Calliope's Wings

by Guin Archer

  “She’s mine,” I snapped at him, the hand I’d been mauling Kor with turning to a pointed finger in the other brute’s face. “Back off, Sasquatch.”

  He blinked at me.

  Shit. I’m speaking English, aren’t I?

  “Mari’et is mine.” There. That’s better. “Leave her alone. If anyone touches her, they answer to me. I swear by everything on Intau, if she hurts, I will kill you all.”

  “As uum Taytani says,” the male – I think his name was Yakar – intoned.

  Kor rolled me back so I was more or less left with my front pressed perpendicularly to his. He was heaving and I was glad I couldn’t see his expression clearly. As it was, his blue-black aura and emotions were in a riot. They were angry and lashing out against everyone and everything.

  Except me. My rainbow-tinted, silver aura melded and danced with his, smoothing out the ragged edges his sported.

  …strange.

  The Tohtahk growled deeply and whirled around. My pinprick of vision flipped and I slammed my lids shut again to keep from hurling against him.

  “Come, kut of my biis’a.” He paused dramatically, pushing a point home while I fought to keep up with what he was saying and what was going on. “She has done you a great service. Do not disappoint Her by weeping amongst these dead as though She did not save your life.”

  The dead. Slaves. Black Bite.

  No. He couldn’t take me away.

  I fisted my hand through the sleeve against his collarbone. I felt the tilt of his head moving down and knew he was seeing me. I implored him with my eyes and my aura. Even if – and it was likely not – he couldn’t see them like I could, he’d feel it. Nobody was ignorant of their auras altering in any way. It was a person’s intuition, instinct, and ‘third eye’.

  Unfortunately, he didn’t so much as pause in his march. He ignored his primitive, monkey-brain side in favor of his more advanced, yet still caveman-behaving half.

  “The kut,” I whined pathetically. “They are ill. They have the Bite. I must help them.”

  “You have saved all You can, uum kisa-uu. You are ill now and require tending.”

  “Lo. I need to help.”

  “Biis’a!” I jolted at his bark over his shoulder. “If you cannot keep pace, I will have one of my Zikta drag you. You will come. Now.”

  “You’re a fucking asshole,” I groused under my breath even as I felt unconsciousness beckoning. The prismatic glitter in my aura was dying out and the dregs of my lingering stores of energy were fading. Like, completely. I was beginning to shake from a bone-deep chill and my lips were going numb.

  Wow. This could be bad.

  The last time I expended myself like this…I died.

  Yeah, I didn’t think the almighty Tohtahk would be too pleased if I kicked the bucket right now. I wouldn’t be, either. Now that I found Mari’et and I had Ruune, I needed to stick around to protect them. It didn’t matter what hell I was in for. No matter what came at me, I needed to be there for them. They needed me and I wasn’t going to abandon them.

  Fuck, I’m stuck.

  Even as I started losing consciousness, plans were being formed and evolving in my mind. If I left, they’d be coming with me. That or I’d need to set them up somewhere safe where no one could hurt them again.

  Safe. I had to keep them safe.

  I finally lost out to my exhaustion, a blanket of black swallowing me whole.

  Chapter Twelve

  I woke up in a hell caught between raging inferno and frozen tundra.

  I was shaking fitfully, feeling hard and heavy arms wrapped around me. My teeth chattered from how much of an ice-cube I felt like, but I could also feel the sweat dripping off my brow and sticking the blankets to my skin. My blood felt on fire while my muscles were locked up from cold.

  I was in Hell. No way I wasn’t.

  I moaned, long and low, and squirmed in my asshole-suitor’s arms.

  “You will not do this to me again,” he growled in my ear before launching from the pallet. I watched him go, not above the base instinct to watch his bare ass flex in the low light provided by the overhead, hanging lamps. He had a great ass. Bitable.

  Kor brushed aside the flap of the front ‘door’ and snarled something feral and harsh out into the night. He stopped before he came back to the pallet to retrieve a pitcher and cup from the low table that served as an impromptu dining area. His hands were so big around the items and his muscles so visibly taut that it was a wonder he didn’t smash them to smithereens. I should’ve – and kinda did – known better.

  This male who was the warlord of the Udon, a titan in his own right, and the most intimidating Tauren on the face of this planet – at least to me, he was – knew how to use his body. He had absolute control over it. He moved with restraint and power. There was a vibe around him that all but stole everyone else’s ability to act freely because they felt they needed to move and breathe only at his command.

  He was a scary fucker.

  He put the items down on the layered rugs under and beside the pallet before shifting me around to his liking. I hissed in pain, feeling a harsh tingle in every one of my nerves that was kissing against burning agony. His callused skin against mine felt like gritted sandpaper meeting acid burns. Tears spotted my eyelids, but I didn’t let them fall. I’d had enough with crying.

  “Never again,” he rumbled darkly.

  “Where is Mari’et?” I smacked his hand once he had me situated across his lap with my head supported by his bicep. I felt a little like a baby in his mighty arms and that feeling was only amplified by the censorious look he was bestowing on me. He was trying to feed my pink juice into me. “Where is she?”

  “Your other kut are seeing to her. Piiore, kisa-uu.” He chased my mouth with the cup when I tried to avoid it. Nah-ah. No way. The last time I took a drink from this shithead, I ended up roofied. With how shitty I already felt, I didn’t trust him not to send me off again.

  “You drink! Get it out of my face.” I slapped his hand and the horn cup, ignoring the shot of pain that suffused my whole hand for the action, and delighted when some of the juice sloshed over the side. I was even more tickled when he sneered at my refusal and his inability to make me obey.

  Take that, you pompous shit. I ain’t your fucking dog.

  “Innintani,” yup…he was definitely cursing me, “You must drink. You exhausted Your magic tending to those kut. You need to be healed now.”

  “Funny,” I chirped with false cheeriness, “but you are excellent at pressing my title when you are maddest at me. I do not want that drink and I will not have it.”

  “You will.” His double-tusks flashed in my face. He forced the rim of the horn to my pursed lips and held it there stubbornly. “I will force you, biis’a. Your happiness is second to your health. Piiore now, Calliope.”

  Fine. Fucking fine!

  Reluctantly, I opened my mouth to allow him to pour the juice into it. Just like the last time, too, it had that bitter bite that signaled he’d laced it. My jaw flexed and I could feel my lips curling and grimacing once I had swallowed a whole cup worth.

  His chest bounced a little as he chuckled lightly.

  “You are humorous, uum Taytani. I have seen shimi take tonics with less fuss than You have.” The empty cup made a dull thunk sound as he set it back down on the rugs. He didn’t release me now that he was done filling me up with the drink. Instead, he tugged me tight against his front, one hand cupped along my whole hip and ass cheek while the other semi-roughly fingered my bare feet. The force he used was the only reason I didn’t erupt in ticklish squeals.

  I suppressed the urge to stick my tongue out at him.

  “The drink is foul with what you put in it. You are lucky I did not spit it back in your face.”

  “Had You done so, I would have given You more until You obeyed. You are willful and strong, uum Pasha, but You are not without weakness. As was proven this sol.” His hands squeezed me lightly. “Never will You
do that again.”

  “I will.”

  “You will not.”

  “We can argue this until we are both breathless, but I will still win.” I fussed in his arms, but like always, I went nowhere he didn’t allow me to. It was frustrating to always be the weakest person in the room. I heaved a sigh. “Do not be mad at me. I did not ask for this power.”

  “You think I am upset for You proving Your strength? You think I do not take pride that my Pasha is the Innintani we have long awaited? I am the envy of every los’kah.” His head shook before he tipped me enough to press his heavy, caveman brow against my forehead. “Uum kisa-uu, You hurt my heart when You drained Your magic and Your life for those kut. Do You not see how close You were to death?!”

  “It is not like…” I started, only to shut myself up mid-statement. I was on the cusp of telling him I was used to dying. It wouldn’t be anything new and, really, it’d be worth it to die saving lives rather than me committing ‘selfish’ suicide or as a punishment for whatever thing I did wrong in my Master’s keeping. Still, this male was genuinely expressing hurt for my hurts. He was worried about me. He cared about me in his own unique way.

  I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t.

  The shuffling of fabric saved me from having to scrape together a corrected response that wouldn’t send him into a tailspin.

  Ruune ducked into the pillau, his hands fisted around a tray overladen with food. I was beginning to get dizzy and feel extremely tired from whatever sedative the juice had been laced with, so my hermie friend’s entrance was fuzzy to me. I smiled – I think – wobbly at him when he kneeled beside us.

  “Howdy,” I giggled in English, reaching way out and patting Ruune’s fuzzy scalp. He hadn’t gotten the genetic trait that enabled his not-hair to grow like a male Tauren’s and instead had the single braid and fuzzy scalp of the females.

  Ruune smiled shakily at me, a worried glint in his eyes when he looked above and behind me to where I thought Kor’s face had to be.

  “Feed Her,” the Tohtahk barked while massaging my side – and yes, that included my ass cheek – and feet in his hands.

  “Tohtahk,” Ruune murmured over the tray, clearly about to argue even if he’d get hit for it. His informative years as a Zikta-in-training and then a Zikta made him freer with his mouth than he probably should’ve been. The scars from whips filling out his back like a convoluted subway map were proof enough of that.

  Kor snapped his sharp teeth audibly. Ruune flinched back, the plates on the tray rattling.

  “She has chosen you, Xerbai. You serve Her in whatever way She or I see fit.” Even with my head rocking back sluggishly against his bicep, I couldn’t miss the way the big guy’s jaw ground and his teeth gnashed. His muscles were as solid marble beneath me. “When She is ready, She will fuck you until She is prepared to receive my kii again.”

  All the very important ‘w’s flashed through my head at that jaw-dropping statement.

  Just who the fuck did the warlord think he was?!

  “Feed Her,” Kor repeated as though he hadn’t just dropped the world’s biggest bombshell on me. His tone was maintaining its normal level of bitchitude – the guy had it in spades – while he continued to pet, stroke, and massage my body gently.

  “U-uum Taytani,” Ruune’s voice wasn’t nearly as strong. It was shaky and soft…at least as soft as an orc’s voice could be. He had a sliver of uropa pinched between his fingers and was pressing it against my limp lips. A drop of juice dribbled over my chin from it. “Tepet.”

  Dumb and malleable like a puppet, I let him feed the fruit into my mouth.

  One bite to the next, I ate what was given to me. The amount of sedative in the juice this time had to have been less because I was able to stay awake just enough to obey their combined coaxing to their whims instead of slipping entirely off the deep end into nothingness.

  I wished I’d been knocked out.

  What the fuck did he mean I’d fuck Ruune? Not that the sweetie wasn’t already in my heart, but come on! No one was going to tell me who I was going to be fucking besides myself. And to think he meant me to hump on Ruune until I was ready for him again? Ha! Ha ha! What a riot.

  I didn’t care how much my coochie wanted some bing-bing. I didn’t care that I’d been feeling a bit like a bitch coming into heat since Kor wrestled me into submission nights ago and used his wicked pheromones on me. I was going to die a dried up husk before I willingly jumped in bed with anyone again.

  Kor tucked one of the sheets around me as though he’d been reading my mind.

  I corrected myself. I was sharing a bed with the ole lord-n-master of the Horde because he just wasn’t having it any other way. I might be able to crawl off and find my own pillau and I’d definitely try that avenue, but my instincts told me Kor was the possessive sort of Hulk man. He wouldn’t let me off to my own devices and out from under him.

  Unless, it seemed, he was putting me under another man.

  Jesus fucking Christ. This’s a shitfest.

  I don’t know how much of the tray I ate, but by the time I turned my face into the Tohtahk’s chest and away from Ruune’s next offering, my stomach was cramping. Fingers snapped by my ear and I was shaken until the dreaded cup of juice was back to my lips. I glared daggers down into the horn-cup but relented.

  I’d capitulate because the other option of fighting and suffering the consequences when I lost was far less appealing.

  The ‘tonic’ was even worse the second time.

  Between the two doses, I was feeling decidedly out of it. Darkness swamped in even as Kor rolled me back onto the pallet. Water sloshed from a bowl. I heard a cloth being splashed through before excess water was wrung out of it. Then, blessed cool was bathed across my skin. Skin which, until that moment, I hadn’t realized no longer felt burned or run over by a cheese grater.

  The juice. That damned juice was something straight out of a science fiction movie. It was like a cure-all for all ailments and hurts.

  As I fell under the spell of it, I thought I’d be a billionaire if I could get that shit back to Earth…if I ever managed to go home.

  With some surprise, I realized Kor wasn’t there when I woke up.

  The Tohtahk had a habit of crawling into bed with me after I’d already laid down to sleep – most likely because his duties kept him far busier than mine did – and stayed at least until I roused enough to acknowledge his unwanted presence tucked around me.

  Instead of his royal-pain-in-my-assness, I was besieged by my attendants.

  I yelped a near-scream when Mari’et all but dragged me out from under the single sheet to hug me against her bosom. My face was lost in her bountiful breasts and I swatted her sides until she let me out just enough to get a breath of air.

  “Io! My friend.” Mari’et was sniffling as she rocked me in her arms, halfway on my pallet and halfway off of it. I patted her back comfortingly. Her peachy aura tickled mine and I answered with a dogged brush of heat. As soon as she felt it, she hissed at me and lunged back. I was shoved back onto the bed alone and blinked tiredly up at the hut’s canopy.

  “Little biis’a, you mind your power. Be good now.”

  “I am just trying to help,” I argued back to her, shifting a little stiffly onto my elbows. Most of my slaves were gaping at Mari’et with horror. Tan’s face was a humorous combination of stricken and outraged. She reached out a hand tipped with sharp claws, clearly intending to yank the other female by the ear in correction, but I cleared my throat to bring her focus to me instead. “Lo, Tan. Mari’et is my dear friend.”

  “You are Innintani, uum Taytani,” Tan hissed angrily. She caught her tone, though, and darkened with an embarrassed blush. She pitched her voice more softly so she no longer sounded disrespectful. Even after these weeks together, she didn’t loosen at all with her ingrained sense of propriety nor did she welcome me as a possible friend. I tried not to be hurt by that. “No one is permitted to address You so informally, but especiall
y not a kut. She must learn her place.”

  “Her place, Tan, like you all, is beside me. Not beneath me.” When I sat up straight and held out my hands, Mari’et rushed to latch onto them. She pulled mine close to her chest and bowed over them. Her posture was a clear expression of distress…and I knew most of it was because of what she faced since Blackburhn. “She is my friend.”

  Tan wasn’t happy. Not at all. Her cheeks were ruddy with heat and I knew, just knew, if I wasn’t her Mistress, she’d have slapped me. It made me smile. Not because she was upset, but because I had gotten through to her. She felt comfortable around me enough that she felt she could emote at least a little bit and let her true feelings shine through.

  She trusted me and that, I must say, felt fucking great.

  “Mari’et?” I tapped some of my fingers against the underside of her chin and made her look up at me. I grinned in a small, encouraging way. “I will get dressed and we can talk over our solrise meal. Yes?”

  She hummed noncommittally but nodded and released my hands.

  Tok, the accomplished seamstress of my attendants, brought a dress more like the ones I’d worn while the Udon was riding than the monstrosities I’d been made to endure so recently. I all but lunged for the pretty cream and teal garment, elated to not be hampered anymore.

  To my infinite surprise, Mari’et was the one to help me with Ruune to shimmy into the gown. I didn’t think she’d do it. I wasn’t going to ask her to. To me, she wasn’t my slave. She never would be. Just as I’d told Tan, she was my friend. Moreover, she was mine.

  “I knew you were opari,” she whispered in my ear after the scooped neckline of the dress was affixed to my bakal. Her hands skimmed my body, one ranging down until she could cup my hand over hers. She petted the back of it with tender, searching fingers. A beatific smile touched her lips and turned them up when she tickled the serah there. “I knew you were special. I am only sorry I did not see sooner.”

  “I hid it, Mari’et. You know what I have gone through.” That was a lie. She knew some of it. She didn’t know all of it and I never wanted her to. “It was safer for me to be as I was.”