Page 33 of Defiance
I lived with shilpakaari men and thought I understood the dynamic of life with them. Never sharing drinks, nodding instead of hugging, touching sleeves or boots, not leaning in too close… These were all habits listed in notices from the clinic to educate humans on how to make the delegates more comfortable with us. I hadn’t realized it was so much more than just good manners.
My eyes drifted to the door towards Agent Gaul’s quarters. What did that mean for everyone else? The venandi? The advenans? All the secrecy around Agent Gaul’s scent burn made me wonder how much bigger thanjust sexour arrangement really was.
I wasn’t offering for your sake…
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” I said, rubbing the space between my thumb and forefinger with my other hand. My mind was restless, not fond of problems I couldn’t solve.
Xata’s arm vibrated. We both looked at it and she stood up, silencing the notification.
“Don’t be. We don’t choose our nature. We don’t choose our assignments either. I’ve got your back on Piaoguo.”
“You mean you’ve got Agent Gaul’s back,” I clarified.
She smirked. “That’s right. Be good to him, Charlie, or when this is over, maybe I really will see how long you can hold your breath out there.”
Xata backed out into the hallway with a bounce in her step and waved with her fingers as the door slid shut.
15
The chrome floors in Novak’s quarters were excellent for manic pacing. Unlike on dirt or stone or carpet, his endless loop would remain invisible. The whiplash of his tail, however, had left scratches in the walls like a weedwacker.
He’d indulged in the habit nearly every waking moment in his own quarters, Charlie’s magenta glow seeping through the seams in the door and invading through the vents like poisonous gas. His only saving grace was that for the past week, they’d barely seen each other.
It wasn’t because she’d holed up in her quarters. Oh no. It’s because Xata had kept him so fucking busy. She’d caught him stalking Charlie’schemiatrail on the second night, hopping from one shadow to the next on his way to the commissary like a lunatic. Xata had closed the bulkhead and trapped him in the hallway with a cackle over the ship’s PA system. He’d completely forgotten himself and where he was, lashing at the doors with enough force to dent them.
After that, Xata dragged him to the gym. Every demerit her crew earned that week was solved in a spar with Novak, and the mostly female crew was rowdier than a gang of pirates. They fought dirty and liked it that way, pulling his ears, ganging up on his tail for a bout of tug-of-war. The arms master even tossed Charlie’s discarded cup at him once in the hopes of distracting him long enough to pluck one of his plumes as a trophy. If theyever took shore leave on Huajile, they’d end up running their own racketeering empire.
Xata’s antics were unpredictable but effective. While he was fighting, the Hunt lessened in intensity, sharing space in his lizard brain with blood and pain. The gym was humid, filled with pheromonal scents that agitated hiscoleara.When he was in there, he could hardly see a speck of Charlie’schemia,so overwhelmed by the dozens of other bodies all looking for a fight.
At least the shilpakaari smelled like ocean brine and syrup when they worked themselves up. Venandi exertion smelled like crickets and tree bark.
Xata tsked, laying propped up on her elbows on his bed with her boots on his sheets. “If my entire crew isn’t enough to tame your wild urges, poor Charlie won’t survive, you know.”
Novak snapped his tail tip at her boots. It broke the sound barrier just like a whip, cracking the air and leaving a scorched tear in the sheets. The commander raised a brow, unimpressed.
“What’s taking her so long?”
“Human things, how should I know?”
Novak stopped abruptly, the tip of his snout an inch from the door. He grew deathly still, ears homed in on the quarters across the hall. He needed to see her. He hadn’t seen her in two days. Just her detritus. A few curly strands of copper silk. Her meal trash in the bin. The primer she’d left behind one late night in the crew lounge. Xata glanced through it now as Novak watched her sideways.
“Don’t touch it,” he snarled, plume mail shivering down his tail in warning.
Xata held the plasdocs aloft, staring down her chest at him. “What, this old thing?” She wriggled it like a prize, muddying up the scent of Charlie’s finger oils in the curled corners. “Bentto hell. We should print her a new one. Hey, you think she’s memorized it?”
Novak snatched it back, baring his teeth. “Youknowwhy I have it, stop cutting me off!”
Xata sat up and lifted her two-thumbed hands in surrender as her gaze darkened. “You could just walk across the hallway, you know. She’d give you something if you asked.”
Novak was staring at the door again, starving for any grain of sound or scent. He wavered, mouth full of venom, their stems throbbing in a straight line down his spine to his cock. He pressed up on his sacs with his tongue, swallowing as much of it as he could stomach without feeling tipsy.
“The separation has been good for me,” he rumbled, tempering the desperation. It came and went, mostly when there was room for obsession to niggle its way back in. “It’s not a real Hunt and I can’t let myself think it is. I’ll be calmer when she’s in my eyeline where she—” He swallowed, then ploughed on. “Where she belongs. She’s given me plenty to get by.”
He chucked his chin at the little bag of her things. Ties for her silk, a toothbrush, a hand towel from her kitchen… The cracked meter on an old, salt-encrusted velcro band and the worn shirt were his favorites. He’d slept with them to keep himself from going insane.
“You don’t have to ration her, you idiot.” Xata tossed the primer into his bag and got to her feet.
Charlie’s bloody dress and ankles flashed in his mind.
