Page 13 of Taken to Nobu
Never,I promised myself,never again with any male. Kill,I promised myself,killany alien that I come across.But I helped alien females and I even defended one and I helped males find alien females — even if that was unknowingly — and when I was down in the village, I saw the leader wrapped in the arms of a male, covered in pink mud and smeared in a brutal happiness that brought tears to my eyes and heat to my cheeks.Never again…but I started over again and I started over again with him and he’s as alien as they come.
“My Xhea,” he says, voice low and deep. It pulls at my insides. “I will…take care of you.” His words are full of implication that draws an unfettered moan from my throat.
He closes his eyes — eyelids blinking from the side — and seems to struggle to open them, despite the commands he’s given me. “I will first tend to your wounds. These are your new hasheba. They are honored to tend to you. Kuana and Kuaku, take your Xhea to the baths.”
The soft patter of footsteps against the soft white floor pulls my attention away from the male. There, two female aliens stand in the doorway and I’m shocked to recognize both of them. They were both with me in the cave and I think again of Svera and her Tri-God for a moment. Ofcoursethese two females would be here. The bitch and the green one.
“The hasheba are here to assist you. Do not be wary of them.”
As he speaks, I lock eyes with the bitch. Somewhere along the way she’s been cleaned up and freed from her hides. Now she just wears a leather, fur-lined skirt and nothing else. Her chest is flat, just plates studded by little nipples slightly darker than the rest of her, and even though I can’t search her expression for tells, I can feel the bite of her claws in my flesh when she reaches forward to grab my arm. I break the hold with one upward cut of my wrist and she stumbles back, ridges flashing white and then pink.
“I don’t want them to touch me,” I say, but my throat is gravel and sore and I don’t recognize the sound of my voice.It’s been too long. Since the last Hunt when I was hurt, I hadn’t spoken a word until the Mountain Run.So much hard hating work, undone.“I don’t need any help.”
There’s a lag, in which time the male just stares at me passively. How can he be stone when I’m melted wax? I feelashamed.Get ahold of yourself! I’ll fight.I’ll lose.I’ll fight anyways. Until the end. That’s what I’ve been searching for all along, isn’t it?I wince because a seed of doubt has now been planted. I still want the end — whatever end — but in the meantime…I’d like some more of what I felt on top of the mountain too.
Deep rumbling that you can scarcely call words reverberates behind me when I turn away. “Whatever your Xhea wants. And when she is prepared, bring her to our nest with the medical kit.”
“You do not wish for us to fetch the healer?” The bitchy one asks.
“Nox.” The pressure of his voice fills the entire room and I close my eyes. It’s too much. All I see in the darkness of my eyelids are black stars hanging against the backdrop of a blue moon.Paradise must not be far…
“I will not have another male in our Xhea’s presence until the Xanaxana is settled, not unless absolutely necessary. Now go. Move dutifully, and quickly. I can smell her blood. I need her wounds clean and free of infection before I will suture them. She may be a warrior, but she is still human and human skin is more delicate than I believed possible, so please exercise extreme caution with her.”
“Come with us, my Xhea,” comes a small voice in front of me. The little green alien is standing halfway across the room, gesturing at another doorway with her six-fingered hands. “We will show you the way.”
“I don’t need help,” I blurt out reflexively. Her forehead blares yellow like a beacon and she quickly looks down at her feet and I feel something horrible rise up within me — a desire to treat her some other kind of way, any other kind of way. A desire to be different.That would mean getting rid of hate, but without hate, what is there? What’s left of Kiki?
Nothing.
“Do not be long, my Xhea,” says the voice behind me. The one who is my enemy. The one who calls me queen.
I grit my teeth as a nail bomb erupts inside of me, devastation increasing in impact with each step away from him I take.Does he feel it?
He releases a growl and I hear the whoosh of a door, and then a second from the one we pass through. The green alien shoots me tentative glances over her shoulder as we walk down a wide, white corridor, lined on either side with doors like the one we came through.No, not tentative. Frightened. She’s frightened of me.It occurs to me then that to them, there’s only one alien in the room.
“Move.” The word is accentuated by a sharp elbow to my spine. I stumble, this time, catching myself on the green alien. She winces when I touch her and I open my mouth to apologize on instinct before thinking better of it.
I jerk away from her and snarl over my shoulder, but the bitch is unmoved. Continuing, the white walls give way to black stone and I start to wonder if the little bit of mind I’d saved hasn’t also gone, because Iswearthat the walls have started to heat. I nearly jump out of my skin when I step down on a spot that’s hot to the touch.
“Have no fear, Xhea. The dagger mountain has many underwater pools. They are heated and as such, warm the Okkari’s house by way of the stone. Screa. It’s a conduit for heat.” She speaks so softly I can barely hear her and my hatred only grows.Hate her. It’s easier than admitting the truth…
I say nothing and when I feel another light shove against my spine, I am filled with renewed purpose. Thank the stars for the bitch behind me, because without her, it would be even easier to forget. Too easy.Maybe that’s because I want to…
Eventually, the black walls have swallowed us up and strange coiled lamps fluttering with light are all that we have to illuminate our path. Cut into the stone walls in intricate shapes, I can’t even fathom what could make light like that and for a second, I think of Miari. An inventor as much as she is an explorer, she was always distracted by the way things were put together.
Coming home from training with Jaxal, I find Miari sitting on the stoop of our shack. She has a package in her lap and I appreciate that she doesn’t try to smile at me like Svera’s always trying. Like the world is good. When Miari opens the long, wrapped gift, I see what she’s done. She’s attached some kind of electrified blade point to a long staff — one made out ofsteel,though comets if I know where she got the metal for that. It’s a beautiful gift. The first time I really felt like a warrior.
My thoughts jump back to the present.Where is she now? How quickly I’ve forgotten her…I’m ashamed yet once again, and at the same time, reminded of where I am and what I am.I’m human. Not one of them. Never one of them.
The small green one turns left, stepping through a large archway cut into the stone. I turn towards the misty darkness beyond it, peering into the chamber hesitantly, but when I don’t move forward I’m rewarded with another light punch to the spine.
I jerk forward and the green one releases a little chirp. “Kuaku!”
“Don’t. call. me. that,” comes the acerbic response.
The green one flutters around me, but doesn’t try to touch me again. Instead, she steps between me and the bitch and the horrible sensation I felt before returns in force.She’s protecting me…
“It is what you are,” says the green one in high sing song, “A hasheba. And it is a very respected position.”
