by Viola Grace
She opened her mouth, but he filled in, “You may call her Lady Theena.”
Melr bowed, Etska ordered breakfast for two with heavy protein, and Melr left to prepare the order.
Athena looked at the overseer. “I can sit in the chair.”
“Early contact is essential. The sooner we firmly connect, the sooner you will begin to reap the benefits.” He had his hand wrapped around her hip, and his fingers were stroking gently. “I will enjoy it when you are wearing something softer.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Perhaps we should find something in textile research. Dress me in local fibres.”
He grinned. “I think that is what we will do.”
Chapter Five
He let her out of his lap to eat. That was a small mercy. She took a few bites of the omelette, and she groaned happily. “Melr, this is amazing.”
The cook turned a dark shade of green. “Thank you, my lady.”
Etska chuckled. “It is a splendid effort today, Melr. You have outdone yourself.”
The overseer’s serving was twice the size of Athena’s, and her portion was huge.
“Is the serving size correct, my lady?”
She swallowed and nodded. “It is. Thank you. I work for a living.” She winked.
Etska murmured, “In case you hadn’t heard, Lady Athena was a forager. She is used to trudging through the raw forests and jungles in search of useful items.”
Melr blinked. “She is that Urther?”
The overseer inclined his head in agreement while Athena kept eating.
The cook nodded his head and took his leave.
Etska chuckled. “You are eating like we are going to take it away.”
She shrugged. “I usually have to bolt my food and get in a skimmer. It will be a hard habit to break, but I will try.”
Etska smiled. “I could feed you. That would slow you down.”
She paused with her fork halfway to her mouth. She didn’t have a comment for that. Her imagination set her on his lap, and her hormones wanted her to squirm in place. Having already been perched on him, she knew exactly how warm and hard that position would be. She wanted to cover her face, but she couldn’t let the food get cold. Priorities were important.
She set her fork down when her plate was empty. “That probably would slow me down, but it might also have a negative effect on my appetite, and that is apparently not on your list of desirable outcomes.”
He nodded and picked up a piece of bread that he nibbled carefully. “You are catching on. I need to consume a companion, so it is in my best interest to keep you healthy and happy so that your responses and body remain active.”
Athena nodded. “It was a guess.”
Etska chuckled. “Good guess.”
“Who was your last companion?”
“I haven’t had one before. I make do with a string of lovers when needed. I try not to keep any dedicated lovers for the aforementioned reasons.”
She nodded. “Who is your current lover?”
He smiled. “You are.”
She sighed. “Who was before me?”
“Ourxo. She was on Liiharno and with me for ninety days. She was compensated, and I arrived here to begin the population process.”
“So, you pay all of your lovers?”
He laughed. “All men pay for the pleasure of company, just as all women demand something, spoken or unspoken. Your gender has more to risk in a relationship. The nature of sex leaves you vulnerable, so you choose the price you are willing to pay for that risk and find a male who can pay it.”
Athena blinked and leaned toward him, her chin on her fist. “Do they take you aside in Hmrain school and explain that to you?”
He laughed. “Something like that.”
“Are there female Hmrain?”
“Yes. One in ten are female.”
“That doesn’t seem like an even split.” She smiled and sipped at the water that Melr had brought.
“You have not seen a female Hmrain yet. It is a more than fair division of power.” He winked.
“Yet?”
“Ideally, if you react well to that ritual I mentioned, we will be together for a very long time.”
She sat up and laced her fingers together. “What does this ritual entail?”
He smiled and began to work on his meal. “Sex. Some biting. It is the venom and the semen that create the regenerative effect in those who are proper companions.”
She closed her eyes and asked, “Venom? No one mentioned venom.”
His tone was slightly amused. “They were remiss. Venom is part of the binding link between us. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt much, and I hope to have you nice and distracted before I administer it.”
She absorbed that and squinted at him. He was calmly finishing his breakfast. She got a suspicion. “Do you even need to eat?”
“It supplements me between the meals I require, but you require the meals, and I have learned that consuming sustenance alone is not conducive to mental health, so we will be eating meals together.” The edict was set.
Athena looked around and nodded. “So, there is a formula for the care and maintenance of companions.”
“It varies from Hmrain to Hmrain. We all have different triggers and absorption techniques, and requirements. When I am building a world, I require much more... energy.”
She frowned. “Are you planning on that soon?”
He shook his head. “Not for a century, so we have some time before that.”
She looked at him, and he set his napkin aside and looked back with an amused expression.
His features were even and sharp. Cheekbones were high, eyes were that disturbing shifting mix of dark and light. His skin was a mix between light and dark chocolate, which made the pale silver designs stand out sharply. His white hair was nearly the same colour as the designs, with two small silver clips on either side of his jawline. His clothing was simple, a set of wide-legged trousers in a soft black that coordinated with his black wings.
“Aren’t Hmrain wings supposed to be leathery?”
He shrugged. “Some are, some aren’t. There are also those with insectoid wings, but all of us have wings.”
There was a pause, and it went on for nearly a minute. After that, he stood up and held his hand out to her. “Let’s head to the textile research area and see if they have come up with anything that will suit you.”
“I thought we are going to the research facility this afternoon?”
“We will go again after lunch. The bulky suit doesn’t flatter you, and I am becoming eager to see you in something more elegant.”
She suspected that there were other motivators for him. He seemed touchy, and right now, most of her was covered. He seemed to want to change that. She swallowed. “Sure. I haven’t seen the textile team in a few weeks. It will be nice to pop in and say hey.”
He got to his feet, and the size of him ratcheted her tension back into place. She had forgotten about the height difference when they were seated. Now, it was rather obvious.
He moved behind the chair and pulled it away from the table. She stood up and took his hand, letting him pull her into his arms. He bent and lifted her, bent his knees, and shot skyward.
She closed her eyes during the ascent, and then, when the pressure downward had ceased, she opened her eyes as they flew over the treetops, above the meadows, and to the colony base. The fastest mode of travel on Hyrnan was Etska.
She leaned up carefully. “Should you have warned the R&D department that you were coming?”
He shrugged without shifting his grip on her. “Probably.”
She sighed and pressed fingers to her forehead. This was going to be a cluster fuck.
He chuckled and flew toward their destination.
Athena was surprised, but there were landing areas on every single building in the colony. “This place was built for you.”
“Of course. Fl
ying is the most convenient. It is the fastest way to get around on worlds with unstable ground. Air jets happen, but my wings are designed to manage sudden changes in the wind.”
If she had been with her team, she would have made a flatulence joke, but it didn’t seem appropriate.
He landed on the research rooftop. A security officer scrambled out of the entry to the building, bowed, and straightened quickly, staring at Athena.
She nodded at him. “Officer. Morning.”
He blinked. “You’re human.”
She nodded.
Etska looked at him with a raised brow. “You are in our way, officer.”
The man’s eyes widened, and he held the door for them.
Etska asked her in common, “Is there going to be a problem with your kind?”
She nodded. “Some of them. Selling sex has a stigma in many of the countries on Earth. The food aspect isn’t covered in base-level education.”
He walked to the lift, still carrying her as if she was an empty box. “You aren’t food so much as sustenance. You are air and water, not bread.”
“Good to know. I am still going to get some nasty comments over the next few years.”
“I am sorry for that, but it does not change the contract.” He gave her a small smile.
She chuckled. “I didn’t think it did, but if I come to you in an irritated mood, one of my own people probably set me off if you weren’t the one to do it first.”
He snorted softly, and the lift stopped on the fourth floor. He carried her into the front area, where a junior researcher skidded into the chamber and stared at him. “Overseer, we were not expecting you.”
Etska inclined his head, and the assistant bowed. “I would like to see the textile samples that you have been generating.”
“Oh. Of course. I will just get researcher Thalmin.” The assistant nodded and darted out of the room.
Athena tapped his cheek. He turned his head. She looked at him expectantly. “I can walk, you know.”
“But, this way, I don’t worry about you going missing or getting trapped by a door closing because the researchers didn’t see you.” He cocked his head as if he was reasonable.
“Fine, but I am going to relax like I was shot. It is going to get comments.”
He looked like he didn’t believe her, so she flopped into his arms bonelessly, one arm dangling loose.
He sighed and lowered her to the floor. “There you go. Happy now?”
“I would be happier if I was digging through the swamp with the guys, but yes, it is better, thank you.”
Researcher Thalmin came in, his striped colouration flowing in a slow pattern. Keskans were like living Rorschach tests; their face and probably bodies showed their moods in the patterns. He was definitely off balance.
“Overseer, welcome. What brings you to the textile research lab?”
“Thalmin, I have recently obtained a companion, and instead of cladding her in the standard extruded fabrics, I thought I would see if there had been anything foraged that would be suitable.”
Thalmin looked at Athena in her forager gear, back at the very elegant Etska, and he nodded. “Oh. Right. We have a few discoveries that might suit.”
Thalmin opened the door to the lab, and Athena was ushered in by the flat of Etska’s wing. He was keeping an eye on her whether she wanted him to or not.
The teams were working with focus and conversing as they ran fibres through a series of tests. Thalmin was speaking excitedly to Etska and asking for details about the hand of the fabric and the level of opacity.
Thalmin showed a swatch and smiled. “This is a sample from a reed found by Team Vel. So is this vegetable-based silk. We use heat and one of the saponification plants to create threads.”
Athena felt smug.
Etska glanced at her. “For a moment, I had forgotten how I found you to begin with. Team Vel has quite the history of useful discoveries.”
She smiled. “My family came from a poorer background, and I grew up on tales of foraging and scavenging from the soil. My grandmother trained me to bite and spit, then figure out what the taste was. Even poisonous plants have a specific taste. The results aren’t fun, but you get over them in a week or so.”
He frowned. “You ate poison?”
“No, I bit poison and spit it out. There was occasionally swelling.” She chuckled.
He pulled her in and wrapped his arms around her. “I got to you just in time.”
Thalmin waited until she was released, and then, he looked at her. “You were on Team Vel?”
“Until a day or two ago, yeah.”
Thalmin lunged forward and grabbed her hands, his pattern excited. “Your assessments of the plants have been exceedingly useful. What is your name?”
“On Team Vel, I am Theena. Athena Fox to others.”
Etska growled and pulled Thalmin’s hands from hers. “Lady Theena to you now, researcher. Contact is not an option.”
Athena blinked. “That isn’t polite, my lord.”
He gave her a serious look, picked her up, and whispered in her ear. “We have not yet completed our link, and I will not have anyone interfering with your scent until we have time to ourselves. Do you understand?”
She nodded. “It still seems stupid. I hugged my team this morning.”
“And I can smell them on you. The pre-existing association is all that is keeping you from being stripped and wearing your hair. Do not mistake my patience for indulgence. The next person to touch you will be dropped into a lava field.”
Athena leaned back and glanced around the lab. Everyone was frozen and staring. His last sentence had been said at a normal conversational volume.
“Fine. No one touches me. Great. I hope you are a good tailor because the last time I checked, someone needs to size things for clothing design.”
He slowly set her on her feet again. “That is what three-dimensional scans are for. They can make the designs to your scanned measurements.”
She grimaced. “That is very creepy.”
He grinned. “Oh, we have just gotten started.”
Chapter Six
She stood in the middle of the textile lab, and with her boots removed, she peeled off her socks and then stepped onto the scanning platform. The assistant was apologetic. “All of it, please.”
Athena peeled off the coveralls, the underwear, and panties. She shoved them off the platform with her foot.
“Hands at your sides, fingers about four inches from your thighs, please.”
Athena lined her feet up with the marks on the platform and stood with her shoulders, back, head high, and hands away from her sides. The assistant smiled slightly. “The scan is starting.”
The unit came down from the ceiling, and the light hit her in bands that took rapid measurement. She felt like they were making a figurine.
The unit went for a second pass, and when it was done, it retreated into the ceiling.
The assistant murmured, “Okay, we are done. How did you get him to get the others to leave?”
Athena shrugged and got dressed again. “I asked him. I also said that when he did see me fully naked, he would probably want to do something about it, and this was not the appropriate venue.”
She closed the coveralls and exhaled in relief. It wasn’t armour, but it felt like it.
Athena took her socks and boots to a nearby station, and she put them on.
“I haven’t seen him much. He does have an aura of power about him, doesn’t he?” The assistant looked toward the closed doors and sighed.
“If that is what does it for you, sure.” She finished her closures, checked everything, flipped her hair out behind her, and nodded. She walked to the door and opened it. “It’s safe now. My naked body is officially digital.”
The assistant stood well back and said, “The copy is being generated right now.”
The researchers were let back into their lab.
The next hour was spent going through fabric swatches and rubbing things against her skin. When she finally had it down to the final six out of forty, Etska picked each swatch up and rubbed it between his fingers in a way that Athena found equal parts disturbing and intriguing. He narrowed the selection down to two. “These ones. Tolr will forward some patterns to craft with, including yardages. If you need extra materials for this, let me know.”
She looked at the samples and stroked the seed silk and the buttery floral linen. “How do they take dye?”
The assistant who had scanned her smiled. “Very well. We have managed to get them to hold blues, greens, and creams without bleeding.”
Athena was interested. “How much do you have on hand?”
The assistant checked and said, “Thirty metres of the silk, twenty of the linen. Both are looking to wear very well.”
Etska smiled. “Good. My assistant will be in touch.”
He didn’t say anything else but picked her up again and carried her out of the lab. She covered her eyes as he headed back to the lift, and he chuckled. “Get used to it.”
“Bully.”
“I am simply using this as a reminder to not leave you behind. I will be keeping you near me for some time, and only then will you be allowed to take a rider out with a tracker on you.” He glanced down as he touched the button for the roof. “This is new for me as well. Having found a companion, I don’t want to lose you.”
It was a touching sentiment until he grinned. “You are very expensive.”
She made a fist and was going to punch him but then remembered the fact that Hmrain were worshipped as gods on many worlds. With the mixed population on Hyrnan, she had no idea what the result would be if someone caught her smacking the overseer.
The guard was there to open the door, and he still stared at her as she was carried past him. Etska took a few steps and opened his wings, taking flight as he launched them off the building.
Athena kept her eyes closed as they headed back to his home. Tolr was there to greet them in the garden when they landed, and he took the briefing about the fabric and nodded respectfully.