Taken to Nobu: A SciFi Alien Romance (Xiveri Mates Book II)

by Elizabeth Stephens

  Kuana does not seem to mind. She returns his pleasure expression in full. He extends his hand towards her very carefully, like a scientist attempting an experiment he must get just right. So slowly even time seems to wait, Kuana places her six-fingered hand in his five-fingered one. His hand is large. Despite the Voraxian’s naturally larger physique, Kuana is small in stature and this male is quite the opposite. His palm dwarfs hers as he rubs his thumb across her skin.

  “Stars,” he hacks, each breath he takes sounding painful for him. “This can’t be real.” The Xanaxana in Kuana’s chest begins to sound, a light purr rumbling throughout the room. Startled, the human looks at her chest where she wears only a light linen tunic and trousers beneath it. He licks his lips. Bites the lower. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”

  Kuana’s ridges intensify in color and she tenses. Less than a heartbeat later, I scent the sweet aroma of a female’s arousal. The Voraxian males in the room stiffen and I clear my throat as we each shame ourselves by experiencing this collective sensation.

  “Kiki, come to my side,” I say, before turning my attention to the guards present in the room. “Xcleranx,” I address them, “Please accompany the humans back to their quarters. Ensure that Kuana and Jacabo have the privacy and supplies they need for as long as they need them.”

  Embarrassment blasts over Kuana’s ridges in near fluorescent yellow, however, her human merely laughs. “That sounds good. Really good. That sound good to you, Koo-ah-nah? Is that your name?”

  She nods. “Hexa. I mean, yes. That does sound good to me. And my name…I will tell you later, when we are alone.”

  Jacabo smiles at her so tenderly, I feel a knot in my own chest I did not realize I carried, release. Kuana is an honorable female. It is an honor to us all that Xana has chosen a Xiveri mate for her. One who is honorable, for he would not be here as part of this congregation were he not.

  “Then I don’t want to wait. Can I carry you?” She nods and Jacabo lifts her in his arms. He turns to face the group of humans and protectors they arrived with. “What are we waiting for? My mate and I need some privacy.”

  The guard begin towards the door, but one of the human females — the frightened one — says, “So it’s real? This instant bonding thing?”

  Jacabo nods. “Yes. It’s real.” As he speaks, he does not look away from Kuana’s face. “Very real.”

  “What does it feel like?” One of the males asks next.

  Jacabo exhales, “Like I just met my wife.”

  The humans murmur amongst one another, but I do not look away from Kiki’s face. She is smiling, so resplendent and genuinely happy I know I will commit this moment, this vision, to memory for the rest of my rotations. Her laughter breaks me out of my trance — something one of the humans must have said.

  Raku, behind me, whispers in his Rakukanna’s ear, informing her of the scent of Kuana’s arousal growing more potent and the Rakukanna quickly issues orders for the humans to disperse, the guards with them, until eventually Kiki and I are alone in the overlook room. I remain frozen where I am. She remains frozen with a smile on her face.

  “I can’t believe it,” she says at last. “Like really cannot believe it. Jacabo is a farmer back home. He hates it and is this ridiculous, sarcastic person. Kuana is so calm and gentle and straightforward and diligent in her duties. They make an unlikely pair.”

  “Don’t we all.”

  Her gaze hits mine then and I feel appropriately struck by it. I release the hold I had on my ridges and my Xanaxana, allowing the room to fill with color and sound. Kiki’s grin holds and she comes at me in a run. Thinking she means to fight me once more, I’m caught off guard when she jumps, clinging to my frame. I wrap my arms around her and take her down to the furs and we commit this love act to and with one another throughout the lunar and it is only in the aftermath, as we lay bound together in the quiet dark, that I remember what it was I intended to tell her the moment her humans landed on planet.

  “Your humans,” I whisper as the re’ien farrn fire glows softly, illuminating the gold notes in her skin. Ioni so full of life. “They did not come alone to Nobu.” I hold, awaiting her reaction. For her to pull away from me, to fight. Awaiting her hate to resurface. I would deserve no less. Svera and the Rakukanna’s surprises be damned, I should have told her before this.

  But my Kiki only sighs, “I know.”

  I sit up so that I may look down at her. Her full lips and their scandalous shape are slack and begging to be suckled. I take her face in one hand and tilt her head back so that she sees me and knows the meaning of the words that I say next, “No harm will come to you while he is on planet.”

  “I’m not worried,” she says and I am surprised.

  “You…are not?”

  She takes my hand and licks a line up the center of my palm in a way that I find disastrously erotic. I will soon have her beneath me again, but first I must know, “You are calm, my Xhea…an honorable reaction.”

  She laughs. “There’s nothing honorable about it. I just realized that the only power he has anymore is the one I give him. He’s a disgraced fool and he deserves nothing from me, least of all power.”

  The rattling in my chest blots out all noise. Blots out all thought. I bend over her and plant my kiss against the center of her forehead. “You are a wise female,” I say. “The trial that will take place in two solars will be over quickly.”

  She smiles as she begins her own slow caress of my body, my neck, my abdomen, my ribs, and then lower. Her mouth follows her hands, moving over me in movements that are possessive and sure. The whole room smells of her. Dark and devouring smoke. And I am happily inundated.

  “I hope it isn’t,” she says against my skin. “I want him to suffer.”

  19

  Kiki

  The wind whips around us, feeling a lot like the day I ran onto the tundra and met my first hevarr. It’s cold, but I’m used to it, and the white isn’t as thick as it has been, falling in star-shaped clumps that are only the size of my hand, all fingers splayed. Letting the cold white fall onto my okami and melt, I inhale and exhale deeply. Breathe…

  We stand in a lumpy circle, looking like an informal gathering about to start singing songs at a bonfire, except instead of a bonfire, we’re standing around an empty pitch of frozen earth. The only thing that makes it look like a tribunal at all are the armed guards. They stand interspersed along the perimeter of the circle, the bulk of them positioned in diamond formation around a single male who gleams like a bloodstain against the white world behind him.

  I can feel him watching me and I don’t shrink from his gaze, but turn to meet it, betraying nothing. Breathe. Just breathe. Then I look away. Making eye contact for too long could be seen as a sign of respect in Voraxian culture, and if only one thing is certain in all of the universe’s many galaxies, it’s that I don’t.

  I can feel Kinan’s tension to my right, bleeding out of him like pus from an infection. The whole arena is tense. The inner circle is formed only by a dozen or so of us, while slightly further back the entire village has come to witness what’s about to happen. Spectator sport, much? I grin, emitting a half grunt-half laugh. I love it. Let the carnage begin.

  A slight shift to my right draws my attention up. Kinan is looking at me and even though he is stoic as ever, ridges devoid of color, I know that he thinks I’ve lost it. Perhaps I have. This is the solar I live the nightmare that’s haunted me for the past three rotations. Breathe. And then, in the face of my suppressed terror and rage, Kinan does the unthinkable. He winks at me.

  Startled, I almost smile even though I’m on trial in front of an entire village of beings whose respect I fight — sometimes quite literally — to earn, and when I do receive it, cherish. Now I merely fight to keep my hands to myself even though I want nothing more than to take his arms and wrap them around my body like the blanket of security I know they are. But I am Xhea. Stoic and proud. At least, this is what I must appear to be as Raku s
teps into the circle and announces that the trial has finally found its start.

  “We come together today to recognize a series of crimes perpetrated by and against the human colony residing on the eighteenth moon of Cxrian.” His voice is booming and impressive, nearly jarring in its impact. Even the wind seems hushed by it. He’s king for a reason, and in his tone, I’m reminded of it.

  “Proven guilty, Pe’ixal faces exile or death; which will be decided during his tsanui, a sacred rite performed by the Va’Raku of our federation. The tsanui will be carried out in response to acts of horror committed by Pe’ixal against the Va’Rakukanna during an illegally sanctioned Hunt three rotations ago.”

  He gestures at Pe’ixal with his hand — an act of dishonor — before lowering his arm and then nodding slightly to Svera and then to me. “On trial today is also the human advisor, Svera, and the Va’Rakukanna. They will be tried for their attempted abduction of the Rakukanna. A fourth and final trial will take place on this solar — that of Lisbel, former hasheba to the Va’Rakukanna, for her deception that led to the Va’Rakukanna’s flight and resulted in the death of a warrior, Re’Okkari.”

  Surprised, I glance around until I spot Kuaku — Lisbel — at the far side of the circle from where I stand. She stares at the ground between her feet and I feel simultaneously furious and ashamed that she’s even here when all she really tried to do was what I asked her — well that and get me killed, but who’s really counting? I’m about to say something when Okkari reaches over and takes my arm in a gentle grip. I settle and manage to hold my tongue without interrupting.

  “Given the nature of these crimes, Svera, the Va’Rakukanna, and Lisbel will be afforded the ability to appoint their own champions while Pe’ixal will face tsanui at the hand of Va’Raku, as has already been decided.”

  He pivots to Svera who stands not too far down the row to my left, separated from me by the red male called Krisxox, who seems to hate humans as much as Jaxal hates Voraxians. He seemed a strange choice for her protector, but Svera already explained to me that even though she chose someone else, he refused to relinquish his position.

  My gaze flashes once more to Bo’Raku, even though it’s inadvertent. I hate that I do that. I hate myself for it. I hate myself that I let him rule me. Hush. Breathe. Calm. Breathe. Exhale. Shut the fuck up and just breathe already!

  As the crowd settles, the only sounds gently falling white, Raku returns to his place along the perimeter of the circle where he stands beside his queen. Miari remains seated, a female healer called Lemoria at her shoulder. Despite being head of all healers and needed pretty much everywhere at once, Lemoria is overseeing Miari’s pregnancy. Every second of it.

  “Svera.” Raku tilts his head towards the center of the circle. The arena. The pit. The grave it will become even if the white cold doesn’t know it yet. “You may now choose your champion.”

  Svera steps forward slightly, but before she can so much as speak, a Voraxian guard steps forward. He has blue skin that’s darker than Raku’s and slightly bluer, where Raku is more grey. His hair falls in jet black strands around his shoulders but is plaited back from his face, almost identically to the way I wear mine and Jaxal wears his.

  It’s the way hunters on the colony with long hair keep it out of their face and out of reach of opponents. I wonder if Svera helped him. I remember her speaking highly of one of the guards. I wonder if this is him… The thought has the corners of my mouth twitching in the makings of a carefully repressed smile and just like that, hate slips so easily away. Love weighs so much less. Nothing at all. It is pure buoyancy.

  “I am Tur’Roth, one of the xcleranx of Voraxia and one of the personal guards to advisor Svera. I would be honored to assume her place in this trial by taking up my axe against whichever opponent is deemed suitable and act as her champion.” Facing Svera, he bows to her at the waist. “If it pleases you, advisor Svera.”

  I can see from where I stand that Svera is blushing, a small, not-quite-suppressed smile on her face. She opens her mouth, but before she can speak, Krisxox storms forward into the pit. In a complete break in decorum, he steps up to Tur’Roth, covers Tur’Roth’s face with one enormous hand and shoves. Tur’Roth stumbles back, falling onto his ass in the now empty place next to Svera.

  Svera gasps, taking hold of Tur’Roth’s arm as he rises again to his feet, ridges a deep and unsettling red. “Krisxox, how dare you…”

  “Punish me for it later,” he barks savagely to the wind. It picks up in response, as cold as the breath of Xaneru himself. Breathe. Svera is safe. Even if Krisxox is being an ass, at least she has two revered warriors vying to be her champion. Exile will not be her fate. “No one else will champion for you on this solar.”

  “Krisxox, you dishonor advisor Svera. You dishonor a proud xcleranx. You dishonor yourself.” Raku shakes his head slowly, sadly almost, like someone who has seen and condemned this behavior before and more than once. “You will accept one stroke of the lash.”

  “Accepted.” His black eyes flash and he speaks through teeth that are clearly clenched, “But I will champion.”

  Raku glances to Miari. She bites her lower lip as she watches Svera’s face, full of conflict. Svera is bright red again and looks near tears. Between disappointment, humiliation or frustration, I’d put money on the latter. She’s prim and proper in everything she does. To be shamed in such a way and so publicly is a disgrace many others might be able to shrug off, though I know she can’t.

  Svera nods. Miari nods. Raku nods, short and sharp. “Then it will be delivered now.”

  “Fine,” Krisxox snarls.

  “By Tur’Roth.”

  Krisxox’s forehead. A skein of black streaks through the bright red already present and his torso swells. He nods in silence and his upper lip pulls back to expose his teeth. He looks like violence made flesh.

  “Tur’Roth,” Raku says, inviting him into the arena with a wave of his arm. Understanding and evidently accepting Raku’s edict, Tur’Roth goes to the Garon standing near Miari. Three males guard the weapons cache while an older male rifles through a large werro wood chest and withdraws a whip. Unlike the leather whips I’ve seen before, this one isn’t static. Like the holoshields I’ve practiced with, it zaps to life when Tur’Roth takes the thick metal handle, activating it. Energy crackles and sizzles as Tur’Roth releases the tail end of the whip, allowing it to uncoil onto the snow below. It lands so softly it makes no sound.

  Despite the temperature, Krisxox sheds his outer layer — first, the hide shell, then the chest and back pieces of the okami he wears. Clad in only hide pants and boots now, he turns his bare back to Tur’Roth and holds his arms out to the sides in a vulnerable display. Tur’Roth does not hesitate.

  The slash of the whip against Krisxox’s bare skin sputters and pops, energy meeting flesh. A blazing line of copper opens up from Krisxox’s right shoulder to left hip. The force of the blow jolts him a half step forward, but he doesn’t cry out. He hardly even flinches.

  “One lash only,” Raku says when Tur’Roth lifts the weapon a second time. Tur’Roth hesitates. There’s something here, beneath the surface. Something between them. None of it good. “Krisxox, as Svera’s champion, you will defend her honor now by fighting Tur’Roth and two warriors that Va’Raku nominates.”

  “Bre’Okkari and Naimi’Okkari,” Okkari answers immediately and two warriors step into the arena across from Krisxox. They are joined by Tur’Roth and at the Raku’s word, they select their weapons and tear into one another. I don’t miss the fact that for his weapon, Krisxox selected the same one as Tur’Roth.

  “Blooded warriors will be removed from the tribunal floor. Should Krisxox allow himself to be blooded before all three warriors have been removed from battle, then Svera’s punishment will be fifteen solars in exile in Qath’s outer lands.”

  Miari shoots Raku a death glare at that, one so aggressive he must feel it because he places his hand on Miari’s shoulder. It might be an attempt t
o reassure her, but I know for a fact that if Krisxox loses this battle, it’s Raku who will pay the price.

  “Accepted,” Krisxox says, followed by Tur’Roth and the other two warriors invited into the arena.

  Krisxox lowers into a crouch, single axe dismantled to reveal smaller twin axes that he takes in each hand. He pivots slightly to the side while the other three warriors ready themselves. They all hover there on the cusp of action, waiting for something…

  And then a restrained, muted word, spoken in a voice too gentle and light for this harsh, cold world says, “Accepted.” Svera’s single word falls harder than the stroke of any blade and it falls with impact. Without delay, the solar’s first battle starts.

  Impulsive and flat out nuts as he is, I’m surprised that Krisxox doesn’t attack first. He hovers back, watching the three males circle him wielding axe, flail and sword — no holo weapons are allowed here, and no shields.

  He skirts the first onslaught of the flail, spinning smoothly out of the way like a dancer would. Bre’Okkari darts forward, engaging with his sword while Tur’Roth moves around to Krisxox’s bared and bloodied back. He raises his axe and for a moment I wonder if the battle won’t be over this quickly.

  And then chaos explodes over the battleground.

  Krisxox explodes, erupting like a storm. He bats away Bre’Okkari’s sword, hitting it so hard the sword flies from Bre’Okkari’s fingers. Spinning the rest of the way around, he ducks out of Tur’Roth’s path so that Tur’Roth’s axe meets only air and the motion throws Tur’Roth wildly off balance.

  Krisxox sidles up next to Tur’Roth and with one quick jerk, releases his elbow into Tur’Roth’s face. When Tur’Roth canters back, Krisxox slashes downward with one axe. He would have removed Tur’Roth from the battle there — possibly removing his arm at the wrist as well — if Naimi’Okkari hadn’t then intervened.

  Krisxox grunts as he turns on the xub’Okkari, forcing them back and then back further and it occurs to me as Krisxox releases such gently caged fury that even though they are three on one, they don’t stand a chance against him. None at all.