Farlands Prodigal (Ultimate Passage Book 5) Read online

  Farlands Prodigal

  Elle Thorne

  Barbed Borders Press

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  Contents

  Farlands Prodigal

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Part II

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  Wrath

  Chapter 1

  Thank You!!!

  The Shifters Forever Worlds

  About Elle

  Farlands Prodigal

  A wickedly sexy sci-fi new adult series that continues... this time with a new couple and a new set of problems!

  Qalen’s the one who never should have existed. Hell, he’s Saraz’s worst nightmare.

  But Qalen doesn’t care. He does his thing, keeping a low profile, unbothered by many, living life in Midland and the Farlands. He likes his privacy.

  Cinia’s the concubine who shouldn’t be alive. She should’ve been a snack for the wildlife outside the Asazi protective borders.

  And she would have been, if she hadn’t grabbed Qalen’s attention.

  Except catching Qalen’s eye wasn’t the best thing that could have happened. Or was it?

  Enter Saraz. One pissed off, egomaniac dragon-type shifter that’s not taking rejection or his life crumbling around him lightly. And he wants his concubine Cinia back.

  Now.

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  Part I

  1

  Rodina wanted the healing herb. No, she needed it. She’d run out. Her grandmother had been one of the best healers, known around Kormia for her skills, and she’d taught Rodina the best place to get farnam, the herb that was like a panacea, curing many ailments, and healing wounds quickly.

  Farnam usually grew just inside Midland, where it bordered the Farlands, not far from a large cave that served as a landmark. That location had been Rodina’s grandmother’s secret, and Rodina hadn’t shared the secret with others. Her grandmother was long gone, but Rodina still remembered where to get the herb.

  The last time she’d been here had been with her grandmother, many years ago. The supply they’d gathered had lasted a long time.

  But now she was almost out, save for the miniscule amount she carried in a tiny leather pouch around her neck. She fingered the pouch which had been Rodina’s grandmother’s, and her grandmother’s before her. The contents within had saved Rodina’s life. She’d been injured once, long ago, almost killed by a slithersquil. The farnam had kept her from dying, and if she’d not had it, she wouldn’t be here today.

  Rodina shuddered at the thought. She still remembered, ever so vividly, how close she’d come to dying.

  Rodina was in her homeland, the Farlands, but she was dangerously close to the adjacent Midland territory with its green, moist, mulchy forest floor and densely treed shadows.

  She glanced back at her own lands, the Farlands. She’d never been one to venture out of her area, preferring the sparsely treed barrenness. The ground covered in rocky outgrowth, almost barren of foliage. The outgrowths ranged from a man’s height to several men’s height. In the distance, a tall mountain range spanned the entire horizon, making her feel safe in its openness. Yes, her heart belonged in these lands.

  She looked at the dark shadows of Midland, a span away.

  Too close, she warned herself. There was danger near the border.

  There’s danger everywhere, she countered against her inner voice. This was true. The dangers in Midland weren’t worse than the ones in the Farlands. Just different.

  Midland had jungle cats, amongst others. Farlands had slithersquils, giant serpent-like beings that spat toxic needles at their prey and enemies. They lived beneath the arid Farlands. Their name alone sent shivers across Rodina’s spine. At least she could see jungle cats. Slithersquils burrowed underground and traveled with a speed that defied the obstacle one would have thought the dirt created. Thank goodness the beasts primarily ate their own kind, because the Kormic—Rodina’s race of people—were no match for them. It took at least a dozen Kormic to kill one slithersquil.

  And yet, against her better judgement, she drew closer and closer to Midland.

  A sound—an animal?— made her skin prickle.

  She frowned, which made an interesting appearance on her Kormic face.

  The lower halves of Kormic faces were human, except their chins had striations, raised pale lines that emanated from the bottom lip that traveled over their chins, and thinned to the point of vanishing. The patterns resembled burn scars, except they were symmetrical, vertical lines. Over their eyes, the brow ridge resembled a lizard’s skin, rising to a forehead that had two vertical bony ridges merging into a skull composed of purple- and orange-tipped spikes.

  She heard the noise again. She didn’t recognize it. It wasn’t one she’d have attributed to any Farlands creature.

  Ears perked, she stood straighter and reached to the sheath on her waistband—a sheath composed of a deceptively strong webbing of fabric that housed a blade a bit smaller than a machete.

  When the noise occurred the third time, she deduced it wasn’t an animal making the noise, but very definitely a female.

  And she sounded like she was in pain.

  The healer in Rodina wouldn’t allow her to walk away from another being in suffering or pain. No, it wouldn’t. Not to mention, she’d taken a healer’s vow: to heal, not to harm. And walking away from someone in distress was equal to harming.

  She drew the weapon from its sheath and inched forward, taking small strides, realizing the commotion came from a few paces away—well into Midland.

  Her senses screamed at her to rethink this or, better yet, to run away as fast as possible. The healer in her, which too often sounded like her grandmother’s voice, encouraged her to go forward and do good.

  And so, she did. Step by step, one foot in front of the other, she crept closer and closer to the female making the noise.

  Low moans gained in volume as she drew closer. She made the abrupt switch from the desert terrain into the shaded rainforest environment of Midland. A chill hit her, as she left the warmth—heat, really—of Farlands and entered the humid, thick air of Midland. And still, the moaning grew louder.

  She’s going to attract a jungle cat. If she hasn’t already, by mercy of the Elders.

  The cries became more frantic. Rodina rushed toward them, the urgency in the wailing concerning her. She stop short as soon as she entered a half-moon shaped clearing, the sight she beheld shocking her.

  A woman, with shimmering skin that undulated in shades of orange, then fluctuated to a deep purple, leaned against a large gray boulder, half immersed in the lush foliage surrounding her. Perspiration poured down her face and neck, drenching a garment that was not only stained and torn but covered her swollen stoma
ch. The woman—clearly not Kormic—was in labor. She clutched her stomach, her lips pursed as she released puffs of breaths with each inhale. Her eyes were closed, her hands moved, clenching the grass and dirt, pawing at it.

  Rodina studied the way her flesh changed colors, the rippling of each hue fluoresced.

  Asazi.

  Enemy, her inner voice cautioned, this time sounding like her grandfather, who’d been a part of the Kormic army.

  She needs help. This time her inner voice sounded like her grandmother.

  “I can help you,” Rodina said in Kormic.

  The woman’s eyes flew open, a vivid dark blue, almost violet. They grew wider as her pain-filled gaze locked on Rodina.

  The woman screamed, and pushed back against the boulder, frantic to escape, but clearly wracked by contractions.

  “I won’t hurt you,” Rodina told her, again speaking Kormic. She used her gentle, soothing healer’s voice, one that she’d learned from her grandmother. She held her hands out. “I can help you. I’m a healer.”

  “Healer?” The Asazi woman repeated the word, her Kormic heavily accented.

  “Yes. You speak Kormic?”

  “Very little.” The woman managed to get the words out between panting breaths.

  “Let me help you.”

  “My baby is coming.”

  “I know. Come with me.” Rodina led the woman, slowly, painfully to her home—an underground tunnel abandoned by a slithersquil a long time ago that Rodina’s grandmother had added a door to and filled with furnishings provided by those she’d healed in exchange for payment.

  They made it to Rodina’s home, and she set the woman up on the bed.

  “Ashanta,” the woman said as she wriggled to get comfortable from the contractions.

  “Does that mean thank you in Asazi?”

  “No. It is my name. Thank you for your kindness. My people have always said Kormic people would kill you before helping you.”

  “My people said the same about Asazi.” Rodina smiled to lessen the blow of her words. “Ashanta, do we need to get you back to your people?”

  Ashanta gasped. Her skin went through the rainbow of colors again. “No. No. Please. I don’t have people.”

  Rodina had questions, but it was clear Ashanta was not up to answering.

  Rodina had given Ashanta herbs and tea to make the contractions less painful and, at the same time, stronger, but after hours and hours of labor, Ashanta was weak from the effort.

  “One more push,” Rodina encouraged her. “I can see the head.”

  With a force Rodina wouldn’t have believed the woman had left in her, Ashanta heaved mightily, and the baby made its way into the world, landing in Rodina’s hands.

  Ashanta breathed her last breath.

  “It’s a boy.” Rodina held the baby up for Ashanta. She studied the Asazi woman. Her eyes were closed, her chest still. “No. You can’t die. You have to take care of your baby.”

  At the same moment, she noticed the baby’s chest stilled.

  “No, by all that is holy. No.”

  Rodina worked on the baby for what seemed like an eternity, until he finally sucked air in and released a cry worthy of a warrior.

  “That’s it, my young, fierce fighter.” He needed a name. She glanced at Ashanta, whose skin had turned a ghostly pale white, no longer glistening with all the shades of the Asazi. “Qalen, the warrior.” Rodina placed a kiss on his forehead.

  His wings were translucent, resembling his birth mother’s, except they had tiny hooks on the tops of them. Like a talon, though soft. She fingered the hook gently.

  Odd, this.

  Qalen screamed. Cleansed of the trappings of birth, he turned a brilliant orange hue, the tiny scales of his skin shimmering.

  “Of course, you’re hungry.” She may not have had little ones of her own, but Rodina knew plenty about babies. Most healers did.

  She made a pacifier of a plug of leather and swathed the baby in her softest cloak. As it would be too far a walk to go back to her grandmother’s village, Rodina hastily made her way to the nearest Kormic outpost She needed a mammal’s milk for him.

  He squirmed in her arms.

  And she needed it now.

  2

  At the outpost’s general trading post, Rodina asked for milk. Qalen was sleeping deeply—thankfully—in her cloak, and she had his entire body and face concealed. She didn’t want to answer questions about the Asazi baby.

  “What are you doing with a baby,” the trading post’s owner asked. “We had not heard you took a mate.”

  Nosy witch.

  “I did not take a mate. His mother passed. I am adopting him.”

  “The leaders of the tribe approved the adoption?” The old woman tilted her head, wrinkled, and paling with age. The once vibrant orange knobs on her head proclaiming her Kormic heritage were becoming faded with age.

  “I have not sought approval. Not yet. I will, at the first opportunity. Are you going to sell me some milk or…” Rodina didn’t have to say the “or” part.

  She narrowed her eyes.

  The old trading woman knew denying assistance to the healer nearest to her trading post would put her in a bad position if she needed healing or herbs.

  “No. I am not refusing. I have some fresh cachiki milk. I can trade you for that.”

  Cachikis were tiny, knee-high hooved animals that roamed the Farlands, but were often domesticated for their milk and tender, tasty flesh.

  “Fine. I’ll take the milk you have on hand, but I’ll take the cachiki, too. I need a steady supply of milk.”

  This was true, clearly, because she’d already decided Qalen would stay with her.

  “Let me see that.” The old woman snatched at the blanket, freeing it from Qalen. Her eyes grew wide as she beheld the baby. “Kill it.” She picked up a large boulder and wielded it above her head.

  “No!” Rodina pushed the other woman away. “Don’t kill it.”

  “It is the descendant of evil. Just look at it. It will hate and kill our kind.”

  “Hate is taught. It will be one of us.”

  “You are wrong.”

  “Time will tell.”

  And so began the story of Qalen, born of sin and insanity, raised with love in a world that had no others that resembled him.

  Rodina raised him. Loved him. Took him to the outposts and settlements to get him recognition and citizenship amongst her people.

  And when he wasn’t wanted by others, she stayed in her home, where they’d be harassed less, raising the baby, making him her own.

  And so it was, until the day she died, when Qalen was fully a man. Mourning his adoptive mother, he gave Rodina a proper Kormic burial, packed his bag, then set off into the Farlands, heading toward Midland.

  Rodina had told him his birth mother had come fleeing from somewhere in the Midland area.

  And Qalen was curious.

  Part II

  3

  In the midst of the Midland rainforest jungle, dressed in clothing she’d borrowed from the camp of Midland refugees, Cinia paused. She was Asazi and a former Saraz concubine.

  Was. Now I’m free.

  If she wanted to call being loose in Midland without so much as a weapon free.

  At least she wasn’t in her sheer concubine outfit. At least she wasn’t under Saraz’s mind control, a sex slave without will.

  Yes, but who am I?

  That question remained. She’d been slated to be sacrificed and turned over to Saraz as a tribute before she’d been able to walk. From that point to puberty, and then into young womanhood, her people had treated her as a princess, though she’d been a lamb being led to the slaughter. The slaughter of her soul as she served for more than two years as one of the concubines the Asazi people sent to satiate and appease Saraz, the one they considered their god.

  Only now, Cinia knew he was no god.

  More like a demon.

  Twisted and perverse, he’d kept the Asazi women
at his beck and call, while he made diabolical plans.

  Sitting on the highest branch of a tree, hoping she was safe, Cinia nibbled on the maramar fruit she’d picked. At least she wouldn’t starve. For the moment. Though she’d have killed for some protein. And, no, she would not resort to eating bugs. The maramar provided her with calories and minimal hydration.

  That was one of things she missed about being in Saraz’s harem—the opulent food his cooks provided. She even missed the food she’d shared with the other Midland refugees at their camp.

  She’d left the camp behind. The camp she’d shared with Taya, the other escaped concubine, as well as other Midland refugees. Which had included a pregnant human named Marissa and her mate, Finn, the Asazi father of her baby. Also, amongst them were Raiza and her brothers, all three Kormic—Asazi sworn enemies. With them as well were Raiza’s Asazi mate and their half-Asazi, half-Kormic son.

  Cinia had found herself unable to escape Saraz’s mind probing while she’d been at the camp. He’d infiltrated her thoughts and tried to glean information about the refugees. Specifically, about Marissa, who he believed was carrying his fated mate.

  Cinia shuddered. Saraz. His control over the Asazi had to be broken. How could that happen? He was a scourge and should not be allowed to live. She wished him dead, daily, but knew there was no one to kill him. The Asazi would die to protect him.