Page 21 of Taken to Voraxia
“I guess, yes. Is there another Voraxian sign for a pact you would prefer?” I ask uncertainly.
“There is a blood pact, but I would not wish to puncture your skin. It is very delicate.”
“It’s not that delicate. I’m not a flower.”
“But you are.” His gaze is searing and without pupils to guide me, I don’t know where to look. I start to fold my fingers, but he steps closer then and slides his palm against mine, totally circling my hand with his, the entire thing swallowed whole.
“We shall accept the human pact,” he says, “Even if it is needless. I would not betray your trust. Not for anything.”
“You don’t even know me…”
He exhales and my whole body floods with heat that I know he must sense because the vibrations of his chest become louder. Deafening. “I do. As you know me. But if it brings you comfort, then we will do the human pact as well.”
“We…call it a handshake.” Sweat breaks out across my forehead, but I roll my shoulders back and try to appear strong. I also try to untangle my grip from his, but he doesn’t release me. His face darkens. His eyes are ferocious and wanting.
“M…my friends first, right?”
He grunts, hesitates, then nods, but he doesn’t let go of me. Instead he leans forward and drags me to the edge of the bed before picking me up and carrying me to the far wall where he withdraws clothes — a tunic for me, trousers for him.
“You will tend to your humans first,” he says, yanking the tunic over my head and hoisting me back up in his arms. “And then you will tend to your Raku.”
I nod, unable to hold his gaze from this close, not with my lower lips pressed against him, dripping juices down to wet the waist of his trousers. “Hexa,” I say, because I’ve heard him, Svera and even Mathilda utter this alien word before.
He shudders as he inhales, and suddenly we are moving fast down long grey corridors.
6
Raku
“Kiki?” Her fingers stretch to the glass of the viewing pane, beyond which the traitor lies suspended in a merillian tank, her Xiveri mate standing over her.
“Hexa,” I say, wishing to respond to my Rakukanna, though I do not know the question.
She glances at me and fresh creases appear now across so much of her face. Her mouth turns down. My pulse thunders unevenly, as ifIwould be concerned for the human who betrayed me.
It is illogical and I shake away the sensation, focusing instead on my Rakukanna as she says, “Is she okay? What is the purple? It’s…is it alive? Is it tech or bio matter? It looks like it’scrawlingover her.”
The warble in her pitch tell me that she does not find it pleasing to see the traitor in the healing pool of merillian. I thought this would have pleased her, and feel baffled again.
“This is merillian,” I say, “It is biological. You do not harvest it on your moon? It grows in the flowers produced in the nightshade trees of your mountains. It is extremely valuable.” Again, I am plagued by thoughts of another traitor, this one, one of my own. Bo’Raku. He will need to be dealt with.Harshly.
“I…no. I’ve never even seen this before. No one in the colony has, and if we had I’m sure we wouldn’t know how to harvest or use it. Is it…it’shealingher?”
“Hexa. Merillian seeds give life to the microorganisms. They are carrion creatures, feeding on damaged cells that they replace with complete cells in their excrement. Any injury she has ever had or scar ever born will be cleansed and repaired. It might have been faster to heal her with laser treatments, but given the extent of her wounds, I agree with Va’Raku’s decision. He is honored to pay the expense.”
“Why?” I wonder if she is aware that her fingers have tangled with my hair and are pulling on them in a way that is not painful, but rather hypnotic. It takes me a moment to respond.
“Because she is his Va’Rakukanna. As you are my Rakukanna. My Xanaxana breathes for you and the unborn kit I will sire in your womb.” One of my hands releases her and comes to cover her bare belly, below her mother’s feeding tube.
She opens her mouth but does not speak. Instead she bites down on her lip and looks straight ahead at the glass while her stomach clenches beneath my hand. Her expression means nox to me.
“Will he stand there like that forever?” She says then, and I sense that this is a distraction from another point, which she does not raise now.
I glance past the tub of merillian with the traitor suspended inside of it, at my second against the far wall. His arms, which are a lighter, slightly redder shade than mine are pulled behind his back. His still blood-crusted breast is thrust forward.
He does not look up from the female floating in the merillian, he does not move. He does not blink. He does not seem to breathe. It is his discipline, his calm under pressure, and the battle — hard fought and won against Dra’Kesh invaders — that led my Raku before me to select him as Va’Raku just two rotations before I was elevated to the Raku rank. It was a decision easily made.
“Hexa,” I answer. “Until she is well, he will.”
