So even though she is six rotations and I am three rotations her senior, she is not of age amongst her kind and I would take the testicle torture I leveled against my own warrior before I dishonored or violated her, which means that I will be the first Xiveri male to have found his mate who will have to wait.
I am Raku, hexa. And even my title cannot save me.
Of all the wounds I have sustained in battle, all of the scars, the tortures I’ve endured at the hands of enemies…they were not enough to have prepared me for this.
I am reminded of the time my training sire broke my leg when I held it in the incorrect attack position. He gave me no grace and I was forced to fight through the hours it took for my leg to heal itself with no relief or reprieve.
This is as if, not my leg, but every bone in my body is snapped by hands more powerful than mine in unison and I will have to fight through the agony for one. complete. rotation.
The growl in my throat turns to a full bellied roar. Grief washes through me as I turn to the interpreter cowering in the shadow of my Xiveri mate.
“If she has no line, then what is her title?”
“Her title?”
“What does she do? What is her role here?”
“Her…” The interpreter shakes her head, confused. “She is an inventor. A mechanic.”
“These describe her role, but they are not her. I want to know what this one is called.”
“Her name? Her name is Miari.”
I recoil. Miari. This is not a title. This is a moniker. On Voraxia the only ones who bear monikers are younglings or slaves. Slavery is outlawed…Bo’Raku…
I clear my throat and speak now to Miari directly. “Rakukanna,” I address her, for even if she was once a slave, she is a slave no longer. “I will return for you in one rotation.”
The invisible thread binding me to her tears a new wound when I take a step away. My body rips itself apart from the inside. The heat of the suns feels like fire. The sand that nips at my skin like blades. I cannot do this. For a moment, I contemplate disregarding the honors of these aliens and taking her anyways, or taking her and for the next rotation locking her away…and I am ashamed.
I take another step, but before I can remove myself from her presence, my Xanaxana pulls me back into the intoxicating cloud she creates.
My xora bucks. I inhale a charged breath. Jujji, ranxcera, sugar, grain, sand, salt, sweat, tevra tree roots, rain.
She jumps, but I take her shoulders between my hands anyways and I bend low enough I can speak directly into her ear, my mouth brushing her skin. “I will not abandon you to this.”
I taste the edge of her earlobe and then I rip back, charging across the sands without looking again at the female my body aches for, until I reach the leader of these beings.
I grab the female’s arm too hard not to cause her pain, but I am shaking and there is no other way. I am at the complete and utter mercy of the Xanaxana and the little female with a slave name and no heritage.
I know what many of my xub’Raku advisors would say — she is not worthy — and perhaps I would even agree with them. But we would all be wrong because the Xanaxana is always right.
“I will return to collect her in one rotation. No more. No less.” I move to leave, but my jaw ticks. One. Rotation. The turn of my home planet is slow. Too slow. And one rotation is a long time. So much can change. So much can happen. Panic brittles my bones.
I heave out my next breath, wrangling my ridges into control before they betray a deep pink. “The female known as Miari will not be touched by another male or female in my absence.” The thought that she would be dishonored — or worse — that she would bed another willingly makes my stones ache and my ridges flame with copper jealousy.
“Of…of course…” The female bows her head.
I continue, voice pitchy in a way I have never heard. I am not myself. Perhaps the separation is best. Perhaps it will kill me. “She will be fed regularly. Clothed adequately. Housed more than adequately.
“I want her protected and safe and healthy when I return. She will be Rakukanna to your people — to us all — ruler of Voraxia beside me, mother to my child, Xana to my Xaneru and when I arrive at sun’s first light one rotation from today, she will be awaiting me, prepared and willing to return with me to Voraxia where she will remain for the rest of her life. If for whatever reason, these conditions are not met, it will be your life.”
The female swallows audibly. Gloss glazes her eyes. Her arm remains suspended before her face, a shield I could tear through with words alone.
“She is to remain protected at any cost. All other lives here are worth less. Am I understood?”
The shimmery, transparent surface of the Dome tickles the edges of my vision. The Dome is a defense, but it can be breached. The thought of her here, protected by only this and these weak beings for a full rotation is a living nightmare.
“Am I understood, female?” I bark when she does nothing but nod.
“Yes. Yes. Hexa,” she says in my language. She bows.
“Xhivey. In return, I will provide you with all that you need to improve the living conditions here on your planet for the coming rotation. I will send shipments of goods, food, supplies, and any other equipment you may require.
“And if I am satisfied on my return, I will equip your settlement with a Drolax Dome twice the size of this one and flyers that allow for unhindered travel across your planet. We will rebuild your colony by Voraxian standards and I assure you that your people will never go hungry, never go thirsty, and never fear again. For as long as the last of your beings live.”
“Of course. Th…thank you, Raku.” She tries to bow again, but I reach down and slide my hand around her throat, forcing her head up so that she meets my gaze.
I stare into her dark brown eyes, able to see my reflection suspended in them. I look monstrous. Is this how my Rakukanna also sees me?
I whisper, “If I am not happy upon my return, then there will be nothing of you left when I am finished. Do you understand these words?”
The female’s eyes round in a way mine and any other Voraxian’s never would. She stutters several times, and finally, weakly, hacks out, “Yes. Hexa.”
“Xhivey,” I tell her, releasing her.
Bo’Raku and Va’Raku await with their gazes trained on the aliens, as if expecting a challenge. None would dare, though I wish they would. My hands shake with a need to kill something. I have never felt distance from the universe like this. Why bring me to the doorsteps of my treasure and open the door, but deny me entry?
“We leave unmated,” I growl.
“Unmated, Raku?” Bo’Raku fails to hide the shocked contempt in his voice.
I turn on him and the single stroke of my fist to his chest is enough to throw him ten paces back, and off his feet to the ground. He rises slowly and as he does, I loom over him. Though his mouth is drawn back to reveal his teeth, he does not dare break my gaze.
“After everything you’ve done, your lack of honor remains. Once I have sated my rage, I turn to you, expecting explanation for this moon colony and your actions, Bo’Raku. The beings that live here are sentient, under Cxrian’s dominion and yet, cower from us. You will tell me why.”
Bo’Raku massages his chest, where the imprint of my fist is still evident in the flaking of his plates. He glances only once back towards the females who are clustered now towards one edge of the fence, some carefully helping each other over it. They fear, and yet they still partake in the breeding hunt? I do not understand what goes on here. And I must.
“You call them beings, Raku even though they carry no Dra’Kesh or Voraxian blood. They are little more than animals.”
Dra’Kesh and their perceived purity. A trait I will extinguish, even if I have to do it by hand. One-by-one.
I advance on Bo’Raku and kneel on his chest. He attempts to block my first strike and nearly succeeds, but he fails to block all the rest. I bloody his face until it is no l
onger his own — it is mine — as is his will, as is his life. That I allow him to keep it is a only a testament to our laws, meant to preserve life. Laws which he has skirted by not fledging these beings as Voraxian.
I lean in low and speak to him directly while the breath wheezes in and out of his lungs. “One of these animals will rule over you, Bo’Raku. And that is only if you rule at all. Come now if you would like to keep your life and what little honor you have left. But know that there will be no Hunt this day for any male and there will be no Hunt for you ever again.”
I release him to the ground, barking orders for his warriors to clean up the mess I’ve made of their general. Va’Raku falls in line beside me. Wordlessly we walk into the bowels of the ship and only once do I dare look back.
I do not see her among those aliens remaining. At least not right away. When I spot her finally, she is helping females over the fence I partially destroyed. The one in particular who carried her scent stands at her side, and so does the interpreter.
I sense as Va’Raku shifts his gaze to follow my own and I am not surprised that he stands as still as I do, watching from the viewing pane until we can no longer see them, until their differently colored bodies, all garbed in brown, draw too far away. They are each, in their own way, beautiful. And Bo’Raku has hidden them away.
As the ship accelerates to the speed of light, I push back thoughts of Miari, of her leader, of the interpreter, of her moon, of Bo’Raku and his lies and the tribunal he will need to be held to.
Instead, I call on Va’Raku and Bo’Raku’s best fighters to join me in the training pits. Within moments, a handful of warriors circle me in nothing but the ceremonial coverings we arrived in. I spend the next quarter solar tearing them all apart.
One rotation later…
3
Miari
“Do you think he’s here yet?” I glance over at Kiki, shoveling rocks black enough to rival the lunar that’s only just faded.
She tosses one larger one out of the way and wipes the sweat on the her forehead away with the back of her hand. Since she stopped speaking two rotations ago, I know better than to expect an answer from her — out loud anyways.
She reaches into her back pocket and withdraws a pad of bark paper and stick of charcoal. “First rays of light,” I read when she flashes it to me.
“We’ve got a little more time then.”
She nods.
We keep shoveling.
The suns’ light is strong in the sky by the time we finish clearing the rocks, which open to reveal the entrance to a cave. I’m uneasy when we slip inside — even more uneasy when Kiki starts stacking the rocks back into place. Buried alive.
This was always the plan, remember? It took us half a rotation to come up with this plan and the rest of the rotation to pull it together and even now, with so much planning, it still feels flawed.
Using a hologenerator that I cobbled together, Svera took my place after third meal, giving Kiki and I time enough to escape through the sewers, out of the colony and out from under the protection of the Drolax Dome. Disguised as me, Mathilda would have come for her already. She should be preparing for the choosing now…
Meanwhile, Kiki and I trekked across the outer territories. Kiki, as a hunter and a tracker, was familiar with some of the landscape and helped guide us to where the spindly trees grow, where sand becomes moss.
But after that, moss became rock. Rock became more rock. Now, this is all new territory. The uninhabited place. Where no one goes. And eventually we couldn’t continue any further — the rock cliffs were just too jagged and deadly.
Finding a small clearing among them, lined in caves, we picked one and now we’re here, burying ourselves inside of it. Hoping that the distraction will work. Hoping that my hologenerator will work. Hoping that Svera won’t get hurt in the process. Hoping that he won’t come looking for me and that if he comes looking for me he won’t be able to find us. Hoping that when he leaves, frustrated and angry, he doesn’t take it out on the colony.
It’s a garbage plan. I wince. I’m an inventor and it took me an entire rotation to come up with this shit?
“What?” Kiki flashes me her notepad. She doesn’t have many pages left and it’ll cost her a solar’s worth of meal rations to buy more. If we make it out of this alive, then I’ll buy it for her. Anything she wants.
“Nothing.”
Kiki gives me a look, but doesn’t say more and I don’t offer anything either.
Time passes. I don’t know how much of it. A half solar? More? At some point, a sound jerks my attention up and I hallucinate the sounds of a ship descending onto the planet. Is he here? If he is, it doesn’t matter. He’s far away. He can’t get me here. Yes he can.
I shudder at the same time that Kiki groans. In the light of the solar lamp, I watch her rifle through her pack — wrapped in plastic, it was the only thing we smuggled out that isn’t completely covered in sewage and waste.
I take the water canteen Kiki offers me in dirty hands and when she offers me a piece of hard sand bread and a fruit leather, I take those too. Taking one of each for herself, we sit opposite one another against the black stone walls of this cavern and chew for a moment in silence.
“Do you think the offering has already been gathered?” I ask, swallowing hard, throat clogged by flecks of dry, tastelessness.
She considers, then nods.
I feel my expression twist. “I hope when he realizes that Svera is actually Svera, he calls off the Hunt.”
Kiki’s full lips have set into a thin, hard line. She scribbles something quickly on her pad and in the light of the solar lamp, I read, “They can fuck themselves for a change.”
I snort, daring a smile that Kiki doesn’t reciprocate. She would have, though…before. Back when she still spoke. Back when she laughed. Back when she used to sit on the front step of her mother’s hut and help braid little kids’ hair and regale them with her songs. She had a beautiful voice. Has a beautiful voice. But where has Kiki gone?
We lapse into a silence so silent then, all I can hear is the beating of my own heart. Dum dum, dum dum, dum dum. The sound of Kiki’s calming breath. Hmm, hmm, hmm. Condensed water on the cave’s high ceiling dripping onto the floor at irregular intervals. Plonk, plonk, plonk, plonk…
“I just…” I start, then stop. A fluttery heat ignites in my belly. I feel faint. I feel…everything. He’s here. Now he’s here…
I tried to tell Kiki and Svera before, but they don’t understand. Can’t understand. And Kiki of all people could never fathom what it had felt like…that awful wonderful burning in my stomach.
That blitz of immobility coupled with a surge of heat and…and treacherous desire…it had been stronger than any emotion I’ve ever felt, hitting me like a body shot. Like a punch to the gut. Like words shouted in my face, funneled down my ears and left to incinerate the space between my temples. Words defying me not to belong to him, and him not to belong to me.
And I have felt bound, ever since. Irrevocably.
The subtle buzzing in my belly drifts through me like the ghost of a greater desire. Even though it felt like a fever dream, I remember every second of it acutely. Hazy images. The pressure between my thighs. The need.
This garbage plan isn’t going to work.
Kiki wasn’t there. Kiki didn’t see. Kiki couldn’t. Her hate…it’s justified and it’s a hate I thought I shared but I…I don’t know if I do. What does that mean? He’s coming for me.
Kiki gives me a flat look then and nudges me with the edge of her notepad. She taps on the word she wrote there earlier with one end of her charcoal. “What?”
“I…” I shake my head, debate lying, and then admit, “I just don’t know that this is going to work.”
Kiki’s eyebrows draw together. Her shoulders tighten by her ears and when she shows me her angry, violent scrawl, I read,“You’ll go into one of those harnesses over my dead body.”
I shudder, her words dragging me
back and serving as a painful reminder of what should happen should we fail…
The harness. Among the dark red blood and bright blue seed, we found Kiki wrapped in ropes he’d used to restrain her. Sick bastard. She never explained how they work, and I didn’t ask. I don’t want to know. I gather only that they’re painful.
Kiki’s jaw ticks and she leans forward towards me. She underlines the words dead body, twice.
I hesitate, then nod. “I don’t want to go into the harness…but you’re not risking your life for mine. I’d rather take the harness knowing you and Svera are alright.”
Kiki’s brilliant gaze flames, even in the little light there is between us. She grunts and stabs her charcoal stick onto the page again. Dead body. The words, in my mind, ring.
Dead body. Hmm, hmm. Plonk, plonk, plonk. Dum dum, dum dum, dum dum. Ssssack. My head cocks. I look right.
Sssack. The sound is strange, coming from far away. Away from the rock-sealed entrance, down the cave’s dark throat.
Kiki and I share a glance. Dum dum, dum dum, dum dum. She stops breathing. Plonk, plonk, plonk, plonk. I stop breathing. Ssack…ssssack.
“This cave is empty, right Kiki?” I say. Kiki doesn’t answer. Her charcoal and pad lie limp in her fingers even if her arms are one magnificent knot of muscle.
My palms are sweaty. I inhale the foul scent of my skin. Human feces. Piss. Trash. Dirt. Sand. Sweat. Fear. Ssssssack. The sound is louder now. Much louder.
We’re both staring hard in the direction of the sound, but the solar lamplight only reaches a few feet before fading into blackness. We need light. Ssssssssssack.
I lurch into motion and quickly grab the backpack, dumping its contents unceremoniously on the hard stone between my legs. Rifling through supplies, I grab my solar torch, shake it until it beams a brilliant orange and aim the light into the tunnel’s depths.
Taken to Voraxia Page 3
