by Ruby Dixon
I have to be, don't I? But I nod, still clutching at his belt, unable to let go. If I do, I might burst into a full-on panic attack.
"Count," he murmurs into my ear.
Count? Right. It's what he does to calm down. I swallow hard and begin to count under my breath, low enough that no one can hear me but him. "One. Two. Three. Four—"
Just then, the entire station gives a violent shiver, the floor lurching. The lights go out, and everyone screams.
19
JERROK
The little human's doing her best to be brave, and I feel bad for her. She's been jumpy the entire time, but the moment Rothort came out, I thought she was going to break and run. Kef me, this was a bad call. I forgot that her owner—the one she ran away from—was a praxiian. And Rothort looks rough, but he's a decent sort for a praxiian. Gives me fair prices and doesn't ask questions. Doesn't rib me about the fact that my new “mate” is ooli. He just does business.
Even so, I find myself being more and more protective of her as she slides closer and closer, as if she wants to crawl under my skin. In a strange way, I like it. I hate that she's scared, of course. I'd much rather her spit fire at me like she does when she has her pet at her side. But the hands that cling to me are…nice. How long has it been since anyone reached for me? I'm sure I'm a bastard for enjoying it, but I like that I can pull her against my side and she reaches for me. That I can comfort her.
The food vendor here—who deals exclusively in rations he steals from other ships—has a good deal of noodles, so I start haggling with him. I ignore his smirks as my “ooli” mate clings to me. Let him think I'm grabbing dregs for companionship. They all think Lankham os'Riit is turfless space trash anyhow. They don't know me. I use a fake guise every time I get off station. Let them think what they want—that person is discarded the moment I'm home.
Sophie makes a soft whimpering noise and buries her face against my shoulder, and I've just about got her comforted when the entire station lurches and the lights flicker. A cry goes up from the crowd, and a warning tone rings throughout the station. I'm familiar with what it means, but Sophie looks up at me, her eyes terrified even through the masking device.
"It's a solar storm," I tell her. "No one's in danger."
She swallows hard and nods.
I don't tell her that this puts a bit of a kink in our plans. That we can't exactly go back to my asteroid outpost with the storm going. Our small shuttle won't be able to handle it. But she doesn't need to know that yet. I turn back to haggling the price with the vendor, gesturing at the station. "My price has to go down now if you want to offload these crates of food on me. I've got to get a room for overnight."
"Bah." The szzt throws his hands up. "Sleep in the halls like the other drifters."
I would have before, but I won't do that to Sophie. I shake my head and hold out most of my newly acquired credits. "Not with my mate with me."
"That ugly beast? You poor fool. You should save your credits and get yourself something you can stand to look at." As my gloved hand reaches out, he hears the creak and smirks. "Looks like you cheap out everywhere, my friend."
"Looks like," I say flatly. "Those are all the credits you'll be getting from my cheap ass. Do you want to trade or not?"
It takes a few more rounds of haggling, but once he sees my run-down cybernetic parts, the battle's as good as won. He knows I don't have the credits to toss around and I end up getting enough meat and noodles for about six weeks at a decent price. I load up the sled while Sophie clings to me and the entire station shivers with the onset of the storm. All around us, you can tell who's used to station living and who's not. Those that have been through this before—like myself—ignore the howling wind and the way that everything around us shakes. Those that haven't look utterly terrified, and the occasional shrill cry goes up from the market, only to be quickly silenced by an embarrassed friend.
We return to the ship and load it with the food supplies, and I have to grease the palms of the dock officers, explaining that now I have to stay until the storm passes. They take another chunk of credits for watching my ship, and then I lead Sophie back into the halls of the station.
Her fingers dig into my side and she leans close. "Why aren't we leaving?"
The station gives a low, metallic groan again and I pull her close, steering her down a different hall. "We can't go anywhere with that storm outside. It'll finish rushing through eventually, but for now, we're getting a room."
I expect her to protest, but she just nods and moves closer to me. Without the sled to tug around, it's easy to tuck her against my side and walk with her clinging to me, and I feel like a keffing king, which is stupid. They don't know that the female clinging to me is a gorgeous human with big, dark eyes and the most fascinating pink-brown mouth, or teats that jiggle just a little when she laughs.
Not that she ever laughs for me. But sometimes, she laughs for the carinoux. I fight back a surge of vicious joy that the creature's not going to be with us tonight. He'd have chewed my arm off already simply for touching her.
We head into the belly of the station, where the cantinas are located, and tinny music pipes through the walls, nearly muffled by the sounds of the storm buffeting at the station's hull. It's getting crowded in this area, and I can't help but notice that the cheapest of hotels has a line out the door of people waiting to buy a bed for the night, thanks to the storm. Sophie and her disguise can't share a room with a half-dozen strangers, though, so I head toward the more expensive of establishments. It'll hit me harder in the credits, but I promised I'd keep Sophie safe, and I will.
There's no haggling for the room. With the storm blaring in our ears, I have to pay the highest price, and the bony ssethri behind the counter slides me the key-chip with a smirk. I ignore that and take the elevator to our floor. I can't help but notice that even now, with no one else around, Sophie still holds tightly to me, as if she's afraid to let go. I should tell her to take a step back.
I should.
I just…don't. Instead, I pretend that I really am Lankham os'Riit, with his delicate, beautiful mate at his side. Lankham never saw war. Lankham lost his limbs in a station maintenance accident. Lankham sleeps well at night, better with his mate curled against his chest. Lankham might not have many credits, but he's happy. When the elevator gets to our floor, my gut is burning with jealousy over Lankham's life, even though it's all make-believe.
A fresh round of solar winds muffles the normal station noise as I lead Sophie to the end of the hall and then open the door to our room. It quiets down as we step inside. I shut the door behind her. "It's safe to take your cloak off, if you like. We'll be staying here until the storm passes, and then we'll head back to my asteroid."
Sophie lowers the hood and pulls the mask off, rubbing her face. When her human features come into view, it's like I've forgotten how attractive she is. Her delicate face is flushed and her skin shiny with sweat, her hair sticking to her head as she looks around. She drapes the cape on a hook on the wall and then lifts her hair off her neck to cool it, and I'm fascinated at the slender column of throat revealed. "Jerrok," she says in a low voice. "There's only one bed."
I glance over at the square bed in the center of the room. "Of course there's only one bed. We're supposed to be mated."
She turns to me, dark brows furrowed. "You…did you plan this? So you could get into bed with me?"
20
JERROK
Did I plan this?
Is she serious? Did I deliberately plan to get us stranded at the station so I could end up in the same bed as her? Doesn't she know that she's been my guest for the last while? If I wanted to push her into my bed by force, I could have done so any number of times. I could have threatened not to feed her, or to cut off the oxygen to her end of the station. I could have threatened to shoot her pet. I could have locked the damn thing in the terrarium and forced myself on her. There's so many different ways I could have taken advantage of the situatio
n and never did, because that's not who I am. The va Sithai brothers wouldn't have left her with me if they thought I was that kind of male.
Her accusation stings. I scowl at her. "Did I plan this? Why yes, actually." I gesture at the shaking walls, sarcasm dripping from my voice. "I brought in a solar storm so I could waste a ton of credits sleeping on the floor in a strange room because I really like to give my cybernetic limbs a good keffing-over every now and then."
She flinches at my words, crossing her arms over her chest and hunching as if I've struck her. Instead of feeling better that I've made her feel stupid, I feel worse, and that pisses me off even more.
"Sorry," Sophie mumbles. "I just…saw the bed and panicked." She stares at the floor. "Bad memories from my last owner."
I grunt acceptance of her apology. At least she acknowledged her accusation was silly. I cross the room, trying not to think about how much my limbs ache, or how much staticky feedback they're sending through my raw nerve endings. It's been a long day, and it's just going to get even longer. Still, I hate that all the life has gone out of her. I didn't want to destroy her with my words. I prefer it when she attacks back. I don't know what to do or say when she gets all wounded. I sigh and grab one of the blankets folded at the foot of the bed. "Praxiian, right?" When she nods silently, I think about all the things I've heard about praxiians. How their family honor is tied to everything. How their entire culture is based on war and noble houses. How dismissive they are of other races…and other things. "So, uh, they really sleep together? All of them? Even guests?"
"All of them," she says. "I really don't want to talk about it."
I guess not. I can't imagine sleeping with an entire family of praxiians. And guests, I silently add on. Add in the fact that she was a slave and I can only imagine what a nightmare nights were for her. "Well, like I said, I'm going to sleep on the floor. You can have the bed. And this wasn't planned, because if it was, I'd have picked a station with better bedding." I toss the blanket down and inwardly grimace at how thin it is on the hard tile flooring. I'm going to feel like real shit in the morning.
I'll worry about that then. One day at a time, like always.
Sophie swallows so loudly I can hear it in the room. "Won't…won't that be hard on your limbs?"
"It's all hard on my limbs," I admit. I pull a stool out from the rickety table near the wall because my knee is screaming pain at me. I thump down onto it a little heavier than I wanted and let out a hiss when it sends a shockwave of feedback up my spine. I need to do some maintenance, and that's going to be tricky with a skittish human sharing quarters with me. Might as well get it out in the open, though, give her time to get used to the idea. "Okay with you if I take my shirt off?"
"Why?" Her tone is wary.
"Because my prosthetics are acting up and unless I want to be twisted into a knot in the morning, I'm going to have to loosen things up and get some maintenance in. You might not wanna watch. It's not a pretty sight." I put bluster in my voice so she'll get the idea. What's left of me is strong, sure, but it's also mangled and scarred and unpleasant. Just like me.
"I've seen you without a shirt on, remember? When I woke you up."
My gut feels tight. Sick. I hadn't realized she was looking. "Ah. Well…a warning's a warning all the same." I turn my back to her and contemplate leaving my jumper on, just deal with whatever challenges my body gives me in the morning. I touch my cybernetic arm and the synthetic skin over it shivers painfully. One of the circuits feels hot, too. I can't leave this or I won't be in any sort of position to get us out of here when this storm clears. Gritting my teeth, I undo the auto-fasten at my neck and let the clothing pool at my waist. I feel exposed—stupidly so. She's already seen it, I remind myself. She knows what your shoulder looks like, with the ugly grafts and the mass of scar tissue. She knows there's a big hollowed-out-scar instead of plating over your chest. She knows your one shoulder is higher than the other, and that your spine isn't quite a straight line to your tail. She knows you've been pieced back together like a badly abused doll.
I hate it. I hate that I can feel her staring. I clench my jaw and do my best to ignore her, prying open one of the panels on the underside of my arm so I can do a systems test on that hot circuit before it melts down. If I have to replace it, that'll be keffing expensive, more than I have on hand, which means I've got to make this work.
"You have…robot limbs?" Sophie asks in a quiet voice. "You lost yours?"
No, I want to bite back. I thought it might be fun to be pulled apart like a bug and pieced back together. I keep those vitriol-filled words in my chest, though, and work on massaging the skin over my arm. "Lost all of one leg. Foot off another. One arm. Part of my chest. Eye. Ear."
"That's terrible. What happened?"
"Nothing good." I let it lie at that, rubbing my arm. It spasms in response, and even though it's a fake arm, the feedback sends waves of pain through me, and a headache to boot. I hiss, rubbing my arm harder. There's wiring loose under the wrist, and that needs to be fixed. The last thing I need is to lose my entire hand right now. I pull out a small toolkit, one that I carry with me at all times for occasions like this. If I were a big, fancy soldier with a good house and a fat pension, I'd have top-of-the-line replacement limbs. No constant massaging of parts needed. I open up a panel across my wrist, but the moment I do, my entire arm spasms again.
Kef me. This is going to be a long night.
"Here," Sophie says from behind me. Then, she's crossing the room and moving to my side. Before I can tell her to get the kef away from me, I can feel her presence, the air changing as she moves close. "I can rub your arm while you work on that, if that's all right?"
"You don't have to."
"It's not sexual," she points out hastily, resting her fingertips on my shoulder like I'm some sort of jumpy animal. "I'm not interested in anyone or anything sexually. I just…it looks painful and I want to help."
I should tell her no. If she touches it, she's going to feel it like I do - the rough circuits just barely contained under the skin, the wires that shift more than they should. A good cybernetic limb should feel like a regular limb, but mine are just cheap garbage, and I'm reminded of that every day. It shames me.
But…she's got her fingers on my shoulder, and it's been so long since a female willingly touched me that I'm desperate for more. I think of her soft eyes, and I think of how I jerked my cock to her already.
I should tell her no. Letting her get close is a mistake.
"Go ahead," I say gruffly.
21
JERROK
Sophie's hand glides down my arm, and it takes everything in me not to react.
"Just a massage?" she asks. "Or do you need a deep-tissue rub?"
"Whatever. I just need to give it sensory input to process. That slows down the feedback." I'm trying to concentrate on my wrist, but it's difficult with her so near.
She makes a noise of assent, and then begins to rub small circles on my arm. "Let me know if I do something you don't like or if it's not helping."
The only thing I won't like is if she stops, but I don't say that. I say nothing at all, doing my best to ignore her while being acutely aware of her presence and her hands on my arm. I try to focus instead on my wrist, tightening the wires and then using a needle-headed hose to blow bits of dust off of the circuit board. I'm done far too quickly, and the dark, needy part of me wants to pretend to keep working so Sophie continues to touch me.
As if the rest of my body is in league with my twitching arm, my leg prosthetic starts to act up. I groan in frustration.
"Here," Sophie says, and her voice is kind. She drops to her knees next to me and rubs my leg below the knee. "I've got this."
I say nothing. I don't trust my voice. Her touch is helping, though. The sizzles of feedback are calming, and as she rubs my leg, I check the circuit on my arm again. No longer running hot. Good.
"I don't know anything about alien prosthetics," Sophie says in
a quiet voice as her hands knead my calf. "But it seems to me that they shouldn't be acting like this. Is it what the others said? That they're cheap?"
"The cheapest."
"Can't you…can't you save up for better ones? I've got to think these must really bother you after a while."
I grit my teeth. "Hard to save up when you're being eaten out of your station by a giant carinoux."
She flinches, her hands going still.
I feel like an ass. "Sorry," I mutter. "I know it's not your fault. And even if I saved up for a year, I wouldn't make enough." I try to smile. "For some reason, junking isn't the most lucrative of professions."
Sophie manages a small smile, her hands moving again. "Is it one of those sorts of jobs where you need a small fortune to make a large one?"
"Pretty much." I rub my arm again, working the “muscle” a little harder. "Plus, after the war, everything was at such a premium that it was out of reach for everyone except those the military gave preferential treatment to, and they ran out, too. By the time they got to me, all that was left were the crap, cheap parts. Didn't matter anyhow because I was supposed to be dead." I shrug. "And since I was station trash, no one cared."
Her mouth purses. "That's terrible. I'm sorry."
I grunt. What else can I say? It's life. Shit happens. You just try and roll with the punches.
She goes to my foot, pulling my boot off, and when my “skin” twitches, she begins to rub it, too. I feel strange having a pretty female work on servicing my limbs with her touch…but it feels good. I usually only give my prosthetics a cursory rub to take care of the worst of it, but Sophie's hands are like magic, quieting the feedback. It's like my limbs need more stimulus than I'm giving them, and her gentle hands are providing it.
If I wasn't in so much pain, my cock'd probably be as hard as steel, but luckily—ha, luckily—the throbbing ache in my limbs has taken care of that.