by Viola Grace
“What time is it? Did I miss breakfast?” She slowly maneuvered her legs out from under the sheets and stood up, feeling the robe flow around her ankles.
Shalin giggled, and enchanting noise. “The servants brought your breakfast in an hour ago. It is only fruit, but there is enough for two.”
Sure enough, there was a covered tray on the table. She moved over to it, lifting the dome, and perused the selection of unfamiliar fruit. It looked tasty.
“Shalin, would you help me figure out which one of these I should actually eat?” Sam smiled at the enthusiastic clapping that followed her suggestion.
“I only got cereal for breakfast. I didn’t eat it.” With a scramble and rustle of skirts Shalin jumped onto a chair near the table and started to explain the food. It was divided into colors, and with only a few twists by her tiny fingers, the little lady of the house had moved it into complete disarray.
“These are sweet, salty, sour, tangy, and bland.” She named the fruit, first in Alliance, then in Dhemon Common, then in the local dialect. The fruit lesson continued and Sam found that there were a lot of similarities in the taste buds of humans versus dhemons.
After breakfast, Shalin and her mother dragged Sam out for a walk. They visited the market place, teaching her the local dialect and introducing her to the vendors. The faces she saw were curious but not hostile, and they set her at ease.
They stopped for lunch in the village, and before Sam knew it, it was closing on the dinner hour. They returned to the estate, and changed for dinner. Shalin was delighted that she would be seeing her ‘Uncle Kassil’ once more.
Sam straightened and viewed herself in the mirror. This was as good as it was going to get. If only Etion were here to do her hair. She walked the long way down the halls to the parlor, and froze just outside of the doorway, out of sight. Kassil’s booming voice was unmistakable. He was laughing at something that had been said before she had gotten into earshot. Her hand reached forward, and then her fingers curled in on themselves and fell to her side. Best to get this over with.
Chapter 11
As she glided into the room she received a surprise. Not only was Kassil there, but so was another male. He stood gracefully and gave her a bow, his eyes taking her measure from the floor up as he straightened. Kassil had also risen to his feet and was scowling at the other male. He walked forward to greet her and took her hand to raise it to his lips.
“Miss Samantha, I trust that you weathered your journey well? You certainly look well.” His eyes held heat and knowledge, and this time it was the other male who scowled at him.
“Yes, thank you General Kassil. It was a pleasant enough trip. I have heard that you have planned your retirement. You did not mention it on the journey.” She couldn’t keep the reproach out of her tone. She regrouped and pasted a pleasant expression on her face.
“Miss Samantha, I don’t believe that you have met Lord Brodin. He is Kassil’s cousin, and a major landowner in this area.” Safra quickly interjected before Kassil could continue.
“Please to meet you, Lord Brodin.” She executed a curtsy, dipping low then rising, realizing only then that Kassil still had possession of her hand. She delicately slid her hand free and moved over to sit next to Shalin.
“The pleasure is all mine, Miss Samantha.” His skin was the same shade and texture as Kassil’s, but his eyes were an ice blue. Those eyes seemed to be looking beneath her clothing, and enjoying what they found.
“Uncle Kassil says that when he met you, you were stuck in a tank of water.” Shalin scrunched up her shoulders with enjoyment of the story. She seemed delighted to be in a room full of adults, and Sam was intensely grateful that Safra and Valnal had let her come. She made excellent camouflage.
“Well, it wasn’t water, but it was a liquid. I bet I looked kinda funny.” She smiled at the little girl and pantomimed holding her breath. Shalin giggled and snuggled against her, and Sam put her arm around the tiny shoulders.
“Why were you in the tank, Sam?” Safra looked curious, and Samantha smiled, they had decided to forgo the formality of title sometime that afternoon.
“I had been injured at work. It was to help me get better.” She glanced down at Shalin, then met Safra’s gaze and promised with her eyes to fill her in later.
Valnal sat up and beckoned to his daughter. “Come on minx, it is time for dinner. You are my partner.”
Kassil moved like lightning and had offered his hand to Sam before she could blink. “You will be my dinner partner, won’t you Miss Samantha?”
She looked around at the sea of amused faces and sighed deeply, taking his hand and using it to rise from the couch. “Of course General. It would be an honor to be escorted by a hero of the Dheman people.”
His skin darkened with a blush, but he took her arm and waited for Valnal to lead the way in to dinner. Lord Brodin gallantly took Safra’s arm and off they went.
Dinner was excruciatingly polite. It mainly revolved around the crops and expected harvest. A challenge for a game of Mintag was thrown out, and Sam flushed in memory of the last time she had played the game.
Brodin and Kassil were keen to take on each other in the game of strategy, and Valnal wanted to play the winner. Sam almost threw her hat into the ring, until she remembered that females did not play in public.
They lingered over dessert, then went into the parlor once again and began the marathon of Mintag. Shalin was sent off to bed, and the conversation became a little more adult.
“So, what exactly were you wearing in that tank?” Brodin made the statement while Kassil was moving a piece on the board. Kassil’s head came up and he scowled ferociously at his cousin.
She kept her voice light. “About what you would expect. A lot of tubes and wires. Oh, and my hunter tattoo.”
Safra seemed interested, “You were a hunter?”
“Yep. A long time ago it seems.”
“Where is the tattoo?” Brodin waggled his eyebrows in a lascivious manner.
“Upon her thigh. Picked out in metallic inks. Very striking against the smooth gold of her skin.” Kassil’s voice was amused as he met the eyes of his cousin over the table.
“You have seen it?” Brodin did not seem to like that idea at all.
“Of course, when she was in the tank.” He raised an eyebrow and smirked.
Sam was confused. She wasn’t sure what was going on, but she knew she didn’t like it.
“I am very tired. I’m sorry, but I beg to be excused from this gathering.”
Valnal took pity on her, “Yes of course, you must be exhausted. Go to bed. We’ll see you tomorrow.”
She rose to her feet. “Thank you. It was a pleasure meeting you Lord Brodin, and to see you again General Kassil. Good night.”
She returned to her room. Latching the door behind her. She leaned on it and sighed. Men. She just could not understand what those two were up to. She undressed and went to bed. Having learned her lesson, she put on a nightgown before she lay down.
* * * *
“The most intriguing woman I have seen in years, and you have driven her off.” Brodin was hostile as he attacked Kassil’s figures on the board.
“She is not yours to pursue.” His voice was implacable.
Safra looked from one to the other, “Kassil, I thought that your mother had provided you with a list of candidates for marriage.”
Kassil frowned and looked up from the game, “She did. I did not find them suitable.”
Valnal looked incredibly amused, “Out of all of the choices she provided you with the second that you landed, you have already decided to find them unsuitable?”
“Yes.”
“What could possibly be wrong with all of them?” Safra was appalled. She had been in communication with several of the women who were trying to gauge Kassil’s preferences. Her com unit had been blinking like mad for the last two weeks.
“I don’t want them.” He moved his pieces again, all of his focus on the board.
“How do you know? You haven’t even met them. You have only seen their pictures.” Safra was scandalized. It was almost unheard of that a male would dismiss all of the females presented to him as candidates for his bride without meeting them.
“I know.” He let out a lurid curse as Brodin made his move and won the game.
“How do you know, Kassil? Have you met someone special already?” Valnal sat still for a moment. “Oh gods, it is the Terran. You want Samantha.”
The room fell silent. Brodin looked at once angry and scandalized. “Your mother is going to kill you!”
“No she isn’t.” Kassil smiled.
“Yes she is.”
“No she isn’t, I have already discussed this with her and she is delighted.”
“Delighted? Neola? She is happy that you want a new species?” Brodin seemed confused, as he could not imagine his Aunt accepting a woman that she had not approved personally.
“With a grandchild in the balance, she will accept a rock if it will have me.” Kassil grinned at his friends and family.
“Samantha is pregnant? Oh gods.” Safra sat heavily on the settee, Valnal dropping down beside her.
“So that is why Etion was insistent that Samantha would not be a disruption to our household for very long. He knew.” Valnal looked stunned.
The race of Dhemons did not blend very well with other species. Safra had looked it up in the Dhema archives while they were waiting for Sam to arrive.
Eons earlier, the explorers of Dhema had gone to Terra to observe the primitives. The Enjel were already in residence disseminating information and technology indiscriminately, and a conflict of mammoth proportions ensued. They each objected to the plans that the other had for the new species.
War was declared and the fighting lasted for hundreds of years. Thousands of humans died in the crossfire. The remains of the battle were carried on in verse and song, both on Dhema and on earth. The Admar had finally stepped in and stopped the battle. They banished both races from the earth and set up the Alliance protectorate to keep more advanced races from taking advantage of the primitives.
Now one of the heroes of Dhema was going to take a human to wife.
Chapter 12
Brodin sat stunned for a moment, then smiled. Laughter bubbled up within him and escaped in a roar of glee. His laughter was contagious and soon the entire room was convulsed with mirth. Well, with the exception of Kassil. He sat at the Mintag board and scowled his disapproval.
“It’s not really that funny.”
“What are you waiting for Kassil? Go get her. You have my authorization as her custodian to enter her rooms. What you do there is your own business.” Valnal sat back and held Safra’s hand with a pleased grin on his face.
“Uh, Kassil, are you sure she’ll be willing?” Safra was a little hesitant, giving her new friend over to her old friend.
“Pretty sure. She already bears one of my marks.” Kassil rose from the table and proceeded to leave the room of astonished dhemons. His boots made no noise on the stone of the hallway. He glided up to Sam’s room and turned the lock.
* * * *
Her sleep was fitful. She was hot. Her legs rubbed against each other and it was several moments before she realized that there was no fabric dragging with her movements.
A prickling at her breast was causing a cascade of heat. Her eyes fluttered open and she gasped at the sight of the dark head with banded braids suckling at her breast.
“Kassil, ohh.” She tangled her fingers in his hair and held his head to her breast. Her thighs shifted again and she felt a telltale wetness lubricating their movements. She sighed happily and stroked his jaw, neck and shoulders. She shuddered as she felt his teeth on her nipple and moaned at the sweet pain.
She tugged his head up, and met his mouth with her own. Her lips parted and her tongue slid along his as his mouth devoured hers.
“I have missed you Samantha.” His voice was dark and caused a trembling deep in her belly. His words were punctuated with kisses. And his mouth moved lower, once again caressing her jaw line.
“I love the sight of my marks on you.” His teeth gnawed at her neck, worrying at the puncture wounds that had begun to heal. She felt blood begin to well and shuddered as his tongue lapped it up. The suction that he applied caused more dampness to course from between her thighs, and they parted of their own accord. Her calf slid upward, her foot slid up the back of his thigh and wrapped around his waist.
He did not need to be invited twice. His turgid erection pressed against her, nudging between her wet folds, before sliding inside. They both groaned as he slid home. Their hips beginning to surge as one. It seemed like they could remain together for days, rising and falling, thrusting and retreating. Finally it was too much for Samantha and she keened her release, tightening her legs behind Kassil’s back to drive him deeply into her and keep him there.
As her channel pulsed around him, he kept perfectly still. Sweat dripped off of him and onto her, soaking the bedclothes with his exertions. His groan sounded in the darkness that wrapped them. His body shook with the effort of keeping still as she contracted around him. Finally she relaxed under him, her legs falling to the side, letting him seek his own glory without restraint.
Her hands stroked his chest in an unending pattern. Trailing around to caress his back as he began to buck and plunge against her. She felt his teeth on the other side of her neck, and once again he bit her, hard.
As her blood flowed across his tongue he began to pump his seed deep within her. He quivered in the grip of his own orgasm, shaking and groaning in his release.
He drew back and kissed her lips, then flung his head back and roared his triumph. It was the call of a beast, and it drew others to it.
The doors to her chamber flew open, Valnal stood in the doorway. Brodin was behind him and to one side. Safra came in through the balcony window.
“Do you witness?” Kassil’s voice was a snarl, his hardness still buried deep.
“We do.” The voices were all around them.
“Do you contest?”
“We don’t.” The voices were strong.
“Her status?” This last was a roar of triumph.
“Your Lady!”
Sam’s mind reeled, her body was still throbbing in time to his. She could make nothing of the voices echoing the large chamber.
Silence overcame the room, and only their breathing was a noise in the darkness. He kissed her deeply, and then eased from her body.
“What was that all about?” She was only a little curious, her senses having been overloaded with him since he entered her bed and made love to her.
“We are married now, by Dhema tradition. Our union has been witnessed, your status as my lady confirmed.” His tone was distracted, he was watching his fingers trail down her thigh and up her belly, marveling at the differences in their skins.
“You do know that on my world, asking is traditional.”
“Yes, I have looked up your traditions, but I felt that our baby needed his father, more than a silly engagement.”
“Baby?” Her voice was a delicate whisper, one hand drifted down to cover his hand on her belly.
He grinned at her, “Why do you think the doctor was so upset? You arrived on the ship a virgin, and left it pregnant. It didn’t take a mathematician to add it up.”
“He told you?”
“Not really, he just gave me a medical report, and the DNA of the father. Believe it or not, I figured out the rest for myself.” Their fingers tangled on her stomach and his lips sought hers.
“A baby. I have never thought about having a baby.”
He wrapped his arms around her and lifted her into his lap. “You have a few months to think about it. Shalin will be happy to have someone to play with, and my mother is already at my house decorating the baby’s room.”
* * * *
Across the galaxy, Negotiator Tyrell got the news that Samantha was safe and sound, and ex
pecting. The Alliance councilors would be ecstatic. The first human/dheman hybrid in three thousand years. She looked at her private records, and located the next person she needed to transplant on a selected world. Annabelle needed permanent leave after her injuries in the Arena Station attack. Perhaps Avari would be a good choice. She had just the elder in mind to check on her.
About the Author
A compulsive crafter and sucker for a ‘happily ever after’, I spend my time avoiding anything related to housework. My hobbies have included needlework, metalwork, henna tattoos and costume design. Oh yeah, and writing. I love to write. A rabid sci-fi buff and nerd to the core.