by Viola Grace
“What did that do?”
“It got me to college; it got me a job. It let me know how to drive vehicles and how to make basic repairs.” She smiled. “It helped me survive the unthinkable.”
Varix cocked his head. “You were abandoned?”
She nodded. “As an infant. Being completely alone is not something I would wish on anyone.”
“So, you have become a caretaker. You actively look for others to care for.” He smiled.
“More or less. What is that design on your chest?”
It was black on black and hard to see, but there was a very definite pattern that ran under his collarbone.
“The designers of the Hmrain marked us all so that we are all individuals. Independent but connected.”
She nodded. “That is a nice sentiment. When did you last see the designers?”
He frowned. “Eight hundred years ago; I woke on a space station with the knowledge of who and what I was and that this piece of space had been allocated to me to protect and encourage.”
Nan stared. “They just gave you a planet?”
“Nine planets in this system. None of them has life that can communicate with other sentient forms. Not directly, anyway.”
“What about the khitans?”
“Ah, they are my design. I combined a few failing species, and this was the result. I send them out in bonded pairs, but they can only breed here. There is a mineral content in the prey species that is necessary to their gestational development.” He chuckled.
“So, you were designed, and you designed your own species...” She thought about that. She looked at the khitan. “So, what do you think of your grandpa?”
The small creature grabbed her thumb and started gnawing. Nan felt the little prick of needle-like teeth. “How old is this one?”
“She’s ten years old. Her parents abandoned her because she was small, but she is insanely persistent. She fights for her food and was on solids before she should have been.”
Nan caught something in that sentence. “Wait, so where are the animals that we displaced with the shuttle crash?”
He smiled. “It seems that the storm had driven them all to shelter. You didn’t injure anything. The khitan that I have been gathering have all be sent out by their parents a little too early. I hand-rear the ones that I feel would do well elsewhere so that they are used to the touch of bipedal beings.”
Nan figured something else out. “You only send them to other Hmrain.”
“They like to fly with someone.” He shrugged.
She chuckled. “It is good that you take that into account. Do you ever take them back?”
He nodded. “It happens. Not all worlds are meant for them. Their new adopters call me, and I come and bring them home.”
Nan laughed. “It is a good thing that they have a home to return to and excellent that you take them in.”
Varix nodded. “You did not have that option.”
She shook her head. “No, but I can appreciate the benefit that it would be to others.”
The khitan finished chewing on her, and Nan looked at the tiny perforations. The khitan went limp and dozed off with no warning.
Lord Varix moved around the table and gently lifted the khitan from her arm, taking it back outside and putting it in the enclosure. When he came back, he raised her hand and examined the bite marks. “You should be swelling or fainting by now. They are venomous.”
“I have been bitten by so much stuff in the last year that she didn’t even register.” Nan chuckled. “My skill will heal, and my body will adjust. It is what I do.”
He leaned down and licked her finger, sucking on it with a frown between his brows. Nan swallowed and whispered, “Please, don’t bite.”
He chuckled and released her fingertip with a pop. The small pinpricks of blood were gone, leaving light pink marks behind. “You taste familiar. I am reminded of something.”
She shivered and tried to get her hand out of his grip. “As long as it wasn’t dinner, I am fine.”
He looked at her, and his golden eyes actually began to swirl as she stared at him. “You were tested for your companion classification, yes?”
She shook her head. “No. It was decided that there were too many kids depending on me, so the possibility was never considered.”
Varix smiled slowly. “I am thinking that we should consider it. This is going to require investigation.”
She suddenly wanted her khitan back.
Chapter Four
“I don’t think it needs to be considered. It isn’t a biological necessity for you, and you seem to enjoy your quiet life here.” She smiled brightly. “No sense disrupting yourself for something as ridiculous as sex.”
“If you found it ridiculous, you were doing it wrong.” He pressed his lips to the back of her fingers. When he released her fingers, her hand dropped to her side.
She felt her face heat, and she picked up the dishes, keeping busy by washing up.
He returned to his chair and asked, “Have you hunted?”
Nan nodded. “I have.”
“Can you dress a carcass?”
She nodded again. “I can. Why?”
Varix chuckled. “Can you fly a rider?”
“Uh, yeah.” She had trained on them at the education station. She didn’t crash often.
“Good. I will sort you out with blades, and we can hunt this afternoon.”
“You are arming me?”
He laughed. “Do you think you will use them against me?”
“No. Of course not. I don’t kill anything that can hold a conversation.” She finished washing their plates and cutlery before turning to the pan and bowl.
He snorted. “It is good to know that you have standards.”
Nan shrugged. “In our previous situation, it was good to be flexible. The animals left behind were not going to last long. The food left in buildings was raided fairly shortly after the disaster.”
“We do not have that issue here. The world is lush, and the animals are in a good balance. Hunting for the little ones is a duty.”
She nodded and dried the washed assembled items. Varix got up and put them away.
“Are you ready to go?”
She looked at him and blinked. “Now?”
“The prey we are after likes to hunt in the afternoon. We have a chance to get them before they get aggressive.”
She sighed. “Do I have to kill something?”
“No. Just strip and clean the carcass.” He smiled. “Ready?”
She nodded. “I need some rope, two knives, and a container of water.”
Varix nodded. “You really have done this before.”
Nan grimaced. “Kids can’t eat grass.”
“I will have the items together in a moment.”
“How many are we taking today?”
“Two should be enough to last a few days. The khitans are binge eaters in the wild, so the regular meals keep them calm.”
“And help them grow. If they get as big as that matriarch, they are going to need to eat a lot.”
He nodded and headed out to one of the buildings that she hadn’t been inside yet. She followed him. He opened the door to a dark brown building and stepped inside. Nan could smell oil and metal as he stepped inside.
He came out with a water bag, two knives, and a length of rope, as requested. He handed everything to her and said, “The rider is over here. You can stow your supplies.”
“So, I am just going to follow you?”
He chuckled and flexed his wings out to an astonishing degree. “I promise not to lose you.”
When she saw the rider, she was surprised. It was gleaming and looked brand new. She stowed her supplies under the seat and got on, checking the systems before she looked at him. “Ready when you are.”
“Gain altitude, and I will join you.”
She nodded, and the rider slowly began to lift
up. When she had cleared his head, she moved in a sloping spiral until she was able to see the retreat beneath her. There was a lot more to it than she had imagined. There were runs that were discretely fenced, taking up acres. No wonder the animals all looked relaxed. They were only in the closed sheds overnight, and even then, they could come and go as they pleased.
Lord Varix shot up next to her, and she was startled, but she kept things under control as he turned and headed southward. She followed and tried not to look down as she basically rode a wide scooter through the sky.
The creature that they were hunting was like a boar, only with longer legs. There was a thick herd of them, and Varix knew exactly which one he was taking. He dropped on the back of the beast, and then, his arms moved suddenly. The creature fell down dead.
Varix flew off and found his second target while Nan landed near the dead animal and lashed the hind legs with the rope. She was about to tie the rope to the rider and drag the carcass, but Varix arrived with his second kill being hauled by the hind legs.
“Where would you like it?”
She looked around and pointed at a solid-looking tree. “Over there. I am going to hoist it up and get to work. Do I need to skin it?”
“Not necessary. The khitans need to learn to tear it off.”
She nodded and got the knives and water. This was not going to be a fun task.
Two hours later, she had a huge pile of offal, her arms were caked in blood to the elbow, and she was bizarrely hungry. The two carcasses were clean, and she draped them over the back of the rider. She had washed and dried the knives, but she needed a bath in the worst way.
“Is there a place where I can clean up?”
He nodded. “The compound. The sooner we arrive, the sooner you can wash the blood off.”
She nodded. “Okay. What do we do with the offal?”
He pointed toward the edge of the woods. “Their herd will take care of them. This species is highly predatory. Any of their kind that is injured or wounded is consumed.”
Nan was wary, and she looked at her blood-spattered torso. “And I am guessing that I had better leave sooner rather than later?”
“I will follow your lead. Can you find your way back?”
She nodded and got on the rider. It was heavy with the burden of four hundred extra pounds on it, but she managed to wrestle it above the treeline before heading back to the compound. The rider flew under protest, but she managed to set it down in the yard.
Varix landed neatly behind her and took the carcasses over his shoulder into the area where meat was held for the little ones.
She waited as the blood dried on her skin.
When he returned, he smiled. “This way.”
She followed him, and they headed behind the house and up against the stone mound that backed it. There was a path, and as she walked, she felt the moisture of water in the air. Nan hoped that the suit dried quickly because she didn’t have anything else to wear.
The Japanese-style bath took her aback.
Varix explained, “You shower off the blood here and then soak in the pools. We are near a geothermal pocket, and the heat is within tolerances for your kind.”
She nodded. “Okay. Great.” Nan headed to the shower area and glanced at Varix. He was standing and looking at her expectantly.
Nan asked, “What am I missing?”
“Nothing. Do you mind if I join you?”
There it was. “It is your home. I am just an intruder here.”
A little bit of fumbling and she got the shower working. The water ran away from her in a pink wave. Once she had most of the blood off her hands, she peeled off her suit, and it splatted to the ground. The blood left after a lot of scrubbing with a soft cloth. Once her body was clean, she released her hair, washed it, and pinned it up again. She was aware of her audience while she bathed, but when she turned off the water and soaked her suit in a nearby bucket, he was already in the water.
The water was warm but not too hot to settle in.
“You have injuries.”
She blinked. “Um, they have healed.”
“The marks on your back are from a whip of some kind.”
“Yeah. They are.” She settled back in the tub; the only bench was next to Varix, and that didn’t seem like a great idea. “I got them years ago.”
He scowled. “Someone struck a child?”
Nan crossed her arms and nodded. “Yes. I had been slow in washing the dishes, so this was to teach me a lesson. What it taught me was how to call someone to get me moved.”
“I don’t understand.”
She sat back and explained the foster care system.
Varix looked concerned. “So, it is like being a bondservant without a contract?”
“It can be. For others, they get actual families, and some are adopted and have permanent homes. My birth family wanted to keep the option open to retrieve me at their leisure, so I got older and older. My foster family wanted to adopt someone and stop fostering. They got a new child they could keep, and I got passed along to another home and another. Eleven times.”
“And then the collision.”
“Oh, I have been out of the system for quite some time. But yes, the collision took my plans for moving forward with my life and turned them on their head. Things have been very interesting since, and I haven’t had a chance to plan anything.”
He nodded. “Stop crouching and come and sit on the bench.”
She started moving toward him. “You are supposed to say, I won’t bite.”
He smiled. “Why would I say that?”
She paused, turned, and sat on the bench. “Right. Why would you? I had forgotten that bit.”
Silence sat between them for a moment until she said, “So, what do you do for fun?”
He chuckled. “I have... hobbies. Do you have any questions about your installation here?”
“What do I do aside from feed the animals in the morning, retrieve the bones in the afternoon, and tuck the little ones in at night?”
“Well, you will assist me with the hunting. I don’t like cleaning the animals.”
She rolled her eyes. “Right. Anything else?”
“Not yet. You have the freedom of the compound. You can do what you like and spend your free time as you like.” He chuckled. “Perhaps learn how to deal with the food of this world.”
Nan nodded. “That seems sensible. Do you want me to cook?”
“Not for the first few days. I will do the cooking.”
She sat quietly, and then, she asked, “So, how do you wash your wings? I mean, it must be hard to get back there.”
He laughed. “Your mind hops around.”
Nan blushed as he looked squarely at her. “You didn’t say I couldn’t ask questions.”
“True. I use the showerhead to get the parts that are awkward to reach. Of course, if you are offering to assist the next time we bathe together, I will gratefully accept your help.”
She winced. “I backed myself into that one.”
“Well, I did ask questions about you, so I suppose this is fair.” He smiled. “Any other questions?”
Nan flicked her glance under the clear water of the tub. She blushed and looked at his knowing expression. “I am going to table them for a later time. But, oh. Can I go visit the kids in the colony?”
“Not for a few weeks. They need to settle in, and you need to settle in.”
She nodded. “Fair enough.”
“How is your finger?”
She stared at him blankly.
“The khitan bites.”
Nan examined her wet finger and smiled. “It’s fine. A little spongy, but the skin was pierced, so that makes sense.”
He took her hand in his, and his red hands turned hers over. “I thought for sure that you would suffer effects from the venom.”
“I have been around a lot of animals after the asteroid. Some bit me, others
stung me, I didn’t swell up. I have a pretty good constitution for that kind of thing.”
He smiled. “Good to know. There are many plants and animals that may be toxic to you. If you decide to test your resistance through accident or design, let me know.”
She made a face. “May I have my hand back?”
Varix nodded. “Eventually. There is a scent about you that I thought would be washed away by the water, but it is still there.”
He brought her hand to his lips and licked her palm slowly. Nan swallowed and met his black and gold gaze. He smiled deliberately as his nostrils flared. “There it is again.”
She shivered. “There is what?”
He lifted her hand to his lips and slowly traced a pattern on her palm with his tongue. When the tip of his tongue flicked between her fingers, her toes curled.
Oh, boy.
Chapter Five
Nan looked at his head and the tip of his pointed ear as he leisurely trailed his tongue up her wrist and down to her elbow.
Her stomach fluttered, and the water surged as he pulled her toward him, her breasts pressed against his chest.
His face nuzzled at her cheek and the side of her neck. “There. That is the scent. It does not take much to bring it out.”
Nan’s face heated. Humanity was gone and, with it, all the weird preconceptions about social situations. For this moment, she had allowed herself to simply feel. Now, everything she had learned over her lifetime was roaring to the surface. The happy fluttering inside her cooled and went grey.
“What happened?” Varix lifted his head, and he frowned.
“Common sense. This is not appropriate.” She straightened her spine.
He scowled, and he wrapped one hand around her back. “Appropriate for what?”
She blinked. “My societal upbringing.”
“Your society is shattered. Your people are gone. Your goal is your survival, and right now, that depends on how you adapt to your new situation.”
She put her hands on his chest. “And my situation depends on you?”