He broke from her with aching slowness. She knew she had to look completely vanquished. She could feel the heat in her face, and her eyes had turned heavy. The expression on his own face was fiercer. His chest rose and fell with rapid breaths.
“Selena…this evening…I’m going to ask for you to be brought to my quarters.”
She lowered her eyes enough to hide them beneath dense lashes.
“I intend to seduce you.” She heard him swallow. “I know it’s still too soon. I curse that fact. But I still implore you to go with the robot escort to my bedroom.”
She thought about it several moments in silence. Her lower lip trembled, while still moist from the hot kiss. She sealed her mouth close to stifle it. Then she nodded while still not meeting his eyes.
Hern gave a sigh of relief. “Oh, may the gods bless you. We’ve less time now, Selena. Xaroth has information that is too sensitive to send in a message. He’s bringing his warship to meet us halfway. We’ll dock with him tomorrow.”
Now Selena looked at him with a pang of dread. “Oh.”
He wove his fingers through her hair again. “I have to hand you over to him at once. I’ve had my turn with you during this voyage. I can’t hide you away once he meets us. I must present you to him right away in good faith.”
Selena felt her stomach tightening. “I understand.”
His fingers moved to caress the back of her nape. The sudden hot flutters this caused made her breath stagger.
“You have to be mine tonight, my love. It’s our only opportunity before he arrives.”
His love? A lump built in Selena’s throat. “I…I’ll be there.”
He smiled softly to her. “Don’t be afraid. I swear—I’ll never give you a need to fear me.”
She forced herself to smile back at him. “I know.”
Once back in her chamber Selena had no desire to leave it. The anxiety Xaroth’s arrival caused her made her hands shake, but she wanted to will it away. Somehow. Tonight had to be about her and Hern. This was the wedding ceremony, and her deflowering. Hern had already tempted her with the sensuality he was capable of. Now she needed to give herself to him, without fear or hesitation. She wanted so desperately for this to be her special night.
Again, she was succumbing to romantic sentimentality. Xaroth was nearing. She should have gone into survival mode. Still—this might be her last chance to cling to her romantic ideals. Xaroth was going to slap her with a cold dose of reality whether or not Hern became her prince tonight. Why not indulge one final time?
She would have had a lot less fear if she knew what was coming. For now she simply imagined Xaroth to be the most brutal misogynistic tyrant imaginable. Even then, she might not be imagining him horrible enough—not when his last wife killed herself.
That’s when a spark of realization struck her. She still hadn’t met with Shol-Ignar. Selena tapped the button to summon a robot.
A short time later her Domestic guide opened the door to Shol-Ignar’s quarters without seeking leave to enter. Selena stepped into a space designed in the same way as her own, except there were some clothes on the floor and the table was piled with junk. The hidden drawer along the wall was open because there were too many garments stuffed in it to allow it to close.
Shol-Ignar was lying face down on his bed. He appeared to be nude, but a blanket was draped over the lower half of his body. A sleek robot was using a gadget to cast a blue streak of healing light on his back. Selena stepped closer for a better view. The flesh of his back had long vertical gouges with flesh puckered up around them forming purple swollen bands.
Shol-Ignar turned his head to look at her while still remaining in place for the robot. Selena saw that the wound below the beam was closing by scant millimeters. As the beam slowly moved over his back his injuries improved.
“So you finally showed up,” Shol-Ignar said.
Selena was overcome by sympathy, but hesitated to express it. This wasn’t her world or her customs, and she didn’t really know Shol-Ignar. Perhaps nothing less than this would do?
But still…
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize he would—“
“Shut up. I’m the one supposed to apologize to you. That’s why I called you over. So, sorry. Sorry I stepped on you.”
She fidgeted with both hands.
“Also I’m supposed to tell you whatever you wanted to know about General Xaroth, his dead wife, and whatever else. So ask me your fucking questions.”
Selena took a deep breath in and out. Even his belligerence couldn’t stop her from pitying him. She dragged the chair from his table next to him and sat.
“I am a slave, Shol-Ignar, and you’re from a race that seems to be mistreated by the rest of the Dak-Hiliah. Don’t you think we have something in common?”
He groaned.
“I’m not trying to irritate you. I’m going to be General Hern’s wife, and you’re his manservant. I wish we could get along.”
“This is how I get along.” His sneered at her. “I didn’t have to let you see me like this. I could have sent for you after the Medical was done healing me. This is a gift. You won. I’m so beat I can’t even stand. Go ahead and look at it. You know you want to.”
Selena curled forward and put her face in her hands.
“Don’t cry for me, bitch. You’re not my widow.”
She wasn’t crying, but felt no need to point it out. “I don’t want to look at your back,” she said with her face still buried. “It hurts me to see it. You didn’t deserve to get whipped just because you were an ordinary everyday asshole.”
Shol-Ignar laughed. Then his sneer came back. “Hey, cutie. Guess what? He didn’t whip me.”
Selena looked at him with guarded bewilderment.
“No. It’s like this. I finished my duties for him at the end of the night and asked if I could be dismissed. He told me I was getting punished for being rude to you. Then he walked me back here, right to my bedroom. I asked him how he wanted to punish me. He said he wanted to flay my back.”
Selena grimaced.
“I said, ‘Yes, master,’ and I took off my shirt for him. I asked him how he wanted me to accept my punishment. He said for me to lie down on my bed. So I lay down on my stomach across the foot of my bed. Then he takes out this force field whip that has two handles on each end. He lays the whip across my shoulders. Oh, and I screamed. You know how much pain that fucking thing causes?”
Selena’s face was contorted with revulsion. “Why are you telling me this?”
“He stopped long enough to find me something to bite down on. Then he asked me if I was ready for the next one. I said, ‘Yes, master.’”
Selena hugged her arms against her chest.
“So he did the same thing on the spot lower. It was just as terrible as before. I was panting like a wild animal afterwards. Then he asked if I was ready again and I couldn’t even talk for a minute. He had to ask twice. And I whimpered and cried a little and said, ‘Yes, master.’ He keeps going all the way down my back. Probably the whole ship could have heard me screaming.”
She began to tremble.
“So he tells me I have two more lashes but there’s no more room on my back. He asks if I want him to make a cross over the other lashes, or if I’ll accept them on my buttocks.”
“Oh my God.”
“I said I’d take them on my ass, but I’m too hurt to move. He has to pull down my pants for me.”
“Okay, enough.”
“You like that, cutie? That’s your husband who did that to me.”
She looked into his eye. “You might as well finish the story. What happened after he was done punishing you?”
His face became stoic.
“He ordered you to tell me whatever I wanted to know. So tell me, and make sure it’s the truth. I can always check with him.”
Shol-Ignar’s expression remained the same. “He asked me if I wanted to be his servant. I told him…that I wanted it bad, but I knew he didn
’t want me. He said I was his. I’m not a loan. I’m always going to be his. He’s taking responsibility for everything I do, so I can’t screw up again. He said he was claiming me in a way I could never forget. He said he did want me. That’s why he corrected me. He wants me to be the best I can for him.”
Selena heard his voice start to get choked toward the end. She stayed focused on him. “Then what?”
“Then he…he brought in the Medical. While it worked on me he sat on the side of my bed and touched my hair. He stayed…probably an hour.” Shol-Ignar cleared his throat. “Then I said I was sorry. He said he forgave me.”
“He cares about you.”
He mumbled an affirmation.
“I know I’m not as important as him…or you, but I want to care about you too.”
Now he grumbled.
Selena sighed again. “What happened to your eye?”
“General Xaroth stabbed me when he found Renata dead.”
Selena jolted. It felt as though bugs crawled beneath her skin. She cleared her throat. “Why did she kill herself?”
“It wasn’t General Xaroth. He was nice to her even though she was spitting in his face the whole time.”
Her lips parted.
“She was in love with a boy from her old Earth village. I told her he was dead. Her mom was dead, her dad was dead, her brother, sister, neighbor, all dead. We took her from the ancient past. There wasn’t even the Earth that she knew anymore. She wouldn’t accept it. She kept telling us to put her back in the past or she’d kill herself. I kept telling her to fall in line and used her collar to shock the piss out of her. General Xaroth tried to reason with her. She just begged him to send her home. Once he got stern, you know? And she attacked him. Scratched his face and made him bleed. After that he gave her to me and said for me to break her. Those were his exact words. So, anyway, I showed her a news report about how our druids were having trouble with time traveling, except I changed it from saying ‘having trouble’ to ‘can never time travel again.’ She acted like the news finally got through to her. She said she was going to give up on trying to get back and would fall in line. The next morning I found her dead with a piece of broken metal in her throat.”
Silence followed his speech. There was only the sound of the robots metal joints clicking as it moved the beam over him.
“She was just a fucking slave.”
Selena eyed him. His voice was nearly a sob now.
“She didn’t have the right to be so defiant with my master. He was the fucking General of the Dak-Hiliah military. Who the fuck was she? And he was trying to be nice to her—when she didn’t even deserve it. Of course I fucked her up. Who did she think she was?”
“You regret what happened.”
Shol-Ignar didn’t look at her. His eye glistened with a tear that had yet to fall.
“I think you did what you thought best. You didn’t realize how fragile humans are. Just hearing that everyone she loved was dead would be enough to make a lot of people want to die.”
“How the fuck could I have known?”
“You didn’t know how close to the edge she was. Now you understand my people better. You can have things go different with me.”
He scoffed.
“I mean, if you had a chance to go back in time wouldn’t you do it all differently?”
He looked at her with a spark of disdainful interest. “If I went back in time? Like to the first day when she got there?”
“Yes.”
Shol-Ignar thought about it. “Well…I didn’t want the bitch to kill herself. And I sure as fuck didn’t want to lose my eye. But, say the high druid gave me a chance to go back—I wouldn’t take it. It’s not like I could have ever gotten through to her, and if none of that shit happened I’d still be General Xaroth’s manservant. At least I got away from him.”
Selena blinked a few times. “Didn’t you like serving him?”
He stared at her.
“I mean, I’m guessing you were more like him than General Hern.”
“That doesn’t matter. There’s some shit even I can’t deal with.”
Her lips slowly parted. “You’re…talking about Ryezeit—aren’t you?”
Shol-Ignar turned away from her. “Why don’t you get the fuck out of here now? I need to rest.”
Selena pursed her lips. There was no malice in the words, despite his swearing. She quietly took her leave.
“Did you get the answers you were looking for?” Hern said.
He cuddled close to her on the equivalent of a loveseat with a high rounded back. Selena sat with her bare legs draped over his lap. He’d had her put on a short robe that was not unlike a Japanese yukata except the lush fabric was far too heavy. When she donned it he hadn’t instructed her on whether to remove her undergarments, so she compromised by removing her bra, but keeping her underwear. Hern wore a similar garment, which was dangerously short on his large body. Her slender legs made full flesh-to-flesh contact on his lap.
“I got most of the answers. As much as he could tell me,” she said.
Hern’s arm cradled around her with his hand cupping her sensitive ribs. The fat cushions of the couch braced her enough to let her lean against him. She had one arm around his shoulders. Before them was strange pink cascading smoke. A hologram, he’d explained, meant to relax. That’s how she felt now. Quite casual and relaxed with her intended husband. She’d discovered that Hern was too young to know much formality. He was relaxing in the same manner he always did after his work, except this time he’d had her join him.
“What else do you need to know, my love?”
She met his eyes briefly, then focused on the oscillating pink waves. “I heard a rumor…that General Xaroth propositioned you.”
He laughed quietly through his nostrils. “It wasn’t a proposition but a marriage proposal. One made very publicly so I couldn’t ignore it.”
She began to play with the long tresses of his hair. “What was that all about? I thought you two didn’t like each other?”
Hern closed his eyes with pleasure at her touch. “It’s more complex than that. He never wanted to share his rank with me, but he was obliged to cooperate. In the beginning he tested me. I did everything I could to accommodate him. He was my senior, and a veteran. I had no right to expect to get everything my way.” He looked at her. “But we did quarrel in a civilized manner. When we reached our first impasse I suggested that we simply take turns at command. He agreed. After that I made overtures toward him to try and reconcile…to try and convince him that the ideals like compassion had a place in our regime. He did nothing but exploit my kindness. First by convincing me to trade manservants with him, then by proposing to me.”
Selena kept her eyes lowered. “How would the proposal be exploiting your kindness?”
“I believe it was a way for him to exert greater control over me. He would be the dominant partner, and our disagreements would become personal. He excels at manipulation at a personal level.”
Selena gave a sound of disapproval.
“But still, on the exterior, the side that all our troops saw, he was reaching out to me. It was a grand gesture: to have the two Generals coupled together would certainly unify command. I didn’t know of a way to decline him without escalating the rift between us. I feared giving him ammunition to convince the troops loyal to him towards civil war.”
“Ugh.”
“Then the high druid Pakpo offered me a reward. Anything I wanted. Pakpo is inhabited by my goddess, Tian-za. I realized my benefactor was providing me an escape from what would have been an untenable situation. Very few Dak-Hiliah men would become coupled with another man when they had an opportunity for a wife. I gained a simple way to refuse him without insult—but I wanted more. I still wanted us to be united, much like we could be if we had an equitable marriage. After all—I would have partnered with him if I thought he would valued me enough to let me influence his politics.”
“You would have?”
“I already knew I would have no influence over him. But if I shared my wife with him? Well, I’d be forcing him to shirk Shindray’s rules right from the start in order to share a woman with another man. A wife could make inroads with Xaroth that I could never.”
She hugged her body closer to him. “That’s a lot of pressure on me, Hern.”
He caressed her cheek. “All you have to do is be the same woman to him as you have been to me. No matter how it might make me feel…there’s no—no place for jealousy in this endeavor.” He paused a moment, then squared his jaw. “Xaroth was damaged in his last marriage, Selena, that’s what spurred him to become a devoted follower of Shindray. Show him she wasn’t the norm—that he needn’t armor himself against such sweet creatures as yourself.”
She took a deep breath in and out. Here she was, giving herself to the man she wanted, when she’d have to do it again the next night with someone she wanted nothing to do with.
“Don’t think about him,” Hern said, as though he could read her thoughts. “Let’s neither of us have him contaminate our thoughts.”
She looked at him with an ache in her chest.
“Let me have all of you tonight.”
She leaned up to briefly join their lips. “That’s what I want,” she said with a bittersweet pang inside her. “To be yours and no one else’s.”
He caressed her hair lighting her scalp up with tingles. “You are for tonight.”
Hern lowered over her. She leaned back with her head on the broad cushioned armrest. He tugged her thigh so that her legs parted for him, and then moved between her legs. Hern wove his fingers through her hair while staring into her eyes. She could hear his breath growing staggered, and his eyes had a wild glimmer. Selena felt her face grow flush. He was pressing against her groin with only the thin layers of fabric to separate them. Hern wrapped her in his arms and kissed her.
The Complete Alien's Bride Page 43