Page 46 of Taken to Heimo
The moment I’m within grabbing distance, she does. Lurching forward, one of her too-soft human hands catches my wrist and she starts to pull. I resist, but only because she’s pulling me away from Svera.Svera needs me and there’s nothing in the xoking universe that could make me turn my back on her. What about all the other times I’ve turned my back on her? Every solar that she’s been living with me and I’ve rebuked, ridiculed or ignored her.
I stumble and it’s that stumble that allows the small, soft creature to tug me around the ship — I’m not even sure that it’s thebackof the ship, the front or one of the sides — the construct is too fluid for that. She lifts up the long, coiled strands of her hair and presses against a small, black bead fitted into her ear canal. Then, with her hand still on my arm, she closes her eyes.
I rip my arm away, hating that this female is, for whatever xoking reason, touching my body —a body that belongs to Svera— and is wasting my xoking time…
Xok me.
The surface of the ship directly in front of her — in front of us — splits down a non-existent seam. A dark hole opens up in the middle of so much sunlight. Her eyes flutter open and she doesn’t look the least bit surprised to see the ship cave to her demands — not like I am. I’m xoking stunned and I just stare at her for the first moment, but only just the one.
Xok me for underestimating her.
When she steps forward and looks over her shoulder at me with annoyance clear on her face, she leaves me no other choice but to follow her plan, and follow in her wake.
Xok me. I guess, we’re taking a ride.
12
Svera
My head is pounding as I’m forced to my knees in front of the largest, most beautiful ship I’ve ever seen. It’s nothing like the last Niahhorru ship Miari and I were stolen in. That was a hulky block of crudely constructed metal pieces that had aged for decades before I ever saw it. Or maybe centuries. Millenia.
This thing here looks like it waspouredout of the darkest raincloud, spilled like a drop of ink among white sands. Looking at it, it seems toshift, becoming akin to the black mountains framing it. My eyes can’t seem to contain its mercurial form. I blink again and again against it, and only find my voice when Deena, restrained behind me by two human guards I’ve known since childhood, finds hers.
“Don’t do this, Rhork, don’t do this…”
I pull in a deep breath and blink my eyes up at the males descending from the ship. TheNiahhorrumales. A shudder racks my body as I’m throttled into the past, into the arms of Nondah as he wrestles me to the ground and I fight for my life, ill-equipped as I am with just the smallest dagger to defend myself.
That wasn’t all I had though. Then, I had Krisxox.
I blink quickly and try to harness my remaining strength but it’s…hard. Memories are wicked things. They prick like needles with the ability to incapacitate. The shippeelsopen like two polar edges of a magnet repelling away from one another, all abrupt and sinewy, and the pirates descend. I feel like a child.
There are only three of them, this time, but that doesn’t make me feel any better. The sight of their brutal forms makes my mouth dry.
I try to stand, thinking maybe I’ll run, but there’s a heavy weight on my arm keeping me grounded. Mathilda’s hand clutches me brutally, even as she pitches her voice so syrupy sweet.
“So kind of you to join us, Rhorkanterannu. Please pardon the ramblings of my lunatic granddaughter. Though she wasn’t ever the most enlightened conversationalist, she has been badly out of practice for quite some time.”
“Locked up, chained and shackled by her own grandmother,” I spit, though why I think he’d care is beyond me. In this case, the buyer is just as bad as the seller. Or nearly. Though, to my knowledge, he hasn’t killed any human females.
Yet.
Rhorkanterannu snorts out of his broad nose. It is strangely human, like his mannerisms…but these are the only human things about him. He is, otherwise, the embodiment of carnage. Offight. A battle to the death and, more importantly, its victor.
He wears scars across his plates like badges of pride, and that is almost all he wears except for the thick pant-like things hanging low enough on his hips to reveal deep V muscles carved into his abdomen. They are grey, his pants, and match his skin in both color and unpleasant-looking textures. They look hard and gritty.Maybe because they need to be thick enough not to allow the many weapons that hang from his belt to rip through his plates or his skin beneath.The thought makes me shudder. Why does a male like him who is already a living weapon need more weapons to defend himself?Not to defend, to eradicate…
His hairless, ridged pate catches the sun as he stares past me and Mathilda at whatever’s directly behind me.
“Rhork,” Deena says again, calling him a name that I have trouble placing until I remember that hisfullname isRhorkanterannu.But why is Deena calling him Rhork, and why is she speaking to him with such familiarity?“You can’t take Svera.”
Rhorkanterannu’s expression betrays nothing. His stare is just pinned to Deena.
“Sheisn’t willing, Rhork. Mathilda is trying to get rid of her for her own gain.” I hear thrashing again and Rhorkanterannu goes dangerously still as Deena emits a pained gasp behind me.
His gaze narrows. Does everyone see how his lower right arm flits towards the blaster on his belt? It makes me feel like we are all very, very close to death. “I do not tolerate harm to females,” he says and I haven’t forgotten when he said something like that to me once before. Right before he slaughtered the male who wounded my cheek. I reach up and touch the scar.
Behind me, Deena laughs wildly,sadistically. “What are you planning to do to Svera ifnotharm her? You think she’s going to enjoy going through a shekurr with you and your giant shroving cock?” It takes me until then — hearing her curse in Meero — to realize that she’s been speaking entirely in Meero this whole time.
How? What…is going on here?
