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“Since the time nocs ruled this world, that’s how long I’ve served my master,” I said, and it was true. “And Bracken began serving Hadi before he even took the throne, during the initial conflict.”
I counted on my freezing fingers, “That was five, no, maybe ten years after the Great Awakening. My memories are hazy seeing as I was like a young child at the start, naive about Naran. But shortly after the Great Awakening, I began warming Bracken’s cave. After your people fled Yewan, and Hadi founded the Nocturnal Kingdom, he demanded his most loyal servants form the noc nobility, and we began living there.”
“Hmmm…” Sun hummed, not looking pleased by my response as I frowned.
I tiptoed around the truth as usual with my mate. One small lie, about knowing how to break the tether, had spiraled into an intricate web of secrets, and it was hard to keep up. I knew just by staring into his face that I couldn’t reveal everything to my mate. Not yet anyway. I didn’t want him exploding in anger and running away again.
Every I just revealed were small lies mixed in with big truths, as I remembered everything from my awakening, down to the details of the dirt beneath my nails. It was true that the timeline as it related to the exile of humans from Yewan was fuzzy. I was chained inside master’s cave most of those days, drunk on desire, being trained for his pleasure.
Regardless, I remembered everything when it came to master and me. My memory before serving him invoked nothing but trepidation in me, causing my hands to shake and my wings to click nervously, uncontrollably.
My cocoon had been breached by humans within the first moments of my awakening. Fire, chaos, smoke, blood, and the sickly-sweet stench of death like rotten, maggot-infested meat as bodies bloated in the sea. I’d flown through it all, my senses overloaded, desperate to live even though I barely knew what it meant to be alive back then.
I hid, I ran, I cried and screamed as I avoided the humans’ swords and my fellow noc’s claws for years. Only by sheer luck was I spared. Until Bracken captured me, soaring above the battlefield with me in his claws, until my master made me his and chained me in his lair, I had known only fear laced with forced lust as a consequence of my nature.
Despite my best efforts to gloss over the dark details, Sun’s face twisted in disgust, and something darker I couldn’t place, as he realized something that didn’t please him in the least. His lower lip quivered nonstop, and his left eye twitched as if punched.
“You’ve been with Bracken… since you were that young? You were born during the invasion of the nocs? Am I understanding you correctly, Clem?”
I pursed my lips, not sure what to say. That was correct, but it was the wrong answer because it made Sun unhappy. And I suspected it would make Bracken unhappy, too, to see Sun this displeased because of his actions.
He had protected me, after all, so I didn’t understand why that seemed to piss Sun off and make him shudder in revulsion at the same time.
“Since we were both young?” I suggested, and to my relief, relief flooded Sun’s grim expression. “During the chaos, when the goddess summoned us and threw open the gates of the void, we were both very young. We didn’t have what humans call parents or families. So, Bracken and I, well, I relied on him and believe we relied on each other back then.”
Sun nodded, and delightfully he seemed intrigued now, rather than disturbed. I kept talking, sprinkling in lies when it suited me.
“I believe Hadi came first and is–what do you humans call it… He was a prodigy since he was born, the only noc of his kind. He was the one who united us against the human’s backlash. Bracken and Kiar joined Hadi before I met them, and we are all around the same age, I think, from the first wave of nocs. But they became princes after the collapse of Yewan.”
Sun nodded thoughtfully.
“So, you were teens by then, when you came from the place nocs resided before encroaching on Naran? By warming his cave, you mean you lived together as orphans?” Sun asked and I nodded fiercely, not really sure what a “teen” was, and knowing we weren’t orphans. We also had never been anywhere else as far as I knew, and I also warmed Bracken’s cave with my body, but seeing as his interpretation made him unclench his fists, I had to agree.
“Yes! When Hadi consolidated power under the nocturnal throne and took over Yewan, I joined him. I… I was like a gift for Bracken, since most of the new nobles left behind their old lives to serve the king, but he took me to the capital with him,” I said.
Sun nodded absently, murmuring under his breath before whispering for me to hear, “Ah. I’ve heard of this. The emperor’s youngest bride was sworn to him when they were children. Or maybe it was the crown prince’s future bride?”
I stared at him blankly again and Sun sighed, “I wonder if Hadi was a prince in that other realm, wherever you all came from, including your parents. No matter. The point still stands. I guess noc royalty have similar practices.”
Rubbing his forehead in slow, concentric circles, Sun said, “If I’m understanding you correctly, you were both like orphans as children, but Bracken was just a bit bigger and stronger. And then when Bracken became a noble, you… Well, you were like a bride? I think I understand… At least I hope.”
I nodded along, even though nothing he said made any sense to me. Brides were female humans, and I was a male noc. And children were small humans, even more defenseless than those of my level, and we were the weakest among all nocs. But I hadn’t been a child when I met Bracken, all of us had been adults.
To be honest, I had never seen a noc that resembled a human child. Still, a smiling, calm, and content Sun was better than one who was angry with me or our master. So, I didn’t correct him.
“But wait,” Sun said, eyes wide, Bracken and Kiar very close now by the sound of rustling leaves nearby. “That means… that means you’re younger than me?”
“Um, I supposed so. We all are, I think. Including…” I drifted off, not wanting to bring up Hadi’s name again.
Sun reacted to the mention of our king like a hex, a vicious, evil energy leaking from his pores. My master told me this vile scent was a pheromone humans leaked during war.
Hadi wasn’t even present, just a mere shadow, and yet Sun was flooding the air with it, as if ready to cut him down at any moment.
Lately, Hadi’s presence almost felt oppressive. The veil between our world and the next was thinner with each passing hour. I could feel it in the air, in the tremor of the wind and the shifting of shadows on the ground. Hadi’s reawakening was near.
“No…” my mate gasped as I focused on him.
Sun seemed to be doing mental math, arriving at an answer that shocked him, if his open mouth stare was any indication.
