My eyes wandered from the tables to the people.
Face lowering, I stepped back into my males, hugging my middle.
At the abrupt change in body language, they were at once protective, tongues flickering as they tried to understand my mood and decipher its cause.
Frozen, claws half way to mouths, the Rä patrons inside the restaurant ogled me with stunned, horrified expressions, as if I were a feral, dangerous creature prowling unchecked in their humdrum suburbia.
That was how they looked at me; like I was an animal.
“Not here,” I mumbled then hot footed it down the causeway.
I chose a place where I could sit and watch a troupe of drummers beating wooden sticks on barrel shaped drums bolstered on slanted stands.
Loose robes in subdued tones fluttered as they thumped a rousing, hypnotising beat, their identical stances bold and tense, expressions focused as they drummed a synchronised rhythm.
Vibrant glister creep, a laid-back tone, and a lip-smacking meaty, nutty aroma that reminded me of oriental cuisine went a long way to dissipating my discomfort.
There was staring, but no one froze in sheer terror at the human roaming in their midst.
We sat on patchwork cushions in the outside seating area and ordered drinks.
It was here I got to study my first Rä female up close.
Dropping my chin into my palm, I chewed on my fingernail and watched the female on the ground level trying on a bangle.
Bald, her reddish cranial ridges were polished, and she wore a beaded headband across her brow with a teardrop gemstone between her black eyes.
Her brilliant white softsuit was a work of art.
Halter necked, it was richly embroidered with silver thread and teensy mirrors were sewn onto the diaphanous fabric.
The front hem reached her knees, showing off strappy sandals, while the back was damp, brushing the mosaic tile of the shop she stood on the threshold of, as if not convinced she wanted to go inside.
She stood a head taller than her Rä’Vek, and looked as if she could bench press him with one arm.
Her male had wavy quills streaked with grey that reached his behind, and so much gold pierced them, I wondered how he managed to keep his head straight.
Seeing so many Rä in one place, I found it easy to decipher the three genders, despite many of the males wearing skirted robes, and the muscular females with flat chests in hardsuits.
A’Rä that were not hunters or warriors wore nothing.
The longer the quills the gruffer the male, and the smoother the skull ridges the more dainty and feminine the female.
Which begged the question.... “Do you think I’m masculine because I have long hair?”
“I like your hair. It smells good.” Venomous buried his nose in it and sniffed. “I like how it feels against my scales when we are snug in our nest. It makes you look bigger than you are, and is a frightening threat display when you wake.”
“Maybe if you found me a brush the situation would be less frightful.”
A Rä’Vek ambling past us gasped as Venomous kissed my pouting lips then hurried his hatchling along covering its eyes.
“It gets in my way,” Fiercely said after a meditative pause. “I was going to shave you bald on the Trekker to enhance your beauty. I still can.” He cocked his head. “If you want.”
“Her skull is perfect,” Venomous confided.
Menace thrummed in my tone. “Cut my hair and I will end you.”
Fiercely grunted, perturbed, but said nothing more of it.
As the jittery waiter took our order, I could feel the eyes of the clientele riveted on me.
I pushed through the awkward feelings knowing Venomous was right; I was a novelty, and soon, the Rä would get used to the human and gawk at something else.
“Your home world is beautiful,” I gushed. Fake it until you make it. “It feels good to not worry about what’s going to happen next.” I grinned. “Well, I admit I’m nervous about meeting your kindred, but worst case scenario is they don’t like me. After killer space pirates meeting them seems, oh, dare I say it?” I waggled my eyebrows. “Easy.”
Venomous chuckled. “It brings me joy to see you like this. So carefree.”
“Well, you got me here in one piece. I’m safe now, so why shouldn’t I be cheerful?” I beamed at them. “Life is going to be good. I can tell.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Our food arrived, and we traded stories and jokes as we ate.
They fed me with their hands, and I tried everything offered.
Fiercely’s stew was a favourite.
It was rich and gamey, accompanied with floury flatbread he dipped in aromatic butter made from fermented goodbeast mylk, hand curdled then rolled in a blend of wild herbs.
Then Venomous received his order of chargrilled patties.
Salty, with a seasoned, crunchy crust and a moist, flaky centre, he dipped it in a fruity chutney before feeding it to me.
Realising I loved the dish, as I devoured the first patty, he teased me, yanking his hand back as if scared I’d chomp his fingers.
Determined to get them to laugh at one of my jokes, I said, “Why don’t customers ever return to restaurants on the moon?”
I waited a beat to drop the punch line.
“They are usually freezing,” Fiercely mused between bites.
“Or ablaze from solar radiation,” Venomous added. “Often lacking gravity, so there would be no at–”
“Because there’s no atmosphere,” I squeaked in a rush because he was about to ruin it, as he had the last six. “Customers never return to restaurants on the moon because there is no atmosphere.”
“They were on a moon,” Fiercely pointed out. “It was likely there was no atmosphere.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
Venomous finished guffawing at me rather than my joke. He told one of his own. “Greedy Baxnonians will charge a Zutki nugget even for a Hydokon plasma blaster if you visit their star cluster, yesss? But what can they not charge you for?”
I mumbled, “It’s a good thing you give me orgasms.”
“The free trip around their sol each rotation,” he finished.
Hands thumping the tabletop until the dishes rattled, Fiercely cracked up.
Venomous bellowed right alongside him.
They leaned over to crack their heads together with such force the table rocked.
My gaze pinged between them. “And you think I’m not funny.” I poked Fiercely’s hard stomach. “You tell one.”
“Thsst! I do not do jokes. I do riddles.”
I folded my arms on the tabletop then dropped my forehead onto them. “Okay, I’m in the crash position. Go.”
“Your lair has three hot spring toggles that each control one running spout in the bathing pool. All three point in the off position. You do not know which toggle controls which spout. You want to know which spout connects with each toggle, but you can leave the pool no more than once. You flip the toggles, leave the pool, and reason which toggle goes with each spout.”
My head lifted, and I just stared.
With a self-righteous smile, he crossed his lower arms, upper ones opened wide. “How did you do it?”
My eyes crossed. “Ugh.” I decided there was no point in even trying to figure it out. “So you trained as warriors together?” Unrepentant, I snagged a juicy segment from the platter of citrus fruits and cheeses in the middle of the table. “How does that work, when you come from different provinces and belong to separate guilds?”
Fiercely looked disgruntled at my abandonment of his mind twister. “My life giver is a renowned musician. She came to perform here at a festival with her troupe and met my father. They stayed until I was grown then returned to her birth province.”
I nodded chewing food then displayed terrible, bad manners as I spoke with my mouth full. “You were friends?”
“Friendly rivals,” Fiercely replied with a smirk. His expression
fell serious. “Lumen? Venomous One?” His fingers twitched then tightened on his drinking bowl. “May I ask some things that plague me?”
Hearing the weightiness of his tone, my eyes rounded as I picked up my pannikin.
Pale liquid and balls of rainbow ice swirled inside.
It was my second bowlful of the delicate, floral concoction that had a light fizz perfect for the dry heat.
“Of course,” I replied. “That’s the point of a date. It’s time for us to talk one on one.”
Venomous made no indication he knew what was troubling the other male.
Wolfing down his food, he grunted, which seemed encouragement enough.
Fiercely inhaled. “I have three things I wish to ask. First, what is dick?”
I choked on the refreshing drink and waved Venomous away when he thumped my back hard enough to bruise. “What?”
“On the Trekker you said I was a presumptuous dick. I do not know what ‘dick’ means. What is it, and why am I one?”
Clunking my drink down, I remained silent.
“Lumen?”
I expelled a burst of air, knowing it was my own fault for letting my mouth run away with me. “It’s a euphemism, sweetheart. A human word for your, ah, male part.”
He scowled. “Which part of my male part?”
“The part that, um, uh, gets stiff.”
Upper body shuddering, Venomous turned away.
“Dick is meaning when it is hard or when it is soft?” Fiercely drummed his claws on the table top, looking for all the world expectant of a serious answer.
My betraying lips twisted, so I sucked them into my mouth. “S-soft?”
Venomous made a nasal sound a cross between a snort, laughter and a grunt.
The drumming claws stopped.
Silent, staring, Fiercely’s expression voided.
Feeling awful, I placed my hand over his. “I didn’t mean it. I was angry.” I hesitated. “Would it make you feel better if I told you it wasn’t as bad as calling you a cock?”
A pause.
“What is cock?”
Twisting back around, Venomous lost it.
He slammed a fist to the table and hooted as he rocked into my side. “Now that, my Lumen, is funny.”
Fiercely chuckled at my woebegone expression. “It is fine, Rä’Na. I deserved it. Without doubt, I am too sophisticated to act the rutting barbarian. It did not sit well on me.” His black eyes twinkled mischief as he used flatbread to mop his stew. “Then again since a youngling, I displayed superior, more cultured traits than my peers.”
Venomous’ head snapped down, quills bouncing from the force of the movement.
He slapped the food from Fiercely’s hand.
It splattered his chin then dripped onto his hardsuit.
“Not so sophisticated now,” Venomous sneered.
Leaning over the table, in each other’s space, they bared fangs, hissing.
“Barbarian,” Fiercely snarled.
Venomous pounded his chest. “I am strong.”
“Males are males no matter where you go in the universe,” I muttered stealing food from their plates.
They were too busy having a pissing contest to feed me, and making a hatchling was hungry work.
Gaze sliding away, Fiercely snorted like a lathered bull then backed off.
Venomous grinned, thinking he’d won the confrontation, and shaking out his quills, turned to me.
Stew hit the side of his face.
It dripped to his jaw, slicked his still smiling lips then dribbled down a neck that now popped tendons.
His head, ever so slow, turned to face the front, and his eyes caught fire.
I treble blinked. “Uh oh.”
A smudge of time later, we trudged onto the pathway outside the restaurant with passersby staring at our dishevelled state in a mixture of curiosity and revulsion.
We stood covered head to toe in not only our food, but the meals of the diners surrounding us.
My corkscrew curls were sticky with fuck knows what, Fiercely’s supernova hardsuit was torn, and Venomous fingered a bloodied quill that had lost a gold ring, as Fiercely had ripped it out with his teeth.
Breathing hard, I relived the humiliation of the proprietor’s verbal warning to never, ever return.
They had laid waste to the outside seating area.
Tables lay overturned or broken into rocky chunks, crystal was smashed, and drinking bowls crushed to shards.
Cushions bore claw marks, the fluffy stuffing floating above the decimation.
I wiped my forefinger through the lumpy blue paste streaking my nose and forehead then rubbed it and my thumb together.
“Now, have we worked out whatever,” my hands moved in flat circles, “this was?”
They resembled naughty boys, hanging their heads, scuffing their boots as they mumbled an apology, promising it wouldn’t happen again.
Holding back a smile, knowing to reinforce such behaviour would be a bad idea, I grabbed Fiercely’s hand. “There were three things you wanted to talk to us about. What are the last two?”
“They are connected.” He took a breath. “I wish to be your Rä’Vek. I have made arrangements to stay at the guild, but I wish to stay with you.” Looking at our joined hands, he seemed hopeful. “Will you welcome me to your lair, to your nest? This is what I want.” He looked displeased all of a sudden. “Our date did not show I will be a good life mate. Perhaps it is a trick, as I said, and you expected us to fight to show dominance?” His head cocked. “I would have told you Venomous is primary, if you had asked. Regardless, I vow to do better.”
“Just throwing it out there, aren’t you? Letting it all hang out.”
Fiercely shot Venomous a baffled look then gave me a faltering smile. “Is that yesss?”
“We’re going to take things slow, but yes. I want you with us.”
He grinned ear to ear, touched his cheek to mine, rubbed as his chest vibrated from a jubilant hiss that Venomous then echoed with his own cheek touch.
We visited a technology emporium where they procured me a personal communicator, the flat oval bendy, its surface pliable, like silicone, and it glowed when touched.
After Venomous traded for his, they tuned their frequencies to mine then showed me how to use it.
Soon enough, we were back in the glider and headed towards Venomous’ childhood lair.
“What if they don’t like me?” I asked wiping my sweaty palms on my thighs. I took in our scruffy appearance. “We should change first.”
“There is no time,” Fiercely said, apologetic. “We were supposed to be there at high heat.”
“You told them I’m an alien, right?” I tried to smooth my frizzing hair. “We’re not springing this on them? That would be bad.”
“My Lumen, all of Rök knows of your coming.” Venomous pulled me onto his lap. “I doubt my own kindred will not know you. I did, after all, comm call them and tell them of you from the Trekker.”
He told me their names and what they did for a living.
It settled me some, hearing about his relatives before meeting them.
We’d barely landed on a swathe of blue grass bordered by spiky, crimson blooms before a stream of people spilled from the majestic structure of quartz to converge on us.
The gleeful charge was led by a pair of older Rä with green-gold scales, white-quills and lined faces.
They were handsome, as Rä had become attractive to my human eyes, and possessed a refined, imposing dignity.
Dark, jewel-coloured robes shrouded their tall musculatures in stiff, sweeping folds and billowed as they moved.
They grappled Venomous into their eight arms and hugged him tight between them, laughing as he pretended to escape.
Chuckling, Fiercely held onto me as our group shambled inside the cool lair on a tide of yelled, “Good greetings,” and a swelling wave of shouted, “Praise Zython.”
“It does my hearts good to see you,” Venomous admitted
with a grin as we paused in the double-tall entryway.
As there were creepy Sylphs and curious kindred wandering about, I stayed close to Fiercely.
I took in as much of the bright, airy space as I could while keeping an eye on Venomous’ reunion.
Scenic paintings adorned the pellucid brick walls, and the polished floor reflected my own frazzled image back at me.
Past the foyer was an open space with comfy looking divans big enough to seat six Rä apiece, and upholstered in dark green fabric that matched a muted tapestry fixed to the main wall over a sputtering water feature.
Glister creep radiated light onto the vaulted ceiling, but as rosy sunrays shone through lancet windows its effects were muted.
Animal hides with their heads attached were strewn about the floor.
I stared into the angry, beady eyes of a lupine predator, razor teeth bared in a grimace of death, and cringed at its fate.
A feasting table hewn from a solid slab of rock on spool-shaped pillars had been erected behind the seating area, its embossed surface laden with skewers of charred meat, overloaded platters of lustrous fruits and sweating rounds of rich cheese.
Standing separate from the food, a metal trough was filled with bottles of fizzy, purple liquid buried in piles of bluish sediment that gave off wisps of vapour.
It was called cold ore.
This was explained to me after I questioned Fiercely about the fixtures and objects I saw, but could not understand their function or purpose.
Seeing the generous spread and excited gathering, I felt a twinge remorseful for wheedling a lunch date out of Venomous.
His kindred were thrilled to see him.
A dozen of the Rä connected to me by mating browsed the offerings, murmuring amongst themselves.
Several couldn’t help but flick probing looks in my direction.
None of them sneered, or cut me when I smiled, so I relaxed.
All in all, the atmosphere of the reunion was of joy, not fraught with uncertainty and disgust, as I’d feared my presence would make it.
Breaking off from what he’d been saying, Venomous cocked his head with incomprehension then pulled free of his fathers’ embrace.
His frown was directed at the male his features resembled most. “Why are you limping?”
Venomous: Erotic Science Fiction Romance (Alien Warrior Book 1) Page 32
