His fingers gripped her arm when she did it a second time and she heard his breath catch.
“Chloe… for the grace of the gods…”
“You like her,” she said. “This Rings fighter today. You really like her, don’t you? I can feel it. That’s what’s turning you on. Not me.”
He glanced up, his eyes showing a faint surprise. “What?”
She smiled, but didn’t answer him.
Touching him like she was, she could feel faint currents through his mind as he thought about her question, even as he reacted in a more visceral way to thinking about the Rings fighter with Chloe stroking and exploring him with her hands, the weight of her body in his lap.
She felt whispers of emotion there, too… even now, when his mind was relatively quiet from the drug.
The longer she touched him, the more she suspected that his mental quiet wasn’t all from the drug. She could feel an interesting kind of control within him, like a veneer over the surface, something that felt practiced.
It was as if he’d learned to hide the bulk of his more private thoughts behind a denser shield, even through the venom.
“I have,” he said, giving her another bare glance. “I’ve been trained in it, Chloe.”
She nodded again, still stroking his neck and chest.
“What for?” she said. “Is that part of the Rings, too?”
“Yes,” he said.
He said it too quickly though, and it crossed her mind that there was more to that story than he was pretending. Moreover, he hadn’t meant to tell her that––about him being trained to use his mind in such a way.
That had been a mistake.
He slid out from under her while she was still watching his face. She continued to stroke his arms and hands until he moved far enough away from her that she couldn’t.
As soon as he broke physical contact with her, those murmurings of his mind faded.
He watched her warily now, near the door on the other side of the trolley.
“Are you ready, Chloe?” he asked, still studying her face.
Thinking about his question, she nodded.
Then, thinking again, she met his gaze before he could open the door.
“I want you,” she told him.
His jaw tightened.
He didn’t look away but she saw a muscle twitch on his forehead.
“I’ve just stung you,” he said, his voice gruff. “You must know that’s manipulating what you feel right now, Chloe.”
She shook her head. “Only in that I’m telling you,” she explained. “I wanted you before. I wanted you at breakfast. Last night, even. Well…” Pain rose in her chest, somehow worse under the liquid heat of his venom. “I did before Agnon killed my sister. Before that.”
That pain worsened briefly.
“After… I was sad. Remembering Kiji.”
She saw his eyes flinch at her words.
He nodded then, his face unreadable. “Kiji is your sister’s name?”
“It was, yes.”
That tension in his face grew into a nearly visible indecision, as if he were searching for what to say to her. Then, all at once, his expression smoothed.
“We’ll talk about it later,’ he said. “And whatever else you want. But right now, we need to do this. I need this favor from you. All right?”
“All right.”
Averting his dark eyes, he held out a hand to her, his other hand now on the latch of the trolley’s sliding door.
“Come then,” he said, his voice still gruff.
She didn’t hesitate, sliding her fingers into his as soon as they were close enough.
5
The Favor
They had been there for at least an hour… although time was fuzzy inside Nirreth venom.
Chloe drifted around the room with Trazen, clutching his arm, watching his face without paying much attention to who he spoke to, or even whether they tried to speak with her.
Part of her fascination, she supposed, was how different he acted here.
She was so caught up in the incongruities of him––between what she felt on him through the venom, that quietness of his mind and the arrogant, even brutish-sounding words coming from his mouth as he spoke to other powerful Nirreth––that she jumped in surprise when she suddenly found herself looking at the girl from the Rings.
She hadn’t noticed where he was taking her.
Chloe hadn’t known the Rings fighter was there at all.
Now she found herself standing in front of a low table where the girl sat with another human and a muscular Nirreth who wore a stone pendant around his neck.
All three of them stared back at her, their faces tense.
Well really, they stared at Trazen.
They looked only at Trazen… not at her.
They seemed afraid of him almost.
Then again, given how much his demeanor changed once he got inside the building, Chloe didn’t find that particularly surprising.
The change was so dramatic she’d gotten whiplash at first.
It felt like she was with someone else entirely, not the person she’d just been speaking to inside that trolley, or the one who’d preferred to pet a deer that morning to eating his breakfast.
That is, until she touched him.
Then she could feel the person she recognized.
Now she watched in a kind of awe as he transformed back into the Ringmaster again.
He smiled a cold-eyed smile, arrogant and borderline predatory, folding his muscular arms over his broad chest. He loomed over that table, his whole demeanor vaguely threatening.
“Come to check out our girl, Trazen?” a voice jeered in human English.
Chloe’s eyes swiveled to the source, right before the human sitting there let out an arrogant-sounding laugh.
“…I suppose you’ll throw both barrels at her next time, eh?” the man smirked, taking a few swallows of Nirreth beer before setting down his mug. “Get her back for making you underestimate our lowly human female?”
Chloe found herself studying the middle-aged human in curiosity, even as Trazen’s dark eyes appraised the same. The human male was handsome, stocky in build and had a curious streak of gold in his hair and strangely riveting, light-brown eyes.
He didn’t act like a slave.
Chloe glanced around the rest of the table then.
She refocused on the girl sitting there––young woman, really, with straight black hair, darker brown eyes and a narrow, but stunningly pretty face. Her features looked familiar right off, although it took Chloe a few seconds more to put the male human’s words together with those eyes and high cheekbones, that full mouth.
Then understanding bloomed in her mind.
This was her. The Rings fighter.
Like Trazen, she looked different outside the black sense-suit.
Looking her over more carefully, Chloe wanted to smile.
Trazen’s enthusiasm and his sudden bursts of affection suddenly made a lot more sense.
She wasn’t just pretty. She was beautiful, like Trazen himself. More than that… she was sexy, borderline dangerous-looking, with sharp, intelligent, intense-looking eyes.
She was basically a female version of Trazen, only human.
She was definitely ex-skag, not Green Zone, like Chloe.
The Rings fighter obviously grew up with the humans who lived outside the Green Zone dome, in the toxic wastes that made up most of what remained of Earth. She had that wiry, scrappy look, and her muscles were lean and highly-functional looking, not like something sculpted in one of the Nirreth’s many exercise centers.
She also had that hunted look in her eyes that Chloe recognized from so many of her neighbors growing up in Kabasi.
So yes, definitely a skag.
She was also clearly tough and clever if she’d outsmarted Trazen in the Rings.
She had a kind of grace to her features and even the way she held herself that had “hunter” written all over
her. Long black hair hung down her back and over one shoulder, silky and straight. Her almond-shaped eyes shone with that clear, irrefutable intelligence despite the faint sheen Chloe could see from Nirreth venom.
She looked young, but also like she’d seen a lot for her age.
Chloe glanced at the male Nirreth sitting next to the girl, and realized he must be her lover.
He looked like a fighter too, although longer of limb than Trazen, and with a more narrow face. He was handsome, though. Not quite as handsome as Trazen, but still very good looking for a Nirreth, if in a different way.
Trazen’s thoughts had been so quiet in those few seconds that Chloe didn’t realize he’d placed his fingers back on her, not until a flush of jealousy hit her, hard enough that she flinched, jumping . She glanced over at Trazen’s face but he wouldn’t look at her.
Focusing back on the table and the girl sitting there, Chloe smiled again.
He really did like her. He liked her a lot.
Stop it, he growled in her mind.
Fighting to keep the smile off her face, Chloe glanced back at the girl.
The Rings fighter, Jet Tetsuo, hadn’t taken her eyes off Trazen either, but the ex-skag watched him warily, like he was some kind of dangerous animal.
Even as Chloe thought it, the male Nirreth sitting next to the Rings fighter pulled his girlfriend closer, wrapping his arm around her tighter. He must have said something to her too, because she dropped her eyes, taking on a demure, almost submissive posture as she pressed into the tall Nirreth’s side.
Chloe had an absurd desire to laugh; the pretense at submission was so obviously put on it struck her as funny.
Her Nirreth boyfriend must have warned her to play the pretty plaything in here.
Trazen glanced at Chloe at that, but scarcely long enough to meet her gaze.
His tail lashed violently behind him in an arc. He looked back at the table, smiling and relaxing some of the heat in his stance. Even as he did, a more lecherous look rose briefly to his dark eyes, as if he were reappraising Jet as a sex toy.
Interesting, Chloe thought.
She could clearly see Trazen’s end of the dance, too.
He was pretending to be appeased by her submission, and turned on by it… as if he was some egomaniacal dingbat who needed humans to cower in front of him.
She felt a pulse of… something… off Trazen at the thought.
He didn’t look at her, but continued to focus on the female Rings fighter, looking her over as if she were a slab of meat.
“She is exquisite,” he said, bowing to her Nirreth companion once he’d finished his heavy-handed appraisal. “You are quite fortunate,” he added, even as Chloe felt another pulse of that very real jealousy vibrate under his skin. “...I’m afraid the virtual screens did not do her justice, and I thought her quite unique, even then.”
“Thank you, honorable friend,” Laksri said, bowing.
“I don’t suppose either of you is open to share… or perhaps an exchange…?” Trazen added, nodding towards Chloe.
Chloe tensed. She couldn’t help it.
Do not worry, Trazen assured her softly. He will not agree to it.
The girl fighter at the table had a similar reaction to Chloe.
She turned, her almond eyes widening slightly, to look at her Nirreth companion.
Then her eyes darted up, focusing on Chloe herself for the first time.
Chloe fought not to flinch under the other woman’s stare.
Not because it was hostile––more that it was not.
The girl fighter looked at Chloe with sympathy in her eyes, a kind of longing, as though she felt deeply sorry for her and wished she could do something to help her. Realizing the girl thought it was Trazen she needed rescuing from, Chloe bit her lip, fighting the impulse to reassure her––maybe even to laugh––to at least let her know in some way that Trazen wasn’t what he seemed.
Do not do that, my friend, Trazen warned her softly. Continue to look sad, if you can.
Chloe sighed internally, but let her feelings about Kiji return to the surface.
She saw the girl wince, like she’d felt her grief empathically through the air.
Somehow, seeing that made Chloe feel guilty.
Why are you being so awful to her? she thought sharply at Trazen. You obviously like her. Maybe more than like. Why are you so determined to make her hate you?
Trazen’s mind grew utterly silent.
The male Nirreth at the table still seemed to be reacting to Trazen’s offer, when the middle-aged human sitting with them, the one with the gold streak in his hair, laughed.
“You’re kidding… right, Trazen?” he scoffed. “Aren’t the brain scans enough? Do you really need more intel on our girl?”
“I had thought she belonged to the Royal father,” Trazen growled, swiveling his gaze to glare at the handsome human. An audible thread of irritation touched his voice, one that felt real to Chloe that time. “...Not to trader scum like you. And I was not asking you, mammal. I ask her lawful companion.”
The male Nirreth’s arm tightened possessively around the Rings fighter, right before he switched to Nargili.
“No,” he said, letting out a slow hiss as he focused up at Trazen, a thinly veiled hostility in his eyes. “We do not share. I am sorry, for I honor your position. And your consort is quite tempting…” the other Nirreth added politely to Chloe herself, motioning towards her with his jointed fingers.
“Is she a recent acquisition?” he said, his voice still light. “I don’t recall seeing her at any of the Royal functions before…?”
“She is new,” Trazen said, his voice openly dismissive.
He’d gone back to staring at the girl fighter, that harder, more predatory look back in his eyes. “…We had thought perhaps to sell her for the Rings, too, now that the Boards have opened it to female mammals for sport. She is aesthetically pleasing enough for such a placement. But sadly…” His lips twitched in a small smile. “She is not a fighter.”
Chloe stiffened slightly, but decided it was more of Trazen’s b.s.
Why would he tell them such an outrageous lie?
She felt nothing whatsoever off Trazen to explain it.
The other male Nirreth glanced at her, looking her over in her barely-there clothing and coiling his tail more tightly around the lean fighting girl at his side. His voice, when he addressed Trazen, sounded more genuinely polite, if wary.
“I am sorry about that,” he said to Trazen. “I am sure you will find another suitable candidate, however.”
Trazen’s eyes grew colder as they flicked over Chloe herself. She could see him in that look, but wondered if she would have, if he wasn’t touching her skin.
“Don’t be sorry,” he said, his voice as cold as his obsidian eyes. “She has other… talents. And as you say, we will find another female for that purpose.” Giving the girl Rings fighter another heavy-handed stare, he added, “A pity you are guarding this one so jealously. Not that I blame you. Still, if you change your mind, let me know. I may be able to ensure her safety in other ways. If you were feeling so generous.”
Chloe bit her lip, again fighting the urge to smack him for being such an ass.
As for the girl Rings fighter herself, she’d gone back to staring at Chloe.
That sympathy in the girl’s eyes was on the surface now, mixed with an obvious frustration at her own powerlessness as to Chloe’s situation. When the girl went back to staring at Trazen a few seconds later, Chloe saw the open disgust she aimed at Trazen himself.
Chloe wondered if the girl had any idea what a risk she would be taking by doing that, if Trazen truly was what he pretended to be.
Somehow, the thought brought her mind and heart back to Kiji, intensely enough that she closed her eyes, fighting to shut out the pain, the image of her sister’s cut throat.
Next to her, she felt Trazen flinch.
Then a flood of reassurance and warmth reached her through th
e venom, along with an enveloping kind of support that felt almost physical.
You should let her see who you really are, Chloe admonished him, fighting another urge to smack him. Her thoughts sharpened, borderline angry. Whatever your reasons, you are being stupid, Trazen. Really stupid. She’s got a good heart… can’t you see that?
All that answered her was silence.
6
The Renegotiation
They remained at that restaurant for a long time.
Far too long, from Chloe’s perspective.
By the end of several hours of aimless-feeling wandering, watching Trazen talk to vacuous Nirreth who leered at her and flattered him and told stupid jokes, Chloe was having trouble feigning interest.
It didn’t help that Trazen’s venom had more or less worn off.
Its absence left her tired and having to fight harder not to think about Kiji and wishing Trazen would just take her home so she could sit by the pool and watch the birds.
Trazen seemed to feel this on her in some way from the pulses of sympathy she got off his skin, but he also seemed to be waiting for something.
By then, the girl Rings fighter and her Nirreth companion were long gone.
Still, Trazen lingered.
She caught him glancing surreptitiously at the door and felt that waiting on him even more strongly as his eyes scanned the room. She felt impatience on him as well, as if he would rather not be there, either.
She didn’t pick up specifics about what he waited for however, apart from what he’d already told her.
It occurred to her somewhere in that, that Trazen may have actually broken Nirreth law, taking her from Agnon the way he did.
Technically there were rules about human companions and ownership.
She didn’t know those rules in detail, but she knew the Nirreth respected them enough to sue one another on occasion to see them enforced, petitioning the courts when they felt an injustice occurred. It was the same reason Trazen couldn’t take the Rings fighter home without her Nirreth companion’s permission, even if her companion was of lower status.
The Complete Alien Apocalypse Series (Parts I-IV Plus Bonus Novella): An Apocalyptic, Romantic, Science Fiction, Alien Invasion Adventure Page 100
