by V. K. Ludwig
“How difficult is it for you?” I asked, only hinting at the Vetusians behind me. “Staying away from it?”
“You sound concerned.”
I cocked my head and lifted a brow at him. “Not in the slightest, Melek. I just want to understand how it makes you feel.”
He pointed at the scab on the back of his hand, like a wound that never fully closed, never fully healed. “When I’m stressed out, I tend to scratch this area. It’s an annoying habit, but helpful in distracting myself from the urge to the drug.”
“I think it deserves recognition that you went through rehab and got clean.”
“I wish the Empire would be more proactive about the issue,” he said. “So many went into rehab when they announced Garrison Earth. But when it was time to sign up for the mission, they declared recovered addicts as unfit to partake. It was such a blow, most of them fell straight back into old habits.”
“So how come they accepted you?”
“Kael,” he said with a grin. “We came from the same crop and grew up in the same nursery. He went to the warrior stratum, and let me tell you, they don’t mess around when it comes to physical punishments. One day, he ran into me after he accidentally blew up the armory at the practice range. I took the blame for him, which only cost me like twenty suns of cleaning medical supplies. He holds a high rank so… he got me onto the mission roster.”
Melek glanced over at the table, his foot tapping against the bottom of our lounger until the surface of our leftover drinks vibrated. Most of the warriors now either leaned against each other or the glass partition behind them, staring into nothingness. Melek played with his fingers, his body increasingly restless.
“We can leave if they make you nervous,” I said.
“Hmm?” He blinked a few times. “Oh, no. It’s just been a while since I was out like this, you know. Confronted with it.”
“It’s not a problem if you want to leave.”
A smile accompanied his nod. “How about we dance?”
Melek expected no answer.
Tumblers back on the table, he took my hand and pulled me behind him, the music blasting once more when we stepped out from the lounge. Circular tiles shone white from the ground, turning blue underneath the moves of Vetusians, Jal’zar, and Kokkonians. They swayed their hips and moved their limbs, making a tingle sweep up the back of my neck. This wasn’t fox trot or salsa.
“There are around a hundred different species in here,” Melek shouted with a fat grin on his face. “There’s really no right or wrong. Just do what comes naturally to your body.”
He stepped up closer and placed his hands right above my ass, making my hips sit flush with his. Then he shoved them from left to right, until they merged into a shared rhythm.
“That’s it,” he mouthed, then brushed his lips over the shell of my ear. “Looks like I come naturally to your body.”
The bass vibrated along my legs and made me move my feet, while my arms danced up and down Melek’s chest. Nothing about it felt odd or silly. And if it looked it, we didn’t care.
Being this unrestrained and careless offered something I hadn’t enjoyed ever since I’d picked up that positive pregnancy test. It held something freeing as if I connected with a wildness within myself that had been shackled by responsibilities from too early an age.
But here, pressed against Melek, I re-discovered that young woman who had missed out on so much in life. The rest of it, I wanted to explore with him.
When Melek lowered his knees and pressed his lips onto mine, I swung my arms around his neck and stroked through the hair at the back of his head.
He gripped my ass and lifted me off the ground, carrying me toward a garden area while my tail swayed with each step. His back pressed against the door, and we made our way outside in a fit of kisses.
There, he slipped me down along his hard shaft, not hiding that need he had for me to touch him. He grabbed my hand and led me around crowds of people until we reached one of the holes drilled into the ground.
“Don’t look straight at it,” he said. “It’s a sun after all.”
Right beside us, the cone of light weakened and lost its luster. When the ground vibrated underneath my feet, he grabbed me tight.
“It’s normal,” he whispered. “If you listen, you can hear something like an electric current growing silent.”
With each breath, Odheim grew darker, until the cones turned black around us, and behind the fence where the park lay outstretched. Above us, particles of purple dust floated, reflecting the final traces of light.
His face nestled against the side of my face, whispering, “Thank you for loving me.”
Twenty-Two
Katie
* * *
“Her fangs are filed down,” Melek said, lining up injectors on the kitchen table. “She’s got a massive scar running from her ankle halfway up her calf, and a limp in her step on the same leg.”
Takel grabbed one injector gun after another and tested the trigger. Broken ones ended in a bin. Those which functioned he handed to Grace, who took them with a smile and submerged them in a cleaning solution.
“And I inject her twice?” Takel asked.
Melek grabbed one of the discarded injectors and rubbed his nail over the rusty trigger. “Yup. The injections are painful, and two of them should disable her long enough for K’terra and me to grab her. I didn’t pay attention to her tail that day, so there’s a good chance she might still have her claw.”
K’terra chortled. “Well, I still have mine, and I’ll pin her to that table until she talks.”
“Can’t afford getting injured,” Adora snarled. “Don’t you think that there’s such a thing as paid leave at my establishment.”
“I would never dare to dream of it.”
Takel eyed K’terra up and down. “And where exactly do I place them?”
“So many sun cycles of training, but they didn’t teach you where a Jal’zar egg pouch sits. K’terra…” Melek shook his head in disbelief and walked over to her, then traced his finger right above her skirt. “You put the first one in here, and the other right next to it. Halfway between the navel and pubic bone.”
Takel nodded, but quickly sunk his head and grumbled, “I’m a counselor…”
Grace and I grabbed the sonic cleaners and ran them over the injectors, preparing one after another for the event in two days. Things had been tense between us ever since I found her making out with Takel, but today, the entirety of Brot Adnak worked as a team. A family.
“I’d really like to help that day,” Grace said. “How about I dress up like you did? You need someone cleaning the injectors in-between, don’t you?”
Melek chuckled low. “Who would have thought you’d take such a liking to clean medical supplies?”
A grunt formed at the back of her throat, but she swallowed it the moment Takel gave her a nod of encouragement. “It’s too dangerous, Grace. I wouldn’t forgive myself if you were there, and something happened to you.”
That statement gave him extra credits in my book. Eager to impress, the young Vetusian had helped us prepare since the morning.
“This one has some rust on the needle channel,” I said, water dripping from the dispenser in my hand. “Got something to remove it?”
Melek rummaged through the box of supplies at the center of the table. “Guess I left it upstairs. K’terra, would you —”
“No chance,” the Jal’zar said. “I helped as much as I could, but now I need to earn my keep here before Adora kicks me out of the house.”
Adora swatted at the air. “As if you are that easy to get rid of.”
“I’ll get it real quick,” I said and turned away from the table. “Anything else we need?”
“There’s a little pouch with hook needles. Bring that one as well, just in case. I’d like to be prepared for all eventualities.”
Grace fell in step beside me. “I’ll come with you.”
I grabbed my cape from
the backrest of the chair and draped it around me. Where it had rested heavily on my shoulders all these weeks, the fabric now forced me into a slouch. After enjoying the Son’idar, even the stench of misery hanging around the pleasure district seemed like a welcome change to being locked up inside.
“I swear my neck starts to itch just by looking at this thing,” Grace said as she tugged the hood over her head, following me toward the staircase.
“I’m sorry for lying,” she said after a while.
I let out a huff and stopped only a few feet short of the stairs. “I just don’t want you to go through the same stuff I did.”
She shook her head, slowly sinking her chin to her sternum. “Way to make it sound like I was the worst mistake in your life.”
I cupped her chin and brought her gaze upward. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. So freaking amazing, I would have loved someone by my side to share it with. Do you understand?”
Her eyes turned wet, but she nodded, traces of a smile tugging on her muscles. “I really hope you’ll get that with Melek, mom. And the best thing is, you’ll have a babysitter right here.” She pointed her thumbs at herself and blinked her eyes, trying to pull this moment into something cheerful. “On weekends. When I come home from the stratum.”
“Sounds great,” I said. “But for that, we have to find the Jal’zar female.”
“She’ll come. I see how desperate they are whenever I help Melek during his shifts. No way she’d turn down a free injection.”
“Let’s hope so.”
I was halfway up the stairs when squeals disabled my pulse.
“Did you hear that?” Grace asked.
Bloodless and numb, my foot reached the landing. The hallway lay empty before us, all doors open, rooms unoccupied.
Except for one.
Pale light shone through the gap, cutting across the flat carpet in the form of a glass shard. Terror gushed from my pores and settled as cold sweat beads on my forehead. I took a deep breath and stepped forward, though my torso shifted back.
“Please stop,” a female voice shouted, the rest of her words drowning in gargles.
My mouth turned dry, each breath I took scratching along the back of my throat. Sharp pain built inside my chest, tearing on old wounds, making that pestilence of dark memories ooze from the gap between my ribs.
“Go and get Melek! Now!”
Grace slipped down a step but caught herself on the banister before she scrambled her legs underneath herself again.
Seconds stretched into eternity as I stood there, motionless, my mind fleeing in all directions at once. As much as I wanted to turn and run downstairs, my feet eventually sneaked toward the half-open door. It was ridiculous to be this scared. Whatever this was, Melek would handle it. I wasn’t in danger. The worker behind that door probably wasn’t either.
Just a false alarm.
Just my nerves.
And yet fear loomed over me, creeping into the fibers of my cape, clasping to me as if it was getting ready to choke my neck. Step by step, it tugged me toward the door with all its weight. Until I poked my head through the gap.
Then I saw myself.
Not in the way her tail slapped frantically against a broad back, the declawed end nothing but scar tissue hitting muscle. Not even in the way she kicked her knees into the Vetusian’s chest until he groaned.
It was the panic in her red-rimmed eyes and the tremble in her gray lips that resembled what was once me. I almost smelled the sweat of the Vetusian on me even with several feet between us.
A glance over my shoulder revealed nothing. How long since Grace had left? Seconds dragged like hours, the female’s struggle resonating inside my skull.
I had to do something.
Anything.
The moment blood returned into my extremities, I stormed into the room and rammed full force against him. I tumbled aside, and a weight lifted from around me.
The Vetusian’s balance barely shifted, his erection jerking between a set of strong legs the moment he bore his stare into me. His chest heaved, two massive pectorals, the fleshy scars expanding toward me at each breath.
With a strong kick, the Jal’zar got a chance to free her arms. She punched against his jagged chest and snarled. But neither the way she tried to get a kick into his crotch nor the way she dragged her filed teeth down his arm bothered the Vetusian.
His gaze changed from surprise to anger to… amusement? His mouth curled in a face marked by puncture wounds, mute, and yet I could read the syllables from his lips.
Hum-an.
I swung my hands onto my head, trembling fingers meeting soft hair twirled into a bun. Trailing down toward my neck, I found the fabric bunched across my shoulders. With my hood swept away, I’d revealed a well-kept secret to a guy unlikely to keep it. If anything, he’d only keep it until he returned. Grabbing for me in a dark hallway. Pulling me into an even darker backroom.
The moment the Jal’zar wrapped her tail around his neck and squeezed, I tugged on the heavy fabric and brought it back over my head like a web of iron chains.
“Katie!” Melek swung his arms around me and lifted me off the ground, away from the bed, away from the Vetusian whose pupils followed me out the room.
“Help her!” I shouted.
Melek patted me down as if searching for broken bones, cuts, or other injuries. “She’s not the one who needs help.”
One breath later, I understood why.
Other workers stormed the room, their hissing coming together like a battle cry. Tails lifted, those with claws glistening at the end coming down like knives. It drove a shiver up my spine.
The Vetusian screamed from behind a wall of Jal’zar females, making it impossible for me to see. But his voice soon disappeared underneath a wheezing cough. I imagined him choking on his own blood, the puncture wounds ripping on his lungs. If I was lucky, they’d kill him.
“Alright, alright, make room,” Adora said as if this was nothing but a daily routine. “Dead Vetusians are bad for business, so please keep your tails to yourself now.”
She elbowed herself through workers, their tails flicking excitedly. After she shifted from side to side for a while, observing the situation, she glanced over her shoulder back at us.
“She needs tending, Melek. All others carry him downstairs and throw him out through the back door. Remember his face, because he sure won’t be coming back to Brot Adnak.”
Melek squeezed my shoulders and searched for my eyes. “Stay here.”
He stepped into the room and lifted the injured Jal’zar from the bed. Her arm hung down and swayed freely at each of Melek’s steps, and shades of black formed around her neck. She was conscious, though visibly exhausted. For a fraction of a second, her hand brushed over mine, and I imagined a weak squeeze.
“I’ll help him,” Grace said.
Takel hurried behind her and toward Melek’s office, while I watched the Jal’zar females carrying the naked Vetusian toward the stairs. Blood dripped from his chest onto the carpet, dotting the way toward the landing. Once there, they tossed him down the stairs, the thuds of his body tumbling down mixing with their laughs and giggles.
My stomach convulsed at the view. An hour ago, Brot Adnak represented safety. Now, I wasn’t so sure anymore. What world did I live in where such an occurrence left me numb, while others found amusement?
With my arms wrapped around myself, I hurried into Melek’s office. He had lowered the Jal’zar onto the couch, where she pressed a hand against her side, writhing in pain.
Takel pulled one of those healer gloves from a pocket, slipped it onto his hand, and hovered it over the mangled body. “Rib seven and eight are broken, right side.”
“I don’t have the nanites to heal them,” Melek said. “What about internal injuries?”
“None. Her oxygen levels are low.”
“He probably choked her. I’ll give her something for the swelling. Other than that, I only see minor cuts and b
ruises.”
“What about this wound over here?” Grace asked.
Melek leaned closer and studied it for a moment. “That requires half-buried sutures, or the strain on her skin will be too much. Nothing we discussed yet. Takel, how about you show her?”
The young Vetusian grew a few inches at that. “Of course. I’ll teach her.”
At that, he left the two working on the Jal’zar and walked over to me, his eyes reflecting that dread I knew I carried on my face.
“Let me guess,” I said, “It happens more often than I’d think.”
He swallowed a sad smile, knowing full well there was no place for it at that moment. “Some Vetusians tend to forget the difference between a pleasure worker and a pleasure slave. You know I don’t agree with any of this, but it comes with their profession.”
Anxiety drummed against my nerve ends. As much as I wanted to throw this fucking cape out the window, we needed to hold on to it now more than ever.
“He saw me,” I said, my voice carrying dread. “My hood somehow slipped down and… he saw me.”
“Are you sure?”
I swallowed as much of that lump as my throat let me. “He said human.”
“Fuck.” Melek rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, his eyes going unfocused on the wall beside us. “No more working behind the bar, anam ghail. I want you and Grace to stay in our apartment.”
The silence which followed did the talking, putting a knot into my stomach the size of a boulder. Not much longer, and word would get around that Brot Adnak harbored two human females. And then what? How long until someone attacked me? Or, heaven forbid, Grace?
“Let’s just hope this plan will work,” I said, my voice holding not nearly enough of that strength I wanted to fake.
I tried to stay hopeful, not letting that gloom I harbored at my core put an even darker shadow over this moment. But when Melek caught my eyes, he knew. He must have seen the creeping dread of living a life in hiding. Bounty hunters waited behind every corner of Odheim. If Grace managed to smuggle a Vetusian in here unnoticed, who said another could not smuggle us out in much the same way?
