“Essmira…please. I promise, I’m fine. I just want to get going before we’re late.”
“Late? And wait — what is this? We’re taking pad pads?” Now, I’m really skeptical as he leads me to two pad pads and lifts me onto the smaller one. I straddle her back and give her gentle, soothing touches.
“Unfortunately, yeffa. Now come on. Let’s not drag this out any longer than we need to.”
He starts out of the village at a surprising pace, barking and cursing at villagers to get out of our way, even though they mostly don’t. Instead, they smile and wave up at him — up at us both. It fills me with joy unlike any other. Well, like one other.
But…I’ve been too nervous about his injuries to do anything other than kiss him.
I’d like to, but all my training’s flown out of the window. Concern has made me forget how to initiate intimacy with a male. And I’m not sure how he feels because so far he hasn’t initiated anything either. He’s inexperienced. I should make the first move. I think. Maybe? But he’s also clan chief. And he’s injured.
Perhaps I should ask Moreth if he’s up for…adventure, though if word ever got back to Raingar, he’d probably have a nervous breakdown that I was talking to Moreth about sex.
I snort and Raingar looks over at me from atop his pad pad. The road we’re on is one I’ve never traveled and is almost entirely clear, so we’re able to ride side-by-side.
“What?” He barks.
I almost tell him, but then I change my mind. “The human female. Is she alright?”
“You ask that every solar.”
I chew on the inside of my cheek, nodding. “And I’ll continue to.”
He chortles lightly and shakes his head. “I told you. She’ll be okay.”
During the battle of Wasteland, we left her alone on board Ashmara’s uhh…lovely vessel. In her panicked state, she woke alone and took one of the escape pods — the shooters — all on her own. Without a programmed destination, they all fly to one place…
“She’s alone on Evernor, the Eshmiri gladiator planet. How is she going to be okay? You didn’t see what state she was in…”
“Yeffa, but she isn’t alone. Herannathon went after her and enlisted in the tournament. He’ll protect her.”
“Can’t Ashmara get them out of it?”
“The Eshmiri are good creatures to haggle with, but not when it comes to the tournament. It’s their biggest contest and only happens once every six rotations. They aren’t going to let even one of their own break any of the contestants out of it.”
One of their own. Even though Ashmara might be a human-Drakesh hybrid, it’s only by blood, not by choice. And as I’ve learned, blood means little. Choice is more important. Even if it does make me sad. She might be the only one like me out there, but I’ll never really know her. She’s just as far from me as a four-armed pirate or a soulless assassin. It doesn’t matter if our origins may have started beneath the same star. And since neither Ashmara nor I know of our origins, it wouldn’t matter even if we did.
But we are sisters in another right. Sisters in the battle waged against Tyto. I’m glad that it’s over for me, but my heart still strains for the pale-skinned human female with the bright red mane.
“Besides, Ashmara’s got enough problems of her own.”
I wince. “Rhorkanterannu can’t help her escape Jerrock?”
“Nob. And her contract is too large to buy out. We clan chiefs tried to pool our resources and combine them with what Rhorkanterannu and the Voraxians offered, but it still wasn’t enough.”
“What is her bounty even for?”
“She’s been liberating slaves from some of the wealthiest corners of the Quadrants. Quadrant One alone has a bounty of twenty-eight kintarr tuns on her head. Apparently, over one thousand of their garden slaves went missing over the course of six lunars. Ashmara’s been labeled the culprit.”
Surprise. Warmth. It fills my chest and I nod as we start up a hill towards a beautiful purple sky. “Good. Hopefully, the kintarr she recovered from Tyto will help her stay lost until she’s an old, old reaver.”
“Too bad she didn’t get any of it.”
“What?” I pull up on the pad pad reins and the beast beneath me releases steam through its wide nostrils.
Raingar’s cheeks darken and his eyes drop to my clenched fingers. “We offered to make up the sum, but both the Eshmiri and the Niahhorru refused.”
“What happened to the rest? What Tyto was using to pay off my contract?”
“Jerrock…”
“He took it? But I thought…”
“Nob.” Raingar shakes his head. “A Sky bounty hunter wouldn’t steal tokens for an incomplete contract. He destroyed it.”
“But why…”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about the Sky and I hope never to know anything about them.” He shudders and cocks his head. “Now come on. We’re almost there and I don’t want to bring thoughts of assassins or war with you.”
“Of course, my Lord.”
His eyebrows pull together, concerned, beneath his pearly white horns. His horns…mmmm…they shoot up into the sky, arching towards the orange clouds. They are magnificent and I feel myself — and my core — pool with heat at the sight of them, maybe just knowing that they’re mine…
“My Lord?” He scowls so fiercely I laugh, the sound carried away from me on the wind, and then wrapped around me all over again. “Not sure what I did to deserve that…”
“I’m only teas…” We approach the crest of the hill and just as we ride over it, all the words I was going to say are yanked violently from my lips. I can’t say a word. Well, I can say one word. And that word is, “Ohr.”
Raingar chuckles. “These are the Dark Flats, Essmira.”
Endless fields of brightly colored pebbles rise and fall from the base of the hill out to touch the horizon. “It’s…”
And then there’s an explosion.
A cluster of pebbles shoot into the air and smash together and when they do, there’s light. Lights of all colors and shades and intensities and heights. Some of the pebbles spark just over the sandy dunes while others rocket hundreds of feet up into the air and fill the entire purple sky with magical fire.
Tears fill my eyes. My jaw works. I stammer. My chest floods with fire. I can’t believe this. Every solar, Raingar has taken me out to do something special, but this? Nothing holds a candle to this.
“Pagh! Now, don’t do that,” Raingar grumbles, looking all annoyed all over again. “Follow me.”
I do so dumbly, unable to look away from the field that clashes violently with the darkening sky. A single Lemoran sun hangs like a blue orb, like a fruit, on the horizon line. It dips a little lower as we follow a path around the crest of the hill until we reach a series of platforms. They must be viewing platforms. At least, that’s what I assume. But I don’t ask, because my mouth has entirely dried and my tongue is in knots as Raingar leads us to the largest one.
We dismount our pad pads and follow the short flight of yellow stairs to reach it by foot. Halfway down the hill, the platform juts out, not quite covering any of the Dark Flats beneath it, but perfectly positioned to view the spectacle, uninterrupted. A flat yellow base is surrounded by a pink guardrail, but my gaze is drawn away from the Dark Flats — an almost impossible task — to the structure in the center of the platform.
It’s a bed.
An enormous mattress covers much of the platform while a wooden platter covered with food sits on a low table off to one side. A bucket with bottles of something — I hope not lobba — rests beside it. Mountains of maroon and taupe pillows and blankets form dunes of their own on the mattress, the one Raingar is standing beside with that same frustrated — nob, not frustrated, nervous. My male is nervous this lunar.
My heart leaps up into my throat as my reality comes crashing down. I thought he’d been avoiding me because he was hurt, not because he was nervous. Not because he wanted to surprise
me…
“I know that the last time we tried this, I wasn’t ready. But I feel ready now and, if you’re willing…or I mean, if you’d like to try again…I…” He scratches the back of his neck, his face darkening even more. He twists his hands together in front of his abdomen while I just stare.
I thought I was in love before.
I did not know love until this very moment.
My heart explodes through my chest and I don’t hear anything he says next because the wind is in my ears and I’m running, running, skipping, dancing, jumping up to meet him. I hit him so hard he wobbles and then goes down. He collapses onto his back on the mattress in the center of the sea of pillows and mania grips me unlike anything I’ve ever felt.
Heat savages me and I suddenly can’t breathe — know I won’t be able to breathe — unless Raingar enters me right now. “Raingar!” I shout. His eyes go wide as I claw at the ties on his trousers. I made them, but I suddenly can’t free the ties fast enough. “Help me. I need…need you…”
“Essmira,” he flounders, “are you okay?”
“I don’t…I don’t know…” I can’t think. My eyes are unfocusing. “I want…I need you, Raingar. I need you like I need water to drink.”
But Raingar’s staring at my mouth like I’ve suddenly grown two of them. Without warning, he sits up, reaches past my teeth with his fingers and pulls my tongue out. “Whad…whadarreooo…” I can’t talk with him holding onto my tongue like that and I start to laugh as I slobber all over his fingertips.
But he doesn’t answer me, instead, he shouts, “I’M YOUR XIVERI MATE!” He screams.
A burst of pebbles sends a light show careening towards us. It explodes high over our heads in bright white-yellow and looks exactly like the physical manifestation of the sensations blasting through me. I’m so hot, I start to sweat. I blink over and over, frustrated and angry with my mate that he hasn’t pulled his cock out yet.
“What…what do you mean?” I heave, nails scraping over his chest. He’s polished it. He’s polished it so the rough texture of his skin will hurt me less. The pressure in my abdomen becomes too much to bear. I’m going to explode. I’m going to die if I don’t… I need…
“You are half-Drakesh!” He shouts as if that’s all the explanation I need.
“Pagh!” I huff out my frustration this time and somehow find the strength to stand, but only enough to undo the tie at the back of my neck and let my dress fall to my feet. “Raingar, I need…”
“Your tongue,” he exclaims as I fall onto him in only my small under garments hiding my sex, the places where I desperately need relief. I rub myself ruthlessly all over his body even as he tries to hold me back.
“Raingar!” I mewl loudly.
But he shakes his head. “The Voraxians and the Drakesh wear their emotions in their ridges. They turn bright colors whenever they feel emotion and, when they meet their Xiveri Mates, they turn every color. All of them at once. You don’t have any ridges though…except for these, in your tongue.”
I pant, stretching my tongue out as I dive forward, not giving an ohr about ridges, just needing to taste. Raingar opens his mouth, but I’m stalled momentarily by the lights reflecting off of his lips. And they have nothing to do with the Dark Flats beneath us.
I blink in rapid succession while flares of energy zap my thighs, making them quiver. I reach down and grab my own sex, terrified it’s going to run off on me. I feel everything and moan, “I’m your Xiveri…”
“Yeffa,” he says, with a wild whooping laugh.
I can’t find the situation funny. I can’t find anything funny. I’m going to cry if he doesn’t spend inside of me immediately. “I’m hurting…please, Raingar, please…”
Fever grips me every place Raingar touches. He grabs the back of my neck in one of his enormous hands, flips our bodies over and places me on my back beneath him. He kneels over me with one hand planted on the mattress by my face and his knees straddling my legs.
“This is all wrong. I need my legs spread. I need to be on top. I promised I’d guide you… You’ve never done…”
Raingar licks his lips and stands up from me quickly. He unties his pants and rips them off of his body, shredding some of my immaculate stitching in the process, but I don’t give an ohr about that. I’ll make him a thousand pants, so long as he just… “Come in me!”
His expression is firm, but soft, just like his grip as he takes my knees in each of his hands and spreads my legs, exposing my sensitive, electrified flesh to the harsh elements.
He trails his fingers up against my inner thighs but I spasm in pleasurepain as another wave of intensity hits me. “Raingar!”
“Agh!” He grabs the undergarment caging my lower lips and rips it in between his hands, careful not to jostle me, let alone hurt me. He does the same to the contraption caging my breasts before he covers my body with his.
He kisses the side of my face and it sends magical waves careening through me that make me tremble. He says, “The red…the red is beautiful, but I care for the heart beneath it more.”
I moan, his breath a thousand feathers descending on me at once. I can’t breathe through their softness.
“It’s everything. You are, Essmira. You’re my whole universe.”
“Raingar,” I moan. His words send clouds parting above me. More explosions dance across the sky while I hurtle into another universe. I can’t control my limbs. I’m terrified, genuinely frightened by the change that’s come over me so suddenly, but I trust him. I trust him more than anything.
“I’m going to show you what I mean, Essmira,” he says roughly as he shifts on top of me.
“I should be…I am a pleasure female…I should be guiding…”
“I am your pleasure male, Essmira. This is my honor, my duty.”
He lowers himself onto one elbow, but it isn’t enough. He still isn’t covering me, smothering me completely. Instead, he pushes my hair off of my forehead while his erection bounces angrily against my belly. I try to reach for it, but he cages both of my hands above my head in just one of his.
He meets my gaze and I fall into those colorful depths. “Please let me carry you through this. I promise…I won’t drop you.” His voice breaks.
Colors, wild and radiant, explode against his face when I release a feral moan. All the colors. Every color of the Lemoran countryside. My back arches, but I can’t move my arms. He has me pinned.
“I know you won’t. I adore you,” I gasp, breathless.
Raingar winces as if struck and clutches one hand to his chest. He closes his eyes and when he blinks them back open, he holds my gaze with determination and rolls his hips to meet my hips. He reaches between his legs and looks down, careful as he lines his erection with my opening.
The heat of his cock is searing and painful. I release a wild shriek as a blue bomb erupts hundreds of feet above me. Wind whistles over the Dark Flats, creating delirious melodies. It’s like I can touch the universe through so many competing colors — they’re disorienting, so I focus on the ones I know best.
His black and blue and purple and orange and yellow and, in the very center, iridescent green, gaze. “Are you ready, my Essmira?”
“Raingar,” I moan, pained. “Please!”
He pushes forward and I gasp and thrash against his grip. My body wants him all the way inside, but my rapidly disintegrating thoughts are grateful for his painfully slow march to madness. He’s huge. The male himself is four times my size at least and though Igmora, the female who met her untimely end, and Tyto, the male who killed her, taught me that I would stretch to accommodate any size, right now it doesn’t feel like it.
His eyes are open, even if his jaw is clenched so hard I can hear his teeth grinding against one another. Muscles spasm in his neck and he has to release my hands in order to prop up more of his weight as he shuttles his cock into my sopping, sensitive heat. My lower lips open to him as he shoves the head of his erection inside of me, tickling a pleasure
spot at the top of my core. It’s that little pressure that has me spiraling even though we haven’t even gone all the way…
I scream and convulse, and I know exactly what to grab as he drops onto both elbows. I grab his horns, squeezing their base and Raingar releases a throaty moan. His hips freeze and I feel the muscles of his thighs flex as I squeeze his waist between my shaking inner thighs. His cum rips through me. I can feel its heat like an extension of him and it feels ohring great.
“Essmira,” he chokes, disbelief coloring his tone.
“Raingar!” I scream. But my orgasm isn’t sated. It isn’t even close. I need more. I need everything. I need his body to wage a love against mine that matches the love that’s fought the battles in my head and heart and conquered both. “Don’t go,” I beg him.
He huffs out a laugh. I can see sweat glimmering around the base of his horns when I finally manage to get my eyes to open. “I won’t. Not ever and certainly not when I haven’t even made it all the way inside you yet.”
He stiffens again and I feel his belly relax further onto me as he pushes up again, a move that would have sent me hurtling across the bed if his hand hadn’t hooked around the back of my neck to anchor me.
My eyes roll. “I want you…want you…Raingar…”
“Well, my selfish little hybrid. I’m your Xiveri and right now, I’m your pleasure male. You’re going to have to do what I say. You’re going to have to wait.” He sounds so happy and it’s all at my expense. I want to war against him, and I have a few tricks myself.
I squeeze the inner walls of my core around his length and he moans, collapsing further forward until he’s inside of me halfway, where his erection bulges thickest. Pain tears through my vagina, inside and outside, but it doesn’t matter, because I want more.
“Augh, Essmira…” His head rolls on his neck. He blinks down at me and his green pupil is wildly blown. “I’m going to try to seat myself all the way. Tell me if I hurt you in any way. Please. Please don’t let me hurt you.”
Tears blur the sight of him as I gently stroke his horns up to the tip, at least, as far as I can reach. I nod. “I trust you, Raingar.”
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