I couldn’t breathe.
“Look at me, shilo.”
I did something I had never done before. I kept my lissa focused on trying to find a way to help my intended, and I opened my eyes at the same time. I was shaking with panic as I stared down at Kovu’s face. She was smiling, but she was becoming paler and paler by the second. Her skin no longer looked blue, more grey like mine.
“I’ve loved you for my whole life,” she said, trembling. “When you picked me out of every female to be yours, I prayed to Thanas and thanked him every day.”
Pain filled my body.
“I love you more than any male has loved a female,” I told her. “You are mine.”
“And you will always be my male, and I will always be your female, but … but I don’t think you can heal me, Ezah.”
“I can,” I assured her. “I will.”
“I feel so very tired … You must promise me something.”
“Anything, nenna,” I choked out.
“Do not shut down.” Her eyelids fluttered. “Do not mourn me for long, okay? We have not mated. I want you to find a female who makes your heart happy like I do and make her your mate. I want this for you. I want true happiness for you, my prince.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“Never,” I growled. “You’re my female, and the only one I have ever wanted. Only you. My beautiful nenna.”
“Promise me, shilo,” she pleaded. “I need to know you will not walk this planet alone all of your life.”
Saying the words tasted like poison, but I knew she was dying in my arms, and I wanted to bring her as much peace as I could, even if it meant going against every instinct in my body to do it.
“I promise,” I said, almost not being able to stomach saying the words. “But you must promise me something too.”
“Anything, shilo.”
“Wait for me,” I begged. “Wait for me in the fields of the Beyond, please. I want your beautiful face to be the first to welcome me. I already miss you so much it hurts.”
“I will wait an eternity to be with you again,” she said, tears falling down her temples. She gasped slightly for air. “I love you, Ezah.”
“I love you too, Kovu. So much.” I rasped. “I should have told you every day how much. You’re my heart, beauty.”
“My male.”
She said those words with her last breath, and a strangled wail left my throat when I felt her heart suddenly stop. I tried to use my lissa to restart it, but I couldn’t. The poison from the borak’s talons had caused too much damage. She bled out before I could get to her and heal her. I held my blood-soaked female against my chest as I lowered my head and screamed into her neck. My screaming turned to an endless roar of pain. My throat was on fire by the time I stopped. I couldn’t think. The sky had gotten a little darker around me. I didn’t know how long I was on the ground holding my dead intended. Time, life … it lost all meaning to me.
When I felt the presence of a living female, I began shaking.
“Ezah.”
I looked up from Kovu’s face and stared into my mother’s orange and silver eyes as she kneeled down next to me, not caring that her clothing was being ruined by Kovu’s drying spilled blood. My senses seemed to return to normal then, and I could sense my brothers and father were close by. Tears were running down my mother’s face as she reached out and closed Kovu’s eyes. I hadn’t realised they were still open. I was still trying to restart her heart with my lissa up until my mother distracted me.
“She’s gone.” I choked out. “My Kovu … she’s gone. Please help me, Muma.”
I hadn’t called my mother by that term since I was a very young male, but at that moment, I had never needed her embrace and comfort as much as I needed it right then and there.
“I’m so sorry, my brave male.” Mother said to me as she kissed Kovu’s cheeks. “She is with Thanas now.”
She reached over and wrapped her arms around me, crying as she squeezed me so hard it made my heart want to burst. I felt broken. I couldn’t cry even though the pain in my chest was suffocating. I held Kovu’s body to my chest with one arm, and my mother’s in the other, and I felt a darkness seep deep into my heart, blackening it almost.
I knew then that the all-consuming pain I felt was one I would carry with me always.
Chapter Three
Ezah
Present day on Ealra …
This day needed to come to a swift end.
I was irritated and in no mood to be surround by others. Using my comm, I mentally scanned my eyes over the names of the females who would be attending the herbalism lesson that I had to assist as group healer. Nero, my only kin, was the lesson guide, which made it a little more bearable, but only just. I would rather have been hunting or training instead of being around a bunch of alien females or females in general.
I hated being in groups and always had, but my being here was necessary. My younger brother Kol would reject me as his brother and publicly denounce me to the people if I did not meet the conditions he had set. His conditions were that I immerse myself in with the humans. I had to spend time with them, learn about them, and find peace with them in my heart.
This was what I deserved for poisoning his mate’s mind against him and stealing her away. My punishment for such a crime could have very well been death, my father had put the decision of my fate to Kol as it was his mate I had stolen. He passed on giving me the death penalty and gave me his conditions instead.
When I thought of how I almost succeeded in ruining the bond of true fated mates just a few moon cycles ago, it made my stomach churn. I thought I was protecting my younger brother and doing him a service when I stole his mate because I truly believed human females were not a good choice for Maji males. I didn’t want my sister-in-mate, Nova, to die and leave my brother to suffer the pain of a mate loss. What I did hurt him just as bad because it sent him straight to the edge, and he almost ended my life. If it wasn’t for Nova’s determination to save me from him, I would be bowing at the feet of Thanas, trying to explain my crime so he would not send me to the Underworld where the only thing worse than the place itself was its ruler, Kuat.
I thought about this as I walked at the back of the group until a small, brown-skinned female tripped over a rock piece. I leapt forward and caught hold of her arm before she hit the ground. I told her to watch her step, and out of nowhere, she stared up at me with her big, wide, duo-coloured eyes and dropped to her knees before me. It took a lot to genuinely shock me but watching the tiny female before me on her knees did exactly that. I stared down at her, my own eyes wide. My focus on her momentarily blinded all of my other senses, and I failed to notice that the entire group had stopped walking. Everyone was staring at the female before me, too.
Kin, Nero said to me through our comms. What’s going on back there?
I’m not sure. A female is on her knees before me, and she is scared.
“You need not bow to me, female,” I said to the alien, softening my tone because she reeked of fear. The sickly sweet scent stung my nostrils. “Today, I am just the group healer … not a prince, okay?”