Page 22 of Taken to Voraxia
Just as I would for her. It is only by Xana’s grace that she is not lying right there next to the traitor. I stiffen at the thought and clutch her tighter to me.
My little human shudders — because of my hold or something else, I cannot be sure. She frowns and I feel myself form a mirrored expression.
“Kiki won’t like that,” she says and I wince at the slave name, used so casually and crassly.
“She is Va’Rakukanna and on Nobu, will be worshipped as Xhea, at his side, following their union. It is his duty. His honor.”
My hand on her bottom nears the curve, and my claws brush against sensitive flesh. She sucks in a breath that stiffens my xora until it is even harder than the screa that line the black crag valley. So dense, even their deceptively beautiful flakes draw blood.
I lower her down my abdomen so that her thigh might brush my xora through the thin cloth I use to hide it. My arms shake as a powerful sensation thrums through me.Mate. Mate. Mate.I can hear nothing else over the Xanaxana’s call.
“Do you wish to enter?” I ask, voice gruff as I reposition her in my arms, away from my xora. “She will not wake for another few solars, perhaps more depending on the extent of her injuries.”
She seems to consider, but when she shakes her head and utters a barely audible, “Nox,” I near sigh in relief.
I am ready to throw myself back down the hall and return to my chamber, but something in her expression holds me there. “Do not fear, my Xiveri. Xaneru is strong in her.”
“What is Xaneru,” she says quietly, in a way that makes an unusual cold break out on the backs of my arms.
“The inside.” I tap on her plateless chest. “What powers the Xanaxana. Without one there is no life.” I point up and she glances towards the ceiling as if she might see Xaneru there, now, floating among the panels. My mouth curves. “Xaneru is mate to Xana, who rules the cosmos. Together, they form the Xanaxana that rules us now and binds us as Xiveri mates.”
She tries to look down, but I slide my clawed finger beneath her chin, careful again not to prick her much softer skin.So soft. Soft everywhere.I inhale deeply. Ranxcera blossoms grow on the vines that sprout from the xamxin river near my home. I long to take her there. To show her that I know where she belongs, even if she does not.
“You are Rakukanna now,” I repeat. “You do not look down and show weakness. You look straight and meet the gaze of any you come across. Even me.”
Her head dips momentarily before jerking back up. Her gaze meets mine squarely and I feel a strange but budding pride beat in my breast. “Okay.”The first command I have given her that she obeys.My foot jerks.I want to give her more. Give her everything. And take from her, everything in return.
“Then we return to my chamber.”
“Nox, I want to see Svera. Where have you taken her?”
Seven setting suns and darkness await…“I cannot wait any longer.”
My Rakukanna’s brow crease returns and her very full mouth pillows disappear inside. She carries the heat of a warrior in her eyes even though her little hand thumps pitifully against my plated breast.
“You saidfriendsfirst. Friends. That’s more than one. Now take me to her, or no desire. No willingness. You will have to tie me into the breeding belt because that’s the only way you’ll be able to mate with me at all.”
My own torment at how many solars and lunars I have waited for this moment to finally come unravel me until I am a youngling in her presence, petulant in the face of her defiance. “Youdarethreaten your Raku,” I snarl.
She starts to wriggle and struggle in my grasp, knees buckling when I finally release her. She hisses and takes a few light steps, as if acclimating her feet to the temperature of the floor. Is it too cold for her? Too hard? I should not have dropped her.She should be against me, flesh on flesh always.
Her gaze tracks down the length of my body finally resting on the thick spread of wetness glistening against my abdomen. The sight of her watching it makes my xora lift, the bloated head curving towards my abdomen. And then she does something that shocks me more than a blitz attack. Her hand reaches towards me and here, directly over the thin barrier of my coverings, she molds her fingers to my xora.
I imagine that were I wearing the ceremonial breeding cloth, she would have touched it directly, merely peeled back the folds of the cloth and initiated the sensation of her hand on my xora, all on her own.
Even here, now, in this, to have her initiation is enough to cause the Xanaxana to brutalize the underside of my breast and pound out of time with my two hearts. This is not done by Voraxian or Dra’Kesh females. Those females know that their place is in the breeding harness. But this little defier knows nothing…and with her hand on my xora, I do not care.
I jerk forward, but her body is not open to me. Only her hand and its firm pressure are mine for now. She squeezes the shaft, her small hand not fitting all the way around. But she holds it steady, just as she holds my gaze.
“Svera first, then desire.”
Pact. She does not desire but she knows what I want.I have made no effort to hide my needs, urged on by the Xanaxana, but for her to see them and use them against me so effectively is a concession of power I have never before felt. Negotiations with the savage Niahhorru warlords have not left me feeling so exposed or crippled as this. And yet…
I grab her wrist and she jumps, angling her shoulders away from me and positioning herself to withstand an assault. She still does not understand that I will not hurt her. Notever.
Ignoring the frightened movement, I slowly bring her hand down, and then all the way up to my xora’s engorged head. It is shamefully difficult not to let loose my seed there, for my sac is full and weighted, throbbing with its own heartbeat. Lust twists through my body and for a moment, my sight goes black. I return with a hiss.
No female of our kind would initiate this contact, and no female of our kind ofworthwould allow me to maneuver their hand over my sex as I do this little hybrid’s hand now. I shame her by forcing her touch me in a way that I have only ever touched my own xora in the throes of youth, before my third stone dropped.
