Page 72 of Tempting Fate

He tipped his eyes to the gods. “Did you get no schooling? Because the last thing you want to do is bond to someone if you’re not ready.”

“Bond?”

Bekatal took a measured breath and placed his tools in the dirt. Grey clouds rolled in off the mountains, blanketing the sky; they encroached on the sun and cast him in shadow. “Did you ever hear the pixie tale of Myria and the Forest?”

I tilted my head. Myria had followed her lover into the forest and came out frenzied, bonded to a ghost who disappeared for two thirds of the medium moon’s cycle.

“It’s a cautionary tale. Useless to most Orithians of course, but soul bonds are real. And capricious. Do not play with them lightly.”

What?

“You’ve probably got nothing to worry about,” Bekatal continued, working over the dirt with practiced hands. “Unless you start feeling her in your bones. Then you need to either make sure she’s all in, or get the hell away. Once the fates get their hooks in you, you’re done for.”

A shiver flashed up my spine, fracturing in radiant tingles over my scalp, sending my headspines ruffling. Delivering me my Aimanei?

Perhaps they already had.

“I’ve tarried too long here today,” I said, voice steadier than I expected. “I should get back to the village. Thank you. I would like to help again tomorrow.”

He gave me a measured look. “Take care, brother. But I mean it, don’t flirt with fate. You don’t want to end up like Myria of the forest, no matter how pretty your little human is.”

I strode up the path with a lightness in my step. Bekatal may have meant to fill me with caution, but the idea of a treasured, permanent bond? Though Orith’s threads were still woven with my new truths and experiences, hope flared into precious life in my chest and took root.

If I was truly free, I was free to do anything.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Probe

Airida

A COUPLE OF days later, I was so absorbed in my book, I didn’t anticipate Imani’s arrival. But the knock at the door was a light tap I knew well.

She stood in the threshold, a silhouette against the midday sun. “Did you still want company?”

“From you? Always.” My cheek muscles ached. I’d smiled more in these two weeks on Vadias than… it didn’t matter.

We collected food from the kitchen and took it back to my room, where we ate in relative quiet. Imani had been distracted these last few days, making strange idle-talk that didn’t seem like her at all. She didn’t much care about the weather, how the construction of new buildings in the village was going, or how some of the shaa’ith were excited for the upcoming Orkri’ian wrestling tournament—and neither did I. We should be talking about art, about what made her brown eyes light up with passion, about plants I’d never heard of and would never see but made her happy.

I wanted to talk about her wet hand on my cock. Ever since that time, nothing more had passed between us other than kalidi, and with the addition of oil, it remained functional only, as I had asked.

Fool.

Every time, I had to remind myself she was doing me a favour. She couldn’t help her natural responses. Yet the conversation with Bekatal in the gardens still played on my mind. The implications. The possibilities.

Imani left soon after we’d finished eating, and I kept my thoughts to myself. But I couldn’t stay in my room.

As I did more often now, I sat under a tree at the village edge, far from my hut and near the impressive perimeter. I turned on my new datapad and flicked to the scanning screen. Watching the various comm devices show on the map had been entertaining, and I swiped to start a scan, trying to predict what I’d find and who might be where.

The device bleeped a low, urgent alert. “High probability of military grade listening probe.”

I rubbed one of my horns. What use would one of those be in Zyamzh? It had to be a mistake, or perhaps the device was picking up something in the armoury.

A chill rippled over my headspines. Or it could be bounty hunters. But no, I’d checked in with Tokki this morning. Everything was the same. Safe.

When I drilled into the menu, the suspected device showed on the map—but it wasn’t at the armoury. Holding the datapad flat in my palm, I tracked towards the location, a hut two doors along from mine.

I knelt in the dust at the base of a wall, running my hands over the smooth surface.