by V. K. Ludwig
I took the strip of meat he gave me and devoured it in three bites, moaning at the tenderness and the zest of foreign herbs. “This is good. You hunted this?”
He nodded. “Eat as much as you want. Tendetu is plentiful in this area. There’s a waterskin over there if you’re thirsty, but Serah also brought us mokhot. A bit like wine?”
“I’ll take the wine.”
He handed me another, darker waterskin, the leather embossed with some sort of rune. “You like children?”
“Oh yeah, they’re awesome.” I took a sip, letting my tongue curl around the tartness of it. “And what does a shimid do when he isn’t taking care of shipwrecked women?”
A deep chuckle vibrated from his chest. “I’m a poor shimid, to be honest. I never even had a vision. Well…” Something gleamed in his eyes, bringing out those tiny specks of gold that swirled in his irises. “I actually had my very first vision last sun.”
I took another sip of mokhot before I handed it to him. “What did you see?”
Silence lingered for a few seconds before he finally said, “You.”
His answer tingled beneath my sternum. “Why me?”
“That’s what I’d like to figure out,” he said. “I sensed your panic. Almost choked on it, really. When my friends and I found the wreck, I opened your escape pod right away since it had a leak and couldn’t control the internal temperature. You could have overheated and died, Lia.”
If he hadn’t come along. “So you saved me.”
“No.” He shook his head and his shoulders rounded. “Warlord Razgar was already on his way and arrived a few minutes after me.”
That didn’t change the fact that he’d come for me first. “I bet he was impressed. A first vision sounds special.”
I must have said something wrong because now his spine rounded too. He took a healthy swallow of the mokhot and stared into the flames. The last rays of a sun already setting again caught on his horns, and my fingers itched to feel them, explore them. Would they grow even longer?
When curiosity frayed the strings of my control, I scooted closer to him. “Can I touch you?”
His lips slipped off the spout with a noisy squeak. “Touch… touch me how?”
“Your horns and tail,” I clarified, warmth tingling my earlobes. “It’s just… you’re so different. I’ve seen Jal’zar before when traders came through, but never up-close.”
“Right.” Dust whirled up as he turned to face me, and placed the waterskin beside the fire. “Go ahead.”
I brought my hands to the base of his horns, right where his scalp hardened. “At what age did they emerge?”
“Around three. Here… feel this.” His hands wrapped around mine, guiding my touch up along pronounced ridges. “The higher we go the smoother they become. Also colder once the blood supply cuts off, um, right about here.”
Since his horns grew in a backward sway, the higher we went the more I had to lean into him, and eventually rise onto my knees. His fingers carefully brought mine to the pointed tips, sharp like daggers. Undoubtedly dangerous. They disappeared from my clasp when he looked up at me, leaving only the smallest gap between our faces.
He stared at me with those fascinating eyes of his, the way his pupils slipped to my lips quickening my pulse. Not in a bad way, though, which made it… confusing.
I should have been terrified. I’d crash-landed on Solgad, had woken tied up, and knew Zerim for all but an hour. But there was something about him that made me feel as if I’d known him forever. Or perhaps his hum had robbed me of all reluctance?
“I like your hair.” When I stroked over the top of his braid, his chest expanded wider at his next inhale. “It’s pure white.”
“Touched by the goddess Mekara,” he said, pupils once more slipping to my lips. “Only shamans have white hair and purple eyes.”
“So you’re blessed of some sort.”
He said nothing to that. Instead, an odd sound resonated from between his slightly parted lips. Like a relentless smacking produced by how he repeatedly pressed the tip of his tongue against his gums.
“What’s that sound you’re making now?” It died right then, and his tail started to swish behind him through the ash, the tip… rounded? “You have no tailclaw.”
Csh.
He slapped his tail against his thigh, taking it out of my sight with such speed nothing but a cloud of dust remained where it had been only a second ago. His lips peeled over his small fangs, but his sudden unease seemed more geared toward himself than me.
“I was born without it,” he said clipped and immediately rose. “Eat more while I wash myself.”
That was all he said before he fled toward the yoni, leaving me behind with a lump of embarrassment clogging my throat. I shouldn’t have gotten so touchy-feely with him, no matter my curiosity. Not after what he’d told me about my heat and males falling into a rut.
I grabbed a handful of twigs from that bundle with his stuff and tossed it into the flames, then took another slice of meat. He’d hunted it, which was pretty damn impressive. Likely with bow and arrow, considering a quiver hung from a nearby branch.
Leaning back onto my elbows, I tried to relax. It lasted until, somewhere in the brush behind me, tiny claws scrabbled.
I jumped to my feet. “Zerim?”
A twig snapped.
All my muscles tensed at once. Hadn’t he mentioned something about dangerous animals roaming the ground? What if one of them was hiding in these bushes? There was no way I could climb up that tree by myself.
“Zerim!” I called out once more and hurried toward the rock formation, the fissure leading inside the yoni hidden behind vines I pushed aside. “I’m so sorry, but I think there’s an animal out there.”
He probably couldn’t hear me.
Not with how his moans and grunts resonated the yoni, each one sending an inappropriate heat between my legs. What was wrong with me? I must have hit my head real hard. Why else would I shove myself along the rock, creeping even closer, not even bothering to avert my gaze?
My pulse shuddered away in my ears.
It stopped when I saw him.
Zerim stood with one hand pressed against the rock, leaning slightly over, his back toward me. The other must have worked along his cock, but not with those jerky movements when my ex-boyfriend had rubbed one out. His movements were… different.
However he gripped himself, his arm slowly extended away from his body when he groaned as if in pain. The leather of his loincloth hid most from my eyes, but not those drops of cum that dribbled from between his legs and speckled the dark stone underneath. A sight so raw and indecent, it hardened my nipples, and a furious swirl ravaged my belly.
His hand stalled, and his head turned my way by a single degree. “I can smell you, Lia.”
Now I averted my gaze, cheeks itching with violent heat. “I didn’t mean to sneak up but there was a noise out there.”
With a nod, he fumbled with the front of his loincloth, probably putting himself away. “You weren’t supposed to see this.”
What had I seen? Interstellar politics class hadn’t exactly discussed what Jal’zar carried underneath their loincloths. Which shouldn’t even interest me but, fuck me… it did.
Zerim turned toward the yoni without sparing me a glance, and slipped into the water — loincloth, harness, knives and all. He splashed some onto the rock and diluted what was most definitely semen before he washed his body down, including the end of his braid.
“What kind of noise did you hear?” he asked and climbed out, his gray skin glistening with how water pearled down his body and pooled at his feet.
“Claws would be my best guess.”
“Probably just some rodents, but we should get back into the tree soon. Like I said, tendetu is plentiful in this area, and other predators know it.” When he walked up to me and I turned toward the fissure, he clasped my wrist and gave a gentle tug, turning me toward him. “Your heat affects me as much as any mal
e. That doesn’t mean I’ll act on my instincts, okay? I won’t fall into rut.”
Six
Zerim
I was one inhale away from falling into a rut.
Arm draped halfway across my face, I held my breath until my lungs seared, which put a tremble onto my nabu. While Lia had been unconscious, the sweetness of her heat had only intensified. She wasn’t even at the height of her estrous yet, and already the knot on my cock was so swollen with seed it ached like never before.
Worse yet?
She’d caught me stroke some out.
The memory shamed me deeply, but it aroused me more. Her cheeks had turned a soft pink when I’d called her out, but before that? She must have watched me for a while, considering how her scent had thickened the air inside the yoni. Was her curiosity to blame, or did she sense this same odd feeling I carried inside my chest? Like an invisible force that urged me toward her?
Several times, I’d travelled to Earth, a planet that sprawled with beautiful females. They came into heat once every moon and, while the scent of their heat had always been enticing, not once had I even come close to a rut. Why now? Why with her?
Beside me, Lia tossed and turned in her nabu, forcing me to steady it with my tail or she would fall out. She’d tied one of my leathers around that nest of golden hair she’d twirled at the top of her head, which bobbed and bounced each time she moved.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Guess my inner clock is all out of whack now.” She turned onto her side and faced me. “There are like… a lot of noises out there.”
I didn’t so much hear the fear in her voice as I somehow sensed it tensing my own muscles. “Beasts don’t climb mother trees like this one since they’re sacred. You’re safe. The only thing we have to look out for are sudden storms.”
“Aren’t shimids supposed to sense storms?”
“Yeah, well, shimids aren’t supposed to be born male.” One of the many reasons why not a single Jal’zar female had ever shown interest in me. “Like I said, I’m poor at it.”
“Why do you think you had this vision about me?”
As if I wasn’t wondering the same…
I turned onto my side, immediately mesmerized by her eyes. Lia had light blue eyes with a soft sheen to them, which told me that she wasn’t entirely human. Her father must have been Vetusian, like mine, and had claimed her mother when they invaded Earth.
“Mekara works in mysterious ways,” I said after a while when I couldn’t come up with anything more cliche than that. “Since Vetusians and humans on Earth have fated mates coded into their DNA, I assume you believe in fate? The gaia link?”
“Do I believe in it? Yes. Do I obsess about it? No.” She shrugged. “I didn’t even have myself tested to find out who my mate is. I mean, like, what’s the point? If he’s destined to be in my life, I’m sure he’ll show up eventually — no test needed. Much less pressure, too.”
For a moment, I didn’t even know what to say to that. All my life, I’d tried to figure out just what Mekara wanted of me, and what my destiny entailed. And Lia was like… fuck fate. It’ll show itself when it’s time. In a way, I admired her for—
Something stroked my tail.
It was Lia.
She brushed the tip of her finger where it wrapped around her nabu, the touch so faint it pebbled my skin from the tip all the way to my tailbone. No female had ever touched me this… intimately. Certainly not with such interest, exploring me with no apprehension, or prejudice over my many flaws.
When our eyes caught, she suckled on her upper lip, and the hint of a shrug rolled off her shoulder. “Sorry. Seems I’m always saying that to you.”
One might have thought she’d just apologized for touching, but not Lia. Oh no, this female apologized for not stopping to touch me. Certainly an oddity I could get behind.
“It’s alright,” I said, enjoying each stroke of her nail along my tail. “Like you said, I’m very different from an Earth male.”
A thick swallow trailed down her throat. “How else are you different?”
That question sent a new swell of blood into a cock that had refused to soften since… well, since I’d caught her scent. Given my sparse attire, there wasn’t much I could hide from her, which made her question all the more obvious. She’d seen me do something she couldn’t make sense of. And if I told her, would she touch me there, too?
Fuck, my shaft hardened even more.
I shouldn’t think of those things. Shouldn’t—
An odd sound resonated the night.
No, actually, that sound came from me. Because I was tasting the air for her heat once more, my tongue slapping so loudly against my gums I trapped it between my fangs and bit down hard to shut it up.
“You should sleep.” Or my control might just slip, surrendering to her allure, unleashing raw instincts onto an unknowing female.
Lia turned around with a sigh, but she didn’t even manage another inhale before she murmured, “What if I fall out of this thing in the middle of the night?”
“You won’t. I’m steadying your nabu with my tail.”
“What if you take it off in your sleep?”
Now I sighed, not liking the direction of this conversation. I’d suggested I care for Lia for a purpose: to find out why she triggered my gifts as a shimid, so I could become part of the people. Rutting an Earth female? Like Warlord Razgar had said I should? That wasn’t part of the plan, no matter how much I wanted to.
“I weaved it through the gaps,” I said.
While she neither sighed, nor said another word, her fingers wrapped around my tail as if it was her lifeline. Not that anyone could raise a brow at it. Lia was younger than me, if not by much. Eighteen perhaps? Nineteen? For a young female who’d crash-landed on a strange planet and had to sleep in a tree surrounded by beasts, she’d held up well.
“I can take you out into the plains once you feel better,” I said. “We can ride up the Kurutej Plateau. You can see the gates of Noja from there.”
“I’d like that.” And her thumb circled my tail as if to reward me for suggesting it. “Zerim…”
“Hmm?”
“Can you hum for me? Like you did before?”
My heart stumbled over its next beat. Humming for a female was a very intimate thing, only done between mates or if a male wanted to court one. Not that she could have known that, considering how my earlier hums had just… spilled out of me. But what was the harm? For all I knew, I might never have a mate to hum for, so why not give it to her?
“Sure.”
I hadn’t finished the word yet did my chest vibrate with the sound. Keeping it as smooth as possible, I hummed until her breathing turned shallow, giving it all the richness I could manage to produce.
Within minutes, she fell asleep.
Seven
Lia
Two days later, my head no longer throbbed, but the cut at my temple itched. That paste Zerim had put on it must have healed it faster, because it was already crusted over when I brushed across with my fingertips.
Large leaf in one hand, I used the other to pick one berry after another from it. Each morning, Zerim gathered them for me at first light, and their tart sweetness coupled with his kindness put a smile on my face.
“What’s so funny?” he asked as he led one of those massive black cats they rode up to the fire pit.
“You’re quite the provider, do you know that? You hunt for me. Bring me berries. Carry me up and down the tree. Boil us water.” And he hummed me to sleep each night.
A smirk crept onto his mouth. “As a shimid who has almost gotten killed by solar flares twice, and can’t trigger visions to save his life, I try to shine in other areas.”
I rose and walked up to the animal, letting my fingers trail over its black, flat muzzle. “Would you say you’re a good hunter?”
“An excellent hunter.” With any other guy, that statement would have sounded boisterous, but Zerim had a humbleness about
him he seemed unable to shed. “Have you ever ridden before?”
“No.”
“This is Uruz, my yuleshi.” From the ground, he picked up a woolen saddle and swung it onto the animal’s back. “I caught him when I was fifteen, and trained him myself under the guidance of Warlord Katedo. He’s been my mount since. A lazy bastard who refuses to fall into a sprint half the time, but absolutely loyal. Comes whenever I whistle for him.”
“Hi, Uruz.” The animal snorted through two slits running parallel down each side of its neck, and shoved its muzzle against my shoulder. “There’s a rumor on Earth, saying that—”
“We fuck our yuleshis?” Where I expected a hint of anger, I only found amusement in his voice. “The plains can get lonely for sure, but not quite so much any male would be stupid enough to take on a nine-hundred pound beast.” He fastened some sort of girth, and winked at me over his shoulder. “Besides, Uruz is male.”
“How come you’ve been to Earth?”
He smacked his tongue, taking his time before he finally spoke. “My father is Zavis da taigh Broknar.”
His answer landed heavy in my stomach. “You’re the son of a Warden?”
“Uh-huh.”
That robbed me of words for a second. Everyone knew that one of the three Empire leaders had a son with a Jal’zar female, of course, but I hadn’t expected to happen across him on Solgad when he saved my life.
“You’re a hybrid.” Which likely explained why my heat affected him, but didn’t provoke him as much as his full-blooded kind. “Guess that’s why you were born without a tailclaw.”
Jawline hardening, he tied a bunch of stuff to the saddle. “I’m Jal’zar. Born and bred right here. I’ve spent almost all my life on Solgad and know these plains better than most.”
My ears pricked at that hint of dismay on his undertone. Was he ashamed to be half Vetusian? Considering the Empire had occupied Solgad at some point and forced many of their females into prostitution, being the Warden’s son couldn’t have been easy.