“Clothes mean attached,” he explained in a grunt, at one of her thoughts. “...With friend.”
Jet had just noticed that all but two of the humans she’d seen wore the same patterned clothes she did, and that none of the Nirreth wore clothes with those same kind of patterns down the arms and legs. She wondered if it was only a human thing, this being attached.
“No,” Laksri said, pursing his lips a little.
His dark eyes shifted to hers, and briefly, she was again caught in the shimmering lights lost in those black irises and pupils. Seeming to think for a few seconds, he showed her a necklace he wore, a brushed metal loop with a dark blue stone set in a pendant on the end.
“Is that the male version?” Jet asked aloud.
She wondered if the boy humans were playing some kind of role that put them in female clothing, even as she fingered the stone at the end of the pendant with careful hands.
Laksri shook his head. “No. Not male...” He hesitated as if trying to think of the right word.
“More like owner and trinket, kitten,” Richter intervened, leaning over the table from the other side of Laksri.
The Nirreth gave him an annoyed look, but when Laksri turned back to Jet, his expression softened some.
“It is true...more or less,” he admitted. “But some of this is just...tradition,” he said, fumbling with the word. “Other colonies...there were fights. This system makes fights less...” He gave Richter another hard look before glancing back at Jet. “...I do not see this as ownership...like this. I am aroused by the same things, yes...but this is not what I think...”
Confused by his words, Jet nodded only because she realized he was finished speaking. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she remembered that no one else knew who Laksri was, in relation to her or Richter or the Royals, and that she had better be careful what she voiced aloud. In the same moment, she realized how much of him she could feel whenever he touched her skin, and for a little while, that distracted her into forgetting the other.
His fingers caressed the back of her neck, pushing her hair aside. She could feel his fascination with her hair through his touch and smiled at him.
“Christ.” Richter rolled his eyes, giving Jet a look that bordered on anger. “Save me from horny lizard-skins...” He gave Laksri a harder look. “That better be all this is. If you’re trying to play me, Laks...or make sure our little darling here is loyal only to you...”
The Nirreth gave him a dangerous look, growling a little as he gripped the back of Jet’s neck tighter in his fingers.
“Fine, fine...” Richter held up his hands in mock defeat, but his eyes remained hard when he glanced back at Jet. “Just remember this tomorrow, kid. I was on your side...all right? Don’t selectively forget that I tried to keep him off you...”
The remark puzzled Jet, but she found her eyes pulled back to the room as she sensed some kind of commotion coming towards them. Again, she wasn’t really alarmed. It only occurred to her to worry slightly when Laksri’s tail once more tightened around her waist.
When she saw who was approaching their table, she felt nothing but surprise, and a pleased recognition. The young Nirreth’s eyes bored into hers above where his arms and fingers wrapped around his pet otter, Scampers. He looked at Jet herself only long enough to stare into her eyes, then at her neck. He stared long enough at the skin there that Jet found herself covering it self-consciously with her fingers.
By then, young Prince Ogli had turned his attention to Laksri, his dark eyes filled with a seemingly uncontrollable fury.
“You have taken this human?” he demanded, his teeth half-bared. “You are saying she is yours now? That you intend to keep her with you...beyond just this night?”
Jet noticed that a lag existed between where Ogli spoke and when she actually understood the words. Then she realized that Ogli had spoken in Nirreth, and that she shouldn’t have understood him at all. Glancing down at where Laksri’s tail coiled around her waist, and now his hand held onto her lower arm, clutching her bare skin, she had to assume she was feeling the words through Laksri, along with the flush of his anger as he stared the young prince down.
“Have I offended you, divine son of kings?”
“Answer the question!”
Laksri’s tail tightened around Jet’s waist. “I have taken her,” he said. “I intend to keep her. She pleases me. More than words can tell, divine one...”
“I should have you killed!”
“Again I must ask...does my choice in companions somehow offend you, most divine one?”
“Yes!” Ogli stomped his foot, looking at Jet and then back at Laksri. “Relinquish her at once! I demand it! I demand you tell her that she is no longer to be yours!”
Laksri’s tail tightened still more, pulling Jet against his side. “You cannot make such a demand on me...even you, divine son. I am sorry, but I am unwilling to relinquish my right...nor do I foresee this changing any time in the immediate future...”
“Did you ask her?” Ogli demanded. “Did you ask her before? Or force her?”
“I asked her,” Laksri said.
Laksri glanced at Jet though, and she felt a pulse of concern on him, enough that her fingers wrapped around his. At the same time, she couldn’t help but be touched that the prince was so worried about her being forced.
“I will ask her!” Ogli threatened, the meaning of his words again coming to Jet on a slight lag. “When your venom has left her, I will ask her myself! If she did not consent, I have the right to take her from you...it is the law!”
Laksri bowed in acknowledgment of his words, but again, Jet felt worry in his hands, along with another feeling, what might have been...shame? Guilt, perhaps? Jet didn’t fully understand, but found herself stroking the skin of his tail in reassurance. The feelings coming from him changed when she didn’t stop, shifting from guilt to a harder, more urgent desire.
It worsened as Jet kept touching him, and for her, too, once the echo effect brought it back in her direction...until Richter smacked Laksri on the other side.
Only then did Jet notice that the prince had left them.
“Are you two going to need a chaperone tonight?” Richter said in a low voice, leaning closer over the table.
Jet was about to say no, but Laksri answered before she could.
“Yes,” he said, his voice hard.
Richter smiled a little, but his coffee-brown eyes remained hawk-like. “Fine. I’ll send Anaze. He won’t like it much, but he can sleep with your girlfriend in your bed tonight, Laksri...” When the Nirreth stiffened, Richter held up his hands in another peace gesture. “Hey! Big guy...he won’t touch her, all right? I just think he’s better off with her than you. I don’t trust you not to sting him out of jealousy...and then you’d have no chaperone at all, right?”
Laksri grunted a kind of reluctant concession, but his tail didn’t loosen around Jet. She felt his anger at Anaze, but didn’t understand it.
Laksri changed the subject when he looked at her next.
“The prince,” he said, blunt. “He will want me dead.”
Jet felt her body tense. “What?”
“He will want me dead. Out of the way. It is the only legal way...” He frowned a little, staring at the space where the young Nirreth had been standing. “...I had not realized he was so infatuated, that he’d be willing to risk a public scene. This will complicate things.”
She pressed deeper into his side. “Can he do that? Kill you?”
Laksri shrugged, laying his free hand on the table. “Technically, yes.”
“So why are we doing this, if he can do that?”
“Don’t worry your head, kitten,” Richter said, grinning more cheerfully that time as he leaned over the table to speak with her. “You’re not the only ears we have in his quarters...we’ll keep the big guy safe. Scout’s honor.”
Jet glanced at Laksri though, and found her muscles hadn’t relaxed at Richter’s words.
“Is that true?” she de
manded.
Laksri shrugged, but his eyes met hers that time. “I think so,” he said. Pausing at her expression, he caressed her cheek with one finger. “Do not worry. The Royals do not wish a scandal of this kind, so he will be on his own. He is too young to play this game very well.” Still studying her face, he kissed her cheek. “I will be careful.”
Their food arrived somewhere in that, and Jet found herself eating with an enthusiasm that surprised her, even after everything else. The food didn’t lessen the effects of the venom any, but what Laksri ordered for her was different than anything she’d eaten in the Green Zone before, and better, really. It also differed from what he’d ordered for himself, so likely had been made with a human palate in mind, not a Nirreth one. She was a little shocked at how good it was, really, even without knowing what to call any of the specific items in it.
As soon as she thought the last part, Laksri moved closer once more, putting an arm around her as he pointed at different splotches of color and texture on her plate.
“Fes-re,” he said, pronouncing it slowly. “Fesre, or Fesrin-ge. It is grain. From Astet. Many humans like this...it is close to your barley, and the spices easy for humans to digest...”
Jet nodded, leaning against his side. The Nirreth’s arm tightened around her more. Again, she felt a flush of desire on him, but he seemed to be trying to control it more. This puzzled Jet a little, but she felt no ill will behind it, instead, a kind of protectiveness, so she didn’t mind.
“Los-em-ra,” he said next, pointing to what looked like some kind of meat covered in red sauce and another, smaller, grain-type plant.
“It’s meat, right?” Jet said. “What kind?”
Laksri frowned slightly, and Jet could feel him trying to remember the word in English. As he did, Jet got an image in his head of what he’d been thinking about and laughed.
“Rabbit?” she said. “Nirreth eat rabbit?”
He smiled at her, that curl of the lip that didn’t show any teeth. It used to seem like such a subtle expression to her, but now it was as if he’d grinned at her, coupled with a look in his eyes that bordered on affection.
“These are very good,” he affirmed. “Tastes very good, this rab-it.”
Jet laughed again, pointing at the grain. “Is this from Earth, too?”
“Yes.” Laksri nodded, close to enthusiastic. “Yes...it is a grain here. From here. That is one we find easier to digest than most. We cannot eat the whet so many humans like...that hard grain that is so difficult to chew...”
“You mean wheat?” Jet said.
“Yes,” Laksri affirmed, nodding again. “Do you like this? We can still get it made. It is cheap here...easy to grow and none of my people can eat without getting sick. We feed to animals. Your animals. Understand?”
Jet smiled, nodding as she took another spoonful of the losemra. “No, this is good,” she assured him. “Whatever it is, I like it.”
His black eyes stared at hers, long enough that she forgot the food briefly, feeling that flutter in her belly again. It got strong enough that he abruptly turned away. He didn’t remove his arm from around her as he continued to eat, however, spearing chunks of a different kind of meat in a pale green sauce and bringing them to his mouth to chew vigorously. Jet pointed at his plate with her own spear-like utensil, after watching him eat for a few minutes more.
“What is that?” she said.
Again, Laksri seemed to be thinking. Then he laughed in that low-snort kind of way and took his arm from around her, long enough to hook his fingers into claws, drawing his arms close to his body and giving a mock growl.
Jet giggled. When he did it again, baring his teeth at her, she laughed aloud.
“Dinosaur?” she said. “You’re eating dinosaur?”
Laksri gave that grunting laugh of his and inclined his head sharply to the right. It struck Jet suddenly that this was the same as a human nod.
“Yes,” he told her approvingly, jerking his head to the right a second time. He inclined his head just as sharply to the left. “...No,” he added, by way of explanation.
Jet nodded. “Got it. I guess you just get used to seeing it mirrored...?” At his blank look, she added, “When you face someone, I mean...”
It struck her then, looking around the room, that very few Nirreth actually faced one another, at least while sitting down. All sat at benches in concentric circles, facing the middle of the room instead. Even those sitting in the center rings didn’t face one another...a floor to ceiling fish tank stood in the center circle, blocking the view from one side of the (comparatively) smaller circles to the other. The tank was the size of an old water tower and filled with multi-colored tropical fish, as well as sharks, a flat, two-finned creature Richter called a “sunfish,” living seaweed in long strands, and turtles that floated and swam at the higher levels of the tank.
The tank was so large, it provided most of the lighting for the room.
The only other lights Jet saw included those star patterns across the dome above, along with clouds moving across the sky and a moon traversing the arc much more slowly. Fake stones embedded in the floor also let off a faint glow, in mostly browns and greens and blues, but with the occasional violet or scarlet or orange, almost like flowers dotting the darker palate of a forest floor.
She, Laksri and Richter sat on a padded bench against a low wall, in probably the third or fourth of the larger rings when counting from the top of the circular room. A table so white it nearly glowed curved in front of them, the faint light broken only by trays of food.
When Jet felt Laksri’s arm curl around her once more, she glanced at him. Before she knew it, he was kissing her face, then her neck, running his tongue over her skin and nibbling at her gently down to her shoulder. He pulled her closer, wrapping his tail more tightly around her as well, when a new voice broke the quiet, this one holding so much anger it made Jet jump a few inches off the padded bench.
That time, she didn’t need to wait for a translation.
He spoke English.
“Just what in the hell do you think you’re doing?” Anaze demanded, standing over them with clenched fists.
His face was bright red, visible even in the dim lighting of the room. He seemed to be struggling for words, as if each one came out of him with only a determined, half-strangled effort.
“Get your damned, three-fingered hands off her...you ugly, worm-eating, sewer-smelling, water-fearing, lizard skin...!”
By the time the four of them got back to Laksri’s room, things had finally calmed down, at least a little. Richter still kept his body firmly between Laksri’s and Anaze’s, and stayed with them in the room until Anaze and Jet retreated into Laksri’s bedroom. Jet heard Laksri and Richter arguing through the wall, along with a few more violent thumps that Jet guessed had to be Laksri’s tail smacking against something more solid than Richter himself.
It was difficult leaving Laksri.
That should have puzzled Jet maybe, but it didn’t seem strange at the time. Anaze barely spoke to her once they were alone. He instructed her to lay down and go to sleep, and Jet didn’t argue. She could only really make herself muster up a mild concern at his furious silence.
So she laid down in all of her clothes except for those shoes with the covered toes that pinched her feet and listened to Laksri and Richter argue on the other side of that door. At some point...really, after not very much time passed at all...the argument abruptly died down. Jet didn’t know if Richter left or stayed, but not long after that, she must have fallen asleep because everything drifted out of her awareness.
Unfortunately, the same wasn’t true of the next morning.
Jet woke up with a sore side, her shirt bunched up in a loop around her back, her hair knotted...and bruises all over the side of her neck that she unfortunately remembered getting in almost minute detail.
In fact, her memories stood out more clearly than even ordinary memories did...clearly enough that she found herself tempt
ed to simply remain in the washroom until everyone else had left. That feeling only strengthened when she heard Anaze moving around on the other side of the door and realized he must be awake, too.
Instead, she just moved very slowly, hoping that he might take the hint and leave. She took a long shower before re-donning the clothes she’d worn the day before. She washed her face, brushed her teeth with a brand new, human-style toothbrush that must have been supplied by Laksri as well, and even found a kind of lotion for her face.
Eventually, though, she ran out of things to do in that room, and realized Anaze had no intention of leaving without seeing her. She just had to bite the bullet. Clenching her jaw and throwing back her shoulders, she jerked the door open and found herself facing Anaze directly and all at once.
He sat on the bed, watching her. Instead of looking angry, the expression on his face seemed to be laden with something like guilt.
“Jet,” he said, before she could wrap her head around this. “Jet...I’m so sorry.”
She paused, still standing at the door, thrown in spite of herself. Maybe it was the left-over venom, but she still wasn’t sure what to think of Laksri or the rest of it herself, much less her own role in it...or Anaze’s.
“What for?” Her voice was borderline dismissive. “Is that a confession of some kind? Or are you just assuming that Laksri forced himself on me?”
Anaze’s expression abruptly hardened. “Did you sleep with him?”
“Clearly I didn’t,” Jet said drily. “I slept with you.”
“You know what I mean!”
“Sure, I do,” she said, feeling her jaw harden again. “Maybe I just don’t see how it’s any of your business.”
“Because I’m the one who brought you here!” he burst out, thudding his hand down on the mattress. “Of course it’s my business! I put you in range of that asshole!”
“Which one?” Jet said, her mouth still taut.
Anaze glared at her. “That damned pervert lizard skin...who do you think?”
Jet felt her jaw harden more. It took her a second to realize it was because of what he’d said about Laksri...and then she was too confused to know what to think exactly. Frowning a little, she looked at Anaze, still trying to muddle through what was her and what was the remnants of the venom.
Alien Apocalypse: The Complete Series (Parts I-IV) Page 23
