Don’t be smug. Krell’s sudden presence doused LaRenna’s rising ego. You are anything but prepared for the worst.
“Ouch!” Krell rewarded her student’s vocal cry with a second then a third mental pinch.
Use your mind.
My phase conversing is getting better, too.
Overconfidence will be the end of you. Krell’s inner being reached again but this time LaRenna was ready, successfully pushing her mentor’s presence a comfortable distance from her own. Merely pushing your opponent away will only delay your death. Krell moved in again, shoving against her apprentice’s mental barrier until LaRenna’s resistance began to weaken. Come on. Give me a challenge.
Back off. The energy within LaRenna’s body faded then rapidly rose again, wavering with anticipation of her teacher’s next move. I know I puzzle you. I know you’ve never met another mind like mine.
Quit your babbling. An annoyed grunt rose from Krell. Scared of me, aren’t you, girl? So scared that you can’t sit still! A quick roll in response to LaRenna’s angry, concentrated energy thrust and Krell expanded her energy, circling it, embracing LaRenna until she moaned with sweet agony.
No fair! LaRenna gasped.
Nothing is fair in a fight. Krell’s presence now pulled hard at her apprentice, tearing pleasure into a thousand bits of pain that washed through LaRenna’s body. Fight me or feel the heat of your too easy compliance. LaRenna’s physical being convulsed in time with the energy exchange. Despite the agony, she reached out, striking Krell on the chin. Don’t use your body to fight me, girl. I am much too big for that. Your physical size will work against you in a phase battle. Use that mind you have such confidence in. Krell sent pulse after pulse into LaRenna’s flailing being. Fight me as I know you can. FOCUS! The responding blast of energy brought tears to Krell’s eyes. Is . . . is that the best you can do? I told you to hurt me, dammit, so do it!
“That did hurt you, First Kimshee.” LaRenna’s fist ricocheted off Krell’s shoulder. “I could feel it.”
Krell phased a cutting slap to her insolent apprentice. Who’re you to decide what hurts me? I’m experienced, girl. I’ve earned my rank through survival. Your best is nothing to me. I can take ten times that on my worst day. Krell readily deflected LaRenna’s next blow then responded mentally, launching an energy pulse that should have brought the strongest apprentice to her knees.
Mother’s mercy! LaRenna did indeed crumple, but not in the way her mentor expected. She collapsed against Krell and they fell to the floor LaRenna had polished only that morning, chest-tochest, mouth-to-mouth. LaRenna looked up to find Krell studying her intensely, with a reckless possession that refused further starvation. A simple nod was exchanged then apprentice and master were reformed as lovers: tangled, panting and groping, caressing and tasting in a frenzy of denied desires. The mental experience fulfilled, the physical, which Krell took ravenously, defied description and they reveled in the insensibility of both until LaRenna’s passionate internal cries reduced to an aural murmur that parted their mouths. Only then did they indulge in the joy of slow discovery, delighting in the repetition of what felt so true. Afterward, Krell lingered with her, stroking her face, whispering lover’s fancy about her beauty until reality and guilt swept in.
“How could I be so stupid?” Krell’s face pinched with revulsion as she pushed away.
“What?” Before LaRenna could prop on one arm Krell had risen and was dressing.
“I took something from you that I can never give back.” Krell spoke over her shoulder as she tugged on her boots. “I’ve broken every barrier, crossed every line.”
“You took nothing I wasn’t willing to give.” LaRenna, shivering from the sudden removal of companion warmth, drew into the sleep corner and sat upon the bedrolls.
“You weren’t ready to lose your virginity yet, Third Kimshee, and you certainly shouldn’t have wasted such a precious commodity on the likes of me.” Krell couldn’t bear even the briefest of glances at LaRenna. She smelled like commitment. The room reeked of commitment as well—the safe, satisfying, stay-at-home, fresh-cut-flower joy of two women growing old together. It was nauseating. Krell had to leave and so left, ignoring LaRenna’s calls to return so they could discuss things. She was dirty. Krell was dirty. What they had done was insanely wrong. Yes, Kimshees had sex, but they never made love.
The Kimshee lifestyle’s lonely reality descended on LaRenna as the evening wore on. She bathed, attempted meditation, and then lay in her bedding, back to the wall, hands wrapping her knees as she forced back the lingering flurries of pleasure. Yes, Kimshees had sex, mind-blowing mental sex, but they seldom indulged in the physical act and they most certainly never, under any circumstances, despite what the soul might cry for, made love, not even with another Kimshee.
Chapter Seventeen
The size of your enemy is no indication of their strength or capabilities.
—from the Sarian Military Standards
The Hiring Hall was a squat stone structure situated in the oldest part of the Common Grounds. Narrow streets and alleyways circled it, making unseen access possible. Krell and LaRenna edged down one of the darkened gaps between buildings, twice stepping over a snoring patron of overzealous indulgence. The hall’s rear entrance was unlocked in anticipation of their arrival. They slid inside and Krell lightly rapped on one of the inner doors.
“Enter.” A low, rumbling bass pierced the predawn stillness.
Krell pushed the door open, bent slightly to enter, took LaRenna by the shoulder, and led her in. “You will keep manners with me and those who help our mission,” she said, then bolted the door behind them. “Morning, Firman. How’s life treating you?”
“Viciously, thanks for asking.” A broad-bodied Autlach sat at the worktable in the room’s center. He held his close-cut salt-andpepper head at a peculiar angle, unsuccessful at evading the swimming sensation that lingered from previous night’s activities.
“Looks like whatever you bit last night is biting you back this morning.” Krell’s head grazed the ceiling, sending plaster residue flying. “Blast it! How I hate old Aut buildings.”
Firman let out a throaty chuckle and pointed at LaRenna. “This her?” He eyed LaRenna thoughtfully as he sucked tea from the black bush of a mustache hiding his mouth. “Does her hood come off or is it permanently attached to her cute little head?”
“Behave, will you? You’re being facetious.” Krell pulled LaRenna to the front and flicked back her hood. “Third Kimshee LaRenna Belsas, meet Firman Middle, my brother.”
“Belsas?” Firman’s mug suspended midway to his mouth. He looked at LaRenna again, then to his sibling, questioning surprise pushing his eyebrows almost into his hairline. “Well, well, what a notion. My sis is training the Taelach of All’s kid.” His brows slowly found their way back home and he smiled lightly. “So, how goes the phase training?”
“Firman!”
“Sorry, Krell, but you now how it is for us single types. We take our joys where we find them.” He motioned for LaRenna to sit. “Pull up a seat, pretty lady, and tell me how much this too-tall, short-patienced, over-stubborn guardian Kimshee has corrupted you so far.” He never took his rich brown eyes off her as he pushed his near empty mug to the table edge. “Be a good sibling, Krell, and pour us all a mug.”
“I will when you quit ogling my apprentice.” Krell laughed, aware his suggestive behavior was an act. Firman was actually a gentle giant of a man with a huge soft spot for the ladies, Autlach or Taelach. Krell took his mug to the cook corner and filled it along with two others from a steaming ewer of premixed tea. “Third Kimshee,” she said between pours, “sit.”
But LaRenna remained standing, bewildered and disbelieving. Krell had never mentioned any of this. “Brother?” she repeated. “Your Autlach brother?”
“One of three, actually,” said Firman, “and it is just like her not to mention us before now.” He glared at his sibling. “Shame on you, Krell. Don’t start your newest
relationship with deception. Makes for a bad omen.”
“The girl is my apprentice, nothing more.”
“Yeah, right.” Firman turned back around. “Please, sweet flower,” he said in a soothing tone. “Please sit. And don’t be angry with her. She never admits to things that are glaringly obvious to everyone else.” He glanced at his sibling. “Isn’t that right, Krell?”
Krell set a mug before each of them and joined her brother on one of the worktable’s undersized benches. LaRenna’s short legs fit the seat height perfectly. Krell’s, on the other hand, stuck up awkwardly and uncomfortably, her knees almost hitting her chest. The sight made LaRenna smile.
“It was never imperative you know my history,” Krell began in a voice to freeze the tea in their mugs. “But I suppose now you have the right. Firman is my brother, one of three. I was raised Autlach.” She fell into brief silence, hoping the words would placate the rage LaRenna’s thoughts had been broadcasting all morning. “I wasn’t taken in by the Kinship until I was fourteen passes old. Up til then my life revolved around being the youngest child of a mountain herbalist on Stockrim.”
“You were raised Aut?” inquired LaRenna, deliberate in her deletion of Krell’s title.
“The Kinship didn’t know I existed. We lived outside either of the moon’s major colonies and Father kept very much to himself. I was discovered when a Taelach healer came to purchase some rare medicinal herbs he’d grown.”
Firman nodded agreement. “Mother died the day after Krell was born. We kept to the hills because Father couldn’t bear the thought of losing Krell too.”
“So that’s why you chose to be Kimshee.” LaRenna kept her surprise contained and stared blankly across the room. “You wanted to be close to your raising, your roots.”
“She’s smart as well as beautiful, Krell.” Firman beamed. “How’d you manage that?”
“For the millionth time, she’s my apprentice!”
Firman jiggled his expanding midline. “And I have women flocking to me for my physique.”
“Firman!”
“That’s my name.” Their candor made LaRenna squirm uneasily. She drew a swallow from her mug and concentrated on counting the floor tiles.
“I believe our talk has made your lady self-conscious.” Firman patted LaRenna’s arm. “Just as well we refrain from the more vivid details of your relationship. It’s almost first dawn.” He gathered four recorders from the table’s corner, juggling them back and forth as he grabbed for his mug. “I’ll be back for you in a while, LaRenna. Say your good-byes, Krell, and kiss her once for me.”
“Why, I oughta—!” exclaimed Krell. “If it were true I’d say you were jealous.”
“It is and I am.” The slamming door echoed his sentiment.
“Be wary of my brother, girl.” Krell glanced over her shoulder. “He’s the type that’ll look up your skirts if given half a chance.”
“Must run in the family.”
Krell stiffened then returned the mugs to the cooking corner. “Your being on post does not give you license to drop protocol, nor does last night’s setback.” Krell paused until LaRenna dropped the glare on her mentor’s back. “Firman will see that you meet up with Starnes. Accomplish your post and nothing more. If at all possible, I need you need to meet me on the beach at first dawn. I’ll be waiting.”
“Yes, First Officer.”
“Have Starnes make the excuse of sending you to the Commons so you can get out unquestioned.”
“That early?”
“Don’t question, just do. The Wine Stores are open then. Have him send you there.” Krell’s long fingers gripped the tabletop. Could looking at LaRenna be avoided? “You have the medicines?”
“Stitched in my skirt hem where you had me put them.” Look at me. The phase bounced off Krell’s mental barrier and back to its sender.
“As soon as you know what’s being planned, get out.”
“First Kimshee, we’ve been over this a hundred times.” LaRenna squirmed with agitation.
“Make it a hundred and one then.” Krell spun from the corner and opened the door in such a rush LaRenna fell back onto a bench. “You will be reassigned as soon as you complete your post.”
“I haven’t requested reassignment.”
“I have for you.” Krell’s response echoed down the street. LaRenna watched from the narrow window, launching phase call after unanswered phase call until she was certain the distance between them was too great. Then the same pit of emptiness she had felt with Nyla Smalls returned in magnitude. “You’re a big girl. Deal with it.” LaRenna collapsed back onto the bench and sulked into her mug.
It wasn’t long before Firman returned. “Well, let’s go,” he said in a level tone. He balanced a large stack of paper files on his arm. “Better use the facilities first, if you’ve need. There’s not one in the waiting area. Jobless Auts are notoriously messy, so we closed the one up front.”
LaRenna took his advice and made use of the small water closet off the workroom, glancing in the worn reflecting board to smooth her hair before she rejoined him. Firman handed her a local work card as soon as she emerged. “According to this, you’re quite the barmaid. Hope your man shows up early or someone else will want to hire you.” He eyed her head to toe, rating her appearance with an approving if not somewhat enchanted smile and a nod. “Nice.”
“Beg your pardon?” LaRenna wondered if her mentor’s warning had some merit after all.
“Nice disguise job. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were Autlach. Makes me wonder whatcha’ look like Taelach.”
“I’m a smaller version of Krell.”
“Nope. I don’t believe my guardian sibling could pull off wearing skirts.” Firman drew his hands down in two straight lines. “No figure.” With a flamboyant wave of his arm, he held the door wide for her. “After you.”
“Thank you.”
“Anytime.” He smacked her firmly on the backside as she passed. “Anytime at all.”
LaRenna whirled about. “Must you?”
“I have a reputation to uphold.” Firman gave her another playful swat. “Besides, you’d better get used to it. There’s not a barmaid alive that hasn’t had to endure the occasional swat or pinch to the hindquarters.” With a persistent grin that challenged even the sourest of thoughts, he waved her out the back entrance. “What’s it all coming down to when a man can’t tease his own kin?”
“Me, linked to you?” asked LaRenna. “Not possible unless you are referring to the First Officer.”
“First officer?” Firman chuckled “No need for formality around me, LaRenna. Krell is simply Krell—big, moody, and from what I can tell so deeply infatuated with you that life must be damn near impossible.”
“I’m being transferred after this post at her request.”
Firman stopped chuckling to regard LaRenna with a gentle expression. “This is serious then.” He clasped her hand and held it tight. “The key to Krell is learning to read in opposites. Has she been sending you mixed messages?”
LaRenna appreciated the warmth and opportunity to discuss what had been plaguing her mind. “No, the messages have been clear enough since last night.”
“What happened?”
Certain of the friendship of her mentor’s brother, LaRenna began to speak without hesitation, sharing both the joy and injury what had taken place the night before. “Krell hates me now, positively loathes me! I’m certain of it.”
“Do you feel the same?”
“Yes! No! Aw, Mother’s mercy, Firman. I don’t know top from bottom right now. I have never wanted and abhorred someone so badly in all my life.” Firman pulled her into a hug. No phase was needed to know his intentions. There was genuine concern, friendship, and sincerity behind this giant man and his comical grin.
“You two have it bad for each other, don’t you?”
“Just because we did what we did doesn’t mean we love each other.”
“Two Kimshees making
physical love? I know enough about Taelach customs to know what goes on, and that just doesn’t happen.” He kissed her forehead then held her at arm’s length. “Jolly and Trishvor will like you.”
“And they are?”
“Krell’s and my brothers of course.” The Autlach released his hold and strode to his worktable. “Be patient with Krell. Things will work out.”
“I doubt it. We can barely be in the same room together.”
“That’ll pass.” Firman winked at her. “Wait and see.” He waved her toward the door. “Time you got into character and made your way around front, but take your time about it. Give me a chance to get up front before you appear. A woman in the Hiring Hall line’s going to cause a stir.” Firman let the door smack LaRenna’s rear the third time.
Alone again and becoming oddly used to it, LaRenna circled the hall, stopping where the alley and narrow stone street came together. The line leading into the hall was immense, stretching from the entrance to cross several adjacent storefronts. The owners of those shops complained about the blockage, but it did little good in a time when so many were searching for employment. LaRenna took a spot at the end of the line and tried to be patient. Heads turned her way—eager, dark-faced leers followed by the low rumble of voices. One impudent older man in well-worn coveralls and heavy boots stepped out of line to approach her.
“Need work?”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“Can’t your man take care of you?”
“I don’t have a man.” The last word rolled off her tongue with particular distaste. Autlach society treated its women as helpless creatures, incapable of independence or thought. Sadly, the majority of Autlach females believed it to be true, a fact that disheartened the equality-minded Taelach.
“No man?” The older man laughed uproariously. “The likes of you? No man?” His whistle gained the attention of the dwindling few unaware of LaRenna’s presence. “Lookee here! She’s searching for work. Says she doesn’t have a man to keep her!”
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