Rhorkanterannu laughs, deep and from the belly. “Wasteland. It’s one of her favorites.”
“What is it?” I ask.
His silver orb eyes flick to me, pinning me in place. It’s a stare difficult not to whither beneath. I touch Raingar’s back, planting my palm beneath his right shoulder. He tenses, stiffening even straighter, like he’s gathering more strength to give to me. It’s working.
“It’s on Kor. It’s a casino.”
A short while later and Rhorkanterannu and his pirates have managed to connect their mothership to the entire mangled mess that is this white chamber of terror and Ashmara’s charcoal and rust chambers of terrors.
Inside Ashmara’s ship, I sit on top of a rust-covered crate full of discarded glass bottles, trying not to touch anything. Raingar kneels in front of me, stroking my legs, holding a damp and hopefully clean cloth to the side of my face while Tana and Reyna wrap a bandage around my waist.
“This should hold until we’re back on Lemora.”
I thank them, but it doesn’t ease the discomfort in my stomach, a discomfort that has nothing to do with pain. “What is it? What’s wrong, miriga?”
I smile at him and then wince as the Eshmiri throw some more rusty tools around, or really just try to make as much noise as possible on this terrible ship that could not be more opposite the white, glossy, sterile cruiser I’d been contained on before. Based on looks alone, I wouldn’t be able to say which ship is worse.
But luckily it isn’t based solely on looks. Because that ship was tinged in the thickest veneer of sadness. This ship? This ship is painted in rusty neglect and savage love. There is love in this place.
I look at Raingar and lean in close. I press my mouth to his and he kisses me back tentatively, in a way I never want to be kissed by him. “I’m not a delicate flower,” I whisper against his cheek, our breath mingling, the scent reminding me strongly of home.
“Nob, you’re a rock, tougher than I am, but you’re a bruised rock. I don’t need to hurt you unnecessarily. Now tell me, what’s wrong?”
Satisfied with his answer, I kiss him more fiercely before pulling back. Quietly, only to him, I whisper, “This doesn’t feel right. The Sky hunter gave up far too quickly. This all feels too easy. Like a trap.”
Raingar frowns, his nostrils puffing out. “We’ll retrieve the kintarr owed to the ohring pirates and kill Tyto, thus killing your contract with the Sky. They won’t come looking for you and we’ll go home, let these bloody reavers deal with the rest.”
I nod, wanting to share in his optimism. “You’re sure that Jerrock can’t escape his chains?”
“These are ion iron ionyx’ix-reinforced Droherion. The strongest known elements in the galaxy combined. There is no way he can escape those chains.”
“You’re sure?” I say, voice wobbly.
He nods, firm, “I’ve never been more sure of anything.”
17
Raingar
“HOW IN THE OHR DID HE ESCAPE!” I cover Essmira with my entire body, flattening her against the floor behind an overturned mok biz table. The stone is enough to deter the hail of blaster fire raining down on us from one. ohring. male.
“I told you those cuffs were a bad idea!” Ashmara is planted with a few of her Eshmiri friends behind the next table to ours. Dust and chunks of stone blast between us, making this entire scene feel like it’s a battle being waged by thousands. “The tickling would have worked!”
The reaver squatting beside her trills animatedly before lobbing a spiky circular object over the table and out onto the casino floor. Beneath me, Essmira grabs my neck violently. “Is that an explosive…”
BOOM.
A burst of air is followed by a momentary lull in the warfare. “Where is Tyto?” Essmira shouts again, choking as dust thickens the air.
“The coward is using the pallet of kintarr as a shield. He knows we can’t get close enough to pull him out with Jerrock here and we can’t fire on the kintarr itself without blowing half of Kor into space.”
“Then we need to force him out.” Essmira pushes on my arm, forcing me to either crush her or let her up. Begrudgingly, I do the latter. On her knees, she clutches her ribs. She has smudges of soot and ash on her cheeks, but her eyes have never shined brighter. Adrenaline? Or is this what she looks like when she’s living wild and recklessly?
“What do you have in mind, clan chieftess?” Ashmara shouts, spinning out from behind her safety to fire a few more rounds before ducking back instances before chunks of stone disintegrate in the place where her face just was.
“Let me run!”
“WHAT!”
She holds up her hand, shutting me up. Merquin, on her other side, smirks at that. Reyna and Tana just stare dumbfounded from the next table over. “It’s the one thing Tyto has to punish me for. He won’t be able to resist. Let me run and when he follows, catch up to us quick.” She reaches boldly for one of the blasters in my hands and I’m too flabbergasted to do anything but let her take it.
She plants a quick kiss on my lips, but when I shake my head she leans back and pins me with a look that is pure ferocity that not even her docile scent can diminish. Smoke wafts over the edge of the table and her mouth sets. “This will work. I know Tyto better than anyone.”
“She’s right,” Merquin, the traitor, adds.
“We’re game!” Ashmara yells. “Tintin says that killing Tyto is the only way to get Jerrock off our shroving backs and he’s right about that, too. Jerrock won’t go after us or the payment if he no longer has a contract. Contracts are what these Sky bastards are beholden to — the only thing. The contract dies with Tyto and…”
BOOM.
An explosion shatters the table to our right — the table Tana and Reyna were behind. “Nob!” Merquin shrieks. “Cover me!” The Eshmiri do just that while Merquin surges forward. Together, we’re able to pull Tana and Reyna behind the shield of our table just before fire sparks and claims the carpets on the floor beneath the shattered table.
“He’s gaining ground. It won’t be long until he’s right on top of us,” Tana heaves, coughing on every other breath. She’s got a cut on her cheek and Reyna’s cradling her left arm, but they look alright. At least, like they will be.
“Meanwhile, I can’t even see him,” Merquin says blasting off another couple aimless shots.
“There’s too much smoke!” Reyna coughs and spits.
“Uhh, yo! You rock folks.” We all turn to see Ashmara wearing a wild grin. Her white eyes are teaming with color, all of them a reflection of her Drakesh heritage.
The colors have different meanings that relate to her emotions and right now they gleam silver, just like the Niahhorru’s. Except on her, that silver means excitement. The ohring psychopath is loving this — perhaps as much as my miriga.
“What?” I bark.
“Your female’s plan is working. I just thought you might want to get a move on.”
My hearts seize and my gaze tracks the line of Ashmara’s extended arm. Tables dot the vast room all the way up to the curved arena-style seats that follow the outer edge of this casino. Passageways lead between them, some to other rooms, some to other exits. And right now, Essmira’s just disappeared down one of them.
I see the flash of her black curls and her tattered green dress…
I also see a male with dark green scales for skin and a barbed tail charging after her.
And then all I see is red.
“Cover me!” I roar.
“Shrov!”
“Ohr!”
They don’t move fast enough because I’m halfway up and already running by the time they start firing. And Jerrock doesn’t miss his chance. Heat lances my spine. It would have been a kill shot if Lemoran skin were any thinner.
Ripples of pain flare down my back. I stagger and it’s only because I stagger that he misses the nape of my neck and hits my right shoulder. Blasts puncture my shoulder twice and they’re fusion ion rounds, or something like t
hem, because they disintegrate the flesh surrounding their entry.
“Raingar!” Tana shouts.
Merquin shouts louder, “Keep firing!”
And I’m grateful for it.
I manage to make it to the passage unscathed — any more scathed — but I keep my blaster close as I barrel into the tunnel. Darkness descends, lights mounted in the walls keeping the space an abysmal orange. Everything smells like piss and vomit and whatever slime some of the creatures of Kor leak behind them when they walk. Miserable place. Nothing like Lemora. I need to get her home.
A scream up ahead propels me farther, faster. The tunnel has doors lining it and I hate that I hesitate over every threshold, not wanting to miss her inside… A thud and then a grunt. Murmured words I can’t quite make out. I start to panic. My three hearts beat out of sync with one another. If anything happens to her, so help me…Ohr! There!
I catch myself on the frame of an open door before my feet threaten to sprint straight past it. One of the private gambling rooms, there’s a gaming table in the center of the space. Standing behind it, Tyto has my mate pinned against the wall.
He holds his lethal tail behind him in a sultry wave, a not-so-subtle threat to keep her docile. He has one hand around her throat and the other around her wrist.
Her blaster is gone and her eyes are so wide, I can see white all around the silken brown color at their centers. Her fear radiates from her and she doesn’t even look at me, terrified as she is of this male who I should have taken a greater interest in from the beginning.
I don’t get involved in the affairs of other quadrants. I never wanted to. I knew that Igmora’s flesh peddling was a monstrous affair. I’d heard of the tortures inflicted by Tyto. I should have ended them the moment I set foot into Quadrant One. I should never have paid a price that should never have been suggested because she is a living, sentient being, and mine. She was never for sale.
And I’m the fool who’s only now realizing it.
Tyto spears Essmira with his tail, swiping it across her stomach hard enough to shred her dress and draw bright red blood from her skin. It stains the spikes on the tip of his tail. I roar and it’s a monumental sound, one that tears through the foundations of the room surrounding us.
Sculptures mounted onto small shelves around the room tumble from their perches and break into pieces on the ugly carpeted floor. The room’s only light source flickers wildly and continues to flicker as I charge forward, grab one edge of the stone table and rip it free of its foundations. It smashes through the bar against the right wall as I continue to charge.
I am not a violent male. Nob, I’m not a violent male.
I lower my head and I spear up, catching Tyto beneath his shoulder blades before rapidly lifting so that I’m sure I don’t catch or cut Essmira. His feet leave the floor and his tail swings but I manage to catch it just below the spikes as it charges for Essmira’s face. I block its path a breath from the tip of her nose and she drops to the ground before I can catch her.
I fling Tyto off of my horns and he hits the wall before crumpling against the floor. Such a small male, he seems. Perhaps, he was always small without Igmora.
“She belongs to me, you stupid Lemoran,” he sneers, as if I’d ever consider it an insult. I’ve been called far worse by the female he tried to cow, but couldn’t.
He struggles to rise. He’s been impaled. He barely makes it onto his knees before I’m on him, grabbing him by the back of the neck and pulling him off of his feet. I look at Essmira and she holds my gaze. Fear ruins her perfect face, but I plan to remove it forever.
I whisper into the slit of Tyto’s ear, “Nob. She cannot be owned.” And with a single quick jerk, I twist his head around his shoulders. He releases a mutilated scream, but a moment later, there’s a crack and then a pop. He dies in my arms.
I drop his body, plant one foot at the base of his neck and grab either side of his face. I pull. My arms strain for a moment, especially my right arm. Pain tries to break through my subconscious, but my conscious mind fights against it and it obeys, receding quickly.
I’m sweating even though this should be an easy task and I know that it’s only difficult because of the damned assassin outside with the fantastic ohring aim. It’s a miracle he didn’t kill me. My right side hurts, but I don’t stop until I hear the first tear and feel the first splash of hot yellow blood hit my legs with a squish and a light slap. I pull Tyto’s head completely free of the rest of his body and toss it against the far wall.
My head drops back on my neck and my shoulders roll. I hold my arms out to the sides, forming blocky fists with my hands and I roar and rage at the world. Feeling calm, feeling better, I open my eyes. I’m wavering on my feet. Movement in the doorway makes me pivot savagely, ready to take on the next threat to my mate.
But it’s only an Eshmiri. The craziest one in the cosmos.
“Ho…ly…shrov. That’s an angry Lemoran,” Ashmara says. She looks down at the stocky Eshmiri beside her. “Tintin, have you ever seen an angry Lemoran before?”
A trilling Eshmiri answers her, but I don’t given an ohr about his answer. My chest is heaving as I say, “Her contract…”
“Ontte. That thing’s signed with a biosig. I think, given the state Tyto’s found himself in, that contract’s as good as gone.”
“Good.” I stagger over the floor and drop down to my knees in front of Essmira. I cling to reality and reach out to touch her, but before I can, she flings herself into my arms.
“I’m so sorry, Raingar. I…I had an opportunity to shoot, but I couldn’t pull the trigger. I thought I could — that I was stronger than that, but I…”
“Shh,” I whisper, stroking her curls down to her waist. I drag her fully onto my lap and hold her firmly against my chest. Consciousness fades in and out, but I cling to the weight of her breath and the pounding of her heart. “I’m glad you didn’t.”
“But he hurt you. Raingar, you need a healer…”
“Nob. Just…for now, let me hold you,” I exhale a breath that tastes like blood.
She squeezes my neck too hard. Spurts of pain shoot down my back to my big rocky butt, making my left leg twitch all the way down to the heel of my foot. I hold her firmly, not violently, but not delicately, either.
“I heard what you told him.”
“Hmhhh.”
“But you’re wrong, you know.” Her warm breath touches my cheek. She kisses me hotly, moving along my jaw with her tongue and lips. Treating me to tastes of divinity. “I am yours. There’s no denying it now.” She pulls back and loud sounds filter into the room, giving me a headache. I don’t like them. Merquin shouting, pirates shouting, Eshmiri trilling wildly about how much fun they’re having, Ashmara slurring and insulting everybody.
But I focus only on her face as reality slips further and further away from me. I want to stay here with her. I refuse to have it any other way. “What do you mean, miriga?”
She smiles at me and it takes me a moment to realize that her expression is smug. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look so smug as when she reaches up and strokes just her thumb up from the base of my right horn all the way up to the tip. Pleasure ripples through me, unadulterated, without itching, without buzzing, without pain.
“Your horns. When you whipped Tyto off, it must have been enough for the black to slough entirely away. They’re white fully and only for me.”
I grunt, “Who knew my mate was such a cocky little thing.”
She snorts abruptly but her face twists and she looks down at her chest, wincing at the sight of the blood spreading across her shift. Some of it’s red, but most of it is pink. She gasps. “We need a healer!”
I waste to the side, catching myself at the last moment on my right, injured arm. It buckles. Hands come against my shoulders and back. I can feel rough hands. Hands that belong to my kind. But all I want to feel are the soft hands of the female touching my face, trying to keep me lucid enough to hear her.
; “Raingar, if I had horns, I want you to know that they’d be white for you, too. They’d have been white since the moment you demanded to see my hand when I tried to climb through that window. I love you…” Her voice fades and so does the reality around me.
I’m grinning though.
This was a good solar.
Twenty-three solars later…
18
Essmira
“Essmira?” Raingar stands in the doorway of Timor and Lyla’s shop, early lunar light streaming in wonderful colors behind him.
“Coming!” I dust off my hands and pack away the last of my supplies in the drawers that I’ve recently helped Lyla reorganize and label. Then I head to the door and meet him outside. “I just finished up my last alteration on an Asgid dress. It’s a new design. I’m not sure Thoedrea likes it. I’m hoping she does in time.”
“That’s nice,” he grumps, but he sounds distracted.
Outside, the wind is surprisingly warm and I smile. “It’s supposed to be an exceptional sunset this lunar. Do you think we might watch it?”
He huffs and his shoulders sag. He sounds annoyed. Ordinarily, I might berate him for trying to kill my enthusiasm, but this lunar, I worry. “It’s only been twenty-three solars since you were shot. Are you sure you don’t want to postpone whatever surprise this is that you have plann…”
“NOB! Would you just…pagh!” He shouts, sounding annoyed all over again.
He fidgets a lot, shifting from foot-to-foot. He’s stopped wearing the protective healing cover Moreth had fitted to his right shoulder, as well as the graft to replace some of the skin that was lost to the blast — apparently the ion rounds the assassin used were laced with venom from a creature called a hevarr. Found only on Nobu, the acid alone might have chewed straight through all three of his hearts had his skin been less tough than it is.
I frown, heart aching at the thought that I might have lost him before I ever even made him mine. “Raingar…”
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