No Fear: Trek Mi Q'an Book 5

by Jaid Black

  “Nay.”

  She harrumphed. “You don’t understand.”

  He moved the qi’ka top aside and deepened the nipple massage. Rolling the tips between thumbs and forefingers, he waited until her breathing had hitched and her eyes had narrowed before continuing. “Aye, I do. I understand that you are either deaf of the ear or dim of the mind.”

  Her eyes flew open and clashed with his. A smile tugged at the corners of her lips. She snorted. “You are impossible, do you know that?”

  He grinned, releasing her breasts in favor of pulling her closer, but not so close that they couldn’t make eye contact. “So you keep reminding me.” His smile dissolved, replaced with a serious, searching expression. “And yet do you love me,” he murmured.

  Her eyes rounded. She bit her lip and nibbled at it as she studied his features.

  “Admit it,” he half asked and half commanded, picking her up and prodding her to wrap her legs around his waist. He backed her up against a crystal wall, then rotated his hips slowly, grinding the steel-hard erection beneath his leathers against her exposed vagina. “Admit it,” he said thickly against her ear, grinding his cock against her in sensual, methodic circles.

  Brynda wrapped her arms around his neck even as she tightened the hold her legs had on his waist. “I admit it,” she whispered, arching her neck so he could kiss her there. “I do love you.” She moaned when he began nibbling at her neck, not even embarrassed when she heard three warrior-guardsmen pass behind them to stroll down the corridor.

  “I love you so much,” he said hoarsely, his hips keeping up their slow, sensual assault. “’Tis torturing me, having to wait to show you how much.”

  “Then don’t wait,” she breathed out. “I’m offering myself to you now.”

  He groaned, burying his face against her neck. She could feel the perspiration that dotted his brow. “I would that I could have you milk my cock of seed, ty’ka, yet ‘twill be easier for your first time with me do you have a priestess to aid you.”

  She pulled his head up and latched her hands around the braids at his temples. “I can feel your pain, you know,” she whispered. She smiled wryly. “Back home if a guy had thrown me that line I never would have believed him, but I know when you say it’s torture for you, you mean that in the literal sense. And yet you put yourself through it…for me.” She shook her head. “How can I rage against my feelings for you when you keep doing things like that?”

  Jek grunted, arrogantly appeased by her words. “You cannot fight me. ‘Tis truth, I am nigh unto perfection.”

  She snorted at that, her eyes twinkling. “You know what I’ve just decided?”

  “Hmm…mayhap to remove your legs from around my waist before I rut inside of you like an amorous gulch beast?” he teased.

  She chuckled as he set her down on her feet. “No, it’s something else.”

  “Aye?” He pulled her close, kneading her buttocks. “What then?”

  Brynda smiled, her gaze basking in his. “I’ve decided to trust you,” she whispered.

  Jek stilled. His eyes narrowed. “Do you mean that?” he murmured. “Or do you say it in the hopes of appeasing me?”

  “I mean it,” she said quickly, nodding. She smiled fully. “We’re going to go to the third dimension, find your cousins if they are indeed there, and then and only then will we worry about my cancer.” She took a deep breath and expelled it. “For the first time, I’m really getting excited by all of this.”

  “Excited?” He grunted. “Goddess’ truth, I know not of another nee’ka anywhere who would be excited by a trek through the third dimension. ‘Tis nigh unto a hell, that place.”

  Brynda laughed, holding up her arms so he knew to pick her up. When he did and they were eye to eye, she wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’m not giving up, you know.”

  “Hm?” He kissed the tip of her nose, then regarded her again. “Not giving up on what?”

  “On seducing you,” she said unabashedly. She wrapped her legs around his waist, then ground her flesh against his still hard erection. A primitive feeling of feminine power stole over her when he gritted his teeth. “I’m not waiting for that damn feast,” she wickedly announced.

  His nostrils flared. “You’re killing me,” he said hoarsely. “I beg of you not to bedevil me—”

  “Nope.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “We librarians-cum-psychology-students know all about depraved sexual behavior.” She rotated her hips, grinning at his growl. “And I plan to use all of my knowledge to bedevil the pants off of you. Literally.”

  “Insolent wench.” Jek plucked her from his waist and threw her over his shoulder, inducing her to yelp. “You may tell me all of the dirty, wicked things you plan to do to me whilst I bathe you in the sands,” he grumbled as he strode quickly from the corridor. “But I warn you that ‘tis gel-fire you are playing with, vixen.”

  Brynda purposely wriggled her butt against the side of his face, knowing it would make his jaw clench. “Promises, promises.”

  Chapter 7

  Meanwhile, back in Sand City…

  “No way…” Marty gawked at her sister-in-law, shocked. She could feel the anger building up, threatening to erupt. “Are you serious? Why didn’t you tell us this before?” she bit out.

  Kyra rubbed her temples and sighed. “Because I wasn’t sure. Because I wasn’t one hundred percent, absolutely certain until Geris sent me a holo-call.” She lowered her voice and strolled briskly toward Marty and Giselle. “Ger’s pretty upset. Both of her daughters are missing, yet Dak refuses to allow her to accompany him to go and find them.” She snorted. “Because as is usually the case around here where females are involved, he thinks she’d be more of a hindrance to finding Jana and Dari than a help.”

  “Why am I just not surprised?” Marty’s hand balled into a fist at her side. “My lying pig of a husband told me he was going on a mission of peace and goodwill to the planet Meridian,” she seethed. “I can’t believe I ever fell for it!”

  “Bloody hell.” Giselle shook her head. “And to think I’d believed Rem when he told me he was leaving with his brothers to go holo-dicing for a fortnight.” Her lips pinched together in a frown. “He doesn’t even like holo-dicing!”

  Kyra closed her eyes briefly and took a deep breath. “It gets worse,” she murmured.

  Marty and Giselle exchanged a curious look before regarding Kyra. They both thought it odd when the Empress began to nibble at her lower lip and pace back and forth. “Worse?” Giselle cautiously inquired. “Precisely how?”

  But it was as if the Empress hadn’t heard the question for her pacing picked up to the point of appearing frantic. “Kyra?” Marty said softly. “What’s going on?”

  She turned to face them then, her pacing brought to an abrupt standstill. Her eyes looked wild—and worried. “I think,” Kyra said quietly, her hands twisting nervously back and forth in front of her, “I think that the woman who helped the girls escape was…”

  When she didn’t appear as though she was going to finish her sentence, Marty threw a hand toward her. “Was what?” she asked. “Kyra…what is going on?”

  “I think…” Kyra took a deep breath and expelled it. “I think the woman who helped the girls escape is my sister Kara,” she whispered.

  “Bloody hell.” Giselle shook her head slightly, uncertain what to say in the way of comfort. Unfortunately not much could be said. All three women understood the ways of Tryston enough to realize what was likely to come of the situation.

  Marty nodded grimly. “And you fear Zor will have her sent to the gulch pits if he catches her?”

  “Uh huh.” Kyra clutched her stomach, looking as though she might vomit. “He can be so fucking rigid. What if it doesn’t matter to him that Kara’s my flesh and blood? What if the only thing he cares about,” she murmured, her gaze far away, “is getting his vengeance on the woman who helped our daughter to escape Tryston, and Cam?” She shook her head. “I can’t let it happen. For all of the
se years I have grieved…” She glanced up, at last looking at her sisters-in-law. “I can’t take the chance of losing her. Not again.”

  The three women stood there in silence for a long moment, saying nothing as they stared at each other. It was Giselle who eventually broke the quiet. “Are you wanting us to do what I think you’re wanting us to do?” she asked carefully.

  Kyra didn’t pretend not to understand exactly what she meant. “Yes,” she said simply.

  Giselle took a deep breath and blew it out.

  Bloody hell. This was getting interesting.

  “Geris,” Marty inquired, her eyes narrowed, “is she in on this too?”

  “Oh yeah.” Kyra laughed without humor. “Ger is as pissed and frightened as I am. Not only was Kara like a baby sister to her growing up, but both of her elder daughters are missing. Do you think she wants to wait at home for hubby to return, hoping against hope he was able to find them but not really knowing?” She slashed a hand through the air, her jaw clenched. “No way!”

  Marty snorted her agreement, but said nothing.

  “Look,” Kyra said, rubbing her temples again. “I hate to drag you two into my personal affairs without so much as a warning, but,” she said desperately, “I couldn’t think of what else to do! I knew my son Jor would get suspicious and perhaps have me watched like a hawk if I left the palace with Geris, given what’s going down as we speak.”

  “Smart thinking.” Giselle nodded. “Nobody will suspect Marty and I of anything if you should all of a sudden be overcome with the desire to visit Sypar and Morak.” She sighed. “And yet…Kyra, I’m in—believe me I’ll do whatever I can to aid you—but how do you propose we lose our guard?” She waved a meaningful hand toward the bedchamber doors and lowered her voice. “Beyond those doors all of us have guards who stick to our heels like unmated warriors to Kefas. How will we ever get off Tryston?” She threw her hands up in the air. “Bloody hell, for that matter, how will Geris ever get off of Ti Q’won?”

  “I don’t know,” Kyra admitted morosely. She slumped down on a vesha bench. “I haven’t figured that part out yet.”

  Giselle sighed, perplexed. “Perhaps Jor can be reasoned with?” she asked hopefully.

  “Ha!” Kyra shook her head. “He might have been a mani’s boy as a child, but now that he’s grown he is his father’s son.”

  “Which means he can’t be trusted.” Marty’s eyes narrowed as she contemplated various ways to subvert the dominant paradigm they were currently facing. She doubted a consciousness-raising protest would render them any results in a galaxy like Trek Mi Q’an. Well, other than to get them all sent to their rooms like recalcitrant children. “No warrior over the age of thirteen can be trusted. They get a harem and it all goes downhill from there,” she said grimly.

  Kyra snorted at that. “Ain’t it the truth. Why bother shaking up the status quo when you realize at the impressionable age of thirteen that the status quo works out damn well for you?” She sighed. “Jor loves me enough to lay down his life for me, but no, he can’t be trusted. Not in this.”

  “I’ve got it,” Marty breathed out, snagging their attention. She smiled slowly.

  Kyra shot up from the vesha bench, her expression as hopeful as it was desperate.

  “What?” Giselle asked, as curious as Kyra was. “Tell us already.”

  Marty glanced meaningfully down toward her navel then back up to them. She grinned. “Let’s just say I’ve got connections.”

  Chapter 8

  Brynda’s gaze was wary but excited as they exited the gastrolight cruiser at the first planet their party was to hunt through. The planet was called Wassa, an outlying planet in the third dimension’s Kabka star system, and according to Jek it was quite small. Indeed, he had made mention that the entire planet would take them but a few days to scour, for it was no bigger in mass than continental Europe.

  She immediately noticed upon exiting the cruiser that the atmosphere of Wassa was a frigid one. But then Jek had prepared her for as much, realizing as he did that because the planet was an outlying one and therefore far in distance from the four suns of its solar system, it was apt to be cold.

  Brynda immediately likened the daytime atmosphere of Wassa to that of the arctic—but without the snowfall. She could well imagine how frigid it would feel when nighttime fell over the small planet. She shivered, thanking Yar’at with a smile when he wrapped a toasty warm fur around her qi’ka-clad body.

  Yar’at took her hand and placed it on his bulging forearm, then guided her toward where Jek was currently standing, renting them the use of a submersible conveyance. Most of Wassa’s structures were submersed underwater, for great rains that had never receded had fallen from the skies eons past.

  “This is amazing,” Brynda murmured, her eyes wide. “We will really travel beneath the water, even spend the night there?”

  Yar’at nodded. “Aye. ‘Tis no land on Wassa I’ve ever heard tell of, save the p-planet’s docking p-port on which we now stand.” His muscles clenched and a blush settled over his face at his stuttered out words, but when Brynda didn’t seem to take much notice of his affliction, he immediately relaxed. He smiled. “I suppose this would be exciting to an Earth w-wench.”

  Brynda giggled as her fingers dug giddily into his forearm. “You better believe it!”

  Yar’at grinned down at her then resumed their walk toward Jek. “So I feel.” His smile faltered a bit as a thought struck him. “Did your Sacred M-Mate warn you that…”

  “That the humanoids here resemble fish?” She nodded, then blew out a breath. “I wish I’d had my camera on me when Jek took me,” she mumbled.

  He chuckled at that. “We’ve what we call holo-cams here that d-do the same job yet better.”

  She came to an abrupt halt. “Really?” she asked excitedly as she looked way up to meet his gaze. “Do you happen to have one?”

  “Aye.” He nodded. “Leastways, you must be circumspect wh-whilst taking holo-images of the natives. “The majority of them make their living in illegal slave trading as does the p-people of the next planet we shall scour. They have not a care to have their activities documented.”

  Brynda swallowed a bit roughly. “Slave trading?” She hesitated, fearing the answer but deciding to ask the question anyway. “What kind of slaves?”

  “Wenches,” Yar’at admitted. He sighed. “You’ve naught to fear. I should never have—”

  “It’s okay.” She took a deep breath and nodded. “I know all of you will keep me safe. But…” Her brow furrowed. “Why do they not have these Kefas Jek told me about? Why do they enslave women instead?”

  Yar’at shrugged. “They have not the trelli sands from the borderlands here.” He sighed. “And truly, would you, a humanoid w-wench, care to spread your legs for a fish-man?”

  She blushed at his bluntness, but realizing as she did that that’s how warriors were, she rebounded quickly. “I suppose not,” she muttered. Her lips pinched together in a frown. “But don’t they have any, I don’t know, fishy women here?”

  “Aye.” Yar’at shrugged. His difficulty with speech waned more and more as he gradually became more at ease in her presence. “But they are not so valuable as humanoid wenches to the Wassans.”

  Brynda harrumphed, feeling oddly indignant on behalf of fishy women everywhere. “That’s terrible. Utterly mean.”

  Yar’at sighed. “’Tis life. In every culture there are people who are valued, and,” he murmured, “people who are not.”

  Brynda bit her lip as they resumed their stroll toward Jek. She wondered if Yar’at had been talking in general…or if he’d been using double entendres to speak of himself.

  * * * * *

  By the time their group had settled in to eat the evening meal that night, Brynda was as tired as she was excited. It was just so incredibly weird, being on this tiny lime-green planet with its blue water underworld. The waters here were comparable to Earth’s but a bit more violent and, of course, the marine
life was intelligent.

  By the end of the first day Brynda understood that although the Wassans resembled humans who had been interbred with fish, the people were actually amphibians who spent part of their lives in the waters and part of it within the sealed off chambers of the various docking ports. The docking port they were staying the night in tonight was called Tavern Twelve by the locals and was no bigger than a small, country inn.

  Having been invited to partake of the evening fare by Tavern Twelve’s owner-cum-innkeeper, Brynda tried not to stare at the amphibian males scattered throughout the dimly lit chamber, all seated at various tables, as they watched a naked human woman perform a sexual show for their viewing pleasure on a small stage.

  Voyerurism, she recollected from Chapter Eight, idly wondering to herself how she’d done on the last psychology exam. Brent Tallmadge had aced the Chapter Seven test, scoring five points higher than she had, so she was hoping she’d aced—

  She rolled her eyes. As if it matters, Brynda! Try not to be such a studious dweeb!

  She sighed, her attention refocusing on the scene around her.

  The males here weren’t big compared to warriors, but for Earth standards they were fairly large, standing at approximately six feet in height. They looked more human than amphibian, the only giveaway of their race the blue tinge to their skins and the gills on their sides. But otherwise they looked like human men—muscular, handsome human men at that.

  Brynda’s attention was snagged a moment later by a human woman who was wheeled into the chamber and placed in front of a group of Wassan men that they might eat their meals. Naked and gagged, the human woman had been strapped to a table, her thighs spread wide, various assorted foods placed strategically all over her body.

  She gulped as she watched, embarrassed when it occurred to her that the males here ate their meals using a human woman’s body as a serving platter. She heard the male laughter erupting from the group of Wassan men, then heard the woman groan from behind her gag when the males’ faces fell to her body and they began to eat their meal.