by R. Cooper
“Maybe there are things I want more right now,” Taji reminded him lightly. It wasn’t even a lie.
“My shehzha,” Trenne answered, awe still in his voice.
“Your shehzha,” Taji agreed, but hid his mouth behind Trenne’s hand.
Chapter Fifteen
WHEN TAJI woke up, he was clean, wearing pants, and warmer and more comfortable than he had been in years. The soiled bedding was on the floor. It was perfect except for the pillows in his arms that were definitely not Trenne.
Trenne had said something about food, Taji remembered that much, although he had been beyond responding at the time. Convinced he had failed Taji in some way, Trenne had fucked him one more time, slowly, coming again, although not inside of him. He’d watched raptly as Taji had tasted some more, but then washed every remaining drop from Taji’s body over Taji’s sleepy protests.
A physical ache in Taji’s hips and ass made itself known when he moved, but nothing close to pain. He smiled despite himself, then grimaced at the taste in his mouth. Once the initial lusty haze faded, having the flavor of Trenne’s come in his mouth was no longer appealing.
He rolled over and stretched lazily, but decided to take advantage of his pain-free moments to go clean his teeth and finish getting dressed. Unless he wasn’t supposed to get dressed. Maybe Trenne was going to find him again and let Taji suck his cock for a while. Taji had gotten too distracted for a proper blowjob last time and he wanted to try it again.
But, odds were, Trenne was downstairs checking on the situation and Taji should be too. Although avoiding life-threatening situations for the sake of sex felt reasonable. It wasn’t as if Taji could do anything to help, after all. Lin or Trenne could translate. Or Mos, if Mos was still with them.
Taji took his time in the bathing room and took even longer to get dressed, although his choices were limited to plain short-sleeved IPTC shirts or one long-sleeved shirt. This mattered because of Trenne, and Taji sighed at himself and finally pulled on one of the short-sleeved shirts.
He dug out a pair of worn boots as well; if he had to run somewhere at least he would attempt it properly. Trenne either hadn’t noticed that the coat he had loaned Taji was on the floor or had left it there, so Taji slipped it on as he made his way to the lift, rolling up the sleeves to reveal Mos’s bracelets.
The main floor was quiet. Crates were stacked near the entrance, next to a few bags. From the silence, Taji assumed the others were resting or attending to something in their makeshift barracks. Taji stopped in the ransacked kitchen, alarmed until he remembered Trenne had ordered all the old food thrown out.
Lin was at the table, holding a cup of tea. She had either defied the order to destroy everything or had a secret stash. She must have heard Taji approach but didn’t acknowledge him other than to grunt, “No stim drinks yet,” as though she knew what he was after.
Taji’s stomach chose that moment to twist, reminding him that sex with Trenne was great, but food was good too. He stumbled to the table and sat down too hard. Some discomfort registered even through the flood of happy neurotransmitters in his brain, so he adjusted his position carefully.
He looked up. Lin regarded him with her head cocked to one side. Her hair was braided, and Taji spent a surreal moment imagining Mos styling her hair.
“What?” Taji asked, a small sigh of a question, not a demand.
“Tired, I expected. Hungry, I expected. But not this.” Lin considered him again, then pushed her cup toward him. “He pampers you beyond what is reasonable. He should have made you eat.”
“Pampers.” Taji snorted. He pushed her tea back. “Is there anything edible left?”
“Food bars that taste of dirt,” Mos complained from the doorway. She was still in her borrowed and incomplete IPTC uniform. Lin pulled one of the aforementioned dirt bars from her pocket and slid it over to Taji. The gurgling from his stomach made him open and eat it, although not even the crunchy kind went down easy. His mouth was too dry.
“The Sergeant Major and Rodian went out to look for more food. We were not reliable enough to find food to suit his shehzha,” Lin reported. “Pampers,” she said again. It could have been mean, but wasn’t.
“He left the house?” Taji glanced around. He could have been asleep for hours.
“The feeds have offered no information and Larin Emperor has given no reply to the ambassador’s message. The Garden District is, as far as we know, quiet. Of the Fires, we have no news.” Lin pushed the cup back at him. “Drink. I have more.” Her eyes pinned Taji in place until he drank. “He will return,” she added, softer. “He will return for you and will not like to see you weak.”
“Your bond is very new.” Mos was crisp, perhaps disapproving. “You did not tell me this.”
“I did not tell you anything.” Taji slurped some tea. “You assumed.”
“Drink,” Lin scolded, then turned to Mos. “Sit down, itsehni. It is rude to stay back, even if I am a miner. Or is it the seat that bothers you?” She waved at the table and stools the others had constructed. “Do not mind these. They are called stools and they are…not comfortable, but not bad.”
Itsehni. Taji had never heard that word, or combination of words before, but was currently more interested in watching the very noble Inri Mos try to sit down on a stool. Much like Lin and Trenne, she was a bit too tall for it, but she eventually managed.
“Do not call me that,” Mos insisted once she successfully got the stool to stop wobbling. Taji exchanged a look with Lin, his eyebrows up.
Lin chose to ignore the order. “Itsehni, if you knew Taji Ameyo, you would know that he does not use silence like we do. If he is quiet and does not stare into his data device, it means something is not right.”
Both Shavians turned toward him at the same time.
“Everyone’s suddenly concerned about my moods,” Taji groused. “I am fine.” Their silence made him duck his head. “I am fine,” he said again, “except all of you thought it was hilarious that I followed him around, and nobody cared to tell me that I made a spectacle of myself. It is no surprise Mos assumed I was his. I was almost like Elii and that was before Trenne touched me.”
Mos exhaled roughly at the name. Lin shook her head, confused, before twitching one ear.
Taji stared down at his tea. “He…he wanted a shehzha, and became friends with me in the process. And that is fine. That is more than I ever thought to have, so…fine. I picked the one person in the universe who will not say anything when I continually drop my heart at his feet. As this goes on, at least he will be kind.”
“I do not understand,” Mos interrupted. “You mention hearts frequently.”
Lin lightly hit her hand against the table top, which Taji thought was aimed at Mos until he glanced up. Lin was looking at him.
“Do you, Taji Ameyo of IPTC and Urnau, Taji shehzha, center of the storm, think Trenne, who was raised in the service of those who would not recognize him now if they saw him, who went to the first IPTC-registered trader he saw and asked to leave this country forever, who learned your Anglisky and your signs and your army words and how to write them, who was ordered back here but became our sergeant major…do you think he would allow anyone else to own him as you do? In front of these people, who believe no one would ever give their honor to a hurat, he offers himself to you.” Lin managed to show fury with stillness and a soft voice. “You are a fool, and it is only awareness that the longing has you that allows me to be gentle with you.”
“That was gentle?” Taji snapped, although, by Lin’s standards, it probably was. His voice went husky and strained as he carelessly switched between languages. “Of course, I would say yes. I would…I would always say yes to him. But he thought a damaged human was the only chance he would have. That has very little to do with me. I don’t mind,” he lied, and probably very obviously. He was too doped up on love and sex to feel much of anything, or to bother hiding whatever crossed his face. “We all know how much I don’t mind; the incident o
n the flier this morning made that clear. But in an ideal world, he would have the shehzha he truly wants, not…me.”
Lin turned to Mos. “On many days, he is smart. On many days, he—”
Taji stared in stunned confusion as the two of them tumbled off their stools and bent over, hands pressed hard over their flattened ears. Then a distant, repeating noise, like a ship’s warning bells, knocked Taji from his seat, thinking the estate’s security system had been breached.
Lin groaned, loud and pained, and raised her eyes to Taji. “Weapon,” she gritted out and pushed herself upright as the noise increased, a high and piercing ringing from several directions.
Blood pounded behind Taji’s eyes, a throbbing he could feel but not hear. The sound was overwhelming, even when he covered his ears. If he couldn’t think under the blanket of that noise, then Lin and Mos were in agony.
Lin pulled her knife from her belt, though it left one ear exposed. Mos turned toward her, eyes wide, only to stagger back when the whole house jolted and then a trembling, shaking wave rolled through the floor.
Taji held the table tight until Lin reached over. She yanked him around it by his shirt and threw him behind her. She snarled a word at him that was lost in the noise of sonic weapon.
Tsomyal was upstairs. Taji wondered if they were frightened. He was too numb to be, although nothing seemed to register except that sound. It made his stomach turn and his skin cold. Not even Markita and Nev, visible through the doorway to the barracks, mussed from sleep but in uniform, motions hurried, could help that. Ledo was a blur of blue behind them. Taji felt no comfort at the sight.
His vision was swimming. The weapon was disorienting as well as painful, debilitating within minutes, probably strong enough to leave scarring on human ears if it continued for long. He didn’t want to think about Shavian ears, although that was no doubt the intended target.
The floor shook again. Lin froze except for the tightening of her hand on the hilt of her knife.
From the doorway that led to the center of the house, three members of the Civil Guard watched them. Their crimson tunics were not what Taji had expected to see, although these Guards had come prepared, devices in their ears to muffle or block out the horrible sound.
The sound was not coming from them, which meant there were more of them, probably with vehicles outside or clearing the rest of the house.
He thought, illogically, that the Guards would speak, explain themselves, but they focused on Mos without a word. Taji didn’t understand that either; if this was about treason, why not the Imperial Guard?
Mos seemed to have the same thought—or to object to being arrested by anyone. Some of the color had left her skin, but she straightened and pulled her hands down. Taji didn’t hear whatever she said, but all three Guards raised concussive weapons. Two were aimed at Mos. The other was directed at Lin.
Mos’s mouth moved, ears sweeping up for one moment despite the pain, and then she glanced from Lin to Taji. Her expression went blank. A moment later, she put her arms out and did not resist when she was hauled forward.
Lin clamped down on Taji’s arm.
The I.P.T.C. should not be interfering in internal politics and Taji had no reason to stick his neck out for Mos, an admitted spy, of a kind. He didn’t think he had. But Lin had stopped him, and the movement was enough to draw the Guards’ attention, and Taji’s already knotted stomach clenched to see recognition on their faces.
Shavians should not show anything, and they should have no reason to know who Taji was.
“Lin,” Taji said, alarmed, though no one could hear him.
Lin was focused on the figures in crimson behind the first three, but she must have noticed something else, because she tried to pull Taji behind her again. She should have been able to easily; she was weakening.
Taji slid a look over his shoulder, saw the others on the team still armed and tense, eyes flicking from Taji and Lin to the Civil Guards that had crept into the barracks.
Dark, thin bracelets were placed around Mos’s wrists, linked tight to leave her hands closely bound. Only then did one of the Guards put away their weapon and pull out something else from their belt—a small, gray tool that made Mos raise her head and Lin hold Taji harder. Taji realized why when the Guard held it to Mos’s ear and clipped a ring into the thinner flesh near the tip, probably an identifying marker of some kind, or an insult meant to shame. The wound bled but Mos barely flinched.
Her gaze met Taji’s again. Then she was yanked away.
The remaining Guards turned on Taji and Lin.
“We’re not causing trouble!” It was pointless but Taji couldn’t stop himself. He wondered if the others could even see straight to use their blasters. His head was aching from the noise and sweat dotted Lin’s brow. Without pain, they might have made a stand. But not all of them would make it out alive, and even if they did, Larin would have a genuine reason to come after them. “We are not going to interfere.”
The full attention of the Civil Guard brought Taji up short. He realized he was speaking in Anglisky, not that it mattered. With Mos gone, they aimed all of their weapons at Lin and the three soldiers behind her.
One of them pointed to Taji and the other two moved forward. Taji pulled away from Lin. “You won’t hurt them, right? If I go? And you won’t hurt me?” That was a rule, wasn’t it? They couldn’t hurt a shehzha. Although Taji wasn’t sure rules counted anymore, if they ever had. It didn’t matter anyway; if this became a fight, everyone would get hurt.
There was no response from anyone other than Lin. She lunged for him.
The Guards fired.
TAJI BLINKED rapidly as violet light hit his eyes. He was being pushed toward a ground vehicle. He was outside and the world was oddly silent. The pounding in his skull made it hard to focus. He swung his head around, trying to look at the building. It seemed important that he do that, but seeing another vehicle made him stop, then trip as he was urged onward.
The second ground vehicle was large and plain and openly armored, which was strange for a place that wouldn’t admit it had unrest. But he only noticed the armor at all because it made Mos look little.
Mos was not small, but she was shoved into that vehicle anyway, like Taji was pushed into the other one.
Guards stood around him, holding to the walls or the ceiling as the vehicle began to move.
Taji’s ears began to ring with a sudden, jarring return of sound. He swayed, bumping into Guards who stared at him. There were no windows. He had a panicked thought that he might never see even violet-tinged sunlight again.
He turned, though he wouldn’t see anything but giants in crimson tunics. The others were gone, maybe dead, hopefully only injured. Trenne would get them to safety. And in weeks—months—IPTC would return.
Months.
Taji had gone months alone before. He knew he could, longing or not, but the thought hurt now. A shocking, sudden reemergence of pain where he’d been numb. He was in danger but he could have been free to walk the streets of the capital and he thought he would have felt the same.
The other side of the rings was so far. He was nothing to a distance like that. Maybe they wouldn’t bother, or, not for him, anyway. Trenne would feel bad, but Taji wasn’t the mission.
Taji’s breaths became strangled gasps. Around and above him, the Guards were talking. The conversation seemed to travel through water to reach him.
One of the Guards bent down to peer at him. His mouth moved but Taji couldn’t hear any soft ‘Asha. He shook his head, making himself dizzy, and the Guard put a hand on his shoulder.
Taji flinched, then struck out, enough force in his swing to knock him off balance and to do nothing to anyone else. He landed hard on his ass and dropped his head and didn’t say anything when they locked his wrists together in thin bracelets, clumsier in style than the pretty ones Mos had given him.
He didn’t say anything for a long time.
Chapter Sixteen
THEY PUT
him in the smallest room he had seen on this planet. It had one door, no window openings, and a low ceiling. He suspected the ceiling was meant to intimidate a Shavian or make them uncomfortable. It didn’t matter to him; it wouldn’t have mattered to him even if he had been Trenne’s height.
With nowhere else to sit, he sat on the floor, which was not heated. That didn’t matter either, although Taji was beginning to feel some discomfort—aching in his hips, heat from deep bruises, a throb in his feet and inside his skull. The last few days had been long and arduous, and even the good moments, the perfect moments, had left him exhausted.
He had no way to mark the time since he had curled up Shavian style with his back to the wall, and no interest in doing so. He imagined at first that he might be let go, that he might stumble back to the house to find Lin and the others whole and alive, that Tsomyal would be waiting, that Trenne would pull him close. But if the others were alive, they were gone by now. Hiding with a trader or sneaking away to the moon, keeping their distance while IPTC decided the planet’s fate. They wouldn’t take chances for the sake of comfort or sentimentality again. Trenne was not going to let more members of his team fall.
