by Raven Dark
His lips raked over mine, hot and hard, his palm cradling my head, angling it the way he wanted.
I pushed at his shoulders, my mind frantically searching for an excuse that would work on him.
“Sore,” I rasped against his mouth lamely. Was that the best I could come up with? My first night with these men, he’d made it clear that he didn’t care and that he could make me not care as well.
He eased the pressure of his lips, teasing mine slowly, tongue darting in and making my muscles turn to jelly.
“The men will want to eat and get on the road,” I panted.
Distantly, as if they’d read my mind, Malek’s and Raul’s voices rang out nearby. Shit. I didn’t want them here too!
“Z’pheer, the others will—”
His palm gave me a light, but stinging slap on the ass cheek. “Hush, nayna.”
My lust morphed into fury. These men got under my skin, made me do everything they wanted with far too much ease.
“Z’pheer, I’m not a whore you three can pass around between you anytime you want.”
His palms cradled my back, sliding down my sides, then up over my breasts. He let out a long, controlled breath, tweaking the already hardened buds until I whimpered at the pleasure shooting through me.
“Do you know what the name I call you means?”
I deflated. There was no getting away from him, was there?
He slid his palms back around, over the small of my back and then up, up over my shoulders, massaging them until I turned to putty in his hands.
“I asked you a question. Do you know what it means?”
“Dirty slut?” I guessed sweetly.
He made an amused sound and swatted my other ass cheek, making me curse. His mouth brushed my ear. “It means ‘my little flower.’”
My eyes widened. I’d been expecting something filthy and degrading, like the word Malek used on me, but the endearment Z’pheer had chosen sounded so…sweet. It made me sound fragile and feminine and, fuck, cherished.
What the hell?
“I’m not a delicate flower, and I’m not little,” I gritted out, covering the melting of my heart with indignation.
His laugh was low and soft and warm. “You are very much both, alia. Very much.”
He loosened his embrace and patted my ass, then released me.
“You’re stopping?” Relief and disappointment vied for headspace.
“For now.”
“Always the nice one.”
He shook his head, brushing my wet hair back off my shoulders. “I’m not stopping because you asked, ra alia. You have work to do.”
I rolled my head back. These men were hopeless.
He rinsed us both off thoroughly, then took my wrist and waded out of the pool, up the steps.
On our way back to the cavern, we passed by the cart, and my eyes widened. Raul and Malek were both standing there talking, naked as the day they were born and bold as brass.
They were also arguing again. I followed Z’pheer into the cave, taking my time, trying to catch every word I could. Hoping to learn something, anything I could use to my advantage.
“I’m only saying, Raul.” Malek’s voice had a bite of impatience. “Too much depends on you. If something happened to you—”
“Nothing is going to happen to me, Malek. You’re worse than a woman.”
“Just shut up and listen to me, will you? There’s just too much at stake. This world needs you. Why do you not get that?”
“Get a move on, you.” Z’pheer tugged me deeper into the cavern, preventing me from hearing any more.
Damn it.
While Raul and Malek remained at the cart, Z’pheer helped me gather every stitch of clothing, plus a strange looking wooden board with ripples along the middle. When we passed the two of them again, they were still arguing.
“If you two are finished bickering like a couple of old burlknibs, I’ll show her how to do the washing while you find food.” Z’pheer nodded to the washing he and I carried.
Raul and Malek ignored him.
Burlknibs? There was no translation for that, but I liked the sound of it.
We brought the clothes to another identical pool in another cavern, this one almost as large as the bathing one. Z’pheer handed me a bottle of white liquid from his pack.
I held the bottle up and noticed the suds floating at the top of the liquid. Soap?
“Ah. Laundry day,” I said.
“Very good.” He handed me that odd looking board.
I lifted the thing up, examining it. “What…Oh my God. You’re shitting me.” Something between mortification and fascination settled in. “This is a fucking washboard.”
He nodded and took the towel I was wrapped in, adding it to the pile. “Raul will find food, and then I will show you how to prepare it.”
I sighed. “Wait a minute. How do you dry the clothes once their clean? We won’t be waiting here, will we? They’ll take hours to dry.”
“We’ll put most of them on wet. They’ll dry soon enough.”
Yuck.
Z’pheer hooked my leash up on a bracket for a torch on the wall, again, too high for me to reach it. He dropped a kiss on my shoulder. “I want every stain out of those clothes, nayna.”
He departed before I could respond.
I shook my head, grumbling to myself as I knelt beside the pool and started soaping up every stain on each article of clothing.
This was ridiculous. People on Earth—well, in the western world anyway—hadn’t done washing like this in decades. Suddenly I knew how women in the Victorian era must have felt.
And yet, as I worked Malek’s poncho over the board, that odd sense of acceptance began to settle in too, a soothing, insidiously comfortable pull.
“Son of a bitch.” I worked my arms furiously, letting my anger build. Anger with myself, with the men, with this fucking planet. With the Home for Girls, with Shelly and fucking Sauders. “Fucking barbarians. Goddamn flesh peddling asshats.”
I wrung the poncho out, twisting the cloth, twisting and twisting and imagining it was Malek’s neck.
Tarku came sniffing into the room and walked over to me, licking at my bare feet. I swatted at him halfheartedly with the cloth.
“Get lost, dog.”
“You wouldn’t be attacking my tarki, would you, nayna?” Raul went over to a rock near the pool and raised a brow at me.
Oh, God. He had a long, black viper in his hand, trailing to the floor. His axe was in the other hand.
I turned my face away from the sight and started scrubbing Raul’s poncho on the board. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him lay the dead snake on the ground and adjust his grip on his axe. Panic raced up my spine, knowing what he was going to do.
“Can you not do that here?”
Besides, I wanted him away from me. I was still trying to process what had happened between us last night, the twisted things he somehow made me crave.
He smirked. Then he swung his axe, cutting off the snake’s head.
I swallowed bile. “Fucking barbarian. It would serve you right if I barfed all over your nice clean clothes.”
Raul laughed.
“Asshole.” I worked his poncho furiously over the board.
He laughed harder. “Keep that up and you’ll get a good fucking right here.” He sat on the rock and started pulling the skin right off the snake.
I wrung out his poncho and put it on the pile of cleaned clothes, then reached for my red dress. I froze with my fingers inches from it.
There was a giant bug on it!
The thing looked like a lizard, with scales and a long, winding tail, but it had thick, translucent wings the size of a bat’s.
I leaped back and screamed bloody murder.
Malek and Z’pheer both came running.
Raul spat a curse in Xandari. “What’s the matter with you, woman?” I heard him cross over to me.
Since
my voice seemed to have taken a holiday, I pointed a shaking finger at the bug. It really was enormous, as big as one of Raul’s fists. The thing flew up and buzzed around my head, sending me scrambling into the pool.
Malek took one look at me, then at the bug and howled with laughter. For some reason, when Z’pheer saw it, he backed up quickly with a few curses, which made Malek laugh harder.
Raul shook his head. He let it come near him, then his axe swung through the air with a whoosh and pinned the thing to the nearest wall. It made a horrible screeching sound that sent a chill up my spine.
“Oh my God.” I swallowed, trying not to pass out. Malek roared a laugh.
“What is that thing?” I leaned cautiously towards it for a look. The axe head had the monstrosity secured to the wall, and its thick wings were flapping sluggishly.
I looked at Z’pheer beside me, watching it with a visible shudder.
“It’s an Aurelian bird eater.” When I stared at Raul, he shrugged. “It’s harmless. Unless you’re a bird.” He yanked his axe from the wall. The…bird eater dropped to the floor with a splat. Raul wiped his axe on the towel I’d left by the pool. The clean one I’d just washed.
“H…harmless?” I shook out.
“As a Talarian dung beetle,” Malek said, clapping Z’pheer with mocking reassurance on the shoulder.
“You startle too easily, Vahashatai.” Raul cupped my chin, his eyes dancing.
Tarku walked over, and I followed him with my eyes, then immediately wished I hadn’t. He snapped up the bird eater in his jaws and swallowed it whole.
“Ugh!” I held my roiling stomach. “Tarku, you’re never coming near me again.”
All of the men bellowed with laughter.
“Don’t laugh!” I snarled. “That thing was as big as Raul’s hand.”
Raul laughed and went back to skinning breakfast.
“Z’pheer’s afraid of them, too,” I snapped.
Malek patted him on the back.
“What?” Z’pheer gave him a shrug. “Those things have always given me the shivers.”
I rolled my eyes at the ceiling. Great. So I’d just done the Xandari equivalent of squeal at the sight of a daddy longlegs in front of three barbarian warriors who could literally kill deadly aliens with their bare hands.
Okay, yep, that was officially it. I needed to get the hell out of here and back home where I belonged.
18
The Viper’s Kiss
We rode for what must have been hours before we stopped so the men could relieve themselves. Most of the trip to the next camp was thankfully monotonous, but it wasn’t without incident.
Malek halted the cart but left the lights on to flood the tunnel. He sat in the driver’s seat, eating from a dried fruit packet, while Raul went with Tarku to hunt up dinner. Z’pheer escorted me off the track to do my business and take care of his own. It unsettled me to realize that I wasn’t even questioning the idea of privacy anymore with these men. It was what it was.
I supposed a girl could get used to anything.
“So, I gotta ask,” I said, straightening my clothes and following Z’pheer back toward the cart. “Do you guys have indoor plumbing on this planet?”
He raised a brow.
“You know, toilets? Everywhere we’ve been, we’ve had to do it right there in the open.”
“We have—”
Something fluttered past my shoulder, and I jumped. I looked around frantically and almost screamed. There was a large bat flying around my head. It was a bat, but it was twice as big as the bird eater.
Z’pheer laughed and swatted it away, apparently not afraid of bats the way he was of bird eaters.
“Don’t laugh at me! Did you see that thing? Its wings were as big as a bus!”
“It’s harmless.”
“But you’re afraid of bird eaters, and they’re harmless too.”
He conveniently didn’t reply.
A horrendous squeezing filled a passage off to my left, and I heard Raul curse, and Tarku giving a strange, growled bark.
“Tarku, get back here! No, don’t…. fost.”
Several bats just as large as the one I’d seen came zooming out of the tunnel with Tarku chasing them. He leaped at them, his jaws snapping at them, then chased them across the track to another tunnel. Raul shouted and tore after the dog.
“Tarku, get back here! You want me to leash you?”
Bat squeaks and Tarku’s odd barks faded down the tunnel.
Malek shook his head in his usual annoyance with the dog and went back to his food while Z’pheer laughed and led me over to the cart.
“Don’t tell me those bats are dinner, Z’pheer,” I said glancing up at him.
“If Raul and Tarku don’t find anything better, they are.”
“Lovely.” I’d just gotten used to the idea of eating snake. I doubted I was ready for bat stew. “I guess if you cover it up with enough spices and—”
Tarku gave a sudden loud whine from deep in the tunnel.
I snapped my eyes up to Z’pheer. “That didn’t sound good.”
Scowling, Z’pheer started across the track with me toward the tunnel Raul had gone down.
“Oh, fost, Tarku… come here.” Raul’s voice sounded half annoyed, half soothing, further down the tunnel.
“Raul?” Z’pheer called, walking further in with me.
“In here, Z’pheer. Rosht. Stupid tarki. This is what you get for running down strange tunnels ahead of me.”
We found Raul walking down the passage, Tarku limping at his side, a leash now connecting him to Raul. Worry pricked at me for Tarku.
“Is he okay?” I asked before I could stop myself.
Malek hurried down to us.
“He seems fine.” Raul squatted down and looked over his fur, feeling the thick coat carefully and then examining his large paws. “He fell into a hole back there. It wasn’t deep, but there was glass in it. I think he stepped on some, but I don’t see any glass on him.”
“Here, let me look at him over in the cart.” Z’pheer unhooked my leash and handed it to Malek and taking Tarku’s, led the dog back to the cart with us bringing up the rear.
At the cart, Z’pheer lifted the huge pink dog inside and got in with him. He wasn’t whimpering or crying in pain, and I didn’t see blood on his paws.
“I don’t see any glass stuck in his paws, but he’s got so much fur, Raul. Keep an eye on him.” Z’pheer stroked his fur.
Raul nodded and did the same. It was a good sign that Tarku licked his face. “Malek’s right sometimes, you know. You are a pain in the ass.” He grinned, letting the animal lick his nose. “Lie down and stay out of trouble. Big dummy.”
I quieted a snicker. If nothing else, I could see the barbarian loved his damn dog. It was fucking adorable.
Raul stood and cleared his throat when he saw us all watching him. He wound my leash around his big fist. “All right, Malek, get this thing moving. There’s nothing for dinner here, and no bats to catch now, thanks to Tarku.”
“See?” Malek took the driver’s seat again. “Told you he’s nothing but trouble.”
Raul swatted him in the back of the head. Malek snorted.
We got going again, alternating between sitting with whomever wasn’t driving or dozing off. It didn’t go unnoticed that Tarku was giving his front right paw a lot of attention.
“Zpheer. Raul.” I leaned forward in between Z’pheer’s legs and studied Tarku. “I’m not a vet, but I don’t like how much he’s licking that paw.”
Raul’s mouth turned down and he searched my expression. I swore he looked surprised. Why?
“We’ll be stopping for camp soon,” Raul said. “We’ll have another look at it then.”
Z’pheer made a sound in agreement and rubbed my shoulders.
A few hours later, Malek halted the cart and everyone got out, grabbed their bags, and headed into another good-sized tunnel to set up camp.
Tarku followed Raul, but he didn�
�t seem to be limping now. Maybe whatever was bothering his paw had fallen out on its own.
We went through a routine that had now become irritatingly, yet comfortably familiar. This cavern didn’t have the hooks to hang things on; instead, someone had built ledges along the walls, head high. The men set the supplies on them, out of the way, leaning their weapons against the walls. Z’pheer set up a fire, and Malek laid out the beds. Raul went to hunt, this time without Tarku, and Z’pheer had me set up the pot for cooking.
“What are we going to eat with this?” I asked Z’pheer, stirring the vegetables from several packets into the heating water. “Raul didn’t find anything.”
“He said he’d find something near here.” Z’pheer handed me another packet. “That’s the last one for now. We’ll ration the rest just in case.”
My eyes widened. “You mean in case we get stuck down here another day?” I couldn’t keep the worry out of my voice.
“Yes. We won’t, though.” He brushed my bangs out of my eyes. “We’re less than a half a day from the gates to Vunadar, and Raul knows these tunnels like the back of his hand.”
I nodded, thinking.
It was strange. After two days down here, I was starting to dread going up to the surface. I knew hardly anything about this planet or its people. The Rith were scary enough. I wasn’t ready to deal with whatever other dangers might be waiting on the surface.
With the water boiling merrily in the pot, I went over and sat beside Tarku who’d parked himself right in the entrance to the cavern, waiting for Raul to return.
“You love him, don’t you, boy?” I stroked his ears, unable to help an annoying affection for him that rose up.
He pushed his head into my palm.
God, he was so fucking cute.
“Yeah, well, he’s right. If you love him, you are a dummy.”
He made a low sound in his throat that made me wonder if he understood the insult, then started licking his paw again.
I sighed, glancing around at Malek and Z’pheer who were talking by the fire. Raul still hadn’t come back. It pissed me off that I couldn’t stand to think the dog might be in pain, even if the men had already made sure there was nothing in his paw.
“All right, come here. Give me your paw.” I reached for his paw, and he whined, tucking it under him. Remembering his mouth full of teeth, I swallowed and slowly pulled his paw out, looking it over, feeling around his thick pink fur. He didn’t pull away, but he was tense.