Page 19 of Taken to Heimo
The thought makes me want to laugh. Instead, I release a painful sob, “Krisxox!”
My body curls up, like it’s trying to protect me from some external foe when the enemy is here, inside…
The doors whoosh open and Krisxox sweeps his blaster around at the space. He carries two blasters, a sword, and too many daggers to count — and is that a grenade?
“Where,” he snarls, “Svera, where is the enemy?”
“Nox,” I beg. The sight of him makes the fire raging through me worse. “Please.” I reach for him at the same time the doors slip shut at his back.
The calm battle god looks hollowed out. He drops his blaster. He drops his other blaster. He frees his weapons’ belt and the rest of the weapons clatter at his feet.
“Xok,” he curses. “The Xanaxana is strong in you, isn’t it?”
I don’t know. I don’t anything except that I need him. Ineedhim.
“I need you inside of me.”
I’ve seen Krisxox struck many times and I’ve never seen him react like he does now. He falls back, crashing against the wall beside the door. One of his hands runs up through his hair. The other goes to the band securing his trousers. He pushes the release and they drop to the floor. It’s all sleek grey and, judging by the pallet surrounding me covered in crisp, standard-issue werro-fiber sheets, I know we’re on some kind of transporter.
Something about Miari. She’s doing something important this solar, but I can’t remember what it is.Looking at his xora — the first one I’ve ever seen — I can’t remember my own name.
“Svera,” he barks. He shakes his head, but his hand is already on his xora, touching that long shaft. It’s gorgeous. “Nox. You worship a god…you can’t.”
A small voice in the back of my mind tells me he’s right, but I can’t recall why that matters. “Why do you care?” I rasp. Is that me? Or is someone else working me like a puppet? This is not who I am. I am…
“Svera,” he balks.
“Nox! Krisxox, please!” I reach for the collar of my shift. “Tear it. You have to tear it. And move your hand. Let me see…”
His fist drops from his xora and my mouth waters. The arousal heated in my core pours down the insides of my thighs. I should be squeezing them together to try to staunch the flow, but I don’t do that either.
Instead, I roll onto my hands and knees, spread my thighs and stare a hole through Krisxox’s crotch. His xora is so long and thick. Dark red and throbbing, it has ridges up the back of it. They fire with color the longer I look at them, radiating a whole host of indigo shades.
“Krisxox,now!”
“Augh!” He storms forward, reaching me in two short strides. He grabs the collar of my dress in his enormous hands and rips it straight down the middle. He curses as my body comes into view.
“Krisxox…” I reach for him and let my fingers trace the outline of his xora. I touch it, grab it,fistit.
“Nox. Nox…” He reels back. His chest is heaving and his colors are mutinous. I can’t read any of them.
Anger riles me and I release his xora and pound my fist on the pallet. Pain. It needles the center of my sternum, like a tree taking root where it isn’t supposed to. It grows and flowers and all of its branches are covered in thorns.
“You find me so disgusting?”
“Nox.”
I clutch my chest, trying to staunch the growth of that pain. It doesn’t work. “Thenwhy? Why do you insist on torturing me like this?”
“Nox,” he roars, meeting my gaze. “Nox. I’m not…I would…the things I would…I would laywasteto armies just to have you once. But I haven’tmah’reeyou.”
“Mar’ree?” I say, repeating the Drakesh word for fruit. “What does fruit have to do with this?” My voice twists, panic warping it.
“Nox,” he snarls, pulling at his hair now. Yanking at it. “The human word you usemah’ree…may’ree.”
Married. He hasn’t married me.
“Married?” I repeat, aghast. “You want tomarryme? You don’t even know what that is. You don’t even like me. Youhatehumans. You hateme.”
