Page 31 of Taken to Voraxia
I want to protest, but I really am hungry — hungry enough to eat some goop on top of whatever meal I might get later — so I tip my head towards him and let him push the goop out of the packet and into my mouth.
The taste hits me all at once and it’sso spicy.“Oh my stars,” I murmur as soon as I’ve sucked down the first drag. “This is amazing.”
Foods on our colony don’t have taste — at least not to me, though Svera always insists that the bland sand bread and watery soups really aren’t that bad — but this is heavenly. Spice explodes on my tongue, a cacophony of flavors that, even in such a small dose, I can already feel filling me up.
“Slowly,” he says when I pull his wrists forward, demanding more than the empty silver packet has to offer. “Here, drink.”
He bites off the tip of the cone and then brings it to my mouth. Something cold trickles against my tongue. Against the spice, the sensation is riveting and I drink gluttonously.
“Easy.” His free hand rakes through my hair and I shiver. My stomach rumbles — still hungry, yes, but also out of need — I want his body again even though I had him a few moments ago. My gaze flicks to his. As if on cue, his ridges flare purple.
“Is there more of the goop?” I glance past him towards the drawer.
He tenses, hesitating. “Hexa, but these are filling supplements. Are you…”
He licks his lips and then I can’t help it. My body doesn’t belong to me anymore, it belongs to this terrifying surging pulsing need inside of me. I lean forward and kiss him. I kiss him hard and he jerks before snarling into my skin. His hot breath reminds me of the spicy supplement I just ate — so delicious I almost can’t bear it — and when he pulls back, I feel a chill.
He runs his hands down my arms and through my hair and grips the sides of my face. He brushes his thumbs below my eyes and glances at my mouth when I bite the inside of my cheek.
“Can I have another one?” I say softly.
His black eyes are glossy enough I can see myself reflected in them, in miniature. I don’t look like myself. I look somehow softer, and stronger. Or maybe that’s just how I feel. Or maybe that’s just what he sees.
He nods mutely and stops touching me just long enough to go get me another silver packet and another liquid cone thing.
I inhale both and as I do, he continues to fidget and twitch almost manically, touching and stroking and caressing me and then ever so often, abruptly pulling back. I don’t try to stop him. But the moment I finish the packet and the cone, I stare at the empty things. Guilt — a debilitating guilt — overtakes me.
“You will tell me why you are displeased.”
I glance up at him and feel so ashamed. I bite my bottom lip. “Did Svera and Kiki get food?”
He looks like he’s going speak, but hesitates. His ridges pulse purple ever so subtly, and then very slowly, he says, “Voraxians feed seven times a lunar cycle. That is only once every four solars. Humans require feeding many more times than this.”
Where is he going with this?Do I want to know?“Hexa…”
“You will tell me what pact you wish to initiate to ensure that they are fed three times each solar.”
His words hit me with more force than the amp did when Kiki pressed the button and it sent us both flying — her farther than me. A nasty, jarring pain twists through my stomach and I look down at my legs where his blue seed is still spread against my red skin, appearing purple.I’m just a slave, remember, even if he does sometimes make me feel like a queen.
“Miari,” he says, tone pitched dangerously like a question.
I clear my throat and say quickly, “Hexa, Raku. What do you want?”
“You will tell me what you have to offer.” He touches my shoulder, claws scraping over my skin. For the first time, it truly feels like a threat.
I cringe and shift away, rubbing the fire his claws leave in their wake. “Um…” Think. This is theirfood. I can do this… But I’ve never donethisbefore. Thinkthink.“I can…you can…” And then it hits me. What he’s wanted this whole time. “The breeding belt,” I say, voice tight. “I’ll go in the breeding belt.”
The women taken in the Hunt are either mounted on their hands and knees orrigged up in these strange hanging straps from tree branches, ship hulls, or exposed beams in whatever structure the women are caught in. I’ve heard the position is painful and degrading, with a woman’s head down and her ass in the air, her arms tied below her head and her legs strapped together. She can’t move or react in any way. She’s just there for the taking.
He seems to like that idea —why wouldn’t he? —because he growls in that satisfied way that’s starting to become familiar. Too familiar. “Xhivey.”
He nuzzles into the side of my face, but I move away and edge off of the bed. I hold my arms around myself and stand by the panel with the shirts in it. I push on it in the same pattern he’d used on the other drawer and am not wholly surprised when it doesn’t open. I had guessed it was biometric somehow, and I was right because only when he taps on its surface a few moments later does the latch release.
I quickly pull out a tunic, don it and look up into his black eyes and colorless ridges. With his features as sharp and flat as they are, I can’t make out his expression at all. He doesn’t move to the door though.
“Oh…” I wince. “Did you want to do the breeding belt now?” I start to lift the tunic off but he reaches for my arm — to stop me, maybe? I’m not sure, but I suddenly don’t feel like being touched by him and step back, keeping space between us.
“You will tell me…if you are in pain,” he says uncertainly, “I…do not wish to cause you anymore. It had been my intent to spare you until this lunar, but seeing you again, I could not wait…” He tries for me again and this time, I let him take my arm and reel me in but I don’t let him kiss me. His lips press against my jaw instead.
