I see what she’s referring to — it’s uhmm…impossible to miss — but I don’t dare look down at the massive erection screaming at me from the peripheries of my gaze — screaming at me to stare. Raingar looks down at his pants as if confused and then shrieks in terror, like he’s just sprouted a cock for the first time, or was only now made aware of it.
I snort so hard my eyes roll back and, when Raingar dances around, showing us his back as he tries to shake out his legs and…I don’t know, tuck his impressive length somewhere, true laughter spills out.
“Ohr the lot of you,” he shouts over his shoulder before snatching a heavy drape off of one of the tables and stomping towards the door. “Essmira, are you coming?”
“I haven’t gotten the material for your pants yet.” He hesitates on the threshold and I feel horrible for delaying him. He’s clearly uncomfortable. “It’s alright. I can get it the coming solar…”
“Nonsense. We’ll make sure you get to where you need to go alright. Stay with us the solar. I’ll give you some tips on how to shape trousers for Lemoran dimensions,” Lyla offers.
“She doesn’t need your ohring help. Don’t you see what she’s wearing? She made that cloak and the dress beneath it herself! In one lunar!”
Lyla looks at me anew and I feel pride sparkle across my chest. Raingar likes my dress? I beam at him, but he doesn’t see it. He’s too busy shouting at the folks still gathered outside of the shop.
“Are you familiar with creating clothing for other species?” Lyla says.
“Most definitely. It was one of the only trades Igmora allowed me to learn. I’m quite adept at it.”
“And you enjoy it?” Lyla says and I stutter. Enjoyment. She cares if I enjoy it.
I nod. “More than anything else I know how to do yet.”
Her lips quirk and she shouts over her shoulder. “You alright if we take care of your miriga for you, Raingar?”
“Mir…miriga?” He says, and I wonder if this is an invented word because Raingar seems just as confused as I am by her use of it.
Her eyes sparkle. “Yeffa. I think we could use an extra set of hands around here. Especially with the extra customers we’re likely to have once you’re finished blocking the door.”
“Pagh!” Raingar tuts and huffs and stomps his feet. He’s still holding the sheet away from his body, preventing me from being able to see his erection and what’s become of it.
He looks stressed enough as it is, so I smile and say, “I’d really love to stay, if it’s alright with you.”
“Off! You infernal creatures. Don’t let anything happen to her or I’ll break off your horns and shove them down your throat!” He shouts at Lyla, startling me with his ferocity. “And you.” He points at Timor and is downright murderous when he says, “I know you wear white horns so you’ll understand me when I say no. touching.”
Timor just chuckles. “Trust me, Raingar. You’re not the one I’m afraid of. Have you met Merelda?”
Raingar’s mouth twitches, but he doesn’t respond. He just turns his gaze to me then. I nod. “I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll see you soon,” he answers.
His response makes me giddy but, before I can answer, he’s out of the door running through the crowd of people like a kit storming through a flock of birds. They scatter with screams and squeals of delight, often laughter.
“You really know how to make pants for other species?”
I jolt. Lyla’s about a dozen paces closer than she was, staring at me with her head tilted in that funny way. “Yeffa. I actually had some ideas for Hypha garments more tailored to their shape. I think if I added two darts from either shoulder to the waist, it would fit nicely around the thinner torso of the…” I trail off. “Are you…Apologies, I didn’t mean to overstep.”
She’s just staring at me with a huge grin on her broad, brown face. “Timor,” she calls over her shoulder, “Forget about finding me some help. I think it just walked through our front door.”
He grumbles something that I can’t make out, but I can tell that Lyla’s words were more for my benefit than for his.
“Would you like to come back on the coming solar and the one after that and then every solar — except for the resting solars, of course — and work here? Help us make clothes for Lemora’s strange and eclectic population?”
“A job? Are you…are you offering me a job?” My heart patters beneath my breast. My chest lurches, my stomach turns for a whole new set of reasons than the ones brought about by Raingar, his heat and his presence.
“Yeffa. I’m actually begging you to take this job.” I blink quickly, so many times she starts to laugh. “Is that a yeffa?”
“Yeffa!” I blurt. But then I bite my bottom lip. “I told the other clan chiefs that I’d be touring their grounds on these coming solars.”
“Pagh. Ohr that,” she says, sounding decidedly like Raingar when she quips. “Forget the other clans. We’re the best one, anyway. And besides, miriga, you’re allowed to do whatever you want to do now. So tell me, do you want to come here and help us or do you want to tour the other keeps? We’ve got no problem if you need a few solars to decide. We’ll be here, waiting and ready whenever you are.”
I beam, insides shuddering with so many foreign sensations. Hope, maybe? Nob, it isn’t hope. It isn’t pride either. It’s something else, something more tender. It makes me want to cry.
She takes my hand and rubs it firmly in hers as she meets my gaze. “You can do whatever you want here, miriga. Just tell me. If you don’t like Timor over there, you won’t break my heart. Though you might break his.”
He grunts in the background and I laugh and shake my head. “I’m in. I’d love to help you here.”
“Really?” She says, eyes light with surprise, with a hope that makes me feel like I’m someone special.
I nod, saliva thick in my mouth. I struggle to swallow it down. “Really.”
“Excellent news, miriga. Now, let’s find you some material for Raingar’s extra, extra large pants.”
6
Essmira
“It was so, so lovely on her that three other Asgid came in later that solar and asked for dresses of the same cut. Can you believe that?”
“Of course I can believe that…”
I speak straight over him. It’s already been nine solars here and I feel the female that I was before already unraveling into spools of knotted threads at my feet. Not totally undone, but unbecoming. And it feels ohring fantastic.
“And that was only the second solar I was working in the shop. I know I told Bebette, Tana and Reyna that I’d come see their villages, but I haven’t the time. I haven’t even had occasion to fit your new pants yet. And you still insist on wearing the old ones,” I mutter, taking pains not to hide my irritation.
“Sometimes the big pants are…good,” he says lamely, though he doesn’t sound like he means it. He’s grumbling again, looking everywhere but at me directly.
I frown. “You’re acting strange. Is something wrong?”
“Would you stop asking me that. Just…finish the pants, you insufferable wench!”
I grin. He knows that I like when he teases me. He teases everyone for whom he has affection, which, in his hall is everyone. I snort. “You’re an insufferable brute, yourself. I don’t think you were even listening to my story.”
“What! Of course I’m listening,” he stammers. “You’ve been busy and I don’t like it. It’s been nine solars and I’ve only seen you five of them.”
“I’ve seen you more than any other single being,” I say, but it feels wrong to say it, even if it is true. Because the truth I wished I was courageous enough to voice is that I’ve missed him, too.
I’d like to ask him if he’d house me, but I’m too worried about offending Merquin or shaming him if he does not wish to have me. It sounds like he does, but…I don’t know for sure.
He’s a clan chief, my inner Igmora whispers, he’s at the height of his virility. He’ll be want
ing to settle down with a good, strong, Lemoran female soon. And if he does that, what will I do in his keep but wallow in self pity?
Raingar grunts, “But you’ve spent quality time with Gorman — perhaps even more than you’ve spent with me — as you’ve fitted his new robes. They look irritatingly spectacular on him. His fins have been bristling nonstop with all the compliments he’s gotten from other Hypha.”
I smile, overwhelmed by the praise. And almost even more overwhelmed by the implication in Raingar’s strained words. But I’m too afraid to ask him if he’s jealous. “I’d be happy to fit you for new robes, too.”
“Insufferable female,” he grunts. “Just finish the pants, first.”
I laughsnort in the same breath and sink down onto my knees at his feet.
“Ah! What are you doing?”
I look up the length of his impressively tall body and force an easy smile, even as heat suffuses my face. “I need to get to your ankles and I can’t do that while standing.”
He gawks at me and rubs his chest with one hand, while his other reaches up to touch his horns.
“After this, I’d like to help you oil your horns. I’ve noticed that they’re molting more rapidly now than when I first arrived and I’m sure they must pain you.”
Raingar jolts, face flashing, eyes rounding, both hands flying to cover the tops of his horns, which are white, like I’ve seen some, but not all, Lemoran horns to be. I don’t know the difference between white or grey horns and haven’t thought to ask. I almost do so now, but Raingar’s too busy blubbering.
“YOU WANT TO TOUCH MY HORNS!” I wince, heat of a different kind sparking across my skin. I glance around behind me and, sure enough, as soon as I poke my head around the throne, I see countless eyes staring in our direction. Most are smiling. The rest are rolling their eyes.
“Raingar, please…” I whisper. “I don’t want them to think we’re doing anything improprietous. Especially when one of those females might be your future mate.”
It isn’t the first time I’ve said something like this, and it isn’t the first time he’s let my comment go completely ignored. It isn’t the first time I’ve been stupid enough to get my feelings hurt as I know they’ll always be hurt. He doesn’t know me. He has no reason to lay claim to me. I’m just a stranger, a charity case, he saved from a couple of monsters.
“Essmira,” he says.
“Yeffa?”
He reaches down and touches the top of my head, stroking his fingers through my curls. He shudders and shakes his head, closes his eyes, and grunts, “Ohr what they think.”
I smile, but my heart isn’t in it, so I get back to work.
We’re in his great hall again, standing beside the most unassuming throne I’ve ever seen. Nothing at all like the massive glass thrones Igmora and Tyto had set up in their overlook room — the room that overlooked all of the cells where their progeny were held.
I know that there were two others in the time that I stayed there, but I never saw, spoke to, or met them. I still love them, feel kindred to them, and hope they’re okay, though.
But here and now in Lemora, Raingar’s throne is just a block of stone covered in a threadbare piece of hide. We’re standing kind of…behind it? It’s an awkward place, at the far end of the hall away from the doors.
There’s a large window high in the ceiling covering half of the wall. There was a stretch of material covering it before but, given how bright and sunny it is this solar, it’s been rolled up. Sunlight beams in, all soft and pink. It bathes his form and turns the tantu fabric in my hands from grey to a more pearlescent silver.
“Ouch!” He says as I stick him with a pin near his right hip.
“Don’t be a baby,” I tease, rising up onto my knees and pulling out the pin. I gently rub the area. He freezes, but I don’t pay that any attention. It certainly isn’t the first time he’s frozen up around me.
“You know, this would be a lot easier if you didn’t insist on wearing these oversized pants underneath while I’m trying to size you correctly. My measurements are going to be totally off.”
“Well, I don’t want everyone in my stinking village to see me naked!”
That makes me freeze. “You…aren’t wearing anything underneath your trousers?”
“What the ohr would I be wearing under my trousers! What are you wearing underneath your trousers?”
I blush and stand up to my full height. He’s wearing thick sandals and, besides that, towers over me anyway. I glance out from behind the lumpy stone throne and see that the hall is littered with creatures, most still staring, though at least it’s not all of them anymore.
They’ve formed little groups and, in each group, are working on something different. A few clusters of Lemoran are working on filling up the Eshmiri dome lamps while a mixed group of Rekkaru, Lemoran and Hypha seem to be haggling over large sheets of paper.
I clear my throat. “I wear undergarments, as do some of the Hypha and Asgid I’ve been working with. I wasn’t aware that this is something foreign to Lemoran, though…”
“What kinds of undergarments?”
Raingar’s eyes are focused on my face, causing the tingling to return. “They support my breasts and between my legs they stop me from leaking anything on my thighs.” I squeak that last part.
He raises both brows until they almost reach his horn line. “What are you leaking? Like pee?”
A loud, violent snort shoots out of my nose and I hiccup instead of laughing. “Why is your first assumption always that I’ve urinated myself?” I laugh and snort and chuckle again, but I don’t cover it. My hand flinches toward my mouth, but I…just don’t.
Raingar’s mouth twists up on the right side. His teeth gleam white in his pretty mouth. Pretty? Did I just call any part of this blocky male pretty? The thought makes my smile stretch.
“So what do you leak then, if not urine?” He asks with complete seriousness.
I bite my lip and shift uncomfortably from foot-to-foot as I ignore my inner Igmora whispering at me that the male does not need to know these things. For whatever reason, I want Raingar to know everything. “Every solar there is a little liquid. And if I’m having my monthly, then it’s blood. I can place a small cup inside of my body to catch most of the blood, but the undergarments help catch anything that I might leak out. There’s also pleasure liquid. If I’m aroused, the undergarments are helpful in capturing it.” My cheeks burn. “But that doesn’t happen often.”
Only if Igmora and Tyto force me to wear pleasure beads in my panties. Their vibrations stimulate me. They were very competent in teaching me how to stimulate myself because the lubricant, they said, could help increase the males’ pleasure, as could the tightening of my inside walls when I orgasm.
“You leak…when you feel pleasure?” His chest inflates, like a balloon. He seems to be holding his breath. There’s a fresh scent that rolls off of his skin that surprises and alarms me. It smells like dew on moss at solarbreak — a smell very new to me, but that I’ve smelled every solar for the past nine, since I got here. Lemora. He smells like Lemora.
“To…uhm…” I scramble for an elegance that’s suddenly elusive. “It…uh…lubricates the entrance for the male. At least, this is what I was taught. I’m sure you must have personal experiences to support this unless Lemoran females are…constructed differently.”
“How should I know?” He balks, throwing his arms out to the sides. He shuffles a half step back and six of the pins I’d been using to keep the tantu fabric up fly free. The synthetic fibers fold down his legs and slump lamely onto the floor, revealing the monstrosity of a garment that he’s got on underneath.
“I’ve never been with a female. How could you think that?” He scowls at me, offended. “On Lemora we only mate with our mates. That’s why it’s called mate. Don’t tell me you’ve been forced to mate with males that aren’t your mate…” His furious expression devolves quickly to shock. He clasps a heavy hand over his mouth and w
hispers between his fingers, “Stars, Essmira. Have you?”
My jaw hangs open. His words go in direct contrast to what Igmora and Tyto have taught me about males. Males use females. Males do not need to respect females. Female bodies are built for male pleasure and that, alone. But this male is telling me he’s never even touched a female because they haven’t been his mate?
Two simultaneous sensations hit me, though neither are expected or appreciated.
The first, a surge of possessiveness to be that first female to show him pleasure. I know I could show him a pleasure that would make his mind and all three of his Lemoran hearts explode. I’ve been training my whole life for it. For this. For him.
The second, a deep, brutal wave of sorrow that I might never get that chance. Because he’s not meant for me, the Igmora in my head says. He’s meant for a strong female who can bear him strong Lemoran kits in a way that I can’t.
“Essmira?” He says my name. I like the way it sounds in his accent. Like a wave. I’ve always liked it. But right now, I wince away from it. “Essmira, it’s alright if you have. I know that Igmora and Tyto didn’t treat you…”
“Oh. Nob. Nob, that’s the one thing they did make sure of. I haven’t been with any males.” I almost tell him that though I haven’t been with any males, I am highly proficient in all sexual acts and would be able to offer him the greatest pleasure of his lifetime — way better than any other female on this stupid rock — but I don’t want to pressure him or deny his future mate that right.
I also don’t want to humiliate myself by suggesting that I could be his mate. Haven’t I already suggested it enough? I thought my intentions towards him had been plain. Maybe they weren’t plain enough. Maybe…when I oil his horns…I can try to spark something…Ohr! What am I talking about?
“I didn’t mean to upset you…”
“Nob. I’m not upset.” I roll my shoulders back and smile, but I struggle to meet his gaze. So I drop it again to his pants.
Collecting the small pins from the stone floor, where the pins and the stone almost blend together, I jump up and say with forced brightness, “If you don’t mind, I can’t work on your pants with the other pants underneath. We’ll need to remove them, undergarments or not. Is there somewhere more private we can conduct the fitting?” I try to sound professional, like taking off his pants doesn’t affect me at all.
Taken to Lemora Page 11
