Page 48 of Taken to Voraxia
I want her tongue on mine.My xora bucks and she nearly makes the pleasure sound, but manages to marshal it in the final moment when she looks away from me.
She bows, her sand-colored curls dripping across her shoulders and back, titillating her breasts. “You honor me, Xiveri mate,” she replies again in Voraxian.
“As you honor me.”
She offers me her hand. I take it. And there is a charge between our skin that is not unlike the chest explosion I felt — and still feel — or the explosion she would have created had she attached her copper filament to the reien farrn energy source in the experiment she created. Such an invention is not one I would have thought to create, had I been in her place.
“Now, you honor your people. All of Voraxia gathers here for you.”
She squeezes my hand very slightly and offers me a strange expression — a blink, but with only one of her eyes. I do not understand this action, but the curve of her mouth suggests to me that this is another of her pleasure expressions, or a complement to it, and I am satisfied.
“I’m ready, Raku,” she says, but in her eyes I see her say something else.
In her eyes, she calls me Xoran.
14
Miari
Xoran’s palm against mine is the only thing keeping me anchored to reality as hundreds of faces in as many shades of color swim before my eyes. So many black eyes — but also eyes in blue and orange and green and purple and grey and every combination in between — meet mine.
I stare straight back, unflinchingly, as I was coached to do by Xoran and by the female who came to help me prepare for the ceremony. The female who I only found out was Xoran’smomafter I confessed to her that I’d hurt his feelings. But she was sympathetic, and understanding and kind and so helpful.
She told me that I should do something to let him know that I don’t hate him, that I might even, just maybe…carefor him, even if it’s only the beginning of something greater. I’m sure after our last conversation that he doesn’t think I do.
I asked her what a Voraxian would like. She told me that I shouldn’t do something just because I think a Voraxian would like it. She told me I should honor him in the way that Iwantto honor him. In a human way, even. So that’s just what I did.
But now, as I take the small, cloth-wrapped bundle from Tri'Herion with a whispered thanks, I feel a little dumb. He’s the king of this quadrant of the cosmos. What’s he going to want with the little trinket I built for him?
It doesn’t help that Xoran’s glaring at the package in my hands like it insulted his honor, and when I turn towards him, that glare switches over my shoulder to Tri'Herion like he did much the same.
Xoran’s ridges are colorless, but I get the impression he isn’t happy when he glares at the package once again. Luckily, another Voraxian presents herself just then and Xoran and I are pulled the rest of the way around the valley.
Finally, after what feels like hours, we’re back at the smooth, white wooden chairs that sit side-by-side, overlooking the festivities as they commence in force. From the treeline, there are huge, rectangular tables that look like they’re made out of the same white wood our chairs are. Placed in no particular order, they litter the valley grounds and soon, are stacked high with brightly colored foods I can put no names tobut am eager to taste, if they have anything on the goop.
Voraxians emerge from the werro trees at the valley perimeter carrying white wooden instruments — some look like drums, but most have huge horns and others great bulbous bases, some stretched with string, others with hide, others with metal bits that clang in the slightest breeze or sing with the most subtle movement.
All in all, when they start a collective chorus, the beats and melodies that burst forward are brilliant and exotic, unlike anything I’ve ever heard.
I find myself beaming as Xoran helps me into my chair and takes his own. I wonder why he doesn’t seem as content as I feel, if there’s something bothering him, if it’sme. After the way we left things, I wouldn’t blame him.
He bared his soul and I just stood there like an idiot. I needed time to think, and now that I have, I want to make it right — but if he’s in a bad mood, or if now isn’t the right time, I don’t want to make it worse. I’m about to ask him what’s bothering him, but his black gaze whips to me first.
“You will tell me if you found everything in our home to your liking,” he says. Our house.Our. House. That one word renders me utterly speechless.
I fumble for a moment, and then blurt, “Everything inourhouse is exactly perfect. I um…I moved some stuff around in the guest house. I remember you saying you didn’t really use it often, so I kind of started tinkering around in there. But don’t worry, I can put everything back the way it was…”
Xoran nods slowly, then frowns. “The house is yours as much as it is my own. You are free to make changes to it.” He pauses, and after a brief silence, grunts, “Did you do thistinkeringon your own?”
I shake my head, hair twisting with the cool breeze. Out from under the cover of the werro treetops, it’s cooler and I’m grateful for the coverings Xoran placed over me.
“Tri'Herion helped a little. But no, it’s mostly me. I showed him something that he likes a lot. I um…well, I kind of am hoping you might be okay with me working with his team and the other xub'Herions, if it doesn’t get in the way of my duties as Rakukanna, of course.”
I notice a faint smear of color surface in Xoran’s brow, but it fades just as quickly. An eerie, startling copper. He doesn’t look at me as he says, “I do not dictate your actions. As I have said before, you are not my slave. Voraxia does not keep slaves. It is an ancient Dra’Kesh practice that was abolished when they were absorbed into the federation. So even if I might call you by your slave name, it does not denote your role. You are still Rakukanna. Still my equal. Still capable of deciding your own path independent of my own.”
I feel my cheeks warm. So, heisstill pissed about our last conversation. Very pissed. I swallow and am careful in choosing my words.
“I am happy to hear that. But if it’s all the same to you, Xoran, I’d like my path to also be yours. For us to travel together.”
