Page 17 of Bred By Sor'en

I hit another patch, giggling like a muddy madwoman as the sky opens up above me, sparkling drops of liquid splattering my flushed skin. My feet tangle with the dampening sheet, sending me falling to my knees, scraping them on the soft dirt.

And I love it.

Something soft and warm brushes over my shoulders, urging me back to my feet, urging me further. Deeper into the strange flowers, upsetting bioluminescent dots that lift like a blanket of stars into the crying sky.

I pause only long enough to study them more closely.

Bugs!

Another unhinged laugh leaves me.

I’ve never seen a bug before.

That soft warmth finds me again, taking my attention from the swarming, buzzing creatures. It softens my chilled, goosebump-littered flesh. Like a breeze that’s only for me. I spin, ready to take off deeper into the field, when I stumble, stopping short at the massive shadow that hovers in front of me, blocking my path. Sheer terror injects itself past the elation as it dances closer, mirroring the involuntary step back I’d taken. Its swathing darkness is interrupted by crackles of deep, violent purple and two bright, glowing white eyes.

Daring to take my eyes off the creature, a new dread settles in my gut because on all sides, there is nothing but the same glowing flowers. I can’t even remember the moment I lost sight of the house, Sor’en’s house.

“Sor’en—"

As soon as his name forms on my lips, the thing rushes me. A scream bursts free from my throat, scratching at the walls, leaving them raw as I bolt back the way I came. In an instant, he’s there, a panicked cry escaping me as I run full-bodied into the death-touch alien himself. I’m swooped into his arms before my brain has a chance to process that I’m no longer on the ground.

My hands are panicked as I cling to him. “Run! We have to go!” I plead helplessly as he stays rooted in place.

“Calm Draya’la, it is noth—"

He’s cut off by another of my screams as the shadow rushes us from the side, effortlessly gliding past the twisting flowers.

Another sound finds me past my pleading and struggling to be free from the useless alien's arms.

His laughter.

I stop short, a fistful of his silken white hair, crumpled in my palm as I’d attempted to steer him away from the threat, falls limp back around his shoulders effortlessly. Sor’en laughs, and the sound does something entirely odd deep inside my chest. Like the rarity of it demands some kind of unspoken reverence.

“My mate, meet Melion, our Vena’lel.”

My lungs are still intaking and expelling air at an alarming rate, and damn me, I find myself clinging to the beast holding me as the shadow, the Vena’lel, shoots closer again, a long tendril outstretched in offering.

My hand is shaking like the flowers as Sor’en threads his palm in mine, his oil slickening where we meet, making my skin all warm and tingly as he guides my arm out against my will. I don’t know if it’s the laugh, the wistful longing on his strange, morbid face, or the oil he is keeping nestled between our flesh, but I don’t fight him.

Not even when thething,Melion,sends its shadows slowly forward, slipping them over our connected arms. It tickles, more static warm air, and it occurs to me suddenly that my special breeze felt… the same. My head snaps up as the realization dawns on me; it was… it.

Them?

“You will find no being in the universe who will protect or adore you more fiercely than Melion, my brave human. Well, except for me, that is.”

“What even isit?” I breathe, ignoring him and the way his words make my stomach feel.

The shadow shifts coyly, making an uneasy amusement bubble in my chest. Before it abruptly surges closer, swarming us. The only thing that keeps the budding scream lodged in my throat as darkness surrounds us is the sound of Sor’en’s deep, billowing laughter as the shadow clouds and swirls, picking our hair up and twisting it in a haze of crackling violet and ink so dark the field itself disappears.

“Enough now, Melion.” Sor’en chuckles, and as the darkness literallyburstsapart only to reform at our front, I barely pay it any mind. Because my eyes are glued to dancing milky opaque ones, and my chest feels impossibly tight.

Perhaps the food hadn’t set right with me.

But I keep watching him, watching the strange sprinkling rain pattering across the bones on his strange face.

My entire body shudders. Suddenly, perhaps even violently, I’m aware of every inch of me. Every inch that’s pressed against him. A soft buzzing fills the air, breaking whatever weird moment we were having. My attention goes back to the creature in front of us.

“Pheor'aya, Fam'ora… help me,” he breathes before clearing his throat.