Frankie wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know. I think most humans, my own family included, prefer the convenience of replicated food over having to cook every day. I’ve never really thought about it. I know how to cook, but usually I just eat whatever’s readily available.”
Kaede made a small rumbling sound in the back of his throat.
“You will find that all species are eager for the conveniences that come readily to them when they join the Intergalactic Union, or otherwise enjoy trade with offworld species in the case of non-Union planets. Eventually, there comes a time when there is a shift, when the people look back and appreciate where they came from. Then they yearn for it and things change.”
Her skin prickled as she glared at him. Her reaction was, in part, due to a sense of self-preservation. She felt a need to protect herself and drive him away. She wasn’t going to end up tying herself to a guy who settled for being with her due to hormones. She’d seen enough people become trapped in relationships.
She just wanted to find her sister and get the hell off Agraadax—no matter how good he smelled.
“Is that what your people were doing when you bought and experimented on kidnapped human women? Were you appreciating your ancestors then?” she asked.
His face hardened and his spines fluffed out like the quills on an angry bird, but it was so brief it was as if it had never happened.
“No,” he admitted with a low rasp. “What is being done in our society has nothing to do with our ancestors or even our common people. Those who control and move our society believe that the ends justify the means, but despite all their talk about how it would benefit the people as a whole eventually, all they do is what pleases themselves. They ignore the needs of the other raniks, and cause hostilities within the union against us for their own whims.”
Frankie snorted with disbelief. It was cut deep into her memory the way the juveniles among the populace had attacked her squad and the others of the Fleet company.
“Seems like there were plenty of young males from the lower raniks who were more than happy to protect that interest.”
Kaede growled, his spines rattling with irritation.
“Those males are feckless and shortsighted. They are so eager to grasp anything that might elevate their position in society that they’d put themselves in danger for no purpose. The warrior and ruling raniks tell the common raniks that they can rise through the system and move closer to the palisade by showing their bravery and devotion. They bribe them with a dream of rising into the warrior ranik. It is bait and the young fall for it. Always.”
He broke off the conversation with a disgusted grumble and strode down the path without looking back at her.
“Come. The facility is this way.”
Without another word, he cut to the left on another path half-hidden between thick rows of grain and stalks of thick-leafed vegetation, heading southwest. Frankie was left behind, struggling to keep up with the lengthier stride of his long limbs.
He said little else to her throughout the rest of the day. At one point, she opened her mouth to break the silence and inquire about a vivid purple plant with basin-shaped leaves nearly as big as her head, but snapped it shut again with a click of her teeth before a single word could escape. A tiny sharp pain stabbed her instep. How the hell had she got a pebble in her boots? It shifted and rolled and poked her again. It was a minor pain, more an inconvenience than truly hurting, but it was maddening.
She hissed as it poked her again.
Frankie glanced at his feet and wondered how he was walking barefoot over the same terrain and yet striding as if he were walking on velvet. He was striding gracefully while she scuffed her foot to dislodge the nuisance and struggled not to curse every pebble on the path to hell and back. Her eyes trailed up his muscular legs, ruthlessly ignoring the tightening in her belly, and skimmed over the simple reddish-brown dupar he wore, until she reached his broad back.
He was bare from the waist up, his dark back gleaming in the sunlight, the spines that started just between his shoulder blades flattened and at rest, as were those along his shoulders and up over his crown. He looked completely unbothered. She envied it. He seemed perfectly comfortable while she was layered, and sweating, in her armor. She tried not to laugh at the direction of her thoughts. A tiny chuckle escaped her despite her best efforts, and his long, pointed ears twitched and he turned his head to glance at her.
Her chuckle turned into a humorous snort and finally dissolved into laughter. Kaede turned to stare at her, his lips pursed contemplatively, his thick brow furrowed in confusion. He almost looked concerned. That just made her laugh harder. Frankie wrapped one arm around her gut and breathed deeply as she struggled to regain her self-control.
“Sorry, sorry,” she gasped, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes.
“Are you ill?”
“No. I mean, there’s a good chance I’m going to end up getting heatstroke in my armor if I have to wear it much longer, but I’m all right for now. I was just thinking how funny we are. You are practically wearing nothing but a loincloth, a plasma pistol, and a comm attached to your wrist and are perfectly at ease. I’m out here in combat boots, a fleet uniform of self-cleansing fibers and micro-porous armor that’s supposed to keep me cool, comfortable, and protected. Despite being theoretically more protected, I’m the one cursing at the pebbles in my boots feeling like I could die at any moment. How are you even able to walk barefoot?”
He glanced down at her feet and then his own. A thoughtful smile played about his lips. The curved claws on his toes clicked against the stone as he curled them and flattened them again.
“I am uncertain of the nature of human feet, but my species are arboreal omnivores. The tribal groups that still inhabit the swamplands use their claws and their hands and feet to scale trees to reach wild fruit and to move easily into homes built in the tree-line, far from predators that hide in the swamps.”
Frankie lifted a foot and tilted to the side as she struggled pulling her boot off. She had to get the damn stone out now.
“What kind of predators are we talking about here?” she asked distractedly, happy to keep him talking and at her side whereas he might have otherwise continued to walk ahead a short distance and left her to catch up. She didn’t relish the idea of running, as tired as she was.
She barely saw him shrug out of her peripheral vision. His full interest seemed to be on her foot once free of her boot. It was still clad in a sock, and he leaned closer to look at it as she shook out her boot. She curled her lip in disgust as four pebbles dropped onto the ground. If she’d known that tech combat boots weren’t going to do much more than her sneakers, she would have argued to keep the more comfortable option.
“What is that strange sheath covering your foot?” Kaede asked.
Frankie grinned and wiggled her toes beneath her sock, enjoying the brief respite from her boot before she had to put it back on.
“That’s a sock. It protects my foot from being rubbed uncomfortably in the boot. Not only can it cause excessive sweat to gather in the boot—which is disgusting—but I’d be more likely to rub blisters without it.”
He dropped his hand and tilted his head to the side as she pulled her boot back on. She breathed a sigh of thanks that she didn’t embarrass herself by losing her balance and falling into the wet marshy soil at either side of the path.
“Curious,” he murmured.
Kaede slowly straightened, his orange slit pupils widening. He inhaled and made a rumbling, buzzing sound in his throat. She wheezed in alarm as his scent become more potent and he inched forward, surrounding her with its intoxicating richness. The lemon meringue teased her tongue and she wanted to lick him all over.
She... hungered. To press her face against his skin and taste him, to draw every bit of him into her until he was all that she tasted, smelled, and experienced.
Whoa. Bad idea!
Frankie panicked as soon as the thought drifted up to her conscious
mind. Agraak were capable of secreting toxins. What if whatever was making him smell was actually poisonous? Despite the appealing smell that made her want to get close to him, human anatomy wasn’t the same as that of Agraaks. What if that natural draw for an Agraak female poisoned a human woman?
Weren’t sour things potentially dangerous in nature? Or was that bitter things?
Frankie’s thoughts drifted through her mind like water running through a sieve. She scrambled to catch ahold of them, but she had trouble focusing on anything but him.
Kaede stepped closer, that rattling buzz increasing as he nudged against her. It took her a moment to realize that much of the sound he was making was coming from his vibrating spines. Her eyes widened as she floated in a semi-drugged state.
It sounded so... pretty!
Her lips softened, need crawling through her belly, leaving hot trails. Her breath began to escape her in gentle pants. Her mind rebelled, unable to understand what was happening to her, but it was half-hearted at best. It left her quivering and emotionally exposed. Every look he passed over her skin grazed her as if she were touched by a live wire.
A sigh escaped her when he dropped his head and touched his wide, flat nose against her neck. He edged even closer until their bodies were pressed together. She felt something stir against her belly and she ground her hips against it, small moans escaping her.
A cool breeze cut through the crops around them, fanning her fevered skin. She canted her hips toward him, desperate to be stripped and satisfied, but he pulled away. His ragged breath was loud in her ears and she almost sobbed with the near-painful need coursing through her when he gently set her aside.
“We are nearly out of the bog fields. We will make camp when we enter the outer swamps. I know of a shelter near here that I’ve used a time or two. Come along, human.”
Frankie blinked as he turned away and shifted his pack on his shoulder before striding away. The almost dismissive tone of his final words rang in her ears. Mortification flooded through her, wiping away her lust like a splash of ice water. She’d been caught up in the moment and nearly climbed him like a tree.
Well, he wouldn’t find her so easy in the future if he thought to try anything again. There wouldn’t be a repeat performance.
Adjusting her pack, Frankie followed after him, pushing some long stalks hanging in the way angrily out of her path. She tried to focus on her sister and remind herself that she’d endure anything to find her twin. This was only temporary. She was just suffering from an unnatural reaction to his pheromones coupled with too many years without sex.
That was all it was. Just a normal bodily reaction.
Chapter 11
Kaede kept an eye on the human trailing behind him. Even when he’d rather think of anything else, he was always cognizant of her, his instincts continuously seeking out her presence. He was far too aware of her, especially when she was striding angrily through the mud, sloshing the water around her ankles. She was as frustrated as he, and both of them were trying to fight it.
That was exactly why he was keeping as much distance between them as possible. If he could will her out of his thoughts, it would have been all the better.
The rise of the ormar within him had been swift and brutal—and had taken him completely by surprise. Although the instant mating attraction between compatible pairs wasn’t unheard of, it was uncommon. He’d expected that, were his ormar ever triggered, it would be with an agreeable female after making a mating arrangement. He’d been afraid of it happening with Ayaa forcing her company on him, and yet now it had happened with a human.
Agraak never successfully mated or bred with other species. Not even with Edokas, who were of all species the closest related to Agraaks. Given that many scholars speculated that Agraak and Edokas shared a common ancestor, the consensus was that if they were unable to breed that neither would be able to successfully mate and breed with other species.
Discovering that humans could breed Agraak young had led to speculation about whether or not humans would be suitable for mates, and yet there had been no documented cases of long-term exposure causing ormar. Without evidence, most Agraak believed permanent bonds were impossible with humans. Those males who claimed to experience the ormar with humans were disregarded and Kaede had shared that belief.
Until now.
His tail twitched against his hips, instinctively squeezing, searching for a female to lock onto. He cursed the rhythmic pulsating of its length. This was why the elders in the dome-cities bred out tails generations ago. It was so connected to the base sexual needs of their race that it was considered uncivilized and an inconvenient reaction when a tail literally locked a male to a female for lengths of time, particularly if she was fertile.
It was a maddening instinct for a species that looked toward their own advancement. No civilized male wished to be so incapacitated.
Never had he understood such motivation as he did now. His sex felt swollen and heavy, mercifully hidden beneath the firm band of his tail. Every constriction amplified it, though. Not only did he have to deal with the way the fine muscles along the length of his tail seemed to be attached to the responsiveness of his cock, having his tail wrapped around his pelvis put increasing pressure on his phallus. Every now and then, she would get just close enough where he was hit with a fresh dose of her pheromones, and his member jerked painfully.
The whole situation was wholly unwelcome. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with the female. He was certain that she was a fine human, but it was the worst possible time for him to consider mating. The fact that his body was urging him to do otherwise was nothing more than an inconvenience. If he could manage to keep some distance between them, he hoped the ormar would eventually fade as it did with other ill-suited pairings. He just needed to hold out until then.
“Is it far to the facility?”
The sound of her voice sent a shiver up his spine, even laden as it was with a certain amount of contempt, and Kaede cursed the ormar again. Now he was even reacting to that.
“Not far,” he replied flatly. “We will rest for the night once we breach the outer swamp. We should arrive there sometime around midday.”
He heard a loud exhalation behind him.
“Oh. I’d hoped that we would arrive tonight...” her words dropped off with uncertainty.
Kaede frowned, stopped, and turned to look at her. Frahnkee had halted in the middle of the path and was looking down at the boots covering her feet, her lips pinched together.
“If you are afraid to sleep in the swamp, you don’t need to fear. I will construct a simple shelter in the trees that will be perfectly safe from the predators that live in the swamplands.”
Her gray eyes snapped up and narrowed at him, heated with ire.
“I am not afraid to sleep in a swamp. I serve in the Intergalactic Fleet. I’ve been trained with simulated exposure to dozens of different environments. I am not afraid,” she reiterated. She glanced at the dark tree-line in the distance and grimaced. “I just hoped to find the information I need sooner than that.”
Kaede flared and flattened his spines casually in a forced expression of nonchalance. The irony wasn’t lost on Kaede that his efforts to conceal his emotions behind a façade of intentional body language was absolutely useless on a species who wouldn’t recognize what he was attempting to convey. For all he knew, she considered the movement to be a threat.
Running a hand over his eyes, he fixed her with a hard look, battling his urge to reassure Frahnkee. He couldn’t afford to do anything other than remain aloof. If he invited physical contact, he risked strengthening the ormar. He was quite certain that neither of them wished for that to happen.
If he must act like bragnel, the worst and most vulgar among his kind, to accomplish it, then he would.
“That you arrive tomorrow rather than today does not change anything,” he bit out, hating himself all the while that he must be so harsh.
As predicted, any hin
t of softness and vulnerability in her expression was quickly replaced by a stony countenance. She drew back from him and he ignored the instinct that compelled him to close the distance between them and pull down the barrier she erected between them. He reminded himself that this was what he wanted. Distance.
Frahnkee gave a brisk nod from where she’d retreated.
The day was already starting to wane. They would need to quicken their pace if they wanted to arrive in the outer swamps before nightfall. He needed time to construct a simple platform. He didn’t want to get caught on the ground once night fell. The predators were bad enough to avoid during the day, but at night other creatures came out to feed from the deeper waters in certain parts of the swamp. He long suspected that those waters led to underground networks of caverns from which they emerged to hunt. He had no intention of being caught on land by any of them.
“This way,” he muttered.
Frahnkee didn’t respond but he heard her steps behind him on the stone path. At length, her voice drifted up to him.
“You know, you don’t have to be such a dick. I get... You don’t like me. You didn’t want this responsibility but felt obligated to volunteer. I accept all that and appreciate that you are willing to look after me, and are even willing to take me to the facility, but if you think you’re getting a free pass to treat me like shit, you have another think coming.”
Her stormy eyes met his with such challenge that he naturally bristled, his spines raising on their own accord in a need to reassert his dominance. She held his gaze, unflinching until she finally dropped her eyes and submitted. Despite his every effort to sustain a cool detachment toward Frahnkee, a reluctant admiration stirred in his breast. He felt his lips quirk and he shook his head.
“You are a strange female. I do not dislike you. This situation is... uncomfortable for me. Ormar does strange things to my species. It is best if we keep as much distance as we are able to for both our sake.”
Heart of the Agraak Page 7
