Alien scars fated mates.., p.1
Alien Scars (Fated Mates of the Sea Sand Warlords Book 16), page 1
ALIEN SCARS
FATED MATES OF THE SEA SAND WARLORDS
BOOK SIXTEEN
URSA DAX
NOTICES
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be copied, used, transmitted, or shared via any means without express authorization from the author, except for small passages and quotations used for review and marketing purposes.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and incidents in this novel are fictitious and not to be construed as reality or fact.
Alien Scars Copyright © 2025 Peace Weaver Press Inc. President Veronica Doran
CONTENTS
CONTENT NOTES
1. Nasrin
2. Thaleo
3. Nasrin
4. Thaleo
5. Nasrin
6. Thaleo
7. Nasrin
8. Nasrin
9. Nasrin
10. Nasrin
11. Thaleo
12. Nasrin
13. Thaleo
14. Nasrin
15. Thaleo
16. Nasrin
17. Thaleo
18. Nasrin
19. Thaleo
20. Nasrin
21. Thaleo
22. Nasrin
23. Nasrin
CONTENT NOTES
Content includes violence, weapons, guns, blood, gore, battle, near-death experiences, head injuries, severe chemical burns, grief, shame, loss of parents and family members, physical abuse by family members, trauma, and graphic scenes of a sexual nature.
1
NASRIN
Iwoke before dawn in Gahn Thaleo’s mountain.
The air in the sleeping cave was cold, but the fur and brolka wool blankets atop the bed were thick and warm. I wouldn’t be able to stay in my cozy bed burrito long, though. Today was the vaklok, a Deep Sky tradition that I’d been roped into attending with my friends. And not only that – we’d be staying for the entire week afterwards.
Yesterday morning Gahn Thaleo had negotiated – no, demanded – that Tilly, Fiona, and I alternate our weeks here and in Gahn Errok’s territory. Like we were toys he couldn’t stand the other Gahn hoarding for himself.
I rolled onto my back, still holding the bedding tight around me. My eyes skated along the glittering, sapphire-like walls of the cave. The fire in here was down to mere embers, reducing the bold blue of the stone to shades of flame-edged indigo and glossy black.
The colours made me think of Gahn Thaleo’s hair. It appeared mostly black at first glance, but when the light found it, strands of cobalt gleamed. And of course, there was that stark white streak of hair at the front, emanating from the place the deep, jagged scar on the left side of his face met his scalp…
Annoyed that I’d somehow gotten lost in thoughts of Gahn Thaleo’s hair, I finally found the will to shove myself out of the wonderfully comfortable bed. Candles, which I assumed had to be made from the hardened innards of the succulent mountain valkiri plants, had been left for me near the fire. I dipped the wick of the largest one towards the embers, letting it catch, and using the flickering light to guide my way into the little nook beyond the bed that served as a bathroom. I peed and then washed up, shivering in my tank top and undies as the cold, clear mountain water hit my skin. I smoothed the excess water on my hands over my hair, trying to tame the thick waves and loose curls that I knew had to be more frizz than anything else right now.
On a whim, I tried adding a little bit of the natural moss that lathered up and acted as soap in here. When rubbed with water, the moss emulsified into a creamy, slippery substance that felt like it might have some natural oils or waxes I could make use of. My fingers coated, I went to work separating curl clumps and scrunching the stuff into my damp strands. I didn’t have a mirror, but it felt like it was working out alright. My hair was softer, and it smelled nice, too.
Though the scent was entirely different, I was suddenly rocketed back to my childhood, remembering my mother working sweet almond oil through my locks before braiding it for school in Sydney.
Detecting movement in the sleeping cave adjoining mine, I knew that Fiona and Tilly must be stirring. I got dressed for the day we’d be spending outdoors, putting my socked feet into my boots and tossing my jacket on top of everything, then moving through my cave into the next, holding my candle aloft.
Tilly was already dressed. For as long as I’d known her, she’d been an early riser. Like I had been a few moments ago, she was working on her hair. She was Black, with a much tighter curl pattern than mine. When I told her about my moss-hair-oil experiment, she looked intrigued, and headed for her own bathroom nook to try it out.
Fiona groaned, nothing more than a lump beneath the furs.
“It’s time to get up,” I told her quietly, poking the lump with my free hand. “We have to cheer on Dalk and the others in the vaklok.”
That certainly got her attention. When I said Dalk’s name, she tensed, then sat up so fast she nearly knocked the candle out of my hand. I smirked, having watched the banter and tension between friendly, tattooed Fiona and glowering, grumpy Dalk for months now. Dalk and two other Sea Sand males – cheery Oxriel and a quiet Death Plains warrior named Zoren – had been invited to compete in the vaklok, whatever that entailed. We weren’t really sure. But we had all decided yesterday that we would support them. Fiona had even made hand-drawn posters for us to hold up in the audience, each one with a cartoony face easily recognizable as Dalk, Oxriel, and Zoren.
Fiona swung her legs over the side of the bed. By this time, Tilly had returned. Her hair smelled like mine now, and had been re-tied on top of her head. Since she and I were ready, we left Fiona to get dressed on her own and headed into the outer cave where Dalk, Zoren, and Oxriel had spent the night. Grim and Valeria, who’d slept in another adjoining cave, were there. Dalk’s eyes swept over Tilly and me, and he frowned.
“Where is Fiona?”
I smirked all over again. No morning greeting for Tilly and me. No questions about how we’d slept. The man clearly only had eyes for friend.
“I’m coming!” she called. Then another sound – like her tripping and crashing to the floor.
Dalk was moving instantly, crossing the cave with savage strides as Valeria said, “I’m pretty sure she’s OK, Dalk.”
He ignored her.
We stood waiting, gathered in the cave, chatting about the day to come and what might be expected in the vaklok. Eventually, things got a little stilted and awkward. Dalk and Fiona really were taking ages to re-emerge. Oxriel gave up on waiting, shouting, “It is nearly dawn! The vaklok is due to begin, and we must go!”
Finally, a red-cheeked, harried-looking Fiona emerged, followed by Dalk who had a face like thunder. After confirming that Fiona was indeed alright, we finally left our connected sleeping caves.
We didn’t need candles or flashlights in the winding halls of Gahn Thaleo’s mountain. Before our arrival, he’d installed flickering lanterns for our benefit, since our human eyes couldn’t see nearly as well in the dark as Deep Sky or Sea Sand eyes could. Someone had already been through this area to light them, as flames licked the glittering crystal that surrounded them, illuminating the gleaming blue halls.
The sight of the lanterns lighting our way left me feeling cold. Sure, I appreciated being able to see. But everything Gahn Thaleo had done to roll out the welcome mat for us felt so calculated. So political. Maybe even insincere. We all knew he was capable of outright deception. When I’d first arrived with the others in the Deep Sky, (long after Valeria, Chapman, and the Sea Sand Gahns had helped broker an alliance between Gahn Thaleo and Gahn Errok,) he’d invited our group to his mountain. That group included Stephanie, who Gahn Errok was mated too. Gahn Thaleo knew that by bringing Stephanie into his mountain, he’d be forcing Gahn Errok into a taklok – a fight to the death to retrieve her. We hadn’t expected this violence after forging the alliance with Gahn Thaleo. And Gahn Errok had nearly perished in the fight that followed.
Gahn Thaleo had used us as pawns to put his enemy Gahn into a dangerous situation, never bothering to warn or inform us of the fact beforehand. He’d brought Stephanie into his mountain, not as a guest. But as bait.
So, yeah. Yay for lanterns. But also, major fucking side-eye. Because Gahn Thaleo, as far as I could see, didn’t do shit out of the goodness of his heart. Everything was a means to an end.
Even us.
Even me.
But despite my feelings on the lanterns and, by extension, the scarred mountain Gahn who’d installed them, I couldn’t help but admire the astonishing beauty of the Deep Sky mountains in Gahn Thaleo’s territory. We snaked through glittering halls and down winding stone steps until we came into the large, open entry into the mountain and then moved through it outside.
Dawn in the Deep Sky truly was sublime.
The sun had just started to rise, the sky blooming pink and anointing the scene with streaks of gold and plum and lavender. The giant circle of aguir stone at the base of Gahn Thaleo’s mountain – which was usually a vivid, translucent turquoise under the high sun – glowed like red rosehip tea that had been freshly brewed, then frozen. Peaks ringed the round aguir clearing, crowding the shuttle we’d taken here with shadows at the far end.
I tipped my head back, breathing through dizziness as the mountains made their majesty known. Not just dizziness, I realized, but also a sudden, painful wi
I’d never made it there.
Instead, I was here, in this terrible, beautiful, alien mountain range.
Even with my friends around me, I was strangely lonely.
Then, I felt the eyes on me.
I yanked my chin down, my gaze immediately colliding with the cool stars of Gahn Thaleo’s.
I didn’t know when he’d gotten there. He certainly hadn’t been standing there a minute ago. But he was there now, a figure so imposing on that frozen rose lake of aguir that I almost thought he stood alone. I barely registered Warrek, the male beside him. And Warrek was not a small man. None of the Sea Sand, Deep Sky, or Bitter Sea males were.
But Gahn Thaleo…
Gahn Thaleo was different. He exerted a force of gravity all his own, a power that disturbed me. Like if I stopped paying attention for the smallest slice of a second, if I lost my footing, I’d find myself careening directly towards him, unable to stop. Maybe he sensed it, that sudden shuddering of my balance when he was near.
Maybe that was why he spent so much time watching me.
He and Warrek approached us now, the claws of their long, kangaroo-like feet clicking with a metallic quality on the aguir. Gahn Thaleo’s unwavering sight stars were two different colours. His right eye, unaffected by the violent line of scarring down the left side of his face, had bright teal sight stars, not unlike the colour of the stone beneath our feet when lit up with bright sun. His left eye, which sat in the centre of the ripped scar tissue that stretched from his hairline down into his cheek, had sight stars that were paler, and seemed to move a little slower – though they were trained just as relentlessly upon me. His long hair was loose about his shoulders and back, the white streak stark against the violet tint of his hide. Unlike Warrek, who wore a grey vest, Gahn Thaleo wore nothing on his upper body but his bow. The rising sun glanced off the brutal line of his jaw, the ruthlessly honed musculature.
His was not a body that made excuses.
Or, I thought, apologized.
“Good morning, Warrek. Gahn Thaleo,” Valeria said with a short nod.
Gahn Thaleo glanced her way, finally looking at someone other than me, and I took a slightly strangled breath. I hadn’t realized how shallow my breathing had been before.
“Indeed,” Gahn Thaleo said, his voice quiet but reverberating with effortless authority. “The morning of the vaklok. I trust you slept well?”
While I assumed he was asking the question of all of us, his sight stars had once again come to settle specifically on me. I mostly let the others answer, only giving a non-committal mumble that everyone else’s voices drowned out.
Gahn Thaleo didn’t respond.
Silence reined. Tilly cleared her throat. Grim scratched idly at the place beneath a ruby-like scale, and Valeria elbowed him.
“I trust you slept well?”
Oh, Jesus fucking Christ.
He was asking me. Only me this time.
He wouldn’t let any of us go or move on with our bloody day unless I clasped my hands together, batted my eyelashes, and thanked him for the very comfortable sleep I’d had in his beautiful prison of a mountain.
OK. Prison might have been a bit over the top. We had every luxury at Gahn Thaleo’s disposal available to us here. And I’m sure, if I’d really wanted to leave, I could have…
Right?
“Yes,” I said, heat I couldn’t quite account for prickling in my cheeks. “Yes, I did.”
Gahn Thaleo hadn’t really reacted when the others had responded to his question. But at my reply, I saw the tiniest twitch in his scarred cheek, alongside the subtle flaring of his nostrils. He abruptly turned and said, “Come.”
A single word. A growl of command. Come. I shivered.
He and Warrek led us away from the aguir circle and through a short valley between dazzling peaks. As we walked, Warrek let himself drift back a little until he was beside Tilly. He told her that he would be competing in the vaklok – that all the unmated males of the tribe would.
“And those not of this tribe,” Dalk muttered. Dalk was born in the Sea Sands, and was here as a representative of his own Gahn Fallo.
All the unmated males…
Did that mean Gahn Thaleo would compete, too?
I was certain he didn’t have a mate. His tribe was so much smaller than Gahn Errok’s. I’d counted fewer than ten adult women in Gahn Thaleo’s tribe, and a few of them were elderly. The last young woman, Zaria, had recently been paired off by the Vrika and had a mate of her own.
There was no one left.
Except for us. Fiona, Tilly, and me.
With that sobering thought in my head, I took in the scene in the new clearing we’d come to. The competing males of Gahn Thaleo’s tribe were gathered together, standing on the ground. The rest of the tribe – the women and the children (the mated males were off hunting or running patrols) – were seated on an ascending set of benches carved into the surface of a sloping peak. Like a glittering set of bleachers.
I wished Oxriel, Zoren, and Dalk good luck. Tilly gave them some words of encouragement, too. Fiona said nothing, staring at Dalk’s back, apparently stunned into silence by the impressive spread of his lats. Grabbing Fiona by the elbow lest she remain permanently immobilized by Dalk’s bombastic body, I wheeled her towards the rocky blue bleachers with Tilly. The three of us found seats in the second row with Zaria. I was on the end, the bench beside me empty.
I settled into my place, feeling the icy sear of Gahn Thaleo’s gaze on me the entire time.
2
THALEO
“Welcome to the vaklok,” I said.
My tribe, the red Bitter Sea male Grim, and the new women stared back from their places on the benches. The green of Nazreen’s sight stars, deeper than their usual piercing shade in the dawn-dim glow, was all I could focus on. She was seated near the front, towards the end of the second bench.
“The vaklok,” I continued, “is a Deep Sky tradition wherein the unmated males of our tribe may participate in feats of strength and skill. We are honoured to not only have our mated tribe members and their children here to watch, but also the new women.”
Perhaps it was disingenuous of me to welcome the new women when I only looked at Nazreen. I did welcome all of them. I truly did.
But I only cared to look at her.
She met my gaze steadily with those sight stars of shadow and green. Elegant brows were composed above her eyes, her lips drawn into something that was not quite a frown. Her hair, thick and dark and curling in a way that made me want to reach out and stroke it, to rub the strands between my fingers and my thumb, tumbled luxuriously about her shoulders, not yet hidden by the hood of her cloak.
It was bewildering, how features so foreign, so entirely strange in every shape and stroke, could come together in such a way as to make a man’s claws curl into fists.
Otherworldly. That was what she was. Beauty like the unknown darkness between stars.
She was watching. Waiting.
They all were.
Gahn of this place and leader of the vaklok, I went on.
“The first round of the vaklok will be an archery competition. The second round will be a braxilk-riding race. The third round, after we break for a ceremonial morning meal, will be hand-to-hand combat.”
The Sea Sand men shifted behind me as I spoke. It was unlikely any of them would fare well against my men in either archery or braxilk riding. But perhaps, in combat, they believed they had a chance.
“Warrek,” I called to my closest warrior, “you may set up the targets for the first round of events.”
Warrek jumped to heed my commands immediately, stringing up the targets for the archery competition. I watched him for a moment before turning back towards the benches. There were many empty places among my people. Too many.
