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  That anger smoldered within him now and feeling the Divine's presence only made the embers burst forth with new strength.

  He shifted his human, trying to find relief from the pressure on his hard member. She had distracted him from his revenge but now that the sun had vanished behind rain clouds and the rays of light were gone, his mood plummeted.

  Quist peeled his eyes from her pale, dirt-smudged yet invitingly soft features and looked around him. The heartstone kept his eyes from seeing the starlight beyond their barrier but as he focused, the light from the stone moved and danced. It lit up a path to safety and he followed it to a shallow cave broken in from the plateau he had chased... Yahiro... off of earlier.

  His grip tightened and she moaned in her sleep. I didn’t lose her. It was only hours ago when he had come upon her thinking she was Lusheenn back from the abyss, and as he lowered to the ground, cuddling her against him, his anger at the Divine returned.

  If you think to take her from me, Lusheenn...

  If this was all a horrible trick, a punishment to crumble his heart...

  The ground trembled below him.

  Chapter Four

  SUNDAMAR

  They had traveled at dawn for hours, following it, trying to keep up with it as Sonhadra was in a stage of awakening below him. He hadn’t left the throne room since his lifeforce had returned. The need to find his brother before Lusheenn roiled through his head.

  Sundamar remembered impatience, and he hated it. He remembered hate and detested that as well. He then remembered what it was like to detest... Even if he had chosen to walk the empty pathways of his quiet city, he would have found no rest or reprieve. It seemed like every minute a new sensation wracked his body.

  So he chose to stay at the reins, maneuvering the molo farther and farther off its path, watching the world being crushed beneath his city’s feet. If Sonhadra were populated, there would’ve been guilt.

  He closed his tired eyes, feeling another wave of uncomfortable emotion, but like the moving cities of light, it was just as ghostly and just as quiet.

  “Quist hasn’t moved,” Galan said, coming up behind him.

  Sundamar had noticed that as well. It had been hundreds of years since he last saw his third brother and even though there was time between them, he knew his brother was still the same valos he was back then.

  “Lusheenn has him.” He was almost afraid to say it out loud but he knew it was true. He knew the moment Quist had encountered their Creator because when he had, Sundamar’s body had hardened and burned up. A solar flare of heat crashed over him and his need—a need that made him want to slam his fist through the stone dais—took control of his burgeoning body.

  It had been violent, potent. His sex organ had stiffened and he had thrust his hips outward.

  Galan had felt it too because his brother had promptly left the throne room with thundering steps and bladed wings screeching across the floor.

  As he chased the dawn, Sundamar, in his privacy, released his member and explored it, finding delicious reprieve in his hand. Even now as he looked down, the dried spume of his first seed marked the floor.

  Now, all he could think about was doing it again and wondered why his Creator cursed him with this sudden, inexplicable need to mate when there were no female light valos to be had.

  Galan strode past him, stepping through his semen and scattering its dried flakes into dust, and up to the wall-less view of Sonhadra the throne room overlooked, stationed at the apex of the molo’s gigantic head. The rising sun was beside them now that they were off the path, where before it had always been behind them. The City of Dawn always remained in the first light of day until now.

  “We’re almost upon him. Do you think it’s a trap?” Galan said grimly, surveying the landscape.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he responded, just as grim. “We’ll face it regardless.” The lumbering beast took another massive step forward, clearing miles of land in moments. “If anyone is to appeal to Lusheenn, it will be me.”

  “Would you sacrifice yourself for him?”

  Sundamar’s broadsword quivered slightly, the first time in hours. He and Galan watched it carefully until it resettled. Why aren’t you avoiding us, Quist?

  “I would gladly meet my end for all my brothers. For any of them,” he said, the muscles in his biceps bulging. “If my sacrifice would bring back all the light valos...”

  Galan humphed. “No one likes a martyr, Sundamar.”

  Sundamar’s lips twitched into a smirk. “Even so, a king would die for his people.”

  “Lusheenn wouldn’t.”

  “He left.”

  “Yes, and now he’s returned.” Galan’s wings flared. The rays of hazy light cascaded out from his feathered tips. “We now know he didn’t die.”

  “Hmm...”

  Suddenly, the same demanding stiffness from earlier crashed through him. Galan’s wings spiked out and they groaned in unison. The random heat returned and set his eyes ablaze. When he glanced away from Sonhadra and down at his groin, where his sexual organ fought to be free, he was overwhelmed with the need to bury it... to bury it deep into something tight, something wet, something deep and quivering and all his.

  Why?

  Sundamar released the restraints of his armored leggings and let them drop to the sandstone floor with a clank.

  “Brother...” Galan growled somewhere off to the side of him. “What curse has befallen us?”

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he grasped his member like he had before and yanked on it. The sounds of Galan’s wings marking up the floor followed by grumbling and barely controlled groans filled his ears.

  A vision of a raven-haired female flashed within his mind and his hips pistoned uncontrollably.

  She was a beauty that aroused him, called to him, and was unmarked by any element on this world. A new valos, a new creation, one who was tall with long legs that could wrap around his waist and hair that he could slide his fingers through.

  And in her hand, she held his heart. Sundamar gritted his teeth as his eyes beheld the fabled stone.

  “The heartstone exists!” Galan howled out at his side, his seed spraying forth in golden jets.

  “That female has it.” He pumped his member raw.

  “Then we both see her.”

  “She’s ours, brother,” he rasped out, eyeing the unusual valos girl with a mixture of all-consuming love and awed curiosity. If she were the first light valos, she was meant to be his queen. The connection he had to her grew as the vision strengthened.

  Her face, marred with the untamed dirt of the world, was soft and so unlike his own. Where his skin was golden and bronze, glittering with precious metals, hers was pale and luminous.

  She was newly created, a child to his world, he thought. Her skin would not be melded for the sun yet. It was his job as the first valos of light to teach her their ways.

  Her eyelids fluttered open. His body ejected his flaming seed as he caught sight of her bottomless grey irises.

  “She can’t be...” Sundamar gasped out. All Lusheenn’s creations had golden eyes. His heart fell although his connection to this strange female strengthened. “It has to be a trap.” One that he had walked into willingly. He let go of his still hard member and wiped his palm over the cold edges of his armor.

  “I think we’re seeing through Quist’s eyes. He’s already with this female and the stone. Should we still move forward with such a reception?” Galan waved his hand around the large room while his other tucked and re-clasped his pants.

  Sundamar tugged at the reins, stopping the molo. “We’ll go ourselves. The city will remain behind. If she isn’t Lusheenn, a creation of Lusheenn’s, then she’s a liability. Why is she holding the fabled stone? I don’t know. But I will find out.” His eyes narrowed.

  The vision of the girl slowly faded until the horizon reappeared. He mourned its loss quietly but retrieved his sword and sheathed it at his back.

  “I’ll destr
oy her for this trickery,” he hissed out between his teeth and turned away from the view, Galan’s heavy steps at his heels. Already the bells tolled in the courtyard, starting a chain effect that would lower the laddered-steps to the ground, a mile of zigzagging across the flanks of the molo. Unlike every other valos of light, he was the only one who didn’t have wings. But then again, Lusheenn didn’t have wings either.

  “She didn’t appear to be another valos. The female looked like no one I have seen across the expanse of this planet. She could be an innocent in all of this. Maybe it is not she who has Quist, but Quist who has her captive. Our brother may have found the stone long ago and gave it to this girl.”

  Sundamar ran his tongue across his teeth until he felt the sharp sting of pain. It wasn’t enough to clear his head. He itched to pierce this female with his blade... and to pierce her with other parts of him as well.

  “Barely a dozen day-starts have begun and she has already done more to us than anyone since our creation.” They approached the gilded gates that led to the stairs still falling below. “How can we allow this to happen and not retaliate? If the other valos even thought we had a weakness besides that of the dark, our way of life will be destroyed.”

  “What life? It’s already different! Listen to yourself, Sundamar. These changes are hard to wade through but you’re not acting like yourself.”

  Sundamar turned on his heel, his sword already drawn and poised at Galan’s throat. A gulp of air would result in a cut. “No one has power over me,” he sneered. “No one who still walks this world.” He pressed his blade infinitesimally closer. “Until we know for sure who or what she is, she’s our enemy. And we’ll proceed as such.”

  “She had our stone,” Galan hissed angrily. “Even if we’re being toyed with, I’d rather continue as I am now—with life—rather than go back to the wraith I was before. Even if she’s the enemy.”

  Sundamar bared his teeth. Galan’s wings expanded. If they were to fight now, it would come down to who was faster. “You’ll never win against me, brother, I’d still win eventually if we fought to our end.” He knew, no matter what happened, he would be the last one to die, the first to live and the last to die. The girl with raven locks came to mind.

  She’s alone. Unprotected. Alone but for Quist. He sheathed his sword and left his brother, running a tense hand along the molo’s side as he descended the steps.

  He would have the female one way or another, whether it was imprisoned away or by his side. The moment he had seen her holding his heart, she had entwined her destiny with his.

  GALAN

  He watched his brother glide down the thousand steps toward the dust settling on the crumbled ground. Galan wasn’t quick to follow, staying back to choose his actions carefully.

  His body quickened at the turn of events. Where Sundamar had tried to restrain himself in a show of strength, leaving him only to build into a slow boil, Galan had chosen to ride the waves of the change.

  The past span of continuous dawn had been the most exciting hours of his life since the Creator left, taking his lifeforce with him, and leaving his creations unfinished. Galan had been the first to feel the loss of Lusheenn, not his older brother; Sun had felt the Divine’s waning presence the longest, even after none of the other valos could, but Galan, second and gapingly detached, made not in Lusheenn’s image but in his desire, had succumbed to the vacuous silence first.

  He watched with detachment when the other light valos wilted into nothing, until they became like him.

  The flush that coursed through him was bliss, and when his eyes first landed on the female holding his heart, he knew where he belonged.

  Which made watching Sundamar traverse the steps difficult.

  He goes to consume. Galan allowed his wingspan to stretch behind him and sharpen into blades. I want to fight for him and against him in this. He relished the war. Existence had been easy, though boring, but excitement brewed...

  The distance between Sun and Galan lengthened. He shook himself, releasing feathers into the air, their sharpness becoming silk when leaving his body. His hand shot out and snatched a particularly long one and studied it, running his thumb along one side and watching the many threads of it part.

  A shadow fell across the ground and he lifted his gaze to the thickening clouds above him. Leave it to Sonhadra to blemish us with a cloudy day. A cold, lonely raindrop hit his cheek and slid down his face, causing a moan to escape him.

  He couldn’t remember the last time such a simple action held so much of his attention. The droplet trickled over his usually sun-heated skin and he savored the tickle of it; it was heaven.

  Galan closed his eyes and lifted his face, waiting for the rain to come, wanting to feel what it was like to be wet again.

  A cooling breeze glided over his skin and through his short-cropped hair. It felt naughty and a little bit mischievous to enjoy something so unlike the sun and light. He wondered what it was like to be one of the valos who lived in the wind, the ocean, even those who lived on the ground and deep within the caverns of the world.

  Each minute that passed, his connection and devotion to Sundamar and his people weakened. Doubt filled his mind and it was all because of an unassuming image of a raven-haired girl, so unlike himself.

  Maybe Sundamar was right? Maybe they were being toyed with, tricked, and a trap was being set.

  He didn’t know and he went through every outcome he could think of while the loose silk and cotton cloth that draped his hips dampened. The building mist signaled an oncoming downpour.

  An unusual smell flooded his nose as the shadows deepened throughout the golden city. It was different and so unlike anything he had come across. Galan couldn’t put his thumb on it, but it was invasive, rather cloying, fabricated with the whiff of chemicals that had been carried from somewhere nearby.

  The more he focused on it, the more it consumed him.

  There’s no Sonhadra in this scent. It itched his nostrils despite the growing storm building around him.

  He turned full circle until he found the direction it came from. The same direction the molo was facing, where Quist and the exotic beauty awaited him. He yearned to fly to them, to reach them before Sundamar would, to mitigate the violent situation that was sure to arise. But the devious smell did something that had never been done to him before: it made his head feel light.

  If the dark-haired beauty has anything to do with it... the odds of it were growing, and he needed to know.

  I want her. His jaw ticked, knowing Sundamar did too. They had spilled their seed in frantic need, both staring at the same female. He wanted to see her again—now. His body hardened into stone and his wings twitched to entrap the strange female. To press her against his body until he consumed every inch.

  Although they had no females of their own, he was well aware of them and why some of the other Creators made them.

  He also knew why Lusheenn never gifted his men with supple, reticent brides, because the Divine created only in his image, and Lusheenn was as far from feminine as any being could ever be.

  Still, Galan had always been envious of the other valos who had females, feeling their loss and sure it was a loss neither of his brothers endured. He wanted one for his own, a soft, submissive counterpart to his steely edges, and it never shamed him to pump his member indiscriminately before his soul deadened.

  Back then, he had imagined a golden-skinned female who would bow before him, as he bowed before Sundamar, treating him as her king. Sometimes she would have delicate wings and sometimes she didn’t. Sometimes his shaft stiffened to the images of valos women from other races. In his youth, in defiance of the light, he thought sinking between a foreign females legs would be worth abandoning Lusheenn’s law.

  All those old torments had come flooding back into him just several dawns past. He remembered that almost unrestrained need to rut. But it all paled and faded away when he saw her.

  She had no wings. She will need my favor to
fly. Or Quist’s, but Galan couldn’t imagine his brother stopping his quest for revenge long enough to open the female’s legs.

  His breath grew shallow, thinking about what he would find between them.

  Galan spun his bow until it sat diagonally across his chest. The feathers that had fallen and plastered over the damp tile lifted by his will and flew into his quiver, creating a fresh arsenal of arrows.

  With his weapon restocked, he surged forward into a sprint and jumped clear off the side of the now-empty city and into the air. His wings caught a ray of second hand sunlight. It was enough to keep him airborne.

  Sundamar was nowhere to be seen. His eyes narrowed across the land below which was growing hazy from the incoming storm. The scent that hurt his head weakened by the second.

  Galan made his choice before he could dwell on it. He only hoped that it was the right one and that, like he always had, it would stop his older brother from doing something he would regret. Something they both would regret.

  Later, he would discover what was between the raven-haired girl’s legs, but for now... for now he would investigate the putrid stench.

  Chapter Five

  YAHIRO

  She woke up like any sane person would who found themselves stranded on an alien planet that wanted to kill them woke—with a panic attack. A scream tore out of her throat. She fought the hands holding her, knowing it was the alien she’d met the night before, but it took a long time for her mind to catch up.

  She screamed again as she fought her way out of a cocoon of strong arms and feathers. A winged alien, at that!

  The hands that held her tightened before letting go as she scrambled away, terror and stress clogging her mind.

  “Yahiro?” The familiar voice did little to soothe her as she reached for the gun that was not there, her body refusing to give up its past life. When I was a better person. Tears streamed down her face while panic rose like bile to suffocate her.