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Zaria tilted her head in confusion. Sunlight slipped along the coils of ink-blue braids piled on top of her head.
“Who is Gahn Fallo?”
“Oh. One of the Sea Sand Gahns. He was actually here before, though I’m not sure if you would have seen him or anything. Anyway, his dad was Gahn. He killed his own father and claimed the title of Gahn. There was no baklok or anything. I don’t think anyone challenged him, either. Not that I think many people would be able to challenge a guy like that and keep their heads attached to their shoulders.” I pointed at Dalk. “Dalk is from his tribe.”
“He killed his father, his own Gahn? And his people accepted this?” Zaria asked, looking so aghast I almost wished I hadn’t told her.
“I think there was more to the story,” I said quickly, once again feeling defensive, for Gahn Fallo this time, of all fucking people! “I don’t think he just offed his dad all willy-nilly. But I actually don’t know a lot of the details about it. I think his dad was kind of crazy, but then again, so is Fallo, so...”
My voice trailed off as my gaze alighted on Dalk again. And I realized with a stinging sort of clarity that it wasn’t Gahn Fallo I was feeling protective over at all, but Dalk. I knew Dalk respected his Gahn. I’d even heard him call Fallo the “Great Gahn Fallo,” and there wasn’t a hint of sarcasm or irony in that title because the Sea Sand guys really struggled to wrap their heads around those concepts.
While Dalk could be dense in his own weird alien way, I also knew that he was actually a really intelligent, driven sort of person. I wondered now about why he was so devoted to Gahn Fallo. Dalk didn’t bestow respect upon someone just because of rank or title. He barely tolerated Gahn Errok and he openly loathed Gahn Thaleo.
No. Dalk’s respect had to be earned.
What had Gahn Fallo done to earn it?
And would I be able to manage something similar?
God. Look at me. Getting all worked up about winning the approval of the grumpiest alien in these mountains.
I didn’t have a chance to worry about it for long, because the combat rounds were starting now. All in all, there were four pairs of men in a loose circle spaced well apart from each other. The other men were standing off to the side, waiting for their round.
Zaria told Tilly, then me, that the winner would be the first one to wrestle the other male to the ground and hold him there for the count of two breaths. I nodded, relieved that nobody would have to fall unconscious or lose an arm for a round to end. Just because it wouldn’t be a fight to the death didn’t mean it wouldn’t be vicious.
And this thought was only confirmed when Gahn Thaleo called out for them to begin and Dalk exploded into action against his opponent. It turned out that my worry for him, at least for this portion of the vaklok, was completely unfounded. Dalk’s Deep Sky opponent looked maybe a little younger than him, but still hard and strong, yet Dalk tore through that man like a fist through wet paper.
Or a fist through bone, because right about now Dalk was driving his knuckles straight into the other man’s face so hard I almost thought I should be able to see his knuckles poke out of the back of the other guy’s skull. Blood spewed from his opponent’s nose, and it wasn’t long afterwards that Dalk locked both his arms around his opponent’s waist, lifting him up then slamming him down to the stone. Before the other man could recover, Dalk forced him onto his stomach, wrapping one thick arm around his throat from behind in a headlock while he pressed his right knee into the poor sod’s spine. He got his free hand around the other man’s braid, pulling sharply up and back. Between that and the headlock, plus his full weight on his knee against the guy’s back, I actually felt a chill of nauseous fear that he might break the other man’s neck, maybe even accidentally.
“Jesus fuck, Dalk,” I muttered as Gahn Thaleo called sharply for Dalk to let go because he’d won his round.
Dalk did it, releasing the guy’s hair and neck so suddenly that the poor dude’s broken nose hit the stone, and hit it hard. Dalk stood up, and his opponent got his feet beneath himself and limped out of the proverbial ring, one hand cupping his nose, the other rubbing at his throat.
While nowhere near as bad off as his opponent, Dalk also looked a little worse for wear. His lip was bleeding again, sending a dark, almost vampiric river of blood down his chin and neck. All blades and straps had been removed for the combat round, which gave me a good view of his bare, burly chest. At some point in the frenzy he must have gotten gouged real good, because ragged claw marks across his pectoral now bled profusely.
And yet, none of that seemed to bother him one bit. He didn’t look tired out from the fight he’d just gone through. The man looked fucking energized by it. He stalked back and forth, sight stars alight, muscles taut and ready, like pounding that guy into the ground had been nothing but a light warm-up to him.
I should have probably hated myself for thinking it, but it was almost, sort of, in a very weird way... hot?
Which was a crazy fucking thing to think. Seriously. Who the hell got turned on by a big brute of a man pummelling another male into the ground and then jumping right back up as if to say, Another! Bring me another!
It was definitely messed up. Absolutely. Not a single argument from me there. Feeling a slow curl of heat down low in my belly and a buzzing in my clit from watching Dalk flash his fangs and flex his fists while covered in another man’s blood was something I should probably have worked through with a therapist. If I’d had one, anyway.
But I didn’t.
So I just felt it and tried desperately to pretend that I didn’t.
This combat round of the vaklok was tournament-style. The next two groups of pairs faced off against each other, and then the victors, all of them slightly bloodied and bruised (because even the guys who lost their rounds were still tough fucking fighters) were pitted against each other.
Unlike the archery and braxilk riding, Dalk was completely in his element.
Hell. Who was I kidding? The man fucking dominated.
Every alien who stepped up against Dalk inevitably went right back down. Every. Single. One. Some were very quick. Others, like Oxriel and Zoren, took a little longer. But they all fell beneath him, one after the other, until the only other man left in the combat round was Gahn Thaleo’s strongest warrior Warrek.
By this point in the day, both men looked pretty fucking battered as they circled each other. Both Warrek and Dalk had various wounds slashed open on their chests, arms, and backs. Warrek’s tail looked oddly stiff and slightly angled to one side, like it had gotten sprained or pulled. The sun beat mercilessly down, and I sweated beneath my cloak, wondering if they got hot during exertion like this. They didn’t look overheated or tired or bothered at all, not even with a twisted tail and blood coursing freely down both their contrasting purple-indigo and bronze-black bodies.
They came at each other like boulders colliding, neither one pulling any punches, grappling like their lives depended on it. My stomach swooped, lifted, then fell like a stone, every time it looked like Dalk might go down. But somehow, he never did. He’d either scrabble his claws beneath himself and stay steadily upright, or he’d regain his balance by sheer force of bodily will, using his own substantial weight to push back on Warrek’s force. New claw marks appeared on each man’s arms and backs and even faces, gushing black making their hide slippery as they each tried to drag the other down.
