by Guin Archer
Still, my heart hurt that I was still alone here.
Alone. Alone. Alone.
Life really sucked.
Chapter Fourteen
I hugged my knees to my chest, rested my chin on them, and stared fixedly at the fire.
We hadn’t been long left travelling before bedding down for the night in our new, enlarged camp. The Udonak was a titanic beast now that it had so many more in its shadow. Even without ‘proper’ pillau set up, the Udon claimed enough land to make fair carnies green with envy. The noise factor was up several notches, too, the males rumbling and tumbling in a cordoned-off area.
Their roaring and shouting was giving me a headache even from the distance I maintained from the mess. I didn’t even have a blip of curiosity to see it going down, still mentally scarred by the Jiktau. If it was anywhere near as savage, I didn’t need or want to see it.
So, I sat amongst my attendants at the fire by our itchto. I’d been pushed and poked and urged by them until they were blue in the face to go make-nice with the Pashas. They told me Gaddi was looking for me – which I knew because she had the single most disheartened face every time I guided Sekhmet away from her while we rode – and that I would have a more agreeable time with females closer to my station.
Bah! Ha ha. Ha.
They were so funny.
Tan and Tok set up a series of cushions for me to be comfortable on when they realized I wasn’t going anywhere. I’d been lying back along the slow-slung sling-chair-thingy they put my cushions on while I ate my dinner of dried berries, mixed nuts, and jerky. Then, when the abundant shouts and cheers of the Zikta got to be too much for relaxing comfortably, I sat up to contemplate the fire minutely and my life grandly.
Being the only human in this world was a nightmare. I didn’t even realize how much it bothered me until I thought I’d finally found someone else human, only to discover she wasn’t who I thought. Or rather what.
Slapping my hands up and scraping my palms from my cheeks to my hairline and back again, I tried to chafe some serenity back into my mind. Well, maybe not serenity, but my hard-earned backbone of steel would be nice. I didn’t like how wishy-washy and morose I became once I entered this damn Udon. It fucked me up. It uncorked all the holes I’d stoppered my dam up with until I was nothing but a leaky wall waiting to crumple.
Not good. Not good at all.
“Io,” Mari’et whispered from my side, one of her hands coming to rest low on my back. Even though I wasn’t hurt from anything, her healing balm pushed through me. I’d helped her physical wounds along and a night of rest as well as some descent food had padded up her reserves. Our two auras met and bolstered each other. So, as consequence, she made me feel a smidgen better from my lingering soreness from earlier as well as my fatigue.
Having a healer for a friend was beyond magical.
Literally.
“Is it earlier,” she whispered in my ear. “When you returned to help the others?”
“What is a Rahvashti?”
“W-what brought this on?” Her face tipped up and down as she surveyed me. “You did well to bring the uropa and Sky-nectar with you. They kept your strength up, though you are still very weak. I cannot chide you for going back, my friend, because I know I would have done the same.”
“I know. It is because you are a good biis’a. But, please, tell me what a Rahvashti is.”
“They are the fairest of Tauren. They are biis’a of the purest lineage.” Mari’et’s head cocked to the side, sending her single braid swinging. “They are treated with the highest regard, kept from soli’s light, and taught all the facets of Lubrei and Udon culture. They are our living legacies.”
Huh. So they were like the Filipino women in that long-ago culture that were secluded from the rest of society and had their histories drilled into their heads to pass on to the next generation like a living, breathing record book. I couldn’t remember what those people were called, but I remembered my college roommate, Greta, who was doing her thesis on that culture. Living with someone for years tended to leave lasting marks and, in my case, I had at least a few odd kernels of ancient and-or ethnic histories lodged into my brain because of her.
“Are there many of them?”
“No. They are exceedingly rare.” Mari’et’s voice dropped a key as she shared a ‘secret’ with me. “I hear tell there is one such biis’a in this Udon now.”
Yeah. Met her, hated her, she’s a cuntzilla.
“They are important?”
My friend jerked back from me in surprise. She blinked owlishly. “Of course! They were presented in the image of Innintani such as yourself! It means that they were chosen by the One to emulate the Innintani and carry the One’s Eye as long as is necessary until a true Innintani comes to us again. Then, it is their glory to hear from the Innintani the will the One wishes of us so she may pass your word onto the rest of Luintak.”
Jesus. And I thought this shit couldn’t get any more fucked up.
“I have met one once. She was so opari.” Mari’et’s eyes shined a little with worship and I fought back a giggle. How the Hell didn’t I pick up on this beforehand?
“Mari,” I whispered back before poking her in the side. She scrabbled for composure, her cheeks blooming with dark stains.
“Not as opari as you, of course, but she was…and I was…”
“Do you like biis’a, my friend?” I bumped her shoulder when she looked at her lap in shame. “I hope you know it is good to like biis’a more than los’kah. There is nothing wrong with it. And you are welcome to think I am…pleasing, as well. It is innocent if I do not return the same affections and you do not push them on me.”
“I would never…!”
“Hush, my friend. I know you would not.” I patted the back of her hand. “This is why we are friends.”
Although, now that I was thinking about it, I knew I needed to see if there was anything I could do to help her through her trauma. She hadn’t been attracted to men in the first place and to have them push themselves on her? Yeah…she wasn’t going to just recover from that without help. Even if it was just support she needed from me, I’d give that to her wholeheartedly.
I kinda hoped she’d talk through it, though.
Gods knew I really needed to do the same thing, but who the fuck could I tell about my woes?
A ruckus near our itchto drew all our attentions and I flinched. I was afraid Kor was coming to collect me and I wasn’t ready for it. I didn’t want to bed down with him right now. Maybe not ever.
It wasn’t the Tohtahk, however. The cheering, dueling matches were still happening and I figured he was either joining in or presiding over them. Could be both. So, no, it wasn’t him. Instead, an almost-shrill feminine voice rang out through our camp and complained. Profusely.
I glowered because I knew that voice, though I’d only heard it briefly, and I didn’t need to see her to know who was charging her way into the ‘squalor’ of the slaves’ camps.
“How difficult is it to have my bath prepared?! Are there none capable left?!” Her voice was unappealing. Bitchy just like she was. “Do not touch me! You are not my kut. Los’kah! Brandish your whip.”
Okay. Nope.
I rocketed to my feet and dashed off towards where I’d heard the bitch bitching. There was at least one snick of a leather lash and a muted cry of pain before I managed to round a loaded itchto and hovering slaves. I brushed them aside gently so I could plow through.
“Enough!”
The Zikta who accompanied the Rahvashti froze his whip mid-arc. He kept his eyes trained on the slave cowering on their knees, postured in the nose-to-ground bow, but his whole stance was locked up with tension. He knew who I was without even having to look at me. Probably because now that the Mahzri weren’t thundering across the desert, my serah could be heard clearly over the crackling fires.
The female, bedecked in a gown almost as gauzy as mine, whirled to face me. Probably to scold me for stopping her
. That didn’t last long. As soon as she noted my ghostly pale skin and heard the bells all over my body, I could see the switch flip in her. She went from cuntzilla to simper-shrew. She slipped a pleasant mask on her pseudo-delicate face that was all sunshine and roses. I sniffed at it and her because I knew what it was.
She’d just sprayed metaphorical Febreze over the trash can with molding cheese and fish bones rotting away inside it. She was the can, a deceptive exterior disguising nothing but trash.
“You can get up and go now, kut,” I told the slave still on the ground. I stepped up in front of and between the slave and the whip-wielding Zikta. Said whip was instantly lowered along with the head of the male. He looked only at my feet peeping out to the front of the slits in my skirts. He wouldn’t meet my eye. Smart male, though I had a problem with his mistress and not him specifically. “Find Mari’et amongst my kut. She will tend to your wound.”
“Yes, uum Taytani,” the male slave hurried to his feet and ran off behind me. There wasn’t an ounce of hesitation from him to get away from the Rahvashti.
Speaking of…
The female’s face twitched with anger before she rapidly swept the expression away. Not quick enough to hide it from me, though. I could see it under her well-fitted mask. She couldn’t pretend with me.
“Innintani,” the female purred, affecting a bowing curtsey of a sort towards me. Fakey fake faker. “It is my supreme honor to see You. I have been eager to make Your acquaintance since I was told of Your coming to us.”
“I would not have guessed it. You were eager enough to be rid of me earlier.” When her hairless brow furrowed, I summoned a condescending smirk. “Do you still think you can have me whipped for talking to you?”
Ooh, oh sweet baby Jesus; her face! I gloried in her momentary spike of horror when she realized exactly who she mouthed off to while she was so safe and smug inside her omma. Stupid bitch. My smirk morphed into a malevolent, grinning sneer that peeled my lips back away from my porcelain white teeth. I was silently thrilled that I’d never had one of them knocked out in my past, otherwise my smiles would be too comedic for words and not nearly so threatening.
“You remember me now?”
“I-I-Innintani, I am sorry. I was not aware it was You.”
“It gives you no excuse to be so vile to others.” I narrowed my eyes. “You had this Zikta whip that kut for what reason?”
“He touched me!” She sounded properly offended, going so far as to perform theatrics and steeple her fingers over her chest as she widened her black eyes. “That kut touched me. He is lucky I did not demand his immediate death. You, of all others, should be aware of how We should only be touched by those cleansed properly for Our care.”
Okay, I really didn’t like how she was tossing herself in with me and emphasizing the ‘we’ and ‘us’ as though we were better than anyone else. As if. If anything, she belonged at the bottom of the food chain for her sour personality alone.
I waved the Zikta off that was still standing in front of me. He bobbed his head low and backed up without turning. Because he wasn’t looking, he stumbled right into the Mahzri that loomed around us all in a large circle. I could feel Sekhmet’s breath over my scalp and felt her heat to my back even before her clawed hand knuckled my hair. They always followed – they barely ever left my side to begin with – wherever I went like bestial sentinels.
“I do not know what nonsense you speak of. If any Lubrei honors me with their tending, I thank them. I do not punish them.” My smile turned a little dark as I purposely brought my deformed hand up to showcase by my lips. The female gasped. “I have been on their end, you see. Under the lash, a club, fists, knives, and other things you cannot imagine. No, Rahvashti, I consider myself blessed to have any care for me at all…as should you.” The ‘you spoiled brat’ I left unspoken.
…mostly because I didn’t know what ‘brat’ was in the Tongue.
While she struggled to find a way to come back from her faux-pas, I looked her over.
I’d already noted her dress, but I realized only just then that she didn’t have a bakal to mark her as a Pasha. Did that mean she wasn’t permitted to take a mate – kind of like nuns – or was it because the males around her realized how vapid and horrible she was?
She had the palest skin of any Tauren I’d ever seen. She was a gold so pale she looked like gold-dusted tapioca pudding. Creamy, but tan at the same time. Her braided lock of hair was a navy blue color and dotted with golden crystals. She wore a plethora of golden bangles on her wrists and ankles that clinked in a poor imitation of my delicately chiming serah. Her body wasn’t very well-toned, though it was lean, and she was on the ‘short’ side.
Short. Yeah. Seven-fucking feet. Still over a foot on me.
She had a gaunt, doll-like face. Fine bones and a faintly heavy brow. Her tusks were all but invisible behind her lower lip and it was clear that she neither saw the sun nor did any kind of work because she looked like a good wind would knock her on her ass.
If it hadn’t been for her height, she had a chance of passing for an ugly human with an extra finger and toe on each extremity.
As I watched her, her expression morphed to something sly and falsely sweet.
“Innintani, You must have capable kut. We can gather them and bathe together. You will lend one to me for my use?” She sidled a bit closer to me. “We will talk, You and I, while the los’kah fight each other. We will be as tersti.”
Uh, no. Getting my teeth drilled sounds like more fun.
“My kut are my own.” I felt the corners of my lips tip down in a deep furrow. “You cannot have any of them. Where are your own?”
She waved her hand dismissively and laughed like she thought I was being funny. “I got rid of them, of course! It is well known that the best kut are kept with the Tohtahk’s Udon. I was in need of new ones.”
Her disregard for sentient life and freedoms sickened me. Also, based on her casual way of ordering the still-silent Zikta to whip the unknown kut, I had a good guess that she probably had slaves so well-beaten that they were hardly recognizable as Tauren anymore or had them killed outright instead of selling them off. I didn’t want to imagine either scenario.
Still, I was done with her and she sure as shit wasn’t getting her hands on any of my attendants.
“Have a nice lune,” I muttered without an ounce of sincerity or kindness.
I turned and brushed my fingers against the hand Sekhmet had held up to my back. The Rahvashti’s gasp of affront at my dismissal of her was a siren’s song. I would’ve recorded it if I could’ve and made it my ringtone.
I didn’t wallow in my delight for long. Not because some darker or sadder feeling replaced it. It was more for the fact that Ruune was waiting for me, not hiding as I knew he would’ve in the past, and had a gentle smile on his face. A smile just for me. My heart flipped a little and butterflies danced in my tummy.
Hmm. Maybe, just maybe, Kor had a point about Ruune being for me in ‘that’ way.
If there was anyone I’d willingly fuck on Intau, it’d be Ruune.
“Oh my,” I heard the Rahvashti’s voice as clear as day from behind me. It carried, probably because of its shrill tones. Just hearing it made my lips curl. “What an attractive Xerbai. I have not been fortunate enough to claim one for my own yet. They are outrageously difficult to find.”
“He is mine,” I snapped at her, unable to help myself.
Jesus. Between me and Kor, we made a possessive, caveman-ish duo to beat the ages. Next, I’d be thumping my chest like a Neanderthal and grunting.
The pale female chuckled in a not-so-nice way.
“Of course. I would not think to take from our opari Innintani.” Funny, but I heard the derision in her compliment. I hadn’t made friends with this one. Even the Zikta with her stiffened and glared at her when he noted her lack of propriety. “In fact, my brago is courting the Tohtahk for favor of becoming your Muir. Soon, we will call each other tersti.”
>
Over my dead body. I didn’t know what a Muir was, but if it meant her brother coming anywhere near me and bringing her along with him? Not happening. Ever.
“Uum Taytani,” Ruune rumbled softly to me. One of his hands found mine and cupped the fist I’d made of it. He drew me towards himself. “Come. It is time for rest.”
“Yes,” I agreed. I wasn’t tired, but I was eager to get away from the bitch.
“Innintani, you should…”
For the first time, the Zikta got control of the female. He snarled at her and she flinched back away from him. A nasty, vindictive part of me almost wished he’d hit her. Strike her hard across the jaw. Bruise her. She deserved more than that just from barking orders to whip a slave for touching her non-aggressively and non-violently. I assumed so, anyway.
Fuck. I hope I didn’t put my foot in it by sticking my nose in without the full story. I had a bad habit of that even when I was a kid.
Ruune didn’t wait for me anymore. He swept me up into his arms, my skirts billowing up and over me from the speed and force of the lift, before charging away. So close to his face, I could see the set of his jaw. He was mad. Understandably so.
“You know I will not let her take you from me, yes?”
“I know. I am not cross with that, uum Taytani.”
“Then what is wrong?” I reached up and tickled his collarbones with a couple fingers. With his chest bound the way it was, I couldn’t pet his plump pectorals like I wanted to. Big Mama was following us behind him and I could see her wily ‘smile’ at me as she opened her mouthplates a little to wave her tendrils. She was aware of my traitorous hormones and my building attraction to Ruune.
I blamed Kor and whatever pheromone he dosed me with.
“I do not like that biis’a. I like her brago less.”
“You have met them before?”
“In passing or when they have met with the main Udon.” He grunted. “That Zikta is new. She claims they are one of her Visivi, but all know Rahvashti only emulate Innintani. They have no Visivi. There are others, though, who are better biis’a than she and serve as Rahvashti well. They do not trade one of their chosen Visivi for another when they are done with them.”