Instead, my shoulder connects with Mor’s sternum. He tries to absorb the blow, which is a mistake, because I outweigh him. I take him down and together we fly through the nearest wall. We land on the sand outside and before he has a chance to blink, I score his chest twice more.
“That’s three times to blood, brother,” I rattle, my voice distorted as I am still manerak. I push myself off of him with a grin.
He punches the packed sand, fury eating him, but he still takes my hand. “Challenge is to you, warrior,” he says, bowing his head.
I yank him to his feet and feel my manerak begin to settle — at least, until I return to the shattered shed and see Dandena, Rehet and Ock closing in on my prize. I open my mouth and my manerak hiss is so deafening that I can’t speak through it.
They turn, surprise etched onto their true form faces. Dandena breaks the quiet. “One blooding to three, in favor of the first?”
I nod once. Dandena applauds and holds out her hand to take her winnings from the other two, who curse. I don’t care for their bets, and break through the semi-circle they’ve made surrounding reesa. She stands with her back pressed against one of the flimsy wooden walls. She’s managed to locate a knife and holds it out in front of her with two hands. It is clear she has no idea how to use it, but it does look sharp. Very sharp. And it has an emerald jewel in the hilt. It reminds me of something I’ve seen before…
“That isn’t your blade is it, Rehet?” I say and balk with laughter.
The others laugh too, while Rehet at least has the decency to hiss softly in shame. “She is quicker than she looks, warrior.”
I inhale pride, and exhale relief when I push the males away and see that she is unharmed. Her wide eyes turn up at me and I glance at the blade in her fist, shaking my head. Misunderstanding my reaction, she jumps in the air, unfurls her fingers and holds the knife out to me. She is shaking. Afraid. She is unused to manerak. I hiss as I feel the bones in my body contract and scale, my fangs retracting, my face slimming, my rattle dying, my shoulders narrowing, until I am finally in my true form once again.
Settled, I reach for her hand, hesitating a breath away from her fingers when she jumps again, this time half a head into the air. I grin and she seems to like this because half of her mouth quirks. She still offers the knife between us but I wrap my fingers around her fingers.
“Tszk,” I tell her. She won it off of Rehet. She has earned this. I press the blade back to the center of her chest and turn to the others, eager to get out of here — eager to get her out of here, away from the males and into my own private dome. “We ride now.”
Neyehuu
I call a halt well before the second sun has set even though it is not uncommon that we ride well into — and sometimes through — the night. It is because my warriors deserve an easy ride, to crack open one of the many barrels of ale we took from the hive of humans and celebrate a successful raid. It has nothing at all to do with the fact that even though she has ridden well, I can tell that she is struggling and I am worried. Tszk, it has nothing to do with that. Nothing at all.
Most warriors will sleep out underneath the stars, except for the injured, couples, and some female warriors who prefer to have domes as a sign to the males that they are not interested in being bothered. Other females and most males are content to couple with one another in plain view. As First, I always have a tent erected for myself for war council, to receive messengers, and to store the prizes from my conquests, however it’s rare that I use it to sleep. I prefer to sleep under the stars, rut and revel, and this night is no different than those.
I packed away my looted gold, debriefed with my Second, Third, and Fourth, gave the order to have reesa fed and left her behind in my dome with the rest of my belongings and treasures. Now I sit within sight of it on a reed mat before an open flame. Dandena twirls the forgotten crown Mor relinquished on the tip of her finger while Xi and Xena laugh on.
Rehet prowls the pen where we keep the humans we’ve taken. Ock and several of the others look on as well. Preena, my second, barks orders at the guards to remain vigilant and for the rest of the tasmaran to remain calm. It will be difficult to keep them contained. A number of them already marked females.
Erkan, even now, is crouched outside of the pen, staring in at a female with skin the color of the night and hair down to her hips. An interpreter from our tribe will need to explain to her that though the three-day sessemara — the joining ceremony — has not yet taken place, Erkan has marked her already as a warning to other males. He plans to claim her for himself and, even if another male does show his interest during the sessemara, I know Erkan’s fighting abilities. He will not lose. But will that be enough?
She cowers in fear from him, holding her skirt together. It was likely torn when Erkan marked her. These humans are very fragile, and I cannot forget my human’s frightening emotional display when I suggested to rut her. Part of me had been offended that she had been unwilling — as first of my tribe, females have always been available to me — but now, looking upon Erkan’s female I wonder if they are not all conditioned to fear sex. I wonder distantly what could have caused such fear when their males are all insignificant, shriveled things without even manerak skins to wear in defense of their families.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen our first think so hard,” Dandena laughs. Xi and Xena laugh with her.
Mor glances meaningfully at my tent. “His mind is in that human’s cunt. I know that’s where mine is.” My manerak hiss echoes loudly across the fire and tension fires across my chest. A grin splits Mor’s face then and laughter picks up once again. “You’re acting like a manerak in rutting heat.”
“Better a manerak in rutting heat than a manerak licking his wounds. How many was that again today? Three from me alone?”
Mor snorts. “I’d have won in a fair fight and you know it.”
“A fair fight?” I balk. “What wasn’t fair about it?”
“Her scent. You had more time to let it fuel your manerak rage than I did. Give me a few more moments in her presence and I’d have met you in size. It was simple…weight distribution that was off.”
“Weight distribution?” Xena laughs. “First is three times your manerak size. Get lost.”
“And what is this about her scent fueling his manerak, hey?” Xi butts in. “That’s not a thing and you know it.”
“You didn’t see what I did. He was larger than his usual form, faster and more aggressive. Like the Naxem of old.” A reverent sort of silence falls as we think of the Naxem and the stories we were told as children. Said to be warriors born of the sun, the Naxem were the first of the Sasor. They walked the cosmos only in their manerak skins before Sasorena — the goddess of the stars — chased them down from the heavens and gave them their true forms. Every warrior fights now in tribute to the Naxem and every male warrior seeks to find his Sasorena and every female, her Sasori. My gaze flashes again to Erkan. He thinks he has.
I grunt my disbelief and roll my eyes, ignoring the incessant pull plaguing me to look at my tent, hoping for a glimpse of her shadow against the light within.
“Psh. Don’t fuel tall tales. I took the female as a prize. That is all. I didn’t want to see you pawing all over what is mine.” I gulp down ale from the wooden chalice clasped in my fist. I’ve had several and though it isn’t anywhere near as strong as Sasori spirits, several cups in and I feel my muscles relaxed, my eyelids heavy.
The tasmaran laugh. Dandena is the only one who is quiet. “What?” I bark at her. She is one of a few female manaerak tasmaran. I trained with her since we were both children.
She gives me a wry grin and leans back onto her elbows. She is not an attractive female, but she has still bedded most of the males here and has received offers of interest from neighboring tribes. I can see the appeal but to me she has only ever been one of my tasmaran. My Third, and one of the prides of my dolsk.
“He’s not wrong. You were larger than your usual size. And
even now you disgrace yourself. You know we don’t take prizes. We stopped taking prizes long ago. And you males with your tiny cocks and even tinier brains can’t seem to remember that we aren’t supposed to be marking the females anymore either. Not until we return to the dolsk and they’ve been taught our language. You remember how that’s backfired.
“Females of these…softer tribes don’t like the marking. Some don’t even see that the males have demonstrated to them superior combat by defeating their clansmen,” she says in disbelief — a disbelief we share, and yet, she is not wrong… I remember the fear and the tears that surfaced in my female’s eyes when I wanted to rut her. Even though she has seen me compete for her in combat, I doubt very much that makes any difference to her. Strange.
“Some have even viewed it as a violation,” Dandena continues. The thought makes me uneasy. “And those females that could not understand even after assimilation into our tribe, even after meeting with the interpreters, left for new tribes at the first sessamara that they could. We have lost valuable females to the Hox, Nevay, and Sessenna tribes because of you stupid men and your cocks. We can’t lose anymore. Not least of all because of what it does to the males who have lost their marked females.” Unease turns to dread.
She’s right and the other males around the fire know it. I know it too. And yet, the accusation in her gaze still remains. Because I am accused. “I am first. And I have not marked her.”
“Then you plan to assimilate her?” Dandena raises an eyebrow, challengingly. The flames of the fire flicker harshly over the square lines of her face, and the stern set of her chin and jaw. Her half-shaved hair spills onto the reed mat below her and glimmers like rippling water in sunlight.
“Yena.”
“Then why not keep her with the rest of the slaves in the pen?”
I hesitate to answer. When I do, it’s stretched. “Because we aren’t yet returned to the dolsk and she isn’t yet assimilated. As of right now, she’s still a slave.”
“And what will she be when we return to the dolsk?”
I groan, “What is with the questions, Dandena?”
“We all saw the way you looked at her. All of us in the shed.”
I don’t know what to say, so I just shake my head. “Unless you question my judgment and would like to issue challenge, then I suggest we end this conversation.”
“I question all males’ judgment when it comes to females,” she says and the others laugh. She smiles up at me. “But tzsk, I do not issue challenge.”
I smile in return. “Speaking of cocks, you’ll be happy to know then that when we return she’ll be my akimari.” An akimari was a gentle term for a bed slave. They were banned in name many turns before, but in practice it is still common for the first to keep an akimari to warm his pallet at night, and in my case, for females to vie for positions as my akimari in the hopes of being selected as my Sasorena.
“And aren’t you forgetting Tekevanki?”
In truth, I had. She is my current akimari, or at least that’s how she sees herself. The daughter of a revered warrior in our tribe, and one of the first who joined my dolsk, she sees herself far above the status of many. Not wishing for my irritation to play across my face, I only smile. “Tzsk, of course not. I plan to entertain them both.”
She rolls her eyes. “Males disgust me.”
“I don’t remember you saying that last night,” Ock says, nudging her hip with his foot. The tasmaran around us roar with laughter and I feel weight lifted from me as the conversation continues to flow away from the human female I’ve squandered away in my tent, keeping all for my own.
The night thickens and I feel the effects of the ale sinking in. Unlike the Sasori spirits, which kick the unsuspecting hard and fast in the skull, this ale is a dangerous drug. It creeps upon me slowly, keeping me lucid until I realize I’m wavering where I stand. My tasmaran all point up at me, rocking with a laughter that is undeserved because I can tell in their slurs and their squinting, bloodshot eyes that they feel it as well.
I stagger off to the outer edges of our camp and take a piss among the tall grasses. On my way back, I weave among thickets of thorny bushes. Dried, crackling grass stalks crunch beneath my feet. I walk carefully and with purpose, not bothering to lace up the leather bindings coating my lower half like a second skin. I’ve drunk too much and my skin feels hot from the day’s ride. I long for a bath, knowing the best I’ll get is a soggy towel in a bowl of water. But maybe I can have her wash me.
The thought makes me salivate and my feet, which were slowing down, begin moving again with renewed purpose. My cock is growing, though it has no right to be — at least that’s what I try telling it. Because when I arrive at my tent, not bothering to wish my tasmaran a hearty sleep and I flip back the flap and see the mound of her hair swirling around her shoulders like a brush bush, or a small tornado, my cock is stiff as a leather rod, my sack weighted below it. Aching.
But then I take a few steps forward and I see that she’s got her meal spread out right next to the reed mat she’s lying on. She’s got a smear of food on her cheek and another on her nose and she’s got a piece of bread trapped in her fist. She holds it tight, like she’s afraid to let go.
Smiling down at her, she looks so small and vulnerable in her threadbare clothing against the bare mat on the floor. I regret that we are not already back in my village in my dome where I have tanned hides and plush things better suited for her. Now all I have are the linen sheets I’ve stolen from the human camp. Still, I unfold it from where it’s stored and fan it over her. As I do, I crouch down and begin to extricate the bread from her hands and clear away the place beside her, depositing the little she did not eat back into a bowl.
She jerks up, still gripping the knife she’d won earlier. Sleepy, she lists back and forth, without seeing me right away. She blinks her eyes several times, as if to clear them and when she does, her whole face falls.
She says something and points at the food scrap bowl with the tip of her knife. I don’t understand what she wants until she drops the knife and reaches for the bread I took from her. I block her hand and she makes a terrible, starved little sound. I meet her gaze. Watch her cheeks flame with emotion her eyes do not betray. Embarrassed, she looks away, and in her embarrassment, I am ashamed.
Another tray of food had been set on the opposite side of the dome, for me should I have returned earlier. I already feasted with the rest of the tasmaran and even if I hadn’t, would have had no qualms about giving it to her. Not least of all when I fetch the tray, unveil it and offer it to her.
She blinks at the dazzling array of foods piled high on it. The choice slices of meat, the softest breads, the richest cheeses and smears, fruits from her fallen village, and even a decadent sweet from a village we once raided in a land far, far from this one. A smile stretches her face and when she wipes the back of her hand across her cheek, she only smears more dirt across it. She reaches for a piece of meat, but then hesitates. She meets my gaze and retracts her hand. She grabs her breast and gives me a questioning look that, combined with Dandena’s words looming so large in my mind, make me feel as if I deserve to be flayed.
“Tzsk,” I say.
Her smile returns. So trusting, she eats another quarter of the tray and I watch the eager way she chews and swallows, moaning on every third bite in a way that makes my blood flow harder and faster. I coerce her into drinking from my skin of water and when she finishes that, she belches and drops back down onto the mat on her back, utterly exhausted.
But just before she closes her eyes she does two things: she gives me a soft, sad little smile, and she takes a piece of bread from the tray still in my hand, balls it into her fist and crushes it to her chest. She curls around it like a child might a toy and sleeps with it like it’s a shelter during a mighty storm. It makes my bones ache watching her like this, knowing that I have never known a hunger like hers.
My manerak fangs start to protract and score the insides of my
true form lips before I catch them. When I do, I also realize a deep rattling fills the entire dome and I can’t seem to quell it. I lift my hand to my chest and bore my fingers into my skin, hoping that the pain will pull the sensation in my chest and the rivaling sensation in my groin away. Nothing has ever hurt so much as seeing her eat. Nothing has ever felt so good as seeing her eat.
I meant to check on her and leave, but I find myself going to the bowl of water set aside for me and lifting the rag from it. The water is cool now, but not cold. It drips through my fingers as I wring out the cloth. I wonder if it’s too rough for her skin as I return to her and drag it over her cheek. It reveals a strip of skin that glitters. It shocks me. I thought I’d never seen her exact color before, but now I’m sure of it.
My breathing comes harder. For a number of reasons. The first — I want to see the rest of her. The second — I can’t believe she’s hidden from me by filth. The third — How’d she get like this? I want to know who failed so miserably in caring for her. Maybe there was no one. She was a slave. But even then, how was she left unclaimed? Who would not want her?
She sleeps so soundly that when I roll her onto her back, she doesn’t wake. Her shirt is split down to her ribs and I don’t have the decency not to look. In fact, I pull the sheet further down. Her breasts are fallen to the side. I like the look of them. Little and round studded by dark tips the perfect size to lathe with my tongue.
I take the rag to them as a surrogate. I won’t take her when she’s this tired. I’ll wait until the morning. I watch color roll out across her flesh, bright and beaming. And even though my cock is fully erect and the pressure on the underside of my leather armor is uncomfortable, I am not desperate to do more than this. At least not yet. For now, it is enough to watch her glow.
By the time I’ve finished, the water in the bowl is so thick with grey I can’t see the wooden basin below. Her skin, on the other hand, shines like liquid gold. Her face, free of dirt, is unblemished perfection. The color glides down, equally uninterrupted, over her neck, her chest, her breasts, her ribs. Too thin, those ribs. But it doesn’t seem to matter to my body. I still want to kiss each of them. Tomorrow. As soon as the day breaks and she is rested.
Taken to Nobu: A SciFi Alien Romance (Xiveri Mates Book II) Page 26