AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Ah,” he sighs, all the malice in his eyes fading in an instant. “It’s you.”
He tucks the blade under his pillow and reclines back again. His sleepy gaze never leaves my face, and I’m frozen in his view. I wait for the reaction, the questions, the surprise… but it never comes.
“Soon,” he murmurs as his heavy lids drop back into slumber. “It won’t only be in dreams, ti kori.”
The grip on the handle of the blade starts to loosen, but his fingers stay gently twitching against the weapon. I watch him until his chest rises and falls steadily again, then force myself to scurry away.
I rush out through the antechamber. The dog-wolf-beast regards me with its head cocked sideways as I pass by and fly out the door where the bodyguard sits.
He salutes me silently but says nothing.
I’m not sure what to make of that encounter. Makiva sleeps ready to strike. It’s not surprising once I calm down and think logically. He’s a king after all, one who’s been living in exile from his planet. He also dreams of me regularly enough that the sight of me looming over him in a darkened room seemed like nothing more than a stray fantasy.
“That was stupid,” I mutter to myself when I return to my room. What would I have done if he’d woken up and realized that I was a very real nighttime visitor? He might’ve interpreted it as a sexual invitation… I might’ve been mortified or triggered or…
I pace circles while mentally flagellating over my reckless decisions. I should be cautious, protect myself from more episodes that will worry my friends. Instead, I act on every spontaneous thought—
Scritch scritch.
I whip around. I didn’t imagine that.
Scritch scritch.
It’s coming from the door.
When I open it to investigate, the king’s strange beast is standing there, staring at me with its tongue hanging out the side of his fanged mouth. It followed me.
I squint. What sort of bodyguard ignores unannounced nightly visitors and escaped dogs wandering loose on the ship? Is this thing allowed out?
Luckily, there’s a stray warrior passing by.
“Hey,” I call.
His eyes bulge.
“… My… lady?”
“Is this, uh, thing supposed to be out?”
He glances at the beast, who’s trying to stick her nose into my room.
“Nisina goes where Nisina likes,” he tells me. “She’ll nip you if you don’t open the doors for her.”
“Her name is Nisina?” I ask.
She perks up when she hears her name repeated.
“Yes.” He scratches the back of his head. “You’re not familiar with Kar’Kali matters yet, I suppose. Nisina is a kaia. They are one of the few native animals we continue to raise while in exile. There’s a whole kennel of them on board, but Nisina has the run of the ship. They bond with warriors. Nisi is bound to the Ka’lakka.”
“I see…” I pat Nisina’s head. “Thank you.”
The warrior bows his head before hightailing it away from me. He must’ve felt awkward addressing his ‘queen’ in the middle of the night.
“Hi Nisina,” I greet the creature.
She sniffs me thoroughly; all over my body from my outstretched hand to my feet and back up again. Even though physical touch has been causing me bouts of nausea, the light brush of the wolf-creature’s nose doesn’t bother me.
“Would you like to come in?”
