Taken to Nobu: A SciFi Alien Romance (Xiveri Mates Book II)

by Elizabeth Stephens

  “This is the place of Re’Okkari,” he says when we pass through a circular door — one he has to hunch to get through.

  Again, I notice the stark contrast to the other two homes I’ve been in. Where Okkari’s is all clean lines and efficiency and Tre’Hurr and Va’El’s feels alive with their love, Re’Okkari’s space is sparse. It doesn’t betray much.

  To one side, there’s the same strange cooking apparatus and a dais that I think is either meant for storing food, or for chopping it. At the back of the space, there’s a raised platform piled thickly with furs, though they don’t sit in a curved bed like Okkari’s do. There’s a stone basin in the center of the space with ash in the middle, and thick, grey pillows scattered around that.

  To my right, opposite the kitchen area, there’s a low table on which I spy a half-finished game left for two or more players. My heart catches when I realize it’ll never get finished.

  Biting my teeth together, I say quickly, “He didn’t have any family?”

  “Nox, Xhea. He was unmated.”

  “But what about his parents?”

  Ka’Okkari tilts his head at this. “The ones who sired him hail from another tribe. They relocated, seeking warmer climates once their kit was fledged warrior.”

  “They don’t see each other anymore?”

  “Nox, they do not. I see this troubles you, yet this is the way on Nobu. Across all of Voraxia, in fact.”

  I hug my opposite arms, thinking of what Kuaku said. I’ll never see them again. Even if she lied about the other things, it seems that in this aspect she spoke truths. I’ll never go home. I’ll never have a chance to tell my mom how sorry I am.

  Softly, I say, “In the human colony, we stay close to our parents until they pass.”

  “I take it you mean pass into the Great Ocean of the After.”

  I don't know what that is, but I get the gist and nod.

  White flickers over his ridges and he smiles at me fondly and I feel strange, like I’ve known him for years instead of just a few moments. “Kits are carried forward by their sires until they reach adulthood and take on their new titles, divesting themselves of the names they kept as children.”

  Suddenly it makes sense why they do not share their names with one another. To do so would be sort of…intimate, representing a kinship it is not likely you’ll share with many, especially not if the birthing rate is so low. It also makes me sad. I want to know his name, but maybe that window is closed.

  Ka’Okkari says, “My Xhea, I will leave you now.”

  “What?”

  “The Okkari has requested I leave you here.”

  “What for?”

  He hesitates, flaring white. White for surprise. Red for rage. Yellow for shame. Grey for grief. Blue for happiness. Purple for desire… I may not speak color fluently, but I’m getting the hang of it little-by-little.

  “He believed that you would be interested in maintaining your own residence apart from his.”

  My mouth opens. I can’t speak. I feel hate and fear and terror and grief and bloodlust and savagery. But only at the thought that he forsakes me.

  “If I may be so bold,” Ka’Okkari says, filling the silence, “I believe it may be his intention to attempt to court you in the human fashion. The manual produced by the Svera clearly states that males and females — or two males or two females — live apart during the courtship process.”

  Svera and her Tri-God be damned. Leave it to a worshiper to write such a manual… I open my mouth to protest, but as I take a step, my foot falls onto one of the pillows by the fire. I stare down at the ashes, wondering when Re’Okkari’s last meal was, what he ate, if the fire was roaring when he ate it.

  “Would it not be a disgrace for me to stay here where Re’Okkari stayed even if I’m the reason he’s dead?”

  “My Xhea, no one thinks this.”

  I don’t meet his gaze. I don’t need his sympathy. I was there. I saw the hevarr upchuck its acid spit all over him. Meanwhile, I left the battle without fighting, with just a few flesh wounds. Disgrace him? Hah. I’ve already done that.

  Finally, he says, “Nox. On the contrary. You honor him greatly by tending his nest.”

  “Then I’ll do it. I’ll stay here.”

  “Xhivey. I will inform the Okkari and the hasheba who will help ready the nest for you.”

  I don't know what to say next, and shift my weight uncomfortably between my feet. “Thank you.”

  “Of course, Xhea. I shall leave you.” He turns from me to the door and I feel a strange sadness at his departure, similar to the one I felt when we left Tre’Hurr. She had been real…sweet. The kind of person — being — I could like. Maybe even be friends with, if I have to stay here. No one said I’m not allowed to go back…why do I keep saying if? I clamp down on the thought because the answer makes my whole body hurt with a dull ache, like I’ve been beat up over and over and over and the bruises left behind will never fade. I don’t want to go back.

  Like the ice that sweeps in from the sky, blanketing everything, this weird ice world has given me a clean slate. A fresh start. More than that. Panicky thoughts of the Okkari slip into my thoughts and I shake my head to clear them.

  “Wait,” I call out just as he reaches the door. He glances over his shoulder at me. “Will you thank him for me? This is…it’s a good idea.” Time alone with only myself for company? What could possibly go wrong?

  “I will do just that,” he says, lips quirking again.

  The doors whoosh open in front of him and close at his back, leaving me in the dim world that was once Re’Okkari’s. Alone, for the first time in solars, I take a turn of my surroundings. I take a seat at the place where the game is still laid out without touching anything. I’m cold and huddle down in my fur suit as I try to make sense of the curved board and its many black and white pieces. Distantly, I wonder how I should get food, but I’m not left long to debate when the door to Re’Okkari’s home suddenly slices open.

  Thinking for a second it might be Re’Okkari again, I’m not prepared for the sight that greets me — not Re’Okkari but Okkari himself. His black hair flicks in the wind, his brutal gaze pinned to mine. Framed by the white world behind him, he looks imposing and masculine and the golden thread in my chest is set alight. Not a thread. A fuse.

  The space slicks between my legs as if daring me to stand, but before I can, he holds up both hands and takes a small step into the single room. The doors close behind him and without the strange slithery wall lights, I’m left to rely on the skylights that let in white light. It falls on his shoulders softly, making him glow.

  He doesn’t speak. My fingers clench and unclench. I turn away from the game and even though my insides are screaming to fight, to lunge for him, to take him down to the furs and wrestle him out of his suit, to claim him — I still manage to blurt, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been out there. I shouldn’t have…”

  He holds up his right hand again and I’m startled quiet by how quickly he gestures. He moves like a specter, coming three paces closer, presenting an occultation of the room behind him, making the whole world darker and more menacing and still, I’m not afraid — or rather, I’m terrified, but I’m not afraid of him. I’m afraid of me. Just like I have been this whole time.

  From my low seat, my gaze licks up his body. He’s got on fur-lined pants and a pelt wrapped around his shoulders and nothing else but I can still smell the oasis that follows him everywhere, that engulfing heat. His shoulders heave and when he glances down at my face, I notice surprising signs of fatigue — his eyes are a duller purple than they were, and his hair is greasy at the roots. In fact, I think he’s wearing the same pants he was the last time I saw him fighting, though I can’t know for sure.

  My jaw works, searching for something else to say, something to ask him, but he breaks the quiet abruptly, in a hard way that makes me jump. Makes my insides rearrange themselves. Makes my heart thrums with the force of an ion round against Droheriu
m.

  “I have spoken to the Rakukanna, to our Raku, to Svera. I have read the compatibility manual Svera and Lemoria are drafting, all of Svera’s notes, and every report ever drafted by your human Antikythera Council and its chieftain, Mathilda, and the human chieftain who came before her.”

  “You…how? All…in just…two solars?”

  He doesn’t reply. He instead edges another half step forward. I waver where I sit, but he still makes no move to touch me or grab me and throw me down onto the furs. How disappointing.

  Instead he clenches his jaw. A muscle spasms in his neck. His voice is hoarse when he says, “I have come with only one request.”

  “I…” I cough into my fist. My face flushes. My toes tap out an incessant pattern against the worn rug. “Whatever it is, whatever I can do, I’ll do it. I’ve made so many mistakes.”

  He hisses, effectively shutting me up. “As have I. I stole you from your home world. I savaged you on the mountain. I denied you answers that I already knew and thought you would not need. I treated you just as I would have a Voraxian. The list goes on, but it is not relevant here. You have spoken to Svera, as have I. From what you know now of Voraxian culture, and from what I know of human history, all mistakes are with explanation. Everything can be understood, even if the way forward remains unclear.”

  I swallow hard, wondering where he’s going with this. If this is the moment where he tells me I’m nothing. Where he reduces me to ash in a way Bo’Raku never could.

  “You will tell me if this is an accurate assessment.”

  I nod and, remembering the way he coaxed me into holding his gaze, I continue to maintain it. Even as his chest inflates on his inhale. Even as his pants tent over the crotch and my insides flutter painfully.

  “It is accurate. But what do we do now? What’s your request?” I wet my lips as I speak. I can’t even say I do it unintentionally, but I like the reaction it elicits.

  His foot jolts forward just a half a step, he growls in the back of his throat and then exhales gruffly, nostrils flaring. “I have claimed you in the ancient ways of Nobu, but I would like to claim you as a human would. I would like to…” He breaks off and clears his throat so loudly I flinch in my seat.

  I lean back and when my hand comes down onto a smooth stone surface, I disrupt one of the game pieces. I wince away from that too, not willing to mess up any others and quickly stand. I hug my arms around myself, feeling so much shorter and smaller than him without a weapon. Not that that matters much. I’ve seen him fight. And it was beautiful.

  “I will ask you a question, even though this is not customary for any Okkari or xub’Raku.”

  “Okay.”

  He inhales and exhales a steady breath. “Kiki, will you let me woo you?”

  He is the oasis, and I’m swept away in the tide. Time passes. An indefinite amount of it. I don’t speak and he doesn’t move. There is no ceding on either side. And in the end, there’s only one thing I can say as my insides war with one another and my brain shuts down one cell after the next. Only one thing I can even hope to do.

  “I’ll try.” My fist unclenches. My shoulders relax. I can do this. I can try.

  He nods at me once. “That is all I ask of you.”

  13

  Kiki

  “Gabel,” I say and Kuana places the odd, square-shaped fruit back in the bowl with a soft trill, just as she does every time. The star-shaped fruit comes next followed by the entire bowl, fruit and all. “Splintar and hibo?”

  Smiling, she shakes her head. “Almost. Heeh-zoh,” she corrects, placing emphasis on the second syllable.

  “Hizo,” I say and I’m rewarded by another one of her trills.

  I bite the inside of my cheek to keep a straight face and roll my eyes, determined not to give in to the temptation to smile though, at this point, I don’t even know why. It’s been two solars since I last saw Okkari, since I moved into Re’Okkari’s house and since Kuana moved in with me.

  When Kuana first showed up with supplies — pelts, furs, firestarters, chopped wood, skins of water and foods of all kinds, as well as a small device for me to contact Miari and Svera — I thought she was making a delivery. But when she started laying out a smaller pile of furs on the opposite side of the fire from the larger pile, I knew that was a fool’s hope.

  My first instinct was to kick her out…but I couldn’t. Since I came into her life she’s been hunted, rejected, locked up, ridiculed, and hated. She’s my hasheba now — my hasheba — and though I don’t know much of their culture, I know I can’t dismiss her without bringing her great shame. And I’ve done enough of that.

  So for the first half solar we operated around each other in an uncomfortable silence, each doing our own work to make the place livable. We hardly spoke. It seemed like we both tried to find excuses to be outside of the house as often as possible — much to the regret of my angry, wind-chapped skin.

  The cold started to bare down on us in earnest and by the second half of that first solar, I knew we’d be cooped up together inside until the lunar came. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore — sitting in silence with my anger and no outlet — and I knew that she couldn’t take it anymore — sitting in silence without fulfilling her role, being hated for no reasons she could possibly know or understand.

  I don’t know how it happened, or who made the first move, but eventually, we did the unthinkable — we started to work together.

  We built a fire together. She showed me how to light the pink stones using a torch found in one of the sliding trays in the area I can only call kitchen by force. It’s really just a series of sliding drawers, all polished black rock and filled with objects I can’t name.

  I asked Kuana what a few of them were called only to discover that those objects were actually articles of food. She found my reaction funny and released her first trill. One solar later and she’s still helping me define the things that make up this strange new world around me. I’m terrible at remembering what she tells me, but I have gotten a few words down.

  “Banaba,” I say, holding up a cup of the delicious thick tea I first offered to me by Tre’Hurr.

  She shakes her head. “Bakaba.”

  “Bakaba.”

  “Nox. Ba-ka-ba.”

  “Augh.” I tilt my head back in frustration and toss my hands into the air. “I’m never going to get this.”

  “You have your translation mites. They will help you.”

  “Mites? You don’t mean insects, do you?”

  She trills again, face flowering with color. This time blue. She takes my wooden plate to one of the drawers which she slides open and shut. A funny rumbling sound begins and I can sense that there’s energy at work inside the drawer but I don’t know what kind, or what the effect will be. But I’m curious. Curious isn’t pleased. But it isn’t hate either.

  Kuana nods. “Hexa, I do. They are very expensive. Not all here on Nobu have them. I was only given mites when I was named hasheba.”

  “So you couldn’t understand me on the mountain?”

  “Nox. Hurr translated most of what you said to me.”

  “Hurr?”

  “She leads the other xub’Hurr. They are responsible for preparing the kills caught by the warriors and trackers. She was with us when we ran into the mire.”

  “Ah. And her name is just Hurr? Who is xub’Hurr?”

  “The xub’Hurr are all those who work with her in preparing the meats for the village. She gives the orders and is responsible for training the others. Just as the Okkari is responsible for training and commanding the other warriors and hunters, the xub’Okkari.”

  I nod, wheels ticking along and slowly locking into place. “Like Re’Okkari and Ka’Okkari.”

  “Hexa, my Xh…I mean, human.” She cringes at the use of the word, yet uses it faithfully. Human. Is that who I am? All I want to be? “The only ones who have no xub’ titles are us hasheba, those who lead a discipline like Okkari and Hurr, and the Xhea or the Xhera —
the male or female mate of the Okkari, though we have only had one female Okkari in the past and this was in the ancient days, before the breeding problem began to affect us.”

  “Svera told me a little about it when I spoke to her. She said that the Xanaxana thing shines to help Voraxians find partners since there aren’t as many females as males and getting pregnant is so difficult.”

  “It is true. Only one in fifteen females is so fortunate to be able to produce kits. That’s why the whole of Voraxia is excited to have discovered your human moon, full of so many fertile females. I have even read in the reports that your females are capable of producing more than one kit in a lifetime,” she says, voice lilting up in question.

  I nod. “Yes. I mean, hexa. That’s true.”

  Kuana trills, either at my response or at my use of her Voraxian word, or both. “Incredible. I hope only that you and the Okkari will be so fortunate.” I choke on my tea — my bakaba — and Kuana frets around me while I cough to clear my throat. “I apologize, my…human. I should not have suggested…”

  “No. Just stop, okay. It’s fine.” She doesn’t listen to me though, and keeps on trying to bring me new liquids in new cups. Soon I’ve got half a dozen cups spread out on the small eating table in front of me and I can’t help it. I laugh.

  The sound comes out of me weird and mangled and small, but it’s there, real and audible and I can’t stop it. And I’m laughing still when I hear the sound of a firm knock on my front door.

  “Kuana,” I choke, swallow, cough, choke again, “can you get that?”

  Brilliant white flashes across her face — as it did the last time I asked her to do something for me — followed by a deep orange. “Of course, my Xhea. Of course.” She bows to me twice, and then a third time, in quick succession and then jumps up to standing. She pulls a white fur pelt around her shoulders and hustles to the door and when she opens it by placing her palm to the reader just beside it, I’m still choking and laughing on the same breath.

  The Okkari appears in the doorway, wreathed in white, and when he looks straight past Kuana at me and a symphony of color lights his body, I freeze. My laughter dies. Need becomes me and heat surges through my gut, so strong and intense that I feel sick with it. I quickly choke down more of whatever cool tang Kuana has placed closest to me and try to meet his gaze… but I fail.