by A. G. Wilde
The first time they’d returned to the exchange was when Geblit had visited the plains to check if they were still alive.
He’d registered them and that had officially started their life as free beings.
They’d lived in the plains ever since.
He owed Geblit a lot for that. He doubted that taking the human off the Torian’s hands would repay the debt fully.
He’d saved his and Sohut’s lives. If they had been brought back to the mines, they’d have surely been killed.
Memories of working in the mines came back to him, this time not in his dreams but while he was wide awake, for he couldn’t manage to fall asleep.
No matter how he tried, insomnia chased him like an angry umu set loose.
“Hey, little chid. Can I stay in your cave with you? Mine is wet and I cannot sleep.”
He glanced over at Sohut. “There is only enough space for two.”
The female’s face looked sad and he felt bad for saying no.
The mines were cold and wet and people got sick easily.
He’d been lucky to claim the cave they were in. He’d been watching the owner for weeks. He saw the signs of the mine sickness early, knew the being wouldn’t survive.
It’d been hard to do, watching someone die, but he’d had no choice.
There was nowhere to get medical attention in the mines.
Beings came, worked, and died. The Tasqals always found replacements.
As soon as the male had died, he’d hauled the body from the cave.
It was hard work for a chid, but he’d succeeded and the cave was claimed for Sohut and himself.
It was difficult keeping it, though.
There was always someone who was bigger, older, and stronger who was looking to take it away from their control and without a cave for shelter, death came quickly in the dampness of the mines.
“If you promise to share, you can come in,” he said, his gaze studying the female.
She smiled at him and crouched to enter the small space.
They coexisted like that fine for a few days…until the males started coming in.
Males she invited.
Males who would pay her with talix metal in her collection bucket. She preferred to fill her bucket that way than to go out and dig.
When she was servicing the males, he and Sohut had nowhere to go.
They’d sit outside the cave in the damp, waiting for it to end.
Praying to Raxu…even as the sounds and smell of phekking filled the air.
It didn’t take long for Sohut to start sniffling and soon his sniffles turned into sneezes.
He was getting ill.
Alarm fueled his anxiety and Riv asked the woman to stop what she was doing.
She had to leave their cave and go somewhere else.
They needed their cave back. Their home.
Her activities were killing his brother and Sohut was all he had in the universe.
The female had laughed—a response so shocking it still chilled him to this day.
Then, her mouth had set into a hard line.
Without warning, she’d begun screaming.
She’d screamed that he and Sohut were trying to take her cave away.
She’d screamed for help, saying vile things about him like he was trying to be an adult male and put his little cock inside her.
He’d been frozen, unable to believe what she was saying, stunned by her accusations.
…and help had come.
For her.
Never mind that he and Sohut were chids.
The miners didn’t care.
They’d beat them. Bruised them.
They’d laughed as if it was a joke and they’d thrown him and Sohut from the cave, threatening them more harm if they ever returned.
That’d just been one experience.
There were so many.
So so many.
Riv’s hands balled into fists on the sleeping cushion as anger flooded through his veins.
The memories were fresh, as if they’d happened yesterday.
Stretching his arm across the cushion, he felt for Grot. The tevsi always managed to calm him and ground him in the present.
Grot reminded him that the mines wasn’t his life anymore.
But Grot wasn’t there.
He was sleeping with the human…La-rehn.
Riv groaned at the thought of her.
He’d phekked up majorly today.
He could still feel her face nestled against his neck, that memory overpowering the one of his past in the mines with such intensity, his cock grew hard immediately.
He was playing a dangerous game with the female.
What had started out as a day to send her away from his Sanctuary had turned into something else completely.
Groaning, he turned on his side to stare at his closed door.
Whatever had happened between them today needed to be ripped out by the root.
He couldn’t get close to her and he couldn’t allow her to get close to him.
She made him feel…and feelings were always what led to hurt and deceit in the past.
All these years living in the plains, he’d locked that part of him away and it had kept life simple and safe.
He couldn’t allow himself to grow weak.
He had to remember.
Never forget.
Nothing had changed.
He hadn’t achieved his goal of sending her away today but she still had to go.
The female had to leave.
21
Working with the animals was good. It always cleared his mind.
Helped him to focus.
It’d been two days since they’d visited the exchange and he’d kept far away from the human, working on the far side of the Sanctuary on purpose so she couldn’t find him if she decided to come look for him.
He told himself he didn’t miss her intrusive presence.
He’d always worked alone, even when Sohut was on the Sanctuary grounds.
Rolling his shoulders, he took off his gloves and walked toward the main residence.
It was late.
He’d slip inside, wash himself, and head to his room, hopefully before the human exited hers.
He still hadn’t decided what he was going to do with her.
The fact she wasn’t registered complicated things and he reckoned the first part of getting her off his Sanctuary was going to involve returning to the exchange to get her alien status legalized.
Though he’d made it a point not to see her, he wondered what she’d been up to for the long hours he’d been working outside for the past two days.
Probably sleeping. At least, that’s what he’d assumed.
But as he opened the door and stepped into the corridor, something immediately hit him.
The house smelled…different.
Sniffing, his brows creased as he walked slowly toward the main room, eyes narrowed.
When he came upon the room, his eyes widened.
It was…clean.
The table sparkled so much he could see the underlying pattern underneath. He’d forgotten it had a pattern.
One of his brows arched as his gaze traveled around the room.
The window was open, letting a cool breeze in and the window sills were sparkling.
The clutter of gadgets he had around the room were all cleaned and set into neat piles, and it looked as if they’d been sorted by type.
As he took a slow step into the room, turning slowly as if he was in an alternate dimension, his gaze hit the floor.
Even the floor was sparkling.
What in the actual phek?
The human was nowhere to be seen but it was obvious whose work this was, unless they’d accidentally bought a cleaning fairy at the exchange and let it loose in his quarters.
The entire room smelled like zimsu flowers.
He waited for it, the snarl and growl at the change, but neither came. Instead, he was speech
less. He suddenly felt out of place in his own house.
It was clear the human, small as she was, had managed to undertake the mammoth task of cleaning the entire living space.
It was what she’d been doing all day for yesterday he hadn’t seen any sign of her presence.
A faint sound coming from the cook room caught his ear.
Heading that way, he stopped in his tracks at the sight in front of him.
Standing by the stove, the human was…cooking? Grot lay by her feet, tail happily wagging as he waited for scraps of whatever the female was preparing.
But it was clear she had no idea what she was doing.
She was boiling rai grains in a pot and was glaring at a slab of dehydrated meat on the counter.
Grot looked up and saw Riv, then made a sound of greeting, which had the human looking toward the door.
“Oh, hi. Didn’t see you there.” Her smile was nervous, her gaze wary as if she was worried about something. “I hope you don’t mind. I thought I’d start dinner.”
What?
She was worried about how he’d react to her invading his space, cleaning it, and now cooking his food?
Well…Riv blinked…she should be worried.
But, it was difficult finding that usual pot of anger and annoyance that he often drew from.
“What are you doing?” he asked instead.
“Cooking. Well,” she huffed a breath from her nose, her nostrils moving a little as the air went through them, “I’m trying to. I don’t know any of these ingredients.”
Moving a little closer, he looked at the rai bubbling in the pot.
“First off…” he began, but the look in her eyes stopped him.
It was a half-defiant, half-hopeful look.
He motioned to the dehydrated meat instead of finishing what he was about to say. “That needs water.”
Her eyes flew to the meat and she picked it up, garnering Grot’s attention.
“Not for you, doggo.” She patted the tevsi on the head and Grot whimpered.
Grot whimpered.
He’d never heard Grot whimper.
“This is for your master.”
That stopped his thoughts in their tracks.
What?
For a few moments he just looked at her as she put the dehydrated meat into some water.
“You’re preparing sustenance…for me?” He regained the ability to speak.
Her eyes darted to him for a second. “It’s the least I can do.”
He wanted to ask why but all he could do was stare at her.
This was too…comfortable.
Maybe he’d given her the wrong idea by not pushing to get rid of her at the exchange?
Permanent residency at his Sanctuary was not possible. He was still intent on finding a place for her to go.
She seemed to not be aware of that.
And what was worse, these unexpected actions of hers…they made him feel strange.
Backing away, he went to sit at the table, his eyes still wide as he stared at nothing before him.
He needed a minute.
What the phek was happening?
A few moments later, the human stepped in with a bowl of rai and braised meat.
She set it before him, a tune low in her throat as she hummed some melody.
He could only stare at her.
What was she doing?
Next, his gaze fell to the bowl before him and for a few moments, all he could do was look at it.
A warm, home-cooked meal was not something he’d expected this dark-cycle but there it was in front of him.
There was something about it, about not downing cans of Xurli energy fluid and rock cakes for dinner…
Whatever it was, it had him swallowing hard as the scent of the warm food wafted upwards into his nose.
This was what it felt like having a proper home-cooked meal.
When was the last time he and Sohut had shared such a thing?
He couldn’t remember.
“Is something wrong with it?” A worried frown etched the human’s forehead as she looked at the contents of his bowl. “I tried, but I suppose this must be more like what I’m used to than what you usually eat.”
He could only grunt.
She sure was right about that.
The human grit her small, flat teeth, her bottom lip turning over and downward. “Does the meat taste okay at least?”
With some hesitation, he took a morsel of the braised meat and brought it to his lips.
A burst of flavor spread across his tongue and he almost choked on the food, trying to hide his reaction.
What was bad was the human’s expectant look as she watched him chew.
“It’s…edible,” he ended up saying. She didn’t need to know just how delicious it tasted.
It sure as phek beat eating rock cakes and washing them down with Xurli.
Accepting his answer, the human smiled a little and settled in the seat across from him.
Eyes on her, he brought some of the rai to his mouth and fought to keep his expression cool.
It tasted good enough for him to finish an entire bowl and that was surprising. Not only did he hate rai, but he’d never met anyone who boiled rai.
Rai was usually popped in the high-temperature tube.
Clearing his throat, he swallowed the food as discreetly as he could.
He must try not to look too eager and give the female any ideas.
If this was a ploy to get him to change his mind about her leaving, she wasn’t going to be successful.
No matter how good her cooking tasted…
Or how much it reminded him that something was missing in his life.
They ate in silence with Grot at their feet underneath the table.
Well, he mostly ate.
She mostly picked at her meat, glancing at him every now and then and it was obvious something was on her mind.
“What is it?” it came out a bit more gruff than he’d intended.
She looked down and her long lashes fanned over her pale cheeks. Raising a hand, she rubbed her neck absentmindedly and he followed the motion, unable to look away from the way her fingers brushed over her pale skin.
Her skin looked so soft…it was soft.
Back at the exchange, when he’d held her, he’d felt her softness.
He’d just forced himself not to pay attention to it.
Now, though…
Now, he allowed himself the moment to look.
He may not like people, females…but that didn’t mean he found them unattractive.
And this female…
The plain face, the pale skin, the delicate limbs attached to the soft, curvy frame… She had no outwardly offensive features and looked like she’d be a good fit with several species he could think of off the top of his head—the Merkannians, the Plixians, the Drori, the Nuva and even his race, the Merssi.
His gaze moved over her face and fastened on her lips. It was her second most striking feature, her eyes being the first.
“Do you like it?”
Her question caught him off guard and he almost choked again on a spoonful of rai.
“Like what?”
“The food. Did you like it?”
Oh.
For a second there he thought she was asking…
He looked down at his food. He’d finished the entire bowl.
“It tasted…okay.”
A small, almost imperceptible smile graced her lips.
“It was nice to cook. The last time I cooked was when I was back on Earth.”
Earth. Such a strange name for a planet.
Her eyes focused on nothing as she thought about her home world. He bet it was a wonderful place, free from all the things that made his world so phekked up.
She didn’t belong on this side of the phekked up universe.
“What are you doing here?”
She blinked at him, a slight frown crossing her face. “You say it as if I ju
st got on a shuttle and left.” Her brown gaze got hard. “Do you really think I’d willingly leave my planet to hop into a zoo so I could be stared at by aliens?”
Riv shrugged. “Some beings have weird fetishes.”
As she glared at him, he almost smiled.
Almost.
He was riling her up, but it was no laughing matter.
“I know you were taken. You said so.” He rested his hands on the table and studied her.
When she cast a wary glance his way, he knew there was something she wanted to say.
What now?
The more she looked at him, the more he knew he didn’t want to talk about whatever she was going to bring up.
Distract her.
“You…” he cleared his throat. “…you cleaned.”
Her face suddenly lightened and she glanced around the room.
“Yea, I…I hope you don’t mind. I just thought…” She trailed off.
Even sitting at a chair behind the table, he could see she was wringing her hands in the new trousers she now wore.
Her top was a long-sleeved tunic and it bothered him that he was noticing such a thing.
“You thought what?” He scowled and she seemed to stiffen.
“You’ve been very kind to me. I didn’t want you to think I didn’t appreciate that. I can help around here, you know. In fact,” her small chin rose and he realized she was exerting some sort of challenge, “I intend to. I don’t know much about tending to animals, but I can learn. My grandfather had a farm back in Texas…has a farm…” She trailed off again, thoughts clouding her eyes.
Riv resisted the urge to growl at her.
This wasn’t a permanent situation.
Right. He needed to nip this in the phekking bud before it got out of hand.
“I don’t need your help. You’re not staying for long, remember? In this, you have no choice.”
Her shoulders stiffened some more, her eyes turning to slits as she regarded him.
As they glared at each other, he got the distinct impression that she heard his words but that didn’t mean she was going to listen to them.
“I know you don’t want me here. You’ve made that very clear.” She leaned forward, her gaze never leaving his and Riv had to raise an eyebrow.
“I know you’ll kick me out soon. I know it isn’t my choice.” She spat the word and if it could materialize, he felt it would have smacked him right across the face.