Bhyr

by Penelope Fletcher

  I chewed my lips to stifle laughter. ‘So into me.’

  ‘Yes.’ Unhappy thoughts slid behind his eyes. He eyed me. Pensive. ‘Forgiven?’

  ‘Forgiven.’

  ‘You would forgive all wrongs? Still like me?’

  ‘Never said I liked you.’ My insides squirmed as I realised I was way past liking. ‘As for my store of forgiveness, well, it’s finite.’ My brows punched together. ‘I don’t like the face you have on. It looks guilty.’

  He moved back, slumping.

  What now? ‘Bhyr?’

  His expression took on a faraway look.

  ‘You scare me,’ I said deciding for more unfiltered honesty. I pressed my hands to my chest. My heart pounded. ‘I think about you all the time, which is mental, because we’re together most of the time. I’m dying for you to appreciate what I offer.’ His gaze brushed against mine. It was a small thing, him looking into my eyes, but I’d worked hard for it. ‘I need you to do better. Let us be stronger together then we were apart. I need you.’ Hot in the face, mortified I’d reached a place where I’d say these things out loud, I grabbed his shoulders. ‘Whatever you’re not telling me doesn’t matter. I’ll still be here once you’ve said it.’ He’d chased me, caught me, and now he had me, the poor fool. ‘Tell me. What’s the problem with the Horde?’

  Dread tightened his features. His hands left me to ball into fists either side of my hips, shoulders heaving under the strain of his tension.

  ‘Just say it, Bhyr.’ My voice escaped a throat closed tight with fear. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I wish to tell you the story of my life bearer.’

  I blinked spastically. Deflated. ‘Your mother?’

  What did that have to do with his Horde?

  ‘I have no mother.’

  ‘All right.’ I danced through landmines. ‘Tell me about your life bearer. I’ve wondered what happened to her. You only mention your father.’ Call me curious to know what happened to all the women on Vøtkyr.

  Where the hell were they?

  The lack of females sent the Horde to Earth. Whatever happened to them must have been traumatic. Bhyr’s reaction when I’d broached the subject before had been evasive most times, incendiary others.

  ‘My father chose his breeder for her ancient lineage. He traced her blood to the Beginning.’

  ‘Beginning?’

  ‘The founding of the Horde.’

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘Breeders do not bear names,’ he said after an uncomfortable pause.

  ‘I’m your breeder.’ My tone had a bite. ‘I have a name.’

  Our first confrontation centred on him calling me “it”. I couldn’t believe how far we’d come so soon.

  ‘You do, but you are different.’ His gaze tingled where it landed on me. ‘Special.’

  Not that special.

  He offered no apology for his past behaviour.

  My jaw clenched, then relaxed. I’d offered my forgiveness, and he’d expressed regret in his way.

  ‘It’s not special to have a name, Bhyr. Everybody has one.’ People were born then named, recognised as an individual.

  ‘Aztekan breeders do not.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘It is Horde Law, set down by the forefathers who freed us from the females’ oppression.’

  Unease wended through me. ‘Oppression?’

  ‘I tried to fix things, Indira, but it has not worked. I caused a divide. It grows.’ He shuddered. ‘I accept your offer of help, but you must understand what we face.’ His eyes focused past me, expression grim. ‘I need to show you something.’

  ‘You want my help, you’ve got it.’ I held out my hand.

  ‘You do not question where we go.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  He ignored my hand and scooped me into his arms.

  Rather than setting off in his perfunctory manner, he tangled his fingers into the strands of my hair. ‘You are a Gift. The gods saw what was in my heart and made you for me.’

  ‘Sure.’ My heart tried to claw its way free of my chest to lie down at his feet. Startled by the intensity of my feelings, I clutched him back. ‘Well, isn’t this a nice hug for people who enjoy hugging.’

  Bhyr slid a hand down my back to squeeze my ass.

  Mollified, I said, ‘Better.’

  We travelled north by goodbeast. We passed the furthest marker of his holdings, a glyph etched onto a stone pillar, and I bit my cheek to keep from questioning our destination. I busied myself absorbing the bleakness of the planet.

  Much the same as Earth.

  There were surface differences, but stripped down to its basest denominator life across the universe came down to starlight, reactive air, flowing water and soil.

  Vøtkyr lacked the visual impact of Earth, but I liked the way the wind moved and the suns danced. The vastness of the landscape did feral things to my insides. It made me want to rip off my clothes and run shouting at the moon.

  Standing barefoot on the terra of Earth was soothing.

  On Vøtkyr there was a wildness in the planet’s core that filtered into the ground, into the water, into the air.

  Feeling it pulsing through me–stronger every day–made it obvious how the Azteka evolved into indomitable forces of nature.

  Bhyr’s restlessness grew into twitches the closer we drew to wherever he took me.

  Nurturing wasn’t my forte, but I wanted to comfort him.

  The rigidity of his back and the fixed expression on his face, however, spoke of his growing reluctance to talk.

  At first, I thought it was the perfect excuse to avoid embarrassing him and myself with my clumsy attempts, but our gazes caught and held.

  Keeping in mind it was no big deal if he rebuffed my advances, I puckered my lips with a smacking kiss. ‘Are you doing okay over there?’

  He swayed in his saddle, then straightened to glare. His mouth opened to show me his tongue, swollen and aroused to a prurient red. ‘You know what your kisses do to me!’

  I laughed in his face. ‘I’d do it again to see you fall off.’

  A furious clicking vibrating his throat, he reined us to a halt then dragged me off my saddle onto his lap. I ended up naked from the waist down, a pommel digging into my stomach. I clutched handfuls of a shaggy hide and clenched down on Bhyr’s cock as I came, gasping and shuddering. He snarled his completion into my shoulder, sexing up the nape of my neck with his tongue.

  Set back to rights on my goodbeast, I was sticky yet satisfied my comforting went better than expected.

  I was a natural at this relationship malarkey. Smug, I glanced at him then did a double take.

  He eyed me lustily and tongued the thumb of one hand. He fondled his shaft with the other. The organ thickened, weeping musky fluid he used to ease his quickening strokes.

  His eyelids lowered to half mast, but his gaze never strayed from mine.

  ‘Let me?’ I breathed.

  ‘Watch.’

  My mouth dried. ‘Please?’

  ‘No.’

  I rocked on the saddle, a hollow between my thighs. I’d been a bad influence, and he was getting his own back.

  Muscles in his neck strained as he finished himself off, spurting over his fist in a messy eruption that made me squirm.

  An exhalation of pleasure gushed from me as Bhyr groaned. He wiped himself off, nostrils flaring as he scented my arousal.

  We rode, still breathing hard from our exertions.

  ‘That was mean,’ I said.

  His teeth snapped the air in my direction. ‘I would do it again to hear you beg.’

  I put my face in my hand and laughed.

  24

  Indira

  Blurred edges of tall mounds appeared in the distance. I blinked to clear my vision, leaning forward. ‘Is that a city?’

  Bhyr didn’t respond, back to being taciturn.

  He didn’t need to.

  Yes, a city, but a weird one.

  The struc
tures resembled melted candle wax, the external decoration an inverted honeycomb.

  Its similarities to a hive made me shiver and wonder what the Aztekan females looked like.

  Bhyr kicked his goodbeast into a ground-eating canter that had mine groaning. We raced across the tundra, playful wind stinging my exposed cheeks.

  Rising from the landscape in twisted spikes, a sprawling metropolis erupted from the black soil. It shimmered in shades of gold and platinum.

  Open-topped walkways stretched between the structures, and thick ice barnacles encrusted the multi-levelled arches. Facets of cut rock caught delicate rays of sun and shattered them into prisms of winking light.

  Humbler buildings with different architectural leanings–less angular hexagons and more filigreed lattice–filled the gaps between the naturalistic edifices. These devolved further into ramshackle domes that crumbled into rubble as we cleared the outskirts and headed into the city heart. Its frozen, silent heart. Untouched, as if every being had dropped what they were doing in concert then dissolved. The pall of great age which hung over everything was disturbing.

  Animals scurried across pitted pathways to avoid our notice. A herd of grazing beasts with whorled horns on their snouts and turquoise feathers lumbered from our path, bleating.

  Most disturbing was the dense layer of vegetation growing over everything. It was a city forgotten in time. Fossilised. Abandoned. The Horde lived in a colony made up of underground grottos and nests.

  Designed to support tens of thousands, the infrastructure would be wasteful if not used with careful planning. But broken and vandalised as it was, it wouldn’t take many man hours or much material for them to make it habitable.

  Bhyr pulled up the goodbeasts, and we came to a stop on a market plaza.

  Giant trees grew through the foundations and horned, blue-fleshed primates peered at us through the branches.

  I gazed around, wide-eyed. ‘These trees look old. What happened here?’ When Bhyr didn’t speak, I jabbered to fill the silence. ‘Was it an epidemic? Disease? Famine? An invasion? What the hell happened, and why aren’t you saying anything?’

  ‘War.’ Bhyr studied his surroundings with forced detachment. His mouth twisted. ‘Civil war a long time coming and hard won by those who fought it.’ He extended an arm to motion around us. ‘This vespiary was one of many. My ancestors destroyed the rest. They left this place standing as a warning, a reminder to those who came after.’

  ‘What does this have to do with your mother?’

  ‘Life bearer.’

  ‘Enough, Bhyr. It’s not like you to be cryptic for the sake of it.’ I leaned over my pommel to grab his arm. ‘Talk to me.’

  ‘The females were cruel.’ He sounded stilted. ‘They delighted in causing pain. Humiliation.’

  I struggled to imagine a Horde male treated in such a manner. Everything about Bhyr and the warriors shouted of raw masculine power.

  Dominance, not submission.

  The idea the Azteka females were not the downtrodden waifs I’d imagined them as took me aback. I’d based his people on my own. Why? I couldn’t explain. Maybe a human trait to fill in the blanks and force the world to make sense.

  Inclined to believe him, I scanned his face. There were two sides to every story. Did I take his word about the females on good faith?

  Had he earned that level of trust from me?

  Too much made little sense. I went with a noncommittal, ‘But you’re so strong.’

  He laughed, an abrasive scrape of sound. ‘They are stronger. A small female doubles my strength.’

  ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘Contained.’

  I didn’t like the sound of that. I’d suffered “containment” by the Horde. ‘Where?’

  ‘Farms.’

  ‘They live on farms?’

  My mind flashed to rolling pastures and red barns with hay and mooing cows.

  Cows that didn’t eat you.

  Idyllic Earth stuff.

  ‘Doing what?’ I asked. ‘Growing crops? Tending livestock?’ That didn’t sound too bad. No, I was missing something. ‘Are you keeping them trapped there?’ My heart stuttered, then sank. ‘They’re slaves, aren’t they?’

  ‘They are breeders.’

  For a moment, my mind blanked. An ugly thought bloomed. ‘Sex slaves?’

  Before I finished uttering the words, I was shaking my head at myself. The concept was ridiculous. Unless stimulated in the right manner, sex hurt an Aztekan male. Their religion forbade them from carnal acts of pleasure, seeing them as deviant and a crime against god. Bhyr wasn’t keeping a secret harem of sex slaves.

  ‘What are you trying to tell me? Are you saying your mother is grubbing out an existence on an icy patch of dirt to atone for crap that happened before she was born?’

  ‘She is dead.’

  The flatness of his voice had me stilling. ‘I’m sorry. That must have been difficult for you as a child.’

  He turned to face me for the first time since we’d entered the city. ‘Her life ended before I knew her. I do not need your apology. Her death did not affect me.’

  My gaze swept over his hard expression. I didn’t think I’d ever seen someone so in need of a mother’s love.

  I let the comment pass unattended. ‘You said you’d tell me her story.’

  He recited a long number.

  ‘You’ve lost me. What was that?’

  ‘Her identity.’

  I blinked. Scowled. ‘That is atrocious.’ He loosed a harsh breath, and my hand flew up to push out palm first. ‘Save it. We’re not going to agree. Besides, I sense we have a bigger fight to get through, so save it.’

  Jaw muscles working, he snapped a nod. ‘My father chose her when he decided to continue his line. She was excellent stock, a rarity in these desperate times.’

  My mouth opened and closed like an idiot fish.

  Excellent stock?

  I sifted through what to say next and dredged up nothing appropriate.

  ‘I see,’ I said at last.

  I didn’t want to.

  It was an ugliness that corrupted whatever it came into contact with.

  ‘My father bred her,’ Bhyr said. ‘He kept her at his private stable built for my gestation.’ He paused. The world shrank around him. ‘Upon my birth, he put her down as is Horde tradition for breeders who bear a male during their first pregnancy.’

  As is Horde tradition for breeders who bear a male during their first pregnancy.

  The reins in my hand started to slide as the animal beneath me stirred. I adjusted my grip, my eyes dry.

  I thought back.

  ‘How long do your females live for?’

  ‘Less. They once lived longer.’

  I hadn’t blinked in a while. I thought back further.

  ‘Why? What’s the point?’

  ‘To breed a son.’

  ‘You want a child so bad you’d endure this?’

  ‘I want a son.’

  I’d known he would tell me something awful.

  Put her down.

  Just not so awful it made me want to never lay eyes on him again.

  Bhyr’s gaze flinched upon finding mine, and it hurt.

  God, how it killed.

  ‘It sounds cruel,’ he began before losing his direction of thought and falling silent.

  ‘Cruel? No, not cruel.’ Psychopathic. ‘How do you do it? How can you?’

  ‘I never have,’ he replied with caution. ‘My father taught how me. It is painless. The birth weakens them and leaves them insensate. As they drift in the aftermath on the birthing stone, we end their lives. We send their remains to a ceremonial pyre. An honouring to the supreme god and ruler of life, Destruction, and his eternal helpmeet, the goddess Creation.’

  My mind skittered. ‘I’m your breeder. I’m your breeder, and you brought me to Vøtkyr knowing you’d butcher me.’

  A choked noise punched past his lips, torn from somewhere vital.

  �
��Is that–’ My voice broke. ‘Is that what you’re trying to say to me, Bhyr?’

  He sat there, gaze riveted on my face, saying nothing.

  I stared at our surroundings. ‘This happened on Earth, you know? Religious sacrifice. Most cultures have experience with it. There were fanatics amongst my mother’s people, once upon a time. Wives would throw themselves on their husbands pyre.’ A gust of wind cut right through me. ‘As if life were so cheap.’ I trailed off staring at nothing and feeling nothing. I tried to swim through the muck, find understanding. ‘You wanted a son.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This is it? Why you’ve been so upset the last few days? This rite is what your precious warriors don’t want to change.’

  ‘It is not a simple thing.’

  My breathing was out of control. ‘I’ll give birth to your child, and if you get a son, you’re going to… to….’ I stuttered. Exhaled. ‘Kill me.’

  He flinched. He had good reason to. ‘Indira, no. No.’

  I’d get pregnant, eventually, if not already. He’d seen to that. He’d been seeing to it every opportunity he got.

  Being the feckless idiot I was, I’d taken part in his diligence. Knowing I was no longer protected by my contraception. Knowing what he wanted, and in a subconscious corner of my mind hoping, praying, he’d spirited me across the universe to find the real thing. Something rare. That a beautiful life would grow from our origins. Our nightmare beginning, where he’d abducted me from my home, given my grandfather a fatal heart attack, and then torn down my sense of safety before brainwashing me to accept his forced seduction.

  Goddamned idiot.

  I unhooked my feet from the saddle. I used them to slingshot myself off the side of the goodbeast. It was high. I landed wrong, twisted my ankle, and fell on my face.

  Adrenaline pumping through me, I shoved through the pain and bounced onto my feet. I had no destination or direction in mind.

  It was a gibbering, animal instinct to flee.

  Bhyr came up fast behind me. ‘Indira! Stop!’

  ‘Go away.’ I jinked to the side, then scrabbled over rocks into a courtyard overgrown with vines and weeds.

  Arms clamped around me and took me down.

  Bhyr twisted to take the brunt of the fall and we skidded across the bracken on his side. Dead leaves went poof into the air, cushioning our landing. Long legs hooked my ankles and locked me in place. His temple pressed against my cold cheek, and his gruff clicking took on a crooning cadence.