Page 47 of Taken to Voraxia
Voraxians mingle with the Dra’Kesh who were selected to enjoy the trip to their capital. It was a random selection of Dra’Kesh — as was the selection on every planet — to ensure that not only the wealthy who are able to afford seats on a passenger ship were able to travel.
I am pleased now to see the blue, purple, grey, red, green, orange and the other jeweled skin tones of Voraxians of all kinds glimmering amongst one another as my people meet and mingle and honor one another as they will honor their Rakukanna in mere moments.Where is she? She should be here by now…
For a moment, a surge of panic grips me as I imagine that she tried again to escape with another one of her contraptions, like that which she built on the ship. I have heard from the reports sent to me each span that she requested to meet with Tri'Herionagain.Meeting with him two times in three solars?
Perhaps she seduced him. Perhaps he gave her the tools needed to escape.I would not know. For I see only who she has visited, but not what they discussed. I did not want to violate her privacy, but perhaps I should have. For her own safety, I tell myself, though that is a lie. It is to assuage the gnarling copper jealousy that threatens to spill over my ridges and consume my whole body.
My gaze sweeps the crowd and pins Tri'Herion. He makes the pleasure expression and sound as he speaks with one I do not know by name or face. I feel black bloodlust grip me, but force it from affecting my ridges — and then I hear the drums…and it all falls away.
The many hundreds of Voraxians in the sand and stone valley split, as a hammer against rock. Silence reigns, all except for the drums.
I sit higher in my throne and glance at the empty space to my left. Smooth werro root defines a narrower bench, but a back as high as my own. We are equal. Not yet, but we will be.Just a few more moments…
The Dra’Kesh and Voraxian drummers emerge from around a copse of werro trees at the far end of the valley. They look so small from here, but my hearts catch when I glance my Rakukanna’s red skin flashing between them.
Bare.
Entirely bare from the top of her crown to the slit between her thighs, to her ten alien toes. She is utterly nude as she approaches. The glimmer of her skin beneath the star and firelight becomes more defined the closer she comes to me until soon I can make out the dark peaks dotting her heavy chest mounds, and the definition of the soft muscles lining her arms and stomach.
I hear surprised murmuring among the few younglings in the crowd, though otherwise, there is only a reverent hush. The drummers peel to the sides, moving towards the screa fire basins hanging from werro branches that mark the perimeter of the valley where the hundreds of Voraxians now cluster.
This leaves only me, clothed in my throne, and my naked Rakukanna standing in the center of so much white sand. She looks at me and our eyes meet and I can feel the hold I have on my ridges threatening to break. I feel nothing but a possessiveness and a pride that floods every single inch of my Xaneru. It grips me with a ferocity I could not shake if I wanted to.
She watches me with an expression I cannot place, but she looks…sostrong.Soferocious.And still so vulnerable as she waits, alone, for her Xiveri mate to join her.
I rise and she tracks me with her gaze. Her red skin glows hot beneath the fire, but her nipples bud the closer to her I come. My xora comes alive under her gaze and I make no move to quell its urge as it punches against the underside of my ceremonial coverings — there would be no point.
With her hair twisting in the light breeze carried to us from the stars, she is the most beautiful female this universe has ever beheld and I’d be damned to find another to prove me otherwise.
I am arms’ distance from her now and inhale in a sweeping breath. Ranxcera blossoms in full bloom assault me in a dose that could only be described as lethal.
My head swims with the scent, and with the one that rides right on its heels. Jujji berries. Something darker. Saltier. More intense.Is she…is this her cream? Is she excited by my presence?Even if her mind does not want to be, I wonder if the Xanaxana within her chest cannot help but be.
My xora stiffens to stalyx and I know that she sees it. Her gaze swims over my chest, settling on my heavy belt before dropping finally to the raised material where my xora fights to be nearer to her. The edges of her lips lift in a pleasure expression and I am shocked at the sight, given how our last conversation ended.Me, saying everything, her, utterly quiet.
Shock buries me further when my Rakukanna takes to her knees. Though this is a traditional part of the ceremony, I never anticipated how it would feel standing above her while she looks up at me, the cascade of her curls falling softly over her back.
She looks like a prize kneeling there in the sands. And I feel unworthy.
“Raku, doth hero Kit’hal. Reh het xiruvan jan. Reh het xiruvan foranx’ia Voraxia wix henna Xiveri.”
A pulse in my chest makes my legs go weak. I nearly stagger as beautifully accented High Voraxian ripples elegantly from her lips.Raku, I present myself to you. I present myself to the Voraxian people as your Xiveri mate,she says and she does not use her translator. She speaks tomeinmyown tongue.
I feel like I’ve been pricked with a Droherion-tipped needle. It electrifies my skin softly while a much stronger dose bursts beneath my plates, in the center of my breast.
I clear my throat before I speak, for it is full of this emotion I have never felt before, thus I do not know how to overcome it. It takes nearly all of my control to tamp the colors to my ridges — and whatever control is left, into not rutting her on the sands in front of all of my people.
“You are the Xana to my Xaneru and I am honored by you. Rise, my Xiveri mate, and take your place as Rakukanna to your people.”
She rises to stand, all long limbs and strength. There is only a slight tremble in one of her hands. She must see me glance at it, for she immediately curls it into a fist. At first, I worry that this is too closely resembling her fear expression, but one glance at her face tells me something else, for she has pleasure smeared across her full, plush lips.
I pull the swatch of xin beast fur draped over my left shoulder and quickly switch it over her. It was little more than a sash hanging against my chest, but the plush white nearly swallows her torso.
“My strength is your strength. Let it cover you.” I reach for the belt at my waist and unbuckle it. I grab the heavy black hide of my covering cloth and wrap it over the xin beast fur, using the belt to keep the materials in place.
I stand back from her, bare now, just as she began this ceremony, and say, “Everything that was once mine, is now yours.”
She makes the pleasure expression in a way that is not scripted into this part of the ceremony, but that makes me make the pleasure expression too. As I do, her lips only broaden until I can see a flash of pearlescent teeth, and pink warm tongue.
