“Because, Novalyn,” I said, my voice husky with the emotion that would give me away, “I feel — ”
She silenced me with a kiss that I did not expect. Her lips were warm and wet and she tasted like honey. I was crushing her to me as my tongue explored the cavern of her mouth, and I could feel myself growing hard once more at the mere nearness of her. I wanted her, desperately. And I knew by the way that she parted her legs, by how she let me lift her up, that she wanted me, too. The head of my member pushed against her entrance and she moaned lightly as we kissed. But when I started to slide myself inside of her, she pushed me away and struggled out of my embrace.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, panting so that her breasts heaved with each intake of air. “I’m sorry.”
I parted my lips to speak, but she was headed for shore, and she rose as quickly out of the water as her injury would allow. Snatching the tunic off of the tree branch, she hobbled back toward the dwelling, droplets of water running down over the curves of her body as she moved.
For my part, I stood lamely in the center of the still pond, waiting for the cold water to quell my desire, waiting for my heart to understand this odd rejection, waiting, most of all, for her to come back to me.
CHAPTER 10: NOVALYN
God, what was I doing? I raced back toward the dwelling — well, “raced” may not be precisely what I did, given my limp — tugging the tunic over my head and wrapping the belt around my waist as I went. I was flushed with the fever of my wanting, and colored by the shame at having behaved so poorly to someone who has treated me with such kindness. I told him I was going to leave him, and I let him eat me out until I came with a fierceness I have never experienced with a human man. Then I kissed him, then just before I let him fuck me, I pulled away. Christ. He may have had horns, and skin the color of glimmering copper; he may have had scales and eyes black as onyx, but I was the monster.
I recalled being in school in Nebraska and having band practice when I was twelve or thirteen or so. There was a chubby boy with black curly hair and bad skin who doted on me, who wanted to sit near me on the bus, who offered to carry my flute case, who opened doors for me and looked at me like maybe I was magical. And when he asked me to the school dance, I scoffed and turned him down. I laughed and said, “Why would I ever want to go with you?” When my grandmother found out about this, she sat me down at the kitchen table and shook her head at me, her lips pursed with displeasure, and told me that I was cruel for allowing him to spend his affections on me, and to rebuke him in the manner I had. That I was a mean, selfish little girl, and that she had always expected better of me. I remember how ashamed I felt for leading the boy on, for how much I liked his attention, and how little attention I wanted to pay him back. I went to school the next day with my tail between my legs and said to the boy, “I would love to go to the dance with you.” But he told me that no one had ever made him feel as bad as I had when I laughed at him.
So, maybe this wasn’t precisely the same situation, but it was clear that Odrik doted on me, and it was also clear that I couldn’t stay with him. I mean, obviously, right? I had to find a way to get back to my own planet. Back in the dwelling, I sat atop the trunk and buried my face in my hands. I could hear my heartbeat: it thrummed like a timpani in the hollow of my chest. I was leading him on. I was basking in the warm white light of his affections, but I was only using him to feel good and safe, to feel cared for and wanted. Wasn’t I?
I was silent in the still, warm air for a long while before Odrik made his reticent approach, coming to sit near me, but not so near as to touch me. We breathed quietly for a minute, an hour maybe, until he finally spoke.
“Why do you keep running from me?” he asked, his voice low and sonorous.
“Because I don’t want to give you the wrong impression,” came my tepid reply.
“And what impression is that?” he asked. “That you want me as much as I want you?”
I turned to look at him, seated as he was maybe a foot away. I was surprised at how blunt he was, how direct. “Yes,” I said.
One corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk, and he shook his head. “You’ve already given yourself away, my lady,” he asserted. “Your body tells me what you want as much as mine reveals my desires to you.”
I scoffed. “Biology. Physiological responses to external stimuli. It’s just… my lizard brain, you know? Wanting to be touched.”
He chuckled, a wry sort of thing, and swept his fingers through his hair, like spilled ink. “You’re talking about the impulse to propagate your own species, Novalyn. Not to commingle with another species altogether.”
“So, you’re saying it’s… what? Something else?” I arched one brow and tried on my best look of skeptical irritation, but I think he could probably see straight through me.
“Yes, I do think it’s something else,” he said plainly. We were looking at one another, and we knew what that something else was, but neither of us dared to name it.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said at length. “It doesn’t matter what’s between us — I was taken from my bed. I want to go home.”
“To what? Go home to what? What are you so eager to get back to?”
I was silent for a long while as I wracked my brain, hoping beyond hope that he couldn’t see through my expression to my muddled thoughts. What was I so eager to return to? My shitty job? My even shittier apartment? I had no friends to speak of, no love life. My most successful Internet date had been with an alien who had abducted me. I slumped forward, resting my elbows on my knees and my chin in my hands. The entire thing was depressing. I would go back to Earth, and I would be alone. I would be alone with memories of Odrik to warm me. I flushed a deep scarlet and turned away. “There’s no point in discussing it further,” I said, my voice a hushed and husky whisper.
“Stay,” he said, and I had to look back. His eyes were locked on my face, and he had a grip on me as though he were holding me in his arms, but we weren’t even touching. “Stay.”
“No.”
“Stay. Please.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. You have that choice.” He turned his body toward me and I watched his sinewy form move with surprising grace for something so large. “You can choose to stay here, with me. You can choose to be mine.” He cleared his throat; he looked away. “I want you to stay.”
There was that lump in my throat again, there was the stinging in my eyes of unshed tears. I shook my head slowly, a gesture that evoked some cognitive dissonance: did I want to stay? So far as I could tell, this planet didn’t have basic things like indoor plumbing and deodorant, let alone the staples of modern life upon which I’d come to rely, like Netflix and Thai food delivery. Maybe it was superficial, but there was comfort in these ideas. To say nothing of the fact that no plants on Earth had ever tried to eat me, and the men — so far as I knew — did not have horns.
Well, but maybe Odrik could go back to Earth with me? I perked up slightly: and why not? He had been cast out of his tribe by a usurper. When he’d found me, he had clearly been living on his own, away from his people. Perhaps he, like me, had no one. We could make a go of it, then, couldn’t we? He could come to Earth and… and…
Ridiculous. Odrik, with his horns, and black-and-gold eyes, with his scales and coppery skin. Seven feet tall, broad and sinewy, he would stick out like a streak of red paint across a white canvas. And then what would become of him? He’d be captured, tortured, experimented upon. Great idea, Novalyn, I thought, bring him with you and ruin his life.
“Odrik,” I whispered, and he met my gaze, sitting with his back straight as though he were preparing himself to hear his sentence. “I’m sorry.”
He took in a sharp breath of air through flared nostrils and nodded sharply, only once. “I understand,” he said. “I’ll help you get to the old ship, and we’ll speak no more of it.”
“I never meant to hurt you,” I offered, though it seemed
stupid. But he, graceful creature that he was, simply smiled at me.
“It’s all right,” he said with the faintest little shrug. “I would rather feel the hurt now than never to have met you at all.”
***
We spent the remainder of the long Qeteshi day preparing for the upcoming journey. We packed supplies into a bag that I could carry, and into his sporran, worn low at his waist. We folded up a makeshift tent we would use for the so-called winternight; we folded up some of his extra furs. And when the sun began to set, Odrik made a fire at the mouth of the dwelling and we sat in companionable silence and ate salt meat and drank Panyan liquor until our bellies were full and warm.
We slept side by side on the furs, and I awoke once in the night to find Odrik’s arm slung over me, to feel his nakedness pressed up against mine, and I wanted him. But I dared not wake him, I dared not toy with him like that. I vowed I would be kinder to him, to spare us both any further pain upon our inevitable separation.
The next day, we set out at dawn. I climbed onto his back, with the pack slung over my own, and together we made way for the mountain that was, in my mind, to the east. We kept low in the underbrush, as the beasts were out for their morning hunt. I caught sight of a sleek, wolflike creature that was larger even than Odrik, and we climbed together into the lowest leaves of a Panyan tree until the wolf creature had found something else to stalk.
Odrik must have been lost in thought because we nearly stumbled into a patch of rimosha plants, and I gave him a swift kick to veer him onto a different course.
“Hey!” he protested, at my trying to steer him.
“You’re basically my mount,” I quipped.
“Is that so? I’ll show you who gets mounted.” And we laughed together, falling into easier company once some of the tension had broken. It felt, if only for a moment, the way it had before we’d gotten our words back.
We camped that night at the base of the mountain. I was impressed by how much ground we’d gained, but Odrik seemed tired, irritable. And of course, he would be — he’d carried me around for most of the day.
“Are you all right?” I asked as he went about constructing our tent. The sun was getting low; the temperature was dropping and we had not started our fire.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Go fetch me some dry wood.”
“I just mean, you seem — ”
“I’m fine.”
I had no choice but to take him at his word. So I swept my curls into a high ponytail, secured it with a leather thong, and set off to fetch the wood he had requested. I hadn’t wandered very far when I heard some noises in the distance. I ducked down behind a crag and peered around the jagged edges of stone that were my cover, only to lay eyes on another member of the Qet, and his human companion. Glancing behind me, I didn’t see Odrik, so I clutched my collection of branches tight to my chest and watched the pair as they passed.
This Qeteshi was long and lean, thinner than Odrik, reedlike in stature. He had skin like brushed nickel and horns that were black at his temple and curved up in front of his forehead, ending in elegant silver points. The lady that followed close behind him was a beauty, with a blond bob that made her look like a 1920s starlet. She was chatting with him as they moved up a lightly trodden path; he had a pack on his shoulders, and she carried nothing, except for where she lifted her gossamer skirt daintily off of the ground so that it wouldn’t get dirty.
She said something that made the Qeteshi laugh, and he had to pause to set his pack down, his body wracked with the force of his mirth. His laughing made her laugh, and she fell into his arms. This was nothing like the first girl I’d seen, who had turned her face away and spread her legs for the satisfaction of her mate. No, this girl… she seemed quite fond of her companion, and he of her.
The laughter evaporated between them, and it was she who stood up on tiptoe to press her lips to his. He hoisted her up into his arms, and she wrapped her legs around his torso. It was she who hiked her skirt up, who reached back to spread herself open to her lover, who moaned gracefully when he lowered her down onto his manhood.
I felt no shame in watching them; in fact, I couldn’t look away. He bounced her up and down, holding her easily aloft despite the soft, fleshy curves of her body, and he fucked her without bracing either of their bodies against a tree or a rock — he simply stood with his feet planted hip-width apart and moved his lady up and down until she threw her head back and cried out in ecstasy.
He clutched her to him and trembled as his own orgasm overtook him, clinging to her, her face turned away, his face buried in her now-mussed blond hair.
They breathed together, like one animal, before they devolved into a fit of giggles and he set her gently back upon the earth. She kept her skirt hiked and wriggled her butt at him, no doubt to indicate her need to clean up, and he grinned, hooking a thumb over his shoulder. They headed in the direction he indicated, chatting happily all the while, and it dawned on me: perhaps not all of the girls who’d been sent here would want to leave.
Was it possible that some of them had known ahead of time where we were going, and why? Was that why the first girl had given her, however begrudging, consent? Or was the one I’d just seen, like me, just very taken with her Qeteshi companion?
When the pair did not return, I stood up and hoisted the dry wood into my arms, limping back the way I’d come until I reached our little campsite. Odrik had erected a small tent and had laid our packs and the sleeping furs inside. He’d dug a hole at the mouth of the tent, and when I dropped the wood at his feet, he began to build the fire.
“I saw someone,” I remarked. He froze for a moment before continuing to handle the task at hand. “A girl, like me. And a man, like you.”
“What did he look like, this man?” Odrik asked, suddenly alert.
“Tall, silver in color, with black-and-silver horns at the front of his head.”
Odrik considered my description for a moment before he nodded his head. “Belys, most like,” he mumbled. “A proud hunter. A good member of the Qet.” He glanced back at me once he’d gotten the fire going. “And the girl?”
“Happy to be with him,” I said. “Like me.”
Odrik uncoiled to his full height and stared down at me. “Don’t say things like that, Novalyn,” he growled. “I thought we had an understanding, you and I.”
“Yes,” I quickly rejoined. “We did. I’m sorry.”
He regarded me coolly for another moment before he headed into the tent. I, a shamed pet, followed close at his heels. We sat together on the furs, as far away as the constrictive size of the tent would allow, and Odrik did not undress as he used to before climbing into bed. “Rest yourself now, Nova,” he murmured, turning on his side to face away from me. “For tomorrow, we shall reach the village.”
Part Four
CHAPTER 11: NOVALYN
Neither Odrik nor I slept well that night. We thrashed about under the cover of the heavy animal furs, trying not to brush up against one another as we moved. I would wake up too warm and throw off the cover of the furs, then drift off again until the bone-chilling cold roused me. Odrik had a similar experience, and I realized that our previous arrangement had been as much for our comfort as it had been due to our mutual desire for one another. I missed the feeling of his arms around me, missed the feel of flesh on flesh, missed the sound of his steady breathing in the night.
When day finally broke, we rose groggy and irritable, breaking down the camp in agitated silence. He hoisted me — rather begrudgingly, I thought — onto his back and we headed in the same direction I’d seen the other pair go, tromping along their lightly trodden path.
After a time, Odrik planted me on the earth beside a small green pond. I dipped my hands in the water to drink, but Odrik was stripping off what little clothing he wore and bounding into the ice-cold water. I watched him from my spot in the wet grass and crossed my arms in front of me.
“You’re stalling,” I
shouted as he ran his fingers through his hair and wiped droplets of water away from his face.
“I’m bathing,” he countered. “And you might consider doing the same.”
I scoffed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He dipped down low in the water and waded a few steps toward me, angling his black eyes up at me with a bemused little smirk playing on his lips. “You kept me awake all night with your tossing and turning,” he said, his tone low and sly, “and your tunic is nearly soaked through with sweat. I just thought you might want to clean off a bit.”
I felt the apples of my cheeks color slightly. He was right, I needed a bath. “Fine,” I spat and undid the beaded belt he’d gifted to me before tugging the tunic up over my head. He turned his back to me then to give me some modicum of privacy, but I smiled my own smug little smile to catch him peering at me from his periphery. I swayed my hips gently from side to side as I moved into the cool waters of the pond, clutching my arms in front of me in a way that indicated I was cold but squeezing my prominent breasts together, highlighting every curve he could not touch.
“So, what’s our plan, then?” I asked, once I had fully submerged myself in the water. He turned back to me then, splashing water on his face.
“Go to the village. Don’t be seen.”
“Don’t be seen?” I echoed, eyes wide.
“Yes,” he confirmed. “Did you miss the part where I told you I was exiled…?”
“No, but — ”
“What, did you think we could just… waltz back into my village?” A darkness clouded his features, his brow furrowed over his depthless eyes.
“Certainly you have some allies,” I protested, allowing myself to drift closer to him.
“None that would stand against Fegar,” he muttered.
“Well…” I sunk low in the water, dampening some of my curls. “But how am I supposed to get the other girls who want to leave, if we have to do all this sneaking?”
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