Page 17 of Taken to Heimo
“Just the beginning,” I answer and I feel a fool right after. She’sstilla human. I’mstillKrisxox.
“Oh stars. What have I done?” She says and she covers her eyes with her hand.
Despite the fact that I’m thinking the same xoking thing, panic grips me to hear her say it. I take her wrist with my sticky, wet palm and pull it aside.
“Verax, Svera. What is it? Did I hurt you?”
“Nox. Nox… Just.” She shakes her head. “The Tri-God. This is wrong.”
“This is Xana. You had no more choice in it than I did.” And it isn’t over. The rutting rage of the Xanaxana will take longer than this between us. This was just an isolated blip in time. An accident.
That will happen again and again…
Xok. What would my —
“It doesn’t matter,” I grunt. “It’s over. It won’t happen again.”
She looks between my eyes, as if searching for truth. I don’t know if she’ll find it, but I’m happy to let her look. “You don’t even like me.”
“Nox. And you find me a terrifying monster, so we’re even. It was just biological. It couldn’t be avoided. Your god will forgive you for this. In fact, this didn’t even happen. You’re in shock.”
“Shock?”
“Hexa. It’s not even real. I’m not even here now. I’m outside shouting at warriors and you’re in here, preparing for departure. None of this happened.”
A corner of her mouth quirks. Her expression softens. “It does feel like a dream.”
“That’s because it is a dream. Go back to sleep and when you wake up, everything will be right in the universe.”
She touches the edge of my jaw, but I see how her eyelids get heavy. I glance down and my hips jerk forward, towards her. Her shift is still up around her hips and my hand is still tickling her fur. I bring it up to her stomach, then to her chest mound — herbreast— and I squeeze it.
She inhales and blinks many times.
I'm ready for more. Ineedit. “This isn’t happening either.”
I pull back, aware that we’re on dangerous ground, and kiss her quickly, just once more.
Alright, again. Just one more time.
And another.
When I pull back, I drag a blanket over her and make sure I’m still on the outside of it. The barrier is flimsy, but needed. She’s sleepy, traumatized, in shock. She doesn’t need me rutting her on accident. Already, this was too much.
She exhales, “Thank you, Krisxox. Even if this never happened, I’ll always remember that you came when I called you…”
She closes her eyes and her breathing mellows out almost immediately. She melts against me, resting her head on my arm, but as she does, she melts me, too.
The boat I’d been shoveling water out of has fully capsized and I’m drowning happily now. The bond I’d been trying to break has won. It already won and now it sits there laughing at me. It rips, tears, pushes and pulls.
It winds into and out of me, like a thick needle through thin skin, stitching itself into the fabric of my existence. My colors bathe the entire room in light. I know that she’s seen it and that I should care, but as she sleeps and I watch her sleep, I wonder…what’s the point?
Her small, delicate fingers against my skin.
Her heat.
Her wet eyes and her red cheeks.
She still has scars. And I still have scars. If she disappeared from my arms this instant — if she’d beentakenfrom me by those xoking fools — I’d still carry her like this with me forever. And she’d be just as heavy. She bought me at an auction I didn’t know existed at a price I’d never have agreed to. And that price? Just my soul. Just every piece of my shriveled xoking hearts.
