by A. G. Wilde
But even as he moved toward the cook room, her eyes followed him, and as he neared her, he saw something in her eyes that he did recognize.
Lust.
He knew that look. He’d seen it many times and never had it come from a good place.
Riv stiffened and his skin bristled as he passed the female and entered the cook room.
He should turn back and go to bed, leave her unfed.
The fact she was looking at him like that…
What did she want?
He wasn’t a chid anymore. He knew all the wiles females used to get what they wanted and whatever she wanted, it wasn’t going to come from him.
Grabbing a bowl of pre-made rai, he filled it with gada paste and returned to the main room.
The female was watching him silently, those expressive eyes studying him as if she was trying to figure him out.
Riv grunted at the thought.
As he placed the bowl in front of her, her eyes widened a little and a smile split her face.
He found himself staring at her face for far much longer than he should have and when Grot made a low rumble, it broke him from his trance.
“—yoo so much.”
She’d been speaking as well. He hadn’t heard a word even though he’d been watching her mouth move.
Shaking his head a little, he zoned in on the fact that he was still standing by her chair, their bodies so close he could sense the warmth coming off hers.
Jerking away, he shook himself mentally.
He needed to go to bed. Bed and away from this room.
Away from these thoughts.
Away from her.
Lauren ate the bowl of cereal slower this time.
She was intent on savoring every drop. There was no telling when she’d be back to eating those meal bars she still had—they never seemed to go bad.
She’d thought he was going to stay and eat with her but looking back now, she should have known better.
He didn’t want to be around her.
He wasn’t a complete dick, though. He was feeding her. He’d given her a nice room for herself. And most of all, he hadn’t tried to touch her inappropriately.
As far as it seemed, he didn’t even see her as female.
…Which she guessed was okay.
Lauren stared at the now empty bowl.
Why did that make her feel a bit…strange inside? Disappointed even.
She should be happy he wasn’t looking at her like that. The aliens that had looked at her like she was female hadn’t been subtle about their intentions. It’d been clear what they had wanted from her.
Sighing, Lauren ate in peace for what felt like a good hour, each mouthful of food savored to an extreme extent till it slipped down her throat.
From now on, she would never take proper meals for granted ever again. Not after having those meal bars for a year.
When she finally finished, she stood and moved to the room she supposed was the kitchen.
There were gadgets in there that she had no idea the purpose of.
She didn’t even see a stove or anything that looked like one.
There was an indentation in the counter and she assumed that was the sink but as far as she could see, there was nothing to wash the bowl with.
Setting the bowl down, she was about to turn and look for soap of some kind when a robotic hand exited a compartment and grabbed the bowl.
Lauren jerked backward.
Another robotic hand followed the first and both began washing the vessel without her intervention.
She found herself staring at the thing for quite some time. Well, she stared until it completed its task, put the bowl away in what she’d call a cupboard, and slipped back into its compartment as if it didn’t even exist.
Impressed with it, she glanced around the kitchen.
She better not touch anything else. Who knew what else a robot could be lurking in and where.
Backtracking, she exited the room, a yawn causing her to cover her mouth. She guessed she should go to bed then.
Grot lifted his head, looked at her, and stood, padding behind her.
Lauren looked back at him, startled for a moment, before a soft smile touched her lips.
The more time she spent around the dog, the more she was getting used to him and he was really a soft thing.
Turning, Lauren continued down the corridor, her steps slowing as she passed the bedroom she assumed was Riv’s.
At first, there was no sound and she was about to continue walking, thinking her host was sound asleep, when her ears caught something.
Lauren paused.
The sound came again, something like a groan, and Lauren stopped moving completely.
When the sound repeated, Lauren’s brows furrowed in concern, her breath held in her throat.
For a moment, no more sounds came and she thought whatever was happening to her host had stopped. But, as she convinced herself of this, the groaning started again.
It was such a tortured sound that it sent alarm bells ringing. It was the type of sound a person made when they were in great pain.
When the sound came through the door once more, Lauren bit her lip.
He was in pain.
She could feel it.
Her hand lifted to the locking panel by the door and, at another place at another time, she’d have entered the room to check if he was okay.
She contemplated doing that now but logic said she should walk away. It wasn’t her place to do such a thing.
He didn’t want her on his Sanctuary, she was pretty sure entering his personal room would make things worse.
She should walk away.
Walk away, Lauren, do not enter.
Lauren bit her lip, swallowing hard as another groan reached her ears.
WALK AWAY.
15
He was working in the mines. He could smell the thick stench of sweat, sickness, and sex. Beside him, Sohut was digging, too, his little hands going deep into the hole he’d made in the rock to find the rare talix metal the Tasqals wanted so badly.
It was what everyone around them was doing. Males. Females. Chids. It didn’t matter the age.
They all woke early and went to bed late, working tirelessly to mine the metal from the unforgiving rock.
His and Sohut’s bucket was almost full after a day of digging tirelessly, their small hands broken and chipped by the sharp rock.
“It’s almost full, Sohut,” he said. “We’re almost done for today.”
Sohut sniffled.
The dust in the mines irritated the soft lining in his nose, making it difficult to breathe.
Every time Sohut sniffled, it hardened Riv’s resolve to get them out of the mines one day.
Their mother had sent them there to die but they wouldn’t.
He wouldn’t let it happen.
“Just a few more, Sohut. Then our bucket will be full. Then we’ll be done. We’ll be done and they’ll let us rest.”
“Is that so?” the voice beside them had Riv turning quickly, his small hands closing around the adult-size mining chisel.
Sohut’s eyes widened a little, his ears pricking from beneath his hair, as he saw who it was.
Traakni leered at them. He was a tall male; a merkannian by blood, but his golden skin was almost completely hidden by the dirt and the dust from the mines.
Traakni blinked at them with his one eye and Sohut moved a little out of his view.
It wasn’t the first time that Traakni had come to steal their days’ work. As a matter of fact, he’d done it before, many times, and gotten away with it. And Riv had been the one to take the whippings for not turning in any metal—whippings and working all night to fill the bucket, only to spend the following day working his normal shift, too.
Mining talix metal was hard and some degenerates in the mines preyed on chids like him and Sohut, preferring to steal than to do an honest day’s work.
No one in the mines could be trusted.<
br />
He’d learned that early.
They all hated working for the horrible Tasqals, but being in the mines was better than being in the Tasqals’ beds.
At least, that’s what he’d heard some of the older miners say.
He didn’t understand what was so bad about being in a bed. A bed was better to sleep in than the hard floor of their cave down in the mines.
“Leave us alone, Traakni,” Riv said, standing his ground in front of the adult male.
He didn’t care that Traakni was older than he was. Stronger.
He would fight him if he had to.
He had to be strong for Sohut.
They were all each other had.
“Oh shut it, you little shit.” Traakni moved quickly, grabbing their bucket filled with metal and emptying it into his own.
Riv watched him do it, the world slowing down completely with Traakni moving in slow motion.
He didn’t know what happened.
It was a fire within him that he didn’t know had been there.
He was tired of it all. Tired of thinking this had been a mistake and his mor would return for him and Sohut. Tired of believing in such a fairy tale. Tired of working in the mines.
Tired of the endless labor.
Tired of the nightmares that reminded him it was the one person he trusted in the world that had caused him and his brother such a fate.
He lashed out, launching himself at Traakni, barreling his small body into the male’s side.
Traakni’s one eye widened as he jerked backward.
He hadn’t expected retaliation and, on the uneven ground, he couldn’t regain his balance.
Riv watched, frozen as if watching a moving clip, as Traakni fell over the edge, the talix metal falling with him.
A sickening crack had echoed upward and Riv gulped hard, his small heart pumping in his chest hard.
“Is he okay?” Sohut crept up behind him as Riv’s heart began hammering even harder.
He wanted to answer Sohut, but he didn’t know.
He didn’t know if Traakni was going to be okay.
“Riv?”
Sohut’s voice sounded…different.
Riv turned to look at his brother.
Sohut was disappearing ever so slowly, his body fading along with the mine around them.
“Riv?”
He’d been wrong. It wasn’t Sohut’s voice.
This voice was female. He’d heard it before, too.
Eyes flying open, darkness greeted him.
There was no chink-chink of metal in buckets.
No mining sounds.
No smell of sex, sweat, or dirt.
He wasn’t in the mines anymore. He was home.
His home.
His quiet home.
Releasing a breath, he rubbed a hand over his face before he froze.
That voice.
The female voice.
Surely, he’d been dreaming.
She hadn’t…
Turning his head slowly, almost painfully, to the side, Riv stiffened.
She had.
The female knelt by his sleeping cushion in the dark, her hand hovering over his arm as if she meant to touch him but paused in the process.
His systems suddenly felt overloaded. The mere sight of her so close, in his room, made the pent up anger from his dreams burst within him immediately.
Moving much faster than she expected, he snatched her offending arm by the wrist.
What the phek was she doing in his room? Who invited her into his private space?
“Are you lost, human?” he growled.
She was close enough that he could feel her deep breaths on his skin as her breathing picked up pace.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” he snarled, inadvertently leaning in closer, and that was a mistake.
Her scent filled his nose, fueling his anger and setting something else aflame within him at the same time.
She’d entered his room for a reason. A reason he wanted to know.
Deceptive beings—males, females, everyone.
They always wanted something.
No one was there to trust.
The female winced a little and he could see fear enter her eyes as he held onto her wrist.
Her play at innocence was irritating and he wished she’d drop the act.
She was wasting time trying to deceive him.
It wouldn’t work.
“What do you want?” The words were hard to get out. They felt constricted in his throat, coming up through his gritted teeth. He wanted to snarl at her more, tell her to get out of his space, incite more fear into those big brown eyes…
“Ai dohn’t want en-nee thing. Yoo werr haff-ing ah nait-meer.”
Her voice was the last thing he needed to push him over the edge. So deceptively soft and innocent…as if she wasn’t cut from the cord of all other females who’d managed to come close to him in the past.
Sitting upright so quickly she didn’t have time to react, Riv pulled her with him and she fell against his chest, her body lying sideways against his.
Her chest heaved against his as she pulled huge breaths into her body, her wide eyes searching his face.
Her throat moved as she swallowed hard.
“Leht mee goh.”
Her eyes searched his face and it was evident she was having trouble making out his features in the dark.
But he was having no trouble making out hers.
He could see her quite clearly and the look in her eyes, the frantic way she was beginning to pant, they both told him she was in over her head.
Whatever she’d planned…whatever she was doing…it wasn’t going the way she’d intended.
That minor victory eased some of his tension.
Loosening his grip a little, he kept her wrist enclosed by his palm.
The phek was she doing in his room?
He thought he’d made it clear he didn’t want anything to do with her.
He’d growled. He’d snarled. He’d tried not to encourage her company.
But here she was…
And the bad thing about it…
The more he stared down at her…the longer her body heaved against his…the more his anger dissipated, till he was left just staring down at her, wondering how he’d moved from bristling anger to…whatever this new feeling was.
Try as he wanted to ignore it, her body felt soft against his…her scent intoxicating.
And though she was wary, though she wasn’t sure what he was going to do next, behind her fear he could see her own anger simmering.
Only, she was much better at controlling it than he was controlling his.
She was waiting to see what he would do before she reacted…and right now his body was telling him he wanted to do one thing while his mind was fighting in the opposite direction.
Feeling her against him was making him react in a way that hadn’t occurred in a while.
Not like this.
His cock was growing hard. Very hard. And without his interference.
He could feel it pressing against his trousers…against her leg.
He should let her go.
He should release her and usher her from his room.
He should…
Something moist bumped against his arm, bringing him from his daze, and he turned his head slightly to see Grot rubbing his head against him.
The tevsi could sense his battling emotions. Grot was trying to calm him.
Riv closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
Calm.
Calm.
Regain control.
Calm.
Releasing her wrist, he let his arm fall as he bent his head and fought to control his warring thoughts.
“Go,” he said.
As she lifted herself off him, her movements were jerky and he could feel her flaming gaze on him.
“Ugh, yoor soh difikult. So rood ahnd, ahnd, juhst…mahdennin! Ai was uhnesstly juhst trahy-ing to he
lp yoo.”
Grot made a sound of disapproval in his throat and he didn’t need to understand the female’s language to know that she wasn’t pleased.
Well, that made two of them.
She’d just have to deal with it.
Just like he was going to have to deal with the emotions in his heart and the hardened cock in his pants.
As the female stormed from the room, Grot made another sound and followed after her.
He only had a second to realize that his tevsi was escorting the female to her quarters as if he, Riv, had just committed some crime and wounded her in some way.
He watched them go, unable to call his animal back to his side.
He was the one that was wounded.
Wounded by years of pent up rage and hatred.
Only, unlike the female’s wounded pride, which would be healed by the next light-cycle, he had no such hope of relief.
16
It was in the early hours of the next light-cycle that he heard a loud feminine shriek followed by the loud booms of Grot barking.
He’d already awakened and had been pulling on his trousers when the exclamation hit his ears.
It didn’t take him long to move, fastening the clasps of the trousers as he hurried toward the female’s room, tension in his shoulders.
He hadn’t been able to sleep for the entire dark-cycle.
Not after she’d invaded his room…his thoughts…the barrier he’d placed around himself.
“Ah, Grot. Calm down.”
He knew that voice and for a second it confused him.
What was Sohut doing in the female’s room? He hadn’t even heard him return..
“Hoo dah hell arr yoo?” He knew that voice too.
Hearing it again after last night made a sort of chill run down his spine that made him anxious to see the female.
He wasn’t sure he could look at her without remembering the night before.
It was something he should forget. He just wasn’t sure he wanted to.
The door to the female’s room was open when he got there and the scene inside had him stopping in his tracks.
Sohut stood against the wall, his eyes wide and his hands in the air as if in surrender.
In front of him, Grot stood on all fours, teeth bared, snarling at his brother as if he’d never seen him before.
