by Cathryn Cade
Zaë gasped when she saw the goals. They were as taller than a man and several meters wide. They appeared to be miniature black holes. Indeed, the goalies were strapped to the arena, so they could glide back and forth, but not be sucked in. Their position looked like her idea of terror. How did they find beings brave enough to pay attention while hovering before the deadly maws?
A Blue dove for the caravel. It slid into his net and disappeared. Zaë frowned. Where had the glowing ball gone?
“Go, go!” Stark hollered. “Good man! He’s got it right on the cusp of his glove and the racquet,” he explained, his arm tightening. “Dangerous for him, but a good play.”
“No! Foul, foul,” Haro bellowed. “He can’t do that.”
The Blues charged up the field as one, and although the Crimsons formed a living barrier before their goal, the carrier zipped past and hurled the caravel.
It flashed into the goal and was vacuumed into the blackness seething at the center.
Stark threw back his head and hooted. Then he pulled Zaë up against his chest and kissed her, hard. He tasted of ale, but she liked it anyway. “You’re good luck, my Zaë. The Blues never score that fast.”
Zaë grinned in delight. She was good luck? Maybe if the Blues scored again, she’d get another one of those kisses. She turned her attention to the game.
She grabbed Stark’s shirt as the Crimsons got the new caravel and forged toward their goal. When a Blue dislodged the caravel from the carrier, she bounced excitedly. “Did you see that?” she called. “Go, Blues! Get it in the—the hole!”
“Goal, baby,” Stark corrected. “Goal.”
He was laughing at her, and so was Haro. Zaë shrugged them off.
“Oh, oh! Look out!” she called, waving at the Blue carrier as he was flanked by Crimsons, who slashed the caravel from his grasp and made off with it. “Oh, no. They stole it.”
She flopped back against Stark. His arm slid around her waist, his hand spread over her belly.
“Sit still,” he growled in her ear.
Zaë tipped back her head to give him a look. “I can’t sit still. The Blues need to score again.” She pointed toward the holovid, where the Blues were now in pursuit of the Crimsons. “They need my help.”
“Right.” His gaze on the game, he shook his head. But his arm was warm and heavy around her. He made an extremely comfortable chair. He was so warm and firm, and she liked his hand on her belly and the hard maleness under her bottom. She wriggled a bit closer, and tipped her head back on his shoulder.
Stark’s hand slid down, his little finger brushing a sensitive place through her soft pants.
“Sit. Still,” he repeated. “Or I’ll smack your sweet ass.”
A thrill of alarm penetrating the glow of wine, Zaë sat still. A long, hard shape prodded at her through his pants and her own. It had been there when she sat on his lap, but not as big, or as hard. And while part of her wanted to leap from his lap and run, part of her wanted to arch her back and rub her bottom on him like a mawwr begging to be stroked.
It was very confusing. She was glad when the Blues suddenly stole the caravel back and dashed for their own goal. They scored. Stark and the other Blues fans yelled their satisfaction.
Zaë craned her neck and looked up at him. “Are you going to kiss me again?” she asked. “For being good luck?”
Stark gave her a long look, one that made her legs tremble and something clench low and deep inside her, something needy and wet.
Then his gaze cooled and he shook his head, no. He boosted her off his lap and pulled her down to the ground between his legs. Incensed and disappointed, Zaë tried to scramble away. He pulled her back. “You stay where I put you.”
She glared at him and his look changed, a challenge in his gaze. “What do you say, my Zaë?”
“I say, I can’t stay here. I need to urinate.”
“Ask nicely.”
She leaned her chin on his knee and batted her lashes, drawing her lips in an exaggerated moue.
“O Master, may your lowly slave girl please empty her bladder? Before she wets on your leg, because she has to go.”
He burst out laughing and then stroked his thumb over the corner of her mouth before letting her go. “All right, smartass, go on.”
Zaë was grinning as she rose and made her way through the crowd to his tont. Inside, the glow lamps came on as she passed. The sound of the holovid was muffled a little by the walls, the light flashing through the air vents.
In the lav, she took a moment to wash her hands and tidy her hair, which despite the braid was tousled around her face. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright, her lips reddened by the berry wine. She touched her finger to them, remembering the feel of his lips pressing on hers.
Then she turned and hurried back through the tont. But when she stepped out into the night, she stopped short.
Stark was still sprawled in his big chair, but now with another woman on his lap. The flashy blonde who had glared at Zaë had her arms around his neck, and she was kissing Stark—a long, deep kiss that went on and on until Zaë felt as if she would fly out of her own skin if she had to watch it another second. Stark wasn’t pushing her away or shaking his head no. He was holding her—with his hand on her ass!
A hard knot of something aching in her chest, Zaë turned to dive back into the tont but paused when a woman waved at her. It was Ringi, her baby snugged in a wrap.
“Hey, Zaë,” she called over the sound of the quasiball. “How’re you doing?”
“I am well,” Zaë responded automatically. “And you?” She forced her gaze to remain on Ringi’s friendly face, instead of on Stark and the woman who had replaced her, and from the looks of it, would be doing much more before the night was through.
Ringi made a face. “I’m good, but I’m going to take the baby out back, away from the noise.”
“Please, join me at the rear of Stark’s tont,” Zaë invited. “There’s a very nice seat and a view of the river.”
Ringi craned her neck, saw Stark, and gave Zaë a look of wry sympathy. “Love to. You want another wine?”
“I’ll get them,” Zaë offered. “Your baby must be getting heavy.”
Ringi disappeared around the tont, while Zaë went back to the cold bin. The Blues scored again and raucous cheers and groans of disappointment rang in her ears. Zaë no longer cared.
She grabbed two bottles but turned to find Haro blocking her path, tall and lean.
“Stark says to stay where he can see you,” he said.
Zaë didn’t understand why, since Stark wasn’t looking anywhere but at the woman on his lap.
“You may tell him for me that I don’t care to watch any more of the match,” she said. Although this was an untruth, because the match was very exciting, and even now the Blues were streaking back toward their goal, Crimsons vying to get in their way and unseat the carrier. “I will be behind his tont.”
He looked at the two bottles of wine and his brows rose. “I’ll walk you there.”
She inclined her head courteously. “As you wish.”
At Stark’s tont, Haro followed her around back. In the light of a small glowlamp hovering under the awning, Ringi looked up from the baby sleeping on her lap.
“As you see, we plan to converse,” Zaë said to the tall warrior. Ringi smiled at him, her eyes dancing in the lamplight.
“Right,” Haro said. “Stay put.” He stalked away.
They could still hear the party, but at least it was muffled by the bulk of the tonts. Here the evening air was quiet and fresh, a slight breeze rustling the tall grasses on the edge of the riverbank, and the branches of the trees overhead. Zaë liked the sound, as if the planet was whispering secrets only the wild things understood.
She sat beside her new friend, and opened one of the wines before handing it over. “I’m not sure what that was all about,” she said, opening her own wine.
Ringi gave her a sidelong look. “Um. Haro thought you had anot
her guy back here.”
Zaë choked on her wine. She gaped at the other woman. “Me?”
Ringi shrugged. “It happens. Not to Stark, for sure. I’d bet he’d beat the living hells out of anyone he caught with his woman. Although,” she said gently, “he’s never claimed a woman exclusively—never. And the two of you aren’t...?”
Zaë shook her head, waving her bottle for emphasis. “No. He rescued me. That’s all. So, I don’t care if he’s...you know...with other women.”
“Right,” Ringi agreed. “Why would you care?” She looked at the collar around Zaë’s throat, sipping her wine. “So my question is, why does he have you in his tont, and wearing that stunning and valuable piece, if he doesn’t want to fuck you?”
Zaë frowned. “I don’t know. I don’t understand him at all. He is...very sweet one moment, and then horrible the next. In fact, he’s the rudest man I’ve ever met. Unfortunately, he’s also the handsomest.”
Ringi stared at her. “Stark sweet? How?”
“He rescued me when I fainted in the showerdry,” Zaë told her. “And then in the morning, I woke in his arms. That was very nice. But then, he went straight to another woman’s tont to have sexual congress with her.”
She clenched her fingers on her wine bottle, remembering.
“You woke in his arms?” Ringi whispered. “Um—wow. And he was naked?”
Zaë met her gaze. “Yes. His body is...amazing.”
Ringi nodded. “I noticed. Although of course my Pede is starry. But that doesn’t mean I can’t admire, right? And every woman around here admires Stark. Except Lin and Rio, and they’re lesbians.”
“I wish I was a lesbian,” Zaë said sadly.
Ringi choked on her wine. “No way,” she said, shaking her head, her eyes dancing. “Then you’d miss out on fucking. There is nothing like your man’s big, hard cock moving inside you.”
Since Zaë didn’t know what that felt like, she shrugged. “At least I wouldn’t mind that he’s with the second woman in one day!”
“Right. Maybe we need to see about getting you back to your home.”
Zaë took a deep breath and told Ringi why that wasn’t possible.
Ringi’s eyes got wider, then lit with fury. “Those slimers,” she hissed. “They gave you drugs strong enough to steal your memories? Oh, I hope Stark and the crew blow them all to the seventh hell. And send the rest of them to Deep Six, where they can freeze to death...slowly.”
“Yes,” Zaë agreed. “I would like to shoot one of them myself. There was a woman—a Serpentian. She liked to come and look at us in the cages. Dressed in her fine gown, with a drink in her hand, when we were hungry and thirsty. She taunted us.”
“They kept you in cages?”
Zaë nodded. “We were very cold on the transport. We had to huddle together to stay warm. Then, when we landed at the place where they sold us, it was very hot. So hot, I thought I would die of it.”
Ringi reached over and clasped Zaë’s hand tightly. Her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, honey. What you went through.”
“It was horrible,” Zaë whispered. “And even I didn’t suffer the worst of it. The slavers sometimes came and took a few of the—the captures out.When they came back, they would weep. Some couldn’t speak. Some did…and the things they were made to do–”
She shook her head, seeing the bruises, the blood, the eyes glazed with fear. “The slavers are…crazed with their power.”
Ringi tugged at her hand, bringing Zae back sharply to the present.
“Hey, you’re out of there now. Listen, you need anything while you’re here—anything—you let me know, okay? Pede treats me real good, and I can share. So can the other partners. And if any of Stark’s whores try to treat you badly you just let me know. Me and my girls will have a word.”
Zaë clung to Ringi’s hand. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I—it means a lot to have a friend.”
Ringi nodded.
Then a stocky figure loomed around the side of the tont—Ringi’s husband. “Here’s my ladies,” he said. “Blues won, match is over.”
Ringi smiled back at him. “Honey, come and meet Zaë.”
Pede lifted his chin at Zaë. “Hey, Zaë.”
She wiped at her eyes with her fingers. “Hello.”
“Zaë is gonna come and hang out with me and the girls while you’re on patrol tomorrow,” Ringi announced.
“Okay. Let’s go, I’m beat.”
He came to take the baby, and Zaë watched him cradle the little girl to his chest, her head tucked carefully in the curve of his shoulder, her little bare feet dangling below his brawny arm. Zaë couldn’t help smiling at the two of them.
“Night, Zaë,” Ringi said. “See you tomorrow.”
“Goodnight.”
The area was very quiet when they were gone. By the firepit, the sounds of the party went on, music and voices muted by the tont walls. Zaë poured the rest of her wine out, then crumpled the bottle for the recycler.She yawned deeply.
She considered sleeping outside, but then she looked at the twilight skies and shivered despite the warmth. This was a wild place, and there would be creatures prowling the night. Better sleep indoors.
When she walked back around the tont, Stark was in the midst of the group around the fire, laughing, another bottle in his hand, the blond at his side.
Zaë ducked into the tont. In his bedroom, she looked at Stark’s big bed with its ornate headboard and coverlet and mounds of pillows. The thought of Stark sliding into the big bed after he’d been with another woman made her belly turn over with revulsion and anger.
She pulled several of the pillows from the bed along with one of the blankets and made herself a pallet in a quiet corner. Then she took off her pants and bra, put her shirt back on, and curled up in her little bed.
She dreamed that the walls of the tont dissolved, leaving her in the open. The fire still burned, people still moved around it, but they were shadows, automatons moving to the dull thump of music. Her gaze found Stark, and she groaned in pain as she watched him.
He sat in his chair, with the blonde plastered on him, only now they were both naked. He was caressing her, watching Zaë as he did so. She stood locked in her place as he moved suggestively, his chair thumping on the ground.
The thumping grew louder and faster, until it drowned out the other sounds around them.
She woke with a gasp, to the shadows of the bedroom.
The thumping went on, coming from the main room of the tont. She heard Stark’s voice, muffled through the walls. Was he locked out of his bedroom? She must go and let him in
Zaë slipped from her bed and hurried across the bedroom to open the door. She peered into the other room and froze.
Her dream played out before her horrified gaze, only this was real—all too real. The blonde was bent over the back of the divan, nude, her long, straight hair falling over her face. Her arms were outstretched, her hands braced on the seat of the divan. Stark stood behind her, in profile to Zaë, and he was moving hard and fast, driving himself between the woman’s spraddled legs, his hands on her bare ass, his lean hips and powerful legs flexing, his upper body tense with effort. Zaë couldn’t see clearly in the shadows between their bodies, but she could see a long, thick shape jutting from Stark’s groin.
Zaë heard a sound coming from her own mouth, a kind of whimper of shock.
Stark’s head turned and he gazed into her eyes, his own widening and then closing as his face went taut, his nostrils flaring in a mask of ecstasy.
She wanted more than anything to step back, to run away. But just as in her dream, she was frozen, unable to look away as he gave one more harsh movement of his lean hips and then arched, his back bowing as he groaned and shuddered.
The woman cried out, and Zaë moved. She slammed the door shut and dashed back to her pallet. Diving under the blanket, she wrapped it over herself like a cocoon and lay shivering, her body hot and cold at once, her mind burning with what
she’d witnessed.
The Storm’s groan of pleasure echoed in her ears.
Even through her blankets, she could hear him slam the door of the lav, once in and once again coming out. She tensed, fists clenched, a hard knot of anger burning in her chest.
He moved across the room. “What the hells?” he demanded, his voice slurred.
His footsteps thudded nearer. Her covers were yanked away and strong arms lifted her out of her nest.
“You sleep with me.” He dumped her in his bed, then followed her down and pulled the covers over them.
Zaë scrambled away, toward the edge of the bed. She jerked to a stop when he grabbed her braid.
“Let me go,” she demanded, turning to bat at his hand. When he didn’t let go, she grabbed his much larger hand and dug her nails into it.
“Ow, damn it!” He jerked his hand away. “Cut that out. Scratch me again, and I’ll smack your plump little ass.”
“You’re drunk,” she accused. “You stink of ale and—and that woman’s horrid perfume.” And of a musky, earthy scent that could only be sex. She hated it, and she hated him.
“For God’s sake,” he muttered. “Just havin’ a good time. Like the song says, bunny, live wild and free.”
“It doesn’t mean that.” Zaë threw her legs over the edge of bed and he gave a low growl, deep in his chest.
“Stay put,” he ordered.
She froze. Inebriation made beings unpredictable, everyone knew that. And this one was half wild even when he was sober. Zaë huddled on the edge of the bed, trembling with anger.
“I don’t know why you care where I sleep. I was comfortable where I was.” She hadn’t been, she’d wakened several times with the lump of a cushion poking her, or to find she was off the cushions and on the hard floor. But even that was better waking to find her nightmare was real.
He chuckled, a deep huh-huh of sound in the darkness. “Liar. Go to sleep, bunny. In my bed, where y’belong.”
“Slaves don’t get to decide where they sleep.”
