by Renee Rose
She smiles, her eyes large and wild still from our passion, and kisses my neck. “It just felt good, no pain at all. I think maybe Zandian sperm has healing properties.” Her smile falters, as if the topic of sperm concerns her.
I try to bring back the smiles. “If you want, the four of us can start a side business selling our sperm. You get some pretty glass vials, and we’ll look at your naked body and jerk off into them every planet rotation. We can probably get a few gallons by the end of this week, easy. We’ll label it as a health enhancer and bring it to all the domes.”
I study her. Too much? Not everyone likes my sense of humor. Females, especially, usually prize a male for his strength and prowess on the battlefield, not his ability to make jokes. Veck. I hope I haven’t ruined—
But she smiles, her chest heaving on mine, her nipples rubbing my skin, sending happiness and relief coursing through my veins. “Sure, if you ever run out of crystals, it can be the new Zandian export. Good for any ailment.”
A booming laugh leaves my lips before I can hold it in. I’ve never had a female be such a fun companion. And I think she needs this too. So as we bathe in the stream, I make more jokes about water purity, and she holds my hand all the way back to the dome.
6
Riya
You’re lying to me.” I teasingly poke Jax’s chest, as we traverse our Northern-most field, the one I’ve devoted to my more delicate herbs. It’s more like a large garden than a vast terrace, but I have goals.
“I swear I tell the truth.” Jax puts a hand to his chest and gives me a smile, the one that melts me. “It’s been nearly two lunar cycles already, Riya. You just haven’t noticed the passing of time because we keep you so… busy.” He winks, and I flush.
“So busy I’m out here late this planet rotation,” I retort, “and you’re lucky I can even still walk.” I give him a mock scowl. But I wind my fingers around his impressive tricep—as far as I can, anyway. My touch tells a different story from my stern look, a tale of remembered passion and all of our cries of pleasure, over and over last night.
“Oh, you can?” He tilts his head. “I must not have done my job properly, then.” He tsks disapprovingly. “If your pussy isn’t completely devastated by morning, I consider us to have failed our task as mates.”
I roll my eyes, because the three of them are so overprotective that it’s not even funny. Yes, they veck me until I’m hoarse with pleasure, until I can’t take another second of it… and then they lavish me with affection and praise, massage my limbs and my feet, bring me honeyed water to drink, until I am fully replenished. If they spank me, which they often do, until I’m pink and begging, they follow it up with orgasms enough to drive any pain from my body, leaving me so sated that I sleep like a stone at midnight, in a dark garden, and awake refreshed to attack the planet rotation with vigor.
“Oh, no. Oh…” I bite my lip hard enough to hurt, all of my lazy leftover bliss snapped, like a twig in a storm.
“What’s wrong?” Jax frowns and steps closer, scanning the area around us, and puts a hand onto my shoulder. “Riya?”
“It’s my calendula.” I fight to keep tears out of my eyes. It’s stupid, but I’m trying so damn hard to grow things out here. Trying so hard to prove my worth to my mates beyond a breeder. “It all died… again.”
I pull away from his grasp and bend down, as if touching the withered brown wisps will change their fate. “This is the third location I’ve tried, and now I’ve wasted more seeds.” I dig down to check for the fat white grubs that sometime infiltrate the soil and press the leaves in my fingers to examine them for the silvery trails of caterpillar larva, but all I see is dead brown matter.
“I can’t figure it out.” My chest tightens, and I get to my feet, dizzy for a second. “I need to figure it out.”
Jax frowns and examines my face, steps closer. “Riya, our planting is doing well,” he counters. “When I communicated your progress this week to King Zander, he said that you’re ahead of all of the other domes.” he smiles and adds, “Not that it is a competition. We are all in this together.”
“Oh, I know that.” I bite my lip and nod, forcing a smile to my lips. “I just want to make you proud.” Because I won’t be providing you babies. Every planet rotation that goes on without me telling them feels like a bigger and bigger lie.
“You already do.” He touches my chin. “Not just proud, but happy, Riya. For the first time, I—all of us—have the chance to learn what it’s like to live life, not just fight for a future chance to live one. Do you know how incredible that is?” He slides his hand up to cup my cheek, still looking at me.
His eyes, so dark, have multiple reflections of the Zandian sun, making them glow. A beam of light accentuates his sharp cheekbone, setting his striking good looks into profile. I catch my breath and put my hand on top of his, a surge of emotion taking me by surprise.
“I, too, get that chance,” I respond, pressing his strong fingers under my softer ones. “A slave never gets that chance.” The skin at my nape itches where my barcode is burnt into my skin and I fight the urge to touch it. Instead, I run my other hand up Jax’s bare arm, enjoying the muscles, strong and defined.
“So maybe the calendula isn’t such a miserable thing,” he says, a small smirk breaking out on his face. “In the big picture.”
I blink rapidly. “You’re right. I will just need to be creative and try again.” Except this is a competition… although I cannot tell him. It’s not me against the other humans, though—not exactly. More like it’s me versus my fate once they all find out I can’t bear young. If I haven’t achieved enough wins here at my farm, proving that my ag skills are so superior that everyone needs me as a de facto expert, who knows what will happen?
I confide in Jax, “Calendula is sometimes called Marigold.” I try out the Earth word on my tongue. I don’t speak English (nobody does), but still, many of the old words survive, the ones that name the plants that now power the galaxy. “Another slave told me that thousands of cycles ago, on my home planet, it was used in mating ceremonies.” I try to imagine what she’d described; thousands of golden, ruddy blooms adorning a dark-skinned bride, her friends, the decorations… making the whole city glow. This Earth information, passed down from slave to slave all these centuries, feels sacred to me. “I don’t know if that’s true. But the properties of the plant are well known now, anyway.” I squeeze his arm.
“And those are?” He’s not looking away. Jax always reads me like a holo. His face is alert, like he really cares about what I'm saying.
“It has antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties, and I hypothesize that it will be ten times more powerful for Zandian cuts and scrapes than on human skin, based on your reaction to other herbs I’ve tried.”
I run my index finger over a long, thin scar on his arm. He got this one early on when we were clearing a field. I put some botanical oils on it to help it heal, but I have goals to improve the way wounds recover. “Imagine healing so fast you barely have time to cry over it.” I shoot him a teasing smile. Of course he never cries; no Zandian males do. Their stoicism in the face of pain is well known. They don’t get injured as easily or as severely as humans; when they do, they tolerate it with a warrior’s duty.
“Cry over it?” His eyebrows are nearly in his horns, and he growls at me. “Cry? Oh, Riya, I’ll give you something to cry about.” He furls his brow and steps closer. “Take off your clothes and bend over my lap, sweet earthling.”
I squeal and put my hand to my mouth, hiding a giggle. “Are you going to massage my sore muscles? You are such a thoughtful mate. Thank you, Jax.”
He smirks. “Massage? I suppose, in a way of speaking, what I plan might be called that. I could use my hand,” and he holds up his massive purple palm, and flexes his fingers, “to apply pressure to your ass muscles. Take that as a massage if you want.”
But even though his eyes flash with arousal, I see lines around them, too. Is my mate worried a
bout something?
Jax
Your massage sounds very appealing,” Riya smiles up at me. She traces her finger along the side of my face. “But first tell me what else is on your mind. I know I’m not the only one who is upset about something this planet rotation.”
“What do you mean?” I’m surprised at her insight. Truth be told, I’m entirely frustrated with a situation at work—something new to me. The fact that Riya can read me this well is a shock, and then, a pleasure. I can trust her.
I tug her into my body, and she leans back into my muscles, letting out a breath of air, as if she feels safe.
I shift and look to the North, to the Afir Hills.
“You’re quiet.” She touches my quad, stroking softly. “Is anything on your mind?” She stiffens, and I swear it seems like she holds her breath for a second.
“Nothing I want to worry you about.” At this, she relaxes again.
She slaps my skin with her fingertips, barely more than a caress. “Nothing to worry me about? Everything about you is my concern, from here to here.” She wiggles her ass against my groin and reaches up to stroke the side of my head.
I chuckle, but it trails into a sigh. I admit, “I’m working on a roadway right now, breaking ground for it and determining where it will run.”
“The one you discussed the other night,” she remembers. “What’s the problem?”
“I’m working short term with a team of three other Zandians… not my cousins. The other two, Arran and Ketral, argue all the time. I could say we live on Zandia, and they’d argue.” My voice rises despite my intent to stay calm. “I’m trying to compromise, but they lack logic.”
She nods immediately. “You, Zandians, are used to rank and order, taking direction without question. Now, you have the ability to question. Your team mates who are giving you a hard time, maybe they’re expanding to fit their new lives. They are learning to live without direct orders from a commander. Working as a team of equals is different from working in a ranked system. Based on their experience, your calm, logical discussions might not work. Perhaps they may react better to someone just stepping up and saying, These are my ideas, and this is why they will work, and this is how it’s going to be, unless you can immediately, right now, prove me wrong.
“That’s a fascinating observation, Riya.” It all locks into place. “We are used to order. In fact, because I was so used to it, I was unable to see outside of it. It’s like I was inside a glass box.” I hold my hands up, as if defining a space in the air, width and height. “You just set me free.”
Her smile is so brilliant, her eyes so glossy with love and happiness, that I kiss her, hard and fast, my exuberance spilling out. “You should have been a captain. Or an advisor to one.” My footsteps are light, and I tap her ass with a smirk. The thing is, I’m not making a joke. This woman, this human, is incredible. Every planet rotation she surprises me with new depths of insight, fresh ways to make my life better.
7
Riya
Riya, I hear that you impressed everyone this planet rotation.” Tarren takes a large spoonful of the rice pilaf I’ve created with tomato, mushroom, and basil, and shovels it into his mouth. It’s the weekly pleasure meal, the only actual food my Zandians consume, and I take great pride in presenting them with the most delicious concoctions I can manage.
Jax nods. “If it wasn’t for your special herb mixture that stopped the toxic vipn saliva from spreading in the wound, Slanic would have lost his leg.”
“Veck.” Ronan slams his fist onto the table, then shoots me a glance and touches my arm. “Sorry, Riya. I’m proud of you. Just angry that the vipn attacks are getting more frequent.” He shakes his head, then takes a large mouthful of food. It’s sort of funny and sweet that once my mates taste my food, there is literally no topic that can turn their stomachs.
I find it hard to swallow, though, and force down my bite, which seems like cardboard in my mouth. “He may not gain full mobility,” I caution them, the same words the midwife and I had expressed to King Zander.
I put down my fork and clench my fists together in my lap. “He lost so much blood. And the edges of the wound… they are so destroyed. The teeth of the vipn are like razors. They shred.” I shudder. “Like the flesh is made of the thinnest paper. His wound will need to be tended regularly to ensure that the edges match up as he heals.”
Jax puts his hand over my clenched ones. “But we are lucky to have you. By we, I mean all of Zandia.” He gestures with his fork. “You were the only medic who knew what to do.” His face shines, and I can see the pride.
“It’s my duty,” I say, still feeling the adrenaline. Being summoned with an emergency palatial pod at the dome. Standing over Slanic, seeing him writhe in pain, tears of unexpressed anguish in his eyes, the wound as awful as anything I’d seen in battle, the pain worse because of the poisonous saliva of vipn.
I had packed my emergency kit of herbs and poultices, including new ones I’d created, things that I believed could detoxify skin. Thank sweet Mother Earth it worked. Even now, I’m shaky with relief, coming down from the high of the situation. King Zander has tasked me with creating more of my balm and asked me to teach all of the other agriculture reps how to create it, so it could be stocked in everyone’s dome and in the medbays. I’m proud that my plan to be useful is taking shape.
King Zander and Dr. Daneth had looked at me with such surprise, and then respect, mixed into one, that I almost flew away with pride. Dr. Daneth even asked how it was possible that I could do such things without knowing how to decipher. The truth, which I told him, is that I don’t know. As slaves we weren’t allowed to read or gain knowledge, but in our tents, the elders taught us everything they remembered, and knowledge was passed down orally. I clung to everything I learned, figuring to was my duty to remember it for the next generation, whether it was seed instructions or healing. And now that I don’t need to hide this interest, my brain is constantly creating things, even while I relax.
Tarren takes another great mouthful, nearly as much as I would eat in a meal and inhales it. “You are developing a reputation as being the master botanist,” he says. “We will need to hold onto you tightly so no being steals you away.” It’s a joke, but his eyes are fierce.
I smile and wrap my arms around myself. “I’m not going anywhere,” I tell him, meeting his dark gaze. When his slow grin starts, the dirty one that tells me what he wants, I flush. “Unless it’s to the hoverdisk,” I add, relaxing my solitary embrace, eager for his touch. For all of their touches.
“No.” his voice is harsh, and he tempers it with a head duck. “I have somewhere else in mind.” He clears his throat, and looks at Jax and Ronan, tilting his head. “Maybe…?”
They nod and Jax smiles. “I think it’s overdue.”
Ronan jumps up. “Let’s go immediately.”
“Go where?” I look from one male to the next. “Do you have somewhere special in mind? Are we going to visit Lily? Or maybe search for Agrax bark? You know I believe that it has a special acid in it, a mild one, that can help reduce pain and fevers.” I’ve been asking them to take me to the forest forever, it seems. If I can get another win under my belt with a new medicine, I will feel more secure in my spot on Zandia.
Tarron scowls at me. “Riya, the bark is in a place that’s not safe,” he reprimands me, his eyes trained on mine. “We will take you in a week or two when we have time to properly prepare for such a trip and can all three accompany you. Until then, it will have to wait. Is that clear? We cannot risk you going alone, not with vipn attacks on the rise in that area.”
I nod, biting my lip. Of course he doesn’t understand how important this is to me. And I can’t tell him. So I just smile. “Yes,” I say, tamping down my anxiety. “So where are we going, then?”
“Where?” Tarron stand up, his massive arms rippling as he stretches. “We’re going to take you to see the crystals at the Eloki Waterfalls. It’s one of the most beautiful places on th
e planet. After a planet rotation like today, I think we all need to experience the healing properties. Even if there’s no time, we should make time for this.”
Warmth curls in my chest. “I have wanted to see this forever!” I jump to my feet, heart racing. “Thank you.” I laugh and could even dance from excitement.
The dismal look on Ronan’s face floors me, and I stop. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He swallows. “Except that it took us this long to vecking take you to do something fun. Stars, but we’re miserable mates. How do you tolerate us?”
“Ronan.” I peer at him, trying to decide if he’s serious. I put my arms around him. “How can you say that? All of us have been so busy with work. I am well aware that there is barely time for sleep, let alone pleasure trips. I don’t consider you lacking,” I assure him.
He’s still stiff. “We’ve kept you here alone for lunar cycles without a visitor. We must do better.”
“I can hardly complain,” I say, tapping his horn, which usually makes him growl and smile at me. “I am sure that in a few solar cycles, things will be so calm that there will be nothing but leisure time, all planet rotation.” This thought makes me uneasy, because a few solar cycles from now—where will I even be? I bite my tongue and add, “But today I would love to see the crystals.”
I tap his horns again and whisper, in a voice that everyone can hear, “The only concern is whether we’ll have privacy at the waterfalls?”
His shoulders relax, and he laughs, then grabs me tightly. “In case we need to veck you there, is that what you mean?”
“No, in case we need to discuss land management strategy,” I retort, and make a face at him.
He growls and picks me up in his arms. “Be sure to bring some things from the box,” he suggests to Jax. “This one is acting very feisty today and may need a reminder of how to talk appropriately to her mates.”