Page 72 of Taken to Voraxia
He bares his teeth and lunges.
“Nondah,” the other Niahhorru growls, voice dripping in warning. “Stay back from the females until Rhorkanterannu issues his command.”
The young one — Nondah — spins and there is something feral in his eyes, “We are Niahhorru! We live by the code of life and right now there is one breedable female at our disposal for the shekurr, and we aren’t doinganything. We should take her now. We don’t know what other tricks she has up her sleeve.”
“You can’t! She’s the Rakukanna,” I shout.
He juts up against the edge of the platform and when he lifts his fist, I’m confident he’s going to level a punch to my face that will knock me out cold.
Svera, still trying to staunch her wounds, shouts weakly, but it’s one of the other Niahhorru who intervenes. No. Not one.Allof them.
Eight hands or sixteen or forty reach around me and tackle Nondah before he can surge up onto the table. The young one is easily subdued.
A bigger Niahhorru — one with thick, dark grey spikes about the length of my forearm at their longest, tackles the young one to the ground. He grabs Nondah’s topmost spike and snaps the thing off. Nondah screams. Straightening, the big one tosses the spike aside and approaches me.
“You will not be harmed.” The skein over his eyes swirls like molten rock. He tilts his head forward ever so slightly and lifts one arm over his breast. “Rhorkanterannu forbids it.”
“Until you rape us…”
The man starts, his expression almost comical in its exaggeration. Mouth falling open, skein peeling back, hands lifting. “Rape? Does my translator fail me? You think we will force ourselves to breed with you?”
“Of course. What else? We would never agree.”
He seems equally stunned by this revelation and balks, “But the shekurr is anhonor. Any female selected to partake becomes feenah of her korrth.”
What in the what?I’m about to ask only to realize, it doesn’t matter. “We were stolen. You can’t…”
But then a shout draws my attention past the Niahhorru confronting me, and down.
“The female has fallen,” a deep voice says, full of sorrow.
I jerk my way forward, scrambling to the edge of the platform.It can’t be. She can’t be…My hairline is damp and my lips taste like salt. Between the bodies shifting between us, I see Svera lying backwards on the ground, a Niahhorru’s big hand behind her neck, the only thing keeping her upright.
“Svera,” I say and in the same instant, her hologenerator shorts. “Comets, she’s bleeding so much.”
I think about jumping down from the table, but the moment I move my foot, it sears with a pain that surprises me. Slippery and sliding over my fingers, my blood flows a duller copper than Svera’s red, which against her pale skin looks even more shocking. And she’s covered in it.
Her neck, her arms, her hands, her cheeks most of all. Her green cloth dress is stained purple… I swore she’d survive this. To myself more than to her. I swore she’d see her family again. She shouldn’t be here. But she is. For me, she is.And I did this…
A shadow falls over me and I glance up to see the same Niahhorru who’d been shocked that I wouldn’t want to be raped in the shekurr arches over my ankle and hisses, “You were caught by the lowerhiannru. They are sharper than the upper talons. And your Rakukanna, or your…species mate was hit hard by Yourandena. You are more delicate than our kind. She seems to be bleeding at a great rate. Should we compress the wound?”
“Is she breathing? Does she have a pulse?”
We both look to the Niahhorru closest to her and wait for his assessment. I exhale in one enormous, shaky breath when he nods. “Her pulse is faint.”
“Do you have anything sterile?” I fire back.
He just tilts his giant square head and stares down at me, his eyes utterly unblinking. In fact, I haven’t seen any of them blink short of when the skein lowers to shield the orbs of their eyes in battle. “What is that?”
“Sterile?”
“The word does not translate.”
“Comets help me,” I say and I start to amble off of the table, slowly edging over one side. The moment my foot hits the floor, my ankle sings. I curse and look to the Niahhorru still crowded in the room, noting now that every single one of them has their silver eyes trained on me. “Lie her down flat on her back and prop up her feet if you can. Does anyone here have a clean…”
There’s a huge rattle and blast somewhere deep within the ship, far from where we are. But still, it is significant enough to threaten my attention. I glance to Svera. See her eyes open and looking at me.Thank the universe…
The Niahhorru standing before me shouts a flurry of names and a dozen Niahhorru in the room suddenly break towards the door.
