse, I clipped and set the video archive segment to run on continuous auto-replay.

Not entirely out of nowhere, a sharp cramp twinged deep within my loins. It was the notorious ache of my cock pressed against my slit, determined to escape its scaled sheath. I continued walking and relishing Mourning Crow's kill. One by one, the piercings on the underside of my shaft slipped over the self-lubricating threshold and stood firm beneath my loincloth. I snarled a bit, wishing I had my left hand back.

"You're breathing's soo loud."

My blood went cold as I spun around, dropping everything except Mourning Crow, who I held at arm's-length upside down in my one good hand, suspended by her ankle.

"Um.." she dangled casually with her head eye-level with my hips. "What exactly were you planning on doing with my dead body?"

I dropped her immediately.

"Ow!" Her ears curled down. "My baby!"

"Your what?!" I stammered back, no longer having need to tamp down my loincloth.

She laid there crumpled in a heap, pointing her ears at something behind me.

"Oh," I picked up her leather-wrapped guitar, dusted it off, and inspected the contents. "Your baby is undamaged."

"You better hope so!" Mourning Crow sniped back, unfazed by her face being partially smooshed in the dirt. "She's delicate, one-of-a-kind, and made from entirely custom parts!"

"How are you still alive?" I set her guitar gently aside on the ground, then propped her up with my clawed hand underneath her chin.

"No clue," Mourning Crow grinned brightly. "Wasn't the plan. Never is."

Her ears drooped and her eyes veered sideways. "Thought I had it right this time."

I couldn't restrain the rumbling in my chest. There was no logical purpose to my response. I understood and concurred with her choice, despite the deed being detestable.

I couldn't determine what aspect was more vexing. That she chose death knowing she might return, that she'd been making the same choice repeatedly, or that every time it was done in the hope that the outcome would be permanent. I shook my long quills angrily, suppressing the urge to strike something. Instead, I let her flop to the ground and turned around to collect our belongings.

"How long will you be..." It was infuriating seeing her limp and utterly content with being vulnerable. "Like that?"

"Dunno," Mourning Crow's ears flicked up playfully. "You sped up my timeline. Normally, I'd wake up wobbly but fine. I've never had someone on-hand to hang me up and drain me out so fast and thoroughly."

I grumbled and strapped her guitar over my shoulder.

"Shit, poor phrasing," Mourning Crow dipped her ears back. "I'll be up and about it in a jiffy. Just need a meal and a minute... or maybe forty."

She grinned. "That'll get my blood pumping on all cylinders."

I couldn't specify why, but my instincts tingled that Mourning Crow was not as cheerful as the timber of her voice modulated. She was a performer, after all. Putting on a good show was part of her skill set.

No, the angle of her ears was conveying contrary evidence. I knew nothing of her culture, yet her ear gestures were obviously a parallel language. I wasn't fluent but I was becoming attuned to her inflections.

"You can use my jacket to bundle," Mourning Crow suggested while I took a moment to compose myself and sort through our gear.

"Mmm," I nodded, then manipulated the garment off her flaccid arms and knotted it around our things into a side-slung back-satchel.

"Where are we going?" Mourning Crow's smile presented as carefree but her ears were pulled back and curled at the ends.

"To my ship, as soon as possible," I knelt beside her with a heavy sigh. "I've had my fill of surprises."

"Oh," her ears retained their curve, then swung wide and forward. "Then you should leave me be, here and now."

"No," I contested and shoved my arm under her body. "You will travel with me to Sahei."

Mourning Crow quirked her brow and jested her left brow to a point. "What, like to meet your family?"

She didn't seem to mind when I positioned her back into the crook of my arm, but her ears were fidgeting.

Did this translate to anxiety?

"Yes," I knelt with a grunt and tugged her to my chest with my stumped left arm.

Mourning Crow squinted in confusion. "For... dinner?"

Her ears straightened and went low and back. I was certain this translated to caution.

I glanced down at her head slumped on my shoulder, annoyed that she lacked the strength to look at anything but my clavicle.

Why would I go through all the trouble of delivering her safely, only to make her starve?

I thrummed my chest in exasperation and pulled away, taking my hand out from under her.

Her ears perked up, their openings rotating and flashing outwards to the sides. This was curiosity.

I tapped the unlock switch on the inside of my helmet with my touch-quills to retract the metal visor obscuring my eyes. Then I popped the pressure seal and removed my helmet. Once free of my scales, the armament auto-compressed further into a little metal crest which latched easily over my shoulder.

"You may eat at any time you require," I lifted her chin, allowing her to see my silver eyes. "If you wish, I will hunt for you now. There is ample game nearby."

"Oh..." Mourning Crow's pulse jolted and her pale eyes became wide. "I'm hungry but I always have snacks tucked into that little inner pocket." Her right ear pointed to the seam in her jacket.

I retrieved her stash and helped her devour four short ribs. "So, I just have to meet your family? That's it?"

"No," I jerked her body back onto my arm and against my chest. "You will tell us everything. Either willingly or forcibly."

"Am I missing something?" In her current state, Mourning Crow couldn't fight me if she wanted to, but her ears flapped as though she were trying to squirm away. "Did I break a law? Are you a cop? You have to tell me."

I narrowed my eyes and craned my scowl at her. "Where did you learn my people's language?"

The female became quiet. "It's complicated..."

Her ears straightened and dipped. Definitely hiding something.

"Take your time," I hoisted both our bodies up, hers cradled in what humans referred to as princess-style against my chest. "There is no hurry. We have a long journey."

I returned Mourning Crow's head to my shoulder with her silky white hair draping against me and began walking until one of her ears flipped up and struck my cheek.

"Wait," her voice was soft.

I stopped and did my best to nudge her head up with my left stump.

"What's your name?"

"Eh'kt," I told her.

Mourning Crow's ears sprang up straight and her cheeks flared pink. "Are you serious?!"

Her widening eyes, rigid ears, and erratic pulse implied horror, but her tone contained a tinge of skepticism.

"Nice to meet you... Eh'kt."

She faltered in the articulation of my name like a suckling, reluctantly confessing a wrongdoing to its bearer. Eventually, her ears settled down and rested on my shoulder, but for so many unknown reasons, Mourning Crow was conspicuously flustered.

...

I carried her all night. My strength returned and she was so relaxed in my arm, I saw no reason to pause and rest. But I did make a brief detour to keep us fed.

"A thousand-year death match," Mourning Crow chomped down a freshly stripped wolf's femur. "Give or take a century."

She was able to hold her neck up again and regained partial mobility in her arms and feet.

"And you didn't age?" I mumbled between stripping off another section of thigh meat while holding the leg segment in place with my two longest quills.

Mourning Crow shook her head. "No one did. I only kept track on account of my monthly cycle."

"The inhabitants of an entire city taken hostage..." I mused on the bizarre calamity that befell her and her people while passing off another fully peeled long bone. Mourning Crow remained cagey about any previous interaction with the Zhaguai but was surprisingly candid about her general history.

"It was part of a Graven mating ritual," Mourning Crow added.

"That sounds..." my chest heaved with a faint rolling chuckle. "A bit extravagant."

"They wanted to sift out the strongest vessel," Mourning Crow cocked her chin. "So I provided and made them suck it!"

I thrummed agreeably. It likely would have meant my death, but witnessing such a tableau would have made it worth it.

"I didn't make the rules," Mourning Crow snarled. "Cause if I did, I certainly wouldn't have forced people to kill or be killed against their will. I can't abide senseless torture."

She returned to her munching, twitching her ears in annoyance. "But it wasn't all terrible. Well, let's be clear, Thorngate was a hellhole. Non-stop torment."

I nodded. "Established."

"We knew we weren't on Menthla anymore," she gnawed in one spot of the bone longer than necessary. "On account of the water being safe."

"Is it not safe on your homeworld?"

"All irradiated," Mourning Crow sighed. "Happened a good spell before even my father's lifetime. There was an astrological cataclysm."

She enunciated the phrase like she was trying not to botch up the terminology.

"One of our moons got obliterated. Asteroid, war, who knows, no records survived to say for sure. Rumor has it, we lost contact with a lunar base or an orbital space station."

"It's impressive that your society persisted at all," I clicked. "Such events are statistically terminal."

Then Mourning Crow's ears started flapping and batting my long quills like she was restraining a secret she couldn't contain any longer.

"Razkurs weren't the first apex species on our planet," she blurted. Her entire cadence perked up into frisky.

I couldn't take my eyes off her.

"The Iddril were first," she continued. "They lived on Menthla's surface but were irresponsible with pollution from their tech. It contaminated our homes below, drove us up, and ultimately doomed the Iddril."

Her ears dipped, as if disheartened by verbally recounting the events.

Planets with more than one intelligent species were extremely rare. It was common for early off-shoot species to be promptly eliminated. Plus, a species with the ability to evolve and overcome an established advanced society compounded with near annihilation was... staggering... bordering on ominous.

"What are you plotting now?" Mourning Crow poked the tip of her ear into my cheek.

I exhaled and shook my head, shoving her ear away with one of my quills.

"Your mask," I pointed with my stump at her Hass'ar skull-plate hooked next to my helmet. "It comes from a time when Razkurs were fully subterranean and hadn't yet evolved eyes, correct?"

"Yeah. Three thermal bands for infrared and big-ass ears," Mourning Crow traced three fingers over the top of her forehead while wiggling her ears as she blinked exaggeratedly. "We got the peepers about a century after immigrating to the surface."

So fast, no raw DNA should adapt that rabidly!

"When did your kind get these?" Mourning Crow twiddled her ear at the three smallest tendrils fanned out just in front of my flat ears.

"Always," I snagged a solid grip around her ear with all three of my touch-quills.

She chuckled and I let her loose.

"We call them touch-quills," I flexed all six of my little tendrils, three on each side of my face. "We use them to control the hud built into our helmets. All our quills are prehensile, but these tuck conveniently into our helms."

"And the really long ones at the front that hang forward over your shoulder. Do they have a special name?"

"Long quills or longest, I guess," I shrugged. "No two Zhagaui have the same arrangement of quills. Most of my quills are short but the majority of my kind have thick manes running down their spine. The nubby ones covering our bodies are simply referred to as short."

Mourning Crow hovered her ear tip just above the exposed short quills coating my chest but restrained her urge to flick them.

"My comm," I changed the subject and pointed to my gauntlet clipped to my belt. "Can you grab it?"

She plucked it free.

"Careful to aim the smaller side away," I amended. "Can you slide your arm inside?"

Mourning Crow complied.

"Press your skin against the metal and make a hard fist," I explained. "It will respond."

A single rip-claw dagger shot out from the bottom with its handle landing perfectly in her palm.

I thrummed involuntarily in delight. My gauntlet was gigantic around her wrist but the provocative clash between her iridescent white scales and the rugged black metal made me second-guess requesting such a reckless demonstration.

I cleared my throat.

"Stealth and dominance," I reorganized my thoughts. "Are integral to my culture. You will never meet a Zhagaui on the battlefield without a hidden weapon or the ability to prove the Nexus' sovereignty."

"Throat snippers," Mourning Crow parodied the thrusting motion I exacted on the wolf when I killed it.

I crooked my head in bemusement. It was not an inaccurate description. "Does the Hass'ar skull-plate hold any special revere for your people?"

"Nah," Mourning Crow shook her head. "That relic was straight-up military standard issue during the underground days, but we don't really have anything equivalent..."

She trailed off, staring off into the distance. "No, wait... That's not true!"

Her ears hitched up. "We had the Abura!"

"Abura?"

"They were the second dominant species on Menthla. Razkurs were third," the topic made her proud and straightened her spine against my arm. "The Abura were subterranean insects. No bones. We sang to them and our two races shared a symbiotic relationship."

"You said had."

Mourning Crow nodded.

"The Iddril and the Abura were enemies. Razkurs were the peaceful buffers. To the Iddril, Razkurs were quaint, unsophisticated hunters and gatherers. There wasn't any overlap in our territories, so they left us alone. But to the Abura," her eyes drifted down as she smiled. "We were counterparts. Our songs quelled the Abura's rage and they became our muses. We lived in perfect harmony."

Her eyes fluttered down and lingered between the long quills dangling from my head. "Then the Iddril's poison seeped underground and the Abura became sterile. There wasn't time to go to war with the Iddril. Instead, the Abura acted independently and made the ultimate sacrifice. Their last generation dug out gigantic caverns beneath the Iddril cities, then collapsed and sealed the radioactive ruins within their chitin resin. We had no choice but to migrate above ground."

"Chitin seals that were broken in what should have been a world-ending astrological event," I concluded.

She tipped her head in concurrence, then her ears curled down over her head. "The loss of the Abura is a wound all Razkurs carry and mourn."

"Are all razkurs such avid historians?"

"HA!" Mourning Crow snickered and smacked my face playfully with her ears. "Only the bards who are serious about their craft."

I narrowed my eyes, failing to make the connection.

"Ballads, anthems, raps, lullabies," Mourning Crow spoke with such conviction all of her teeth were showing. "Whatever the format, it's all storytelling and history is the epic shit Menthla's greatest hits are made of!"

I flexed my brow deviously. "Do you want to return to Menthla?"

Mourning Crow only breathed. Her thoughts were no doubt swirling in distrust and what intentions the Zhaguai had for her people. "I made my peace with never returning home."

I knew she wasn't a traitor, no matter how many of her own kind she begrudgingly killed. But it was necessary to confirm that she would not relinquish directions to her homeworld.

"Understood," I stopped at the edge of a small clearing. "Could you flip open the cover on my comm and press the short curved button farthest to the left?

"Expose," Mourning Crow translated red holographic letters floating just above my wristcomm.

My breath hitched instinctually in abrupt consternation.

Zhaguai writing was intentionally cryptic. Knowledge of our speech was aberrant, but reading required annual certifications to maintain up-to-date ciphers. I had to test her, to be certain.

"Now, enter confirm."

She entered the letters as though the comm had been custom made for her and not me.

My ship's cloaking system deactivated and the dormant vessel hidden on the forest floor stirred to life.

It was a pity the female razkur despised torture, because one way or another, the enigma that was Mourning Crow would soon open wide and surrender all of her secrets.

.

.

.

...

Vocabulary:

Touch-quills - short quills on sides of face. 3 on each side. (6 total)

Long quills - basic head quills, can be long or short

Short quill - nubby body quills

Author's Note:

Thank you for reading. If you're enjoying please remember to click the 💥star⭐to vote and help others discover this book. Wattpad counts votes for each chapter. And as always, comments are most appreciated.