Page 14 of Taken to Voraxia
She is brave, I give her that. She does not scream. She only tries to clench her hand and when she fails, her fingers fall open and from them spills a small metal device, no bigger than one of the claws tipping my smallest finger.
I swipe the object and the moment it touches my palm, the false Rakukanna releases a shuddering gasp and the red of her skin shimmers. Her hair begins to flatten against her head, molting to reveal a brown head covering, while her body begins to shrink.
The slim, alluring tail that had sprouted from her backside becomes transparent in places and I am reminded of the monitors of ancient viewing panels aboard even more ancient ships, apt to short-circuit.
I take the ball in my hand and crush it entirely, letting it disintegrate to the sands in clunky metallic pebbles. As I watch, the veneer hiding her true form is peeled back revealing a human woman. One that I remember.
“Interpreter,” I snarl.
She pins her injured arm against her chest and attempts to shift back. Va’Raku is there to block her path. With trembling lips, she looks at me. “She’ll never go with you. She’ll never go into the breeding belt.”
Her free hand finds the link of chains around her neck, each dotted with a different symbol. She closes her eyes and seems to be muttering some form of incantation.
I do not believe in magic so I do not brace myself for any impact, even though I should have. It is magnificent.
My Xanaxana thunders abruptly in my chest and instinctively, I look west, towards the horizon where the hazy silhouette of low mountains are drawn in rough, dark hues.
A low vibration comes from my chest and when I glance up, I meet Va’Raku’s gaze only to be startled when my initial suspicion is proven true.His chest vibrates too.
“Tell me she did not venture outside of the Dome,” I whisper, fixing my attentions again to the interpreter.
The child mewls something below me that is not possible to convert to Voraxian. She says, “Awg awd, ah laaah, yah vey.”
My ears flex forward and I hear something…a sound like stone against metal. It’s too far, too distant. “Va’Raku, ready a glider. Bo’Raku, take this imposter to the ship. She will remain in your charge.”
Va’Raku sprints away just as the imposter shouts, “No!”
She looks at Bo’Raku with pure fear and in clumsy movements, attempts to flee. Bo’Raku moves to intercept her and for a moment, black and indigo cross his ridges. Bloodlust and lust. A combination I find deeply unsettling.
He reaches for the human, but I catch his wrist midair. “Ga’Roth,” I shout and a soldier exiting the ship peels apart from his comerades. “Take this human onboard the ship.”Where she will be torn apart, either by eager or clumsy males…
“I am happy to take her,” Bo’Raku says, voice dark and slippery.
I owe this female nothing, but looking at Bo’Raku then, I would no sooner hand this female over to him than I would cut off my own legs at the knees.
“I await your orders, my Raku,” Ga’Roth says, gaze focused solely on me in a way that honors himand dishonors Bo’Raku at the same time. I am pleased.
As I open my mouth to speak, the solution arrives. “Take her to Krisxox.”
Dra’Kesh though he may be and seemingly hardwired with the same hatred of other species Dra’Kesh share, Krisxox is still my fiercest and most savage warrior. More importantly, he is fiercely loyal to me, above all else. That he is present on this expedition today is only chance. A fortunate one, for in as many rotations as I have been alive, I could not have predicted this outcome.
“Tell him the female is under his charge and under his care.”
“I am more than capable, Raku,” Bo’Raku grimaces.
I take a step closer to him, blocking all view of the human female. “You have done enough.”
Warm air billows around us as the glider approaches. I hand the traitor female over to Ga’Roth and just before I mount the glider and take off, the female catches my arm.
She meets my gaze with unsettling, green and brown eyes. “Thank you,” she says, and then the world rushes away from me.
We pass over the shabby colony, across the lowered barrier of the Drolax, over endless seas of sand until finally spindly trees crop up out of pale moss before that vegetation too fades, becoming rock, as hard and black as screa without its warmth.
A thunderous boom greets us as our glider rushes over the mountainside and on its heels, a scream.“Kiki!”
My Xanaxana jolts and I lunge for the edge of the glider. Va’Raku spurs us on faster and when I glance at him, his face is wreathed in dangerous combinations of red and pink. A stoic male, I have never seen his ridges glow before, and wonder what he thinks when he looks at mine for I am sure they shine bright in mirrored fear and rage and agony.
It is unbecoming for a Raku to unleash his ridges in such a display. And Va’Raku has even more control than I. Yet in this instance, none of that matters.Nothingmatters except for the scene that we come upon when we clear the crest of the next blackened peak. Upon a small rocky shelf where the black stone floor is flatter, my thoughts dissolve to dust and sweep through the hollow shell of my bones.
