My head spins at the sudden motion and I lurch left of the door, not quite catching it before it slides shut. And it wouldn’t have mattered anyways, because hands are on me now, lifting me up.
He shoves my body into the paneled wall. “What was your intention with this device?” He seethes, his cool breath fanning my face, tasting of last night’s kiss, but even stronger.
I feel confused when my chest expands, because inside I’m oddly comfortable being held here like this, feet dangling above the ground, shoulders bunched under my ears, even though he looks and sounds like he wants nothing more than to kill me. My heart beats fast, but my breaths come slow.
I blink and wet my lips with my tongue. “I was just…”
“Planning to kill me? Or yourself?” His hands clench around my upper arms. “Tell me which it was so I can administer the appropriate punishment. To believe that you could kill me — your Raku — is just as unthinkable as the idea that you could take away that which is mine. We are bound.”
My face twists up and I grab, albeit lamely, for his hands, pulling at them without making any difference. “Kill myself? Are you insane? And why would I kill you? You hold the fate of my people in your hand. I just…are they safe?”
He shakes his head. The pressure of his hands on my skin eases. “You will explain what you mean by this question.”
“I thought you were satisfied. But maybe you aren’t. Maybe you weren’t,” I blurt, “Maybe you just gave the order to have all my people killed and I should have been making that bomb to blow you up, or me up or your ship! I just…I thought…last night…it was…it didn’t hurt like I thought.” Dark matter, take me. “And you…I…do we still have a deal?”
His black eyes bore. He growls, “Do we still have a deal? I fail to understand what this has to do with the incendiary device you left on my floor.”
“It doesn’t,” I say, hushed, “I just need to know. Were you satisfied? Are my people safe?”
A pause. One, two, three, four, five…I wait. His jaw ticks. His ridges flare a multitude of colors and I don’t know what to make of that at all. But then his gaze locks on my lips and in the instant my chest starts to burn right in its very center, his cedar and smoke scent washes over me, and his mouth crashes down onto mine. Hard.
He buries his tongue between my lips and between them, utters a harsh whisper, “Yes, Rakukanna, your people are safe.”
I moan wildly at the invasion and just like that — with nothing more than a few tawdry words and a touch, less than gentle — my body responds.
He tastes like spices and wine, a little like smoke, as his hard, unyielding lips nip at my own. I get every sense that he’s trying to be gentle, but in seconds my lips are swollen and I’m out of breath.
To slow him down, I reach around his shoulders and thread my fingers through his hair. Finding his braid, I yank down, hard.
His voice catches, “You play a dangerous game, Miari.” Pinning my hips with his own, I circle his waist with my legs. Anchored as I am, it gives him enough mobility to reach for his belt, unhook the clasp and let it fall to the floor with a bang. Anticipation pulls pleasure through me, a shadow of what’s to come.
“Raku,” I gasp as his hips come up against me and I feel the pressure of his stiff malehood at the entrance of my swollen, sore labia. Everything is shaking down there, but I don’t have the words or the desire to stop him.
“Nox.” He grabs my face in one great hand, forcing me to look at him violently, even as his lips gently taste each of mine in turn. “Speak my name. I long to hear it on your tongue.”
I feel something small and a little scary tighten just below my sternum as I exhale, “Xoran.”
He inhales sharply. “Miari.”
And then he wrenches my body down, and impales me with his length.
The shock makes me cry out, but he’s unforgiving and there is no reprieve as his enormous, ridged cock glides into me. I’m wet and ready to receive him and as he gently bites my lower lip, I buck and undulate, trying to match his speed.
This seems to shock him even more because he jerks back and watches my body when I roll down onto him. The longer he watches, the deeper the purple his ridges become and I am made more powerful by that color, even though I don’t understand it at all.
“Look at me,” he growls and I do and his ridges flare multi-colored. He cradles the side of my face, cupping my jaw with his rough fingers and careful, scraping claws.
“This was not supposed to happen. You do terrible things to me, my Rakukanna.” His desolate gaze reminds me of the cosmos and as I stare into it, he whispers, “my vicious, little Miari.”
I moan, eyes rolling back in defiance of his request. “Holy stars, Xoran, I’m going to come. The pressure…you’re hitting…I’ve never felt…”
The sensation coming on too strong to stop, I lean forward, crushing my breasts to his hard, scratchy chest. I bite down on the side of his neck. The pleasure hits me and I can’t breathe through it except to scream, “Xoran!”
“Miari,” he roars and suddenly I’m flat against the wall and he’s still hurtling towards me. His hips piston and he shouts into my hair, bites my ear and whispers mumbled words too fast for me to grasp.
Pure heat fills my belly, but the exhilerating rush of it is marred in one swift stroke as I recall images of a woman I’ve never met. If he gets me pregnant — when he gets me pregnant — it’s going to be a death sentence.
He holds me close while his cock continues to jerk against my convulsing inner walls. Still panicked from thoughts of the woman and the others who have died bringing hybrid babies into this world, I try to wriggle away from it, but he holds me close.
“You will answer my question, Rakukanna.”
“Question?”
“Hexa.” He presses me back into the wall and has me pinned now with his cock. His other hand squeezes my ass, fingers running over the crease again and again in a way I find both erotic and threatening.
“If you did not intend to wound me with your weapon or detonate yourself, then why would you have combined those ingredients together? How would you have even known to do this? This was clearly no experiment.”
I shift uncomfortably, but since he makes no move to release me, I answer with a huff, “I’m an inventor. I create things with the bits of technology I find. Most of it is junk but I’m used to making stuff out of nothing.”
“You created the deception device that the traitor held,” he says and there is emotion in his tone that leaves me again at a loss.
I nod. “Yes. Like I said, she didn’t do anything. I built the machine all by myself.”
“Nox, she only wore your face.” His ridges flare green, then pink. “Was this another deception tool to wield against me?”
Surprised, I wonder if the pink isn’t…hurt, rather than rage. Or maybe…just maybe…pink is when…he’s afraid? “No! Nox. I just wanted to get out of the room.”
“Why? To escape?”
“No! I made a promise that I wouldn’t run, didn’t I? That I would be your Raku…the kanna thing. I wanted out to look for something to eat. I was just hungry. That’s all.” My belly growls in that exact moment, as if for emphasis.
Xoran freezes. Freezes freezes. Not one errant muscle spasms, jerks, or twitches across his entire steely frame. The many colors of his ridges flatten and die and his darkness-colored eyes bore into mine. “How many times a lunar cycle do humans feed?”
“Feed? I mean in terms of meals, we like to have three a day. Three a solar.” I don’t mention that I never had three a day rations even if Svera often tried to share hers.
Xoran balks, his voice actually catching. “Three times a solar.” All at once, he withdraws his erection from my body. We both groan. He sags forward against the wall, but the lag only lasts a few seconds before he straightens again, turns on his heel, and goes to the far wall.
Opening a drawer there, he withdraws what looks like a glass cone and a little sil
ver square. Guiding me to sit on the edge of the bed, he brings one end of the square to my lips and pushes sticky brown sludge out onto my tongue.
I flinch back, but he slips his hand around my head and holds me steady. “You will drink this and it will sate you for the time it takes us to return to our home where something more adequate will be prepared. It will be waiting your arrival. I vow you this on my honor.”
“I’m alright. It’s just, whatever’s easiest. I can wait for the meal.”
His face stretches and his ridges flare yellowish grey before humming with a streak of pink. “You will eat.”
I want to protest, but I really am hungry — hungry enough to eat some goop on top of whatever meal I might get later — so I tip my head towards him and let him push the goop out of the packet and into my mouth.
The taste hits me all at once and it’s so spicy. “Oh my stars,” I murmur as soon as I’ve sucked down the first drag. “This is amazing.”
Foods on our colony don’t have taste — at least not to me, though Svera always insists that the bland sand bread and watery soups really aren’t that bad — but this is heavenly. Spice explodes on my tongue, a cacophony of flavors that, even in such a small dose, I can already feel filling me up.
“Slowly,” he says when I pull his wrists forward, demanding more than the empty silver packet has to offer. “Here, drink.”
He bites off the tip of the cone and then brings it to my mouth. Something cold trickles against my tongue. Against the spice, the sensation is riveting and I drink gluttonously.
“Easy.” His free hand rakes through my hair and I shiver. My stomach rumbles — still hungry, yes, but also out of need — I want his body again even though I had him a few moments ago. My gaze flicks to his. As if on cue, his ridges flare purple.
“Is there more of the goop?” I glance past him towards the drawer.
He tenses, hesitating. “Hexa, but these are filling supplements. Are you…”
He licks his lips and then I can’t help it. My body doesn’t belong to me anymore, it belongs to this terrifying surging pulsing need inside of me. I lean forward and kiss him. I kiss him hard and he jerks before snarling into my skin. His hot breath reminds me of the spicy supplement I just ate — so delicious I almost can’t bear it — and when he pulls back, I feel a chill.
He runs his hands down my arms and through my hair and grips the sides of my face. He brushes his thumbs below my eyes and glances at my mouth when I bite the inside of my cheek.
“Can I have another one?” I say softly.
His black eyes are glossy enough I can see myself reflected in them, in miniature. I don’t look like myself. I look somehow softer, and stronger. Or maybe that’s just how I feel. Or maybe that’s just what he sees.
He nods mutely and stops touching me just long enough to go get me another silver packet and another liquid cone thing.
I inhale both and as I do, he continues to fidget and twitch almost manically, touching and stroking and caressing me and then ever so often, abruptly pulling back. I don’t try to stop him. But the moment I finish the packet and the cone, I stare at the empty things. Guilt — a debilitating guilt — overtakes me.
“You will tell me why you are displeased.”
I glance up at him and feel so ashamed. I bite my bottom lip. “Did Svera and Kiki get food?”
He looks like he’s going speak, but hesitates. His ridges pulse purple ever so subtly, and then very slowly, he says, “Voraxians feed seven times a lunar cycle. That is only once every four solars. Humans require feeding many more times than this.”
Where is he going with this? Do I want to know? “Hexa…”
“You will tell me what pact you wish to initiate to ensure that they are fed three times each solar.”
His words hit me with more force than the amp did when Kiki pressed the button and it sent us both flying — her farther than me. A nasty, jarring pain twists through my stomach and I look down at my legs where his blue seed is still spread against my red skin, appearing purple. I’m just a slave, remember, even if he does sometimes make me feel like a queen.
“Miari,” he says, tone pitched dangerously like a question.
I clear my throat and say quickly, “Hexa, Raku. What do you want?”
“You will tell me what you have to offer.” He touches my shoulder, claws scraping over my skin. For the first time, it truly feels like a threat.
I cringe and shift away, rubbing the fire his claws leave in their wake. “Um…” Think. This is their food. I can do this… But I’ve never done this before. Think think. “I can…you can…” And then it hits me. What he’s wanted this whole time. “The breeding belt,” I say, voice tight. “I’ll go in the breeding belt.”
The women taken in the Hunt are either mounted on their hands and knees or rigged up in these strange hanging straps from tree branches, ship hulls, or exposed beams in whatever structure the women are caught in. I’ve heard the position is painful and degrading, with a woman’s head down and her ass in the air, her arms tied below her head and her legs strapped together. She can’t move or react in any way. She’s just there for the taking.
He seems to like that idea — why wouldn’t he? — because he growls in that satisfied way that’s starting to become familiar. Too familiar. “Xhivey.”
He nuzzles into the side of my face, but I move away and edge off of the bed. I hold my arms around myself and stand by the panel with the shirts in it. I push on it in the same pattern he’d used on the other drawer and am not wholly surprised when it doesn’t open. I had guessed it was biometric somehow, and I was right because only when he taps on its surface a few moments later does the latch release.
I quickly pull out a tunic, don it and look up into his black eyes and colorless ridges. With his features as sharp and flat as they are, I can’t make out his expression at all. He doesn’t move to the door though.
“Oh…” I wince. “Did you want to do the breeding belt now?” I start to lift the tunic off but he reaches for my arm — to stop me, maybe? I’m not sure, but I suddenly don’t feel like being touched by him and step back, keeping space between us.
“You will tell me…if you are in pain,” he says uncertainly, “I…do not wish to cause you anymore. It had been my intent to spare you until this lunar, but seeing you again, I could not wait…” He tries for me again and this time, I let him take my arm and reel me in but I don’t let him kiss me. His lips press against my jaw instead.
“I am sore, but if it’s the only way to get Svera and Kiki food, then I will do the breeding belt now.”
He releases a low, infectious moan, but when he tries to kiss me again I ignore the heat between my legs — my body’s natural response — and let him press his lips to mine, without reacting.
He tries again, twice more, but I don’t move my mouth and when he pulls back and looks down at me I watch his ridges become pink again, sliced through with a little bit of green. The color combination is unsettling. And then he must notice me noticing because all at once, it shuts off.
He steps back from me and passes his left hand over his right forearm. I’m shocked to see a series of holograms pop up from his skin, but they disappear just as quickly.
“Done,” he says. “Krisxox has been alerted to his human’s feeding needs. The traitor female will be taken care of.”
“Traitor…you mean Svera? What about Kiki?”
“In the merillian she has all of the nutrients she requires.”
“Ah.” I feel relieved on the one hand, and on the other, a little duped. He made me trade for both women even though I could have just traded for the one who needed it. Though I don’t know what good it would have done. All I’m realizing is that I have very little else to give. What am I going to do when I want them fed tomorrow?
“You will tell me why you are displeased.”
“I’m not displeased.”
“But your crease has returned and your tail betrays your agitation
.” He’s glaring at my forehead like it’s done something to offend him. Hating my tell, I duck my head and rub at the spot. At the same time, I try to still the frantic twisting of my tail through the air, but I don’t know how.
“I…nox. I am not displeased. I am very pleased that my friends will receive food. Can I go to them now?”
“Your traitor has already gone, headed towards Qath.”
“What is Qath?”
“Where Krisxox lives. He prefers to remain outside of Illyria, in the lush jungles of the valley. It is about a half solar glide away.”
“You don’t live in the same city?” Why would they? Why would I expect to see Svera every day? I already resigned the rest of the humans to being inevitably split. Why wouldn’t the process begin with me and the people I hold most dear? The only people…
And poor Svera and Kiki have families back home. Friends. I don’t have anybody but them and I have to make sure that they get through their trials alright and make it back to the colony. But how? He’s taken everything I have to offer in a trade. I don’t have anything left.
“Nox.”
I shiver and close my eyes. Stars no. Be strong. You can do this. All I really want to do though is cry. This new pact thrashes me with a harsh gust of loneliness. I just need to keep my head up. Look forward. Think about the fact that I’m doing this for my people — just them — even if I did get so swept up in it the lunar before.
“And Kiki?”
“The Va’Rakukanna will remain here in the merillian tank until she is healed. Then she will depart with Va’Raku to Nobu, where she will lead at his side.”
Lead? Kiki? When she realizes she’s been claimed by one of them there’s no telling what she’s going to do. And I won’t be there to help her. I’ll have to think of something to trade until then. Get more familiar with Raku. Learn what he wants. What he likes.
“Okay,” I say. I edge towards the door and when he steps into my peripherals, the door in front of us slides open. I see him flinch towards me again, but when I shift away, he doesn’t try anymore. “Let’s go.”
“Hexa,” he says after a pause.
Taken to Voraxia Page 10
