by Poppy Rhys
She began to protest, but he didn’t let her go. Her toes were no longer touching the pebbles but he held her up against him until he was standing in water that reached his chest. She quickly dunked under the surface to soak her face and hair, and then her wet arms looped around his neck to keep her afloat.
“You are safe,” he reassured her, tasting the droplets of water dotting her temples and cheekbones. She shivered and sighed when his lower arms held onto the flare of her hips while the upper pair rubbed along her front and back, gently washing away the evidence of their joining.
For a span of time she closed her eyes and just lived in the moment. Her senses took in everything; the way Zun’s hands felt against her, the scales and skin of his neck and shoulders beneath her fingers, the scent of him mingled with the heady plant life lacing the air, the crashing of the tumbling waterfall… everything.
Her eyes opened once more when she realized something.
Zun still hasn’t asked me to pair with him.
Lucia nibbled the corner of her mouth.
How does that work anyway? Does sex seal the deal?
If not, you just gave it up fo’fwee.
She groaned.
“What is wrong?”
She looked into his concerned eyes and swallowed.
“Why haven’t you asked me yet?”
“Asked what?”
“To mate me,” she hedged. “Soren told me he gave you permission.”
She rolled her eyes at how ridiculous that even sounded. Her grams was going to piss herself cackling once she found out she would be bringing home two mates, one of which seemed to love arguing with her. She wondered momentarily if there were even partnering ceremonies that allowed two mates. Nova would be bounding with joy, she imagined, if she got to plan two ceremonies.
But he still hadn’t asked.
“That is what has happened here,” he replied slowly, his brow pulling down in confusion. “You do not accept me?”
Her eyes lit up with understanding and she shook her head rapidly. “No, I do!”
Do you?
“Yes, I do,” she spoke aloud and grimaced at herself.
Zun’s confusion slowly lifted and a curious smile split his lips, causing her to laugh.
“You are strange,” he whispered.
“Sorry, no refunds.”
His forehead pressed to hers as they soaked in the weight of the moment and thought about how different their intertwined futures would now be.
****
When Lucia next woke, it was to harsh whispers, sniffing, and growls.
“Did you implant?” Soren rumbled lowly.
“No,” Zun replied, incredulous. “Did you?”
“No. We have no seetkut fruit.”
They supposed it wouldn’t be okay to implant again since they didn’t have seetkut fruit, and not because oh, maybe she wasn’t ready for another youngling?
Don’t mind Lucia, boys. Her pelvis isn’t still recovering or anything.
Really. Rude.
A cramp rolled through her abdomen and she groaned aloud that time. The two beasties stopped their growling and whispering, and then began their sniffing down her body. When they got closer to her legs, she heard Soren sneeze loudly, and Zun gag with disgust.
“It smells awful,” Zun choked out. “I will get medic Tuzon.”
She felt him get up off the bed which surprised her since she hadn’t realized she was in a bed, or that he had been sleeping beside her. No wonder she was too warm. How did she get from the cushion she’d fallen asleep on to the bed?
“People are trying to sleep here. Specifically me,” she mumble-grouched and then held a hand over her aching middle. “What are you talking about?”
“You are bleeding.”
The lights hazed on and she groggily pulled herself up and brushed her wild hair from her eyes. The golden sheets between her legs were crimson, and still wet with her blood. She moaned with loathing.
“The Curse,” she scrambled to get up. “I didn’t think it would come so soon. Sorry about the sheets--”
“You are not wounded?” Val’Zun stood in his sleep pants, plugging his nose. Soren pulled back the linens while she got to her feet and ran to the cleansing room. She would find their reactions funny, if not for the fact they followed her and were now scrutinizing as she sat on the throne.
“It’s rude to stare.”
They didn’t blink.
“It’s just menstruation.”
Blink.
“This is normal?” Soren cocked his head while he and Zun warily stayed back. “You are not hurting?”
Lucia planted a palm against her face.
“No, this happens monthly to human women,” she waved a hand and slouched, resting her elbows tiredly on her legs as she yawned and tried her hardest not to fall asleep while she sat there.
“You bleed from there for no reason?”
They shared a horrified look.
“Yes- no,” she yawned again and shook her head to try and wake herself before going on to explain the entire process so they would stop looking at her like a lab experiment gone wrong.
The entire time they knew her she’d been pregnant, and she still couldn’t believe it had come so soon. She was still feeding Lenny, and from all the books Nova had shoved down her throat it seemed unlikely she would get her menses for a long while after birth.
What a crock.
“Why would you shed your womb?” Val’Zun paled and swayed.
It dawned on her that maybe Melier women didn’t have menstruation since the males of their species carried the eggs. A sleepy grin pulled at her lips as she thought about males menstruating.
Imagine how whiney they’d be!
And all of those emotions.
They wouldn’t know what to do with themselves.
“Why does it… smell like that?” Again Soren took a step back and he too plugged his nose.
It was Lucia’s turn to be horrified.
“Excuse me?”
“It is… different from your pheromones,” Soren’s nasally voice replied.
“It is foul,” Zun said bluntly and rubbed at his stomach like he might hurl while still clogging his nose. Her face felt hot with embarrassment as blood pooled beneath the skin of her cheeks and across her nose.
“Out!” she yelled and pointed at the wall.
Rude!
For an entire week following that embarrassing night, it only got worse each day. Zun had disposed of the sheets and the mattress immediately after he and Soren had left the cleansing room, replacing it with a new mattress and topping it with some sort of fitted, liquid resistant covering.
Apparently the odor she was emitting was extremely wicked to their sensitive noses; all traces of her normal pheromones had disappeared or been masked for the duration of her menses. Lucia couldn’t even begin to understand how the hell that was even possible.
They can’t seem to decide if they like your scent or if they’re repelled by it.
I know! It’s confusing.
It wasn’t just Zun and Soren she had to worry about, but every Melier within scenting distance. After the queen loudly announced she lost her appetite at third meal the first night, Lucia opted to not return the rest of the week. She ate her meals in the suite.
The only ones who wanted to be around her were Lenny, and MoMo. She felt like one of the women on ancient Earth that would close themselves up for a week, and hide. Maybe that was how it came to be called the curse. It would be fitting, if so. Lu had never fully thought it to be just that until she was essentially shunned by the Melier folk.
Soren and Zun at least made an effort to comfort her and actually still slept on either side of her each night, though she detected their stifled breathing.
That was in addition to her foul mood. She had never had such a case of madness in all her life, but she deduced it had to be because of how everyone around seemed to be widely avoiding her. That could put anyone in a b
ad mood.
To her further humiliation, Val’Koy one day began to describe what the odor smelled like to him before Gi’Ren punched him in the gut to shut him up. Which then turned into a large brawl between the two and they wrecked the suite only to laugh about it afterward as they both lay in the mess they created.
Lucia had been sure her eyes were the size of dinner plates in her reddened face.
And next month, she would have to do it all over again. When the rest of the family realized this, the crude and awkward comments about humans made her want to crawl under a rock and die. It was flustering, knowing the entire palace would know when she was menstruating, and intentionally try to avoid her because of how she… smelled.
She purposefully comforted MoMo and spoke to him in a high pitched voice, as pet lovers do, just to goad the queen. As if to say, ‘I’ve got your precious’.
Take that.
She didn’t like it, although the rest of the family was hard pressed to hide their amusement.
When she did venture from the suite, MoMo followed her everywhere, chuffing and chirping while his purple tongue licked the air happily. He ran into walls repeatedly due to his curly bangs, and she wasn’t sure how he had survived this long.
She found herself clipping back his fluffy bangs which revealed his almond shaped purple eyes. They were just swirly orbs with a small, rounded pupil, and it reminded her of the orana mounts that had eyes of a similar design, only green.
After MoMo could see, he ran into things a lot less. At least, when he wasn’t slipping and sliding on the polished floors. Lucia would nearly keel over with laughter every time he tried to take off too fast and ran in place as his tiny claws clicked and fought for traction.
She was quickly able to tell when the odor finally dissipated. The second night after her menses stopped, Zun and Soren had nearly suffocated her in their closeness as they slept, and purred.
She hadn’t heard them purr in over a week.
The middle of the night rolled around and it was like their bodies instantly gravitated toward her, as they had been sleeping a decent distance away, and their rumblers revved almost simultaneously. She lay there silently laughing to herself for the first while and petting their tails that draped over her middle.
But then… she began to sweat.
Their body heat was unbearable, even with the cooling system on blast.
Before she melted into the sheets she lifted one of her hands, and then the other, pulling herself from under their bodies. She imagined it looked like she was digging her way out of a Melier grave.
Twice she lost her balance and slipped, elbowing Soren in his shoulder and falling across Zun’s middle before tumbling to the hard floor below. Neither of them even flinched, and Lucia nearly purred herself as she plastered her body to the nice, cool floor and drifted off to sleep.
Not even a half hour later, Zun was peeling her off the ground and depositing her back between him and Soren. Their tails wrapped around parts of her body, and Soren’s cheek rested on her shoulder while Zun’s head lay further down on her stomach, and then a million arms cocooned her.
Lu groaned, and eventually fell asleep in a sweaty, hot mess.
Chapter 11
“I just received some information that we may want to look into,” Gi’Ren said as Soren, his brothers, and their father stood around the table in the war room. A vid message popped up of Ecker, a Boruun male, and a friend of Gi’Ren’s.
Soren listened as Ecker gave details of a merchant ship sitting in Sak Pan Galaxy, far off the trade routes many would normally take. The male was escorting an ally to Melierun, and with Ecker’s naturally watchful habits, being the smuggler he was, the ship stood out to him.
It was suspicious.
Soren rubbed his jaw as he mulled over the information. “Why would a merchant craft be idle in Sak Pan?” he mused aloud.
It didn’t make any sense, since merchants usually considered time as money. Unless they were waiting to do a private transaction, but that was too hazardous, especially with the amount of pirates roaming the outskirts of the trade routes.
“Ecker hailed the ship, but they only sent back a text transmission indicating they were not in distress,” Gi’Ren said, his brow pulled low in dubious concentration.
“This does not sit well with me,” Val’Zun added.
Soren agreed as did the others, all having a feeling there was something missing from the equation, and he wanted to know exactly what it was.
“We will keep a watch on this,” his father said with finality.
****
“What’s he saying?” Lucia whispered to Soren and Val’Zun as she stood with them while the king and queen greeted guests from various planets that were allied with Melierun. There was some kind of ambassador meeting happening that week, and a party was planned for the next day to give the palace guests, and their family’s, time to relax and mingle.
Apparently it happened every year in order to continue good relations with trade, and military efforts. At that particular moment, a species she’d never been around before was speaking to the queen, and her implanted translator kept saying ‘error no translation’.
“You cannot understand the Zacva?” Soren looked down at her curiously, his fingertips sliding over her temple. She shook her head. “We will give your translator a language update before the party tomorrow.”
Her eyes swept back to the strange male. He stood closer to human height than the Melier, most likely just less than seven feet. She first noticed his green skin, with darker green stripes along his arms and the sides of his face. It had a shine to it, like it was a glossy material stretched over a lean body.
He was very fish-like with webbed hands that were tipped in short, green claws. His eyes were overly large and black, and they kept flicking with a white film which she assumed was some type of eyelid.
Gills could be seen along his neck and whenever he smiled, a top and bottom flat enamel lining could be seen inside his mouth instead of individual teeth. When his gaze found hers, he smiled and his gills flapped slightly.
She smiled back, a silent giggle getting caught in her chest at the strange gills.
Must not hate humans then.
More species filtered in, and she recognized the Rooblin, a brutish race, and the Jūloy, a very pretty golden skinned, horned race of warriors. She had heard rumors their curled, ribbed horns were erogenous, but she never knew for sure.
Not that she wanted to find out.
They seemed to be indifferent toward humans.
The Rooblin however, they liked humans. She remembered partying with a Rooblin at a very rowdy club Mima had dragged her to in Dor Nye’s capital.
They all had black, braided strips of hair down the center of their skulls and wiry, braided hair dangling from their chins. The most imposing thing about them, aside from their need to brawl, was the tusks that grew from the back of their jaws. They didn’t really serve a purpose though, since they didn’t protrude enough to actually gouge an opponent.
That made Lucia shiver as she continued to sweep her gaze upon the crowd, and she was pretty sure she had spotted a Boruun which were easy to discern because of their fur covered bodies.
She spotted Gi’Calla and the princess gave her a slight wave, which she returned. She thought it was odd that the princess had never made good on her offer of friendship.
Every third meal with the family, she was there, and basically ignored her. Every once in a while, when she thought Gi’Calla’s friendship was a dying ember, she’d initiate a short conversation with her. By short, she really did mean short.
Most conversations had only consisted of a question or compliment and then on she moved with ignoring her. Lucia tried not to think about it, because there really weren’t any explanations other than maybe Gi’Calla was like her mother, whether she wanted to be or not.
The remainder of the guests continued to filter in and her mates were guiding her back to the suite.
Mates.
She tasted it on her tongue. It was a very strange thing, even now, to think she had two mates.
“I suppose you’re both leaving now? Off to wherever it is you two go every day?” She scowled as they entered the suite. She felt childish as she plopped down on a cushion, and that suddenly made her all the more irritated.
When they shared a look, she snarled because she just knew they weren’t telling her something.
“That is a very unbecoming sound,” Zun scowled.
“Stop avoiding my question.”
“I was stating fact.”
“Avoidance!”
“Why does she always do this?” he asked Soren.
“I think it is camouflage for her real question,” Soren answered.
“Why does she not ask what she truly wants to, then?”
Soren shrugged and considered Lucia with his rich, golden gaze.
She snarled with frustration again. She was extremely tired of that niggling feeling they were keeping something huge from her. Her questions were being ignored lately at an alarming rate, and it was grating.
“Maybe she misses us,” Soren grinned and Zun eyed her dubiously.
She shook her head and flopped back on the cushion, wondering where Gi’Ren had taken Lenny before her thoughts veered back to her current concerns.
“If you would just tell me, I would stop asking. Where do you run off to every day, Soren? Where do you go when you’re not training, Val’Zun? Why do you keep watching me, and don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about!” She held up her hand when Soren began to counter her question.
“She is impossible.”
Lucia glared at Zun who glared back.
“I’m impossible?” she shrilled and shot to her feet.
They both winced, but he continued to glower at her.
“I don’t stand here having conversations about either of you to another person while ignoring your questions. I am not impossible. You two are hiding something!”
They looked at each other once more and then, they slowly advanced on her.