Page 3 of Bred By Sor'en

“Perhaps it is why I cover my face. Perhaps I am terrifying,” I offer when I should be leaving. Hurrying back to the shield of my dome. Away from this place and its haunting, all too familiar corridors.

The youngling laughs at that.

They open their mouth to say something else when a commotion draws our attention back to the platform. Or at least mine; the wisp of a youngling is far too small to see over the crowd. A large Dhaizu jerks up the skirt of a female on display. And in an instant, the crowd works into a frenzy, at the exact moment my world blurs to a screeching halt.

No shimmer.

My chest caves in on itself, my very being shuddering at the distressed female in front of me. Crimson blood blooming on her pale skin.

A human.

A human with no shimmer. I cast a panicked glance at the females beside her as if my gift must have just failed me, but no. Each of the other females has shimmers of their own, varying from bright to tragically dim.

Pheor’aya and Fam’ora… help me.

Our twin goddesses are silent, happy to watch this unfold the way they set it in motion.

My first step falters. Istumble. Pulling attention from the back of the crowd for a moment, attention I can’t afford. I don’t take my eyes offher, sudden anxiety budding in my chest, as if I dare, she’ll disappear. My mate, my chosen soulveil. Here on Vortara, so far from our home. Hurt.

My mate ishurt.

With my next step, I whisk the youngling into my arms, depositing them by their parents as they let loose a wild giggle at the sudden burst of speed and then… I’m there in front of her, my heart hammering away at my bones.

It's foolish to put myself in front of the crowd, to draw attention. But here I stand.

I watch as her tear-filled eyes widen in horror, a single choked word escaping me, “Draya’la.”

Soulveil.

Mate.

When her drak'thra pod-colored eyes take me in, a rich shade of dark green and warm brown, I can feel it… my very beingaltered. My soul bursting apart before re-knitting into something that would please her. The twin goddesses have blessed me with a strange mate. My hand twitches to reach into the space around her head where her shimmer should be, if I were able to see it. My very being trembles with the need to pull her close to me, to check over her arm and the superficial cut there, all the while understanding soon enough, she’ll be as horrified by my touch as they all are.

My poor mate, matched to such a terrifying creature.

A voice finds me, but I can’t focus on the words it's saying.

The brightness around me lightens further as others crowd in, the toxins in my body surging underneath the thin fabric ofmy cloak as I struggle to get my emotions in check. The need to protect my mate is a sudden physical pang screaming deep within my chest. I need her safe, out of here, away from the hateful denizens who haunt the ports. My thoughts are liquid, muddy, and unsure, reeling at what this means for me now. How everything I’ve known for my last seventy-three solars is about to change. I lower my head, hiding in my hood, understanding innately that two things are about to happen… I am about to subject my poor Draya’la to a handful of very tense moments before she ever even learns my name, and secondly, that if anyone stands in my way, I am about to become the nightmare they paint me to be.

I would like to avoid the ladder, but I am what I am.

It cannot be changed, nor helped. It's the very nature of me that terrifies them.

I am not welcome here.

Not welcome anywhere.

And now neither is she.

“My apologies, little one.” I speak just loud enough for her to hear as I tilt my head, letting my veil shift, allowing the Oozarian female a better look at me, since she’s been straining so hard all this time. Her mate reacts first, keyed in by the sudden look of horror in her placid green eyes. He grips me, attempting to jerk me from my mate or his, likely both, but I don’t budge.

I cannot.

I will not.

I would sooner guide the entire port to the veil.

Everything within me rages, surges,demanding, tightening. They’re going to take her, touch her. My very core shudders at the fate that would befall them should they try.