Page 53 of Taken to Voraxia
It’s in that moment that I feel it with finality.
The Xanaxana in my stomach and chest and head and heart is no longer tormented. The molten river has settled. There is no more delirious flood. Because, like me — for maybe the first time in my life — my Xanaxana is home.
15
Xoran
It is as if my chest has ripped open and as it seals itself, the Xanaxana blankets me in a way it has not before. I thought the madness was over, but this was the final push. A push towards insanity and it happened here and now in the midst of all of my people, and dignitaries from afar who would only see this display and know that it was a weakness to use against me.
Her fingers gently pulling on my hair gently pull me out of the thick, colorful fog. I can breathe again and when I blink, I can see. I glance up at her kneeling above me and know that my ridges are an uncontrolled kaleidoscope of activity. I cannot help it. I have lost all control.
“You honor me,” I tell her and my voice is hardly recognizable. It is not even my own. The Xanaxana is settling within me for a final time, claiming each of my nerve endings, wrapping itself around each of my bones. It is done. The first Xiveri mating is complete. I am wholly hers.
Even if the Xanaxana has only realized it now, I knew that I was already. From the first instant I scented her.
Her face lifts in the pleasure expression and her eyes are bright. She covers my ridges with her hands and sweeps her shortest end digit below my eyes. “You honored me first.”
“This gift,” I say and I nearly choke on the word I use to describe it, “it is a very acceptable sign of affection.”
Her mouth opens and her white teeth flash as she releases her pleasure sound into the world. My ridges pulse once and then again when she says, “I’m glad you like it.”
“You stated previously that you have created more of these gifts for me. You will tell me now if this is true.”
“Yes. Hexa, it is true.” She makes more pleased sounds and I notice water in her eyes that was not there previous. The water eyes are both for pleasureandpain? Confusing. Marvelous. Fascinating.
“You will tell me what these other gifts are.”
“No way!” She swats my shoulder in a way that is playful and I am sure is another sign of affection. Never had I imagined that my Xiveri mate would be so affectionate as this. I never thought I would crave such affection. But I do crave. And even as she unravels me to my core, I am nothing but grateful for her.
I snarl, hating that I will have to wait. “You will tell me why.”
“Because it’s no fair if I just tell you what it is. You need to unwrap it. That’s half the fun. Imagining what’s inside…”
“I do not like this imagining now. I want to know and you will tell me.”
“Not on my life.” She points her finger at my nose threateningly, though I know she could not harm me with her blunted nails.
I snap at her finger, capturing it between my teeth. I suck on her flavor before popping her finger back out, and then I dive forward, past the barrier of the hide, and pull her whole nipple into my mouth.
She gasps, clapping a hand over her lips as she threatens to shout my born name to the world. Even if she had dishonored me in such a way, it wouldn’t matter now. I am too full, too consumed, too absorbed by her presence, her scent, her words. Hergift.
She does not understand that I have never received anything like this. We Voraxians do not exchange gifts. There are pacts and there are tithes but nothing is given freely, least of all in a demonstration ofaffection.
Demonstrating affection is unheard of in its entirety, and yet the depth of what she communicates with this solarverse she has rendered in miniature, but stunning likeness, leaves me shaken. Because it tells me that shecares, and after my shame at leaving her the last time we were together, I never hoped again that she might care for me as I do her.
Pulling apart from her just enough, I growl against her flesh, “I do not have this gift for you.”
“Hexa,” she pants, and I kiss her stomach softly in a way that suggests I do not intend to finish what I have started here. Not yet. “You brought Svera here. That is the greatest gift I could have imagined. Thank you.”
“You did not unwrap this gift. Thus, it is not gift.”
“Yes it is.”
“It is not. But I will improve. What shall I gift for you?”
She laughs again and when she lowers herself onto my knees and smooths her hands over my ridges, I know that the color must have died enough for her to expose me. I trust her.
I trust her.
