Page 47 of Taken to Kor
He clears his throat. “Let’s keep going. There’s much to see.” He turns to the Eshmiri clustered beneath him, hands them a flat silver disc. While they giggle and trill over it, he starts forward, pulling me beneath his arm. “Gerannu needs to upgrade your token. The model you have is limited. With the newest edition, you’ll be able to pay for things as you need.”
“Pay for things? I don’t have any money.”
“You will be compensated for bringing us to the human satellite. You’ll be compensated well.”
I cringe. “That makes me feel dirty.”
Rhork stops abruptly, lifts my chin up and kisses me. His kiss is rough and unrestrained, full of a need I can feel down to my toes. It makes me whimper and makes my already feral libido rage out of control.
“There is nothing dirty about receiving bounties for a job well done. All the pirates aboard my ship receive bounties for whatever haul we bring in. The bounty this time can’t be sold and is for the betterment of our species. Thus, all pirates aboard my ship will receive bounties from any male or female who wishes to interact with the humans once we figure out a safe environment for them to do so. Your cut will be largest by far.”
“That still doesn’t seem right. Paying to let Niahhorru meet humans. What do you even mean by that? Shekurr?”
He shrugs and starts moving forward again. Before he does, he licks his lips slowly. “If that’s what they want.”
“And if it isn’t?”
He snarls and rounds on me again. “What are you asking, Deena? If I’d condone Niahhorru females raping human males? If I’d condone it the other way around? IfIrape females?”
“I…well, that’s what you were going to do to Svera!” My cheeks heat and I hate that the emotion I feel first isn’t anger, but jealousy.
He sighs out a laugh, shakes his head, looks off towards one of the tents where Eshmiri are hawking goods that look like long spears. It’s wild that even though the main thoroughfare that branches off towards so many tents is packed, there’s a bubble of space around us that no one dares to breach.
“Centare, Deena. I had no designs to force Svera to do anything. She knew that and called my bluff.”
“So, what would you have done with her then?”
“Nothing. Held her captive, perhaps. Forced her to drink the black fil you detest so much. Eventually, I’d have had to return her home. Why do you think I let her go and went after you instead?”
“Let her go?”
He smiles. “You think I couldn’t feel the yeeyar activate in the second escape pod? It was a good plan of yours. You did force me to choose to go after one or the other. But it was always you. How could you not know that?” He tilts his head, lifts his skein, and even though he isn’t touching me, I can feel his hands like the whispers of ghosts, caressing me everywhere.
And then he says, “How quickly can humans fall in love?”
My eyes bug out of my head. “Are you already in love with one of the humans in the tanks?” I say because the alternative terrifies me.
“Are you insane?” He says and I nod. Mathilda said I was my whole life and she’s the smartest female I know. The worst, but also the most brilliant. “Ontte, you must be. Even if you had not heard me clearly back on my ship when I had your legs spread open beneath me, that is your first leap? The most obvious conclusion you draw is that I fell in love with one of the humans in the tanks with tubes coming out of their butts and who look dead?”
When I don’t say anything, but gawk, Rhork shakes his head. He looks frustrated again, but also quite sad. Like I’m some sort of tragic project. Hopeless. Maybe irreparably. “The fact that you refuse to see the obvious is heartbreaking. But I’m a pirate, Deena. I’m too stubborn to let you break my heart. So I’m going to tell you this now, even if you aren’t ready for it, because I need you to hear me.
“I am in love with you. I don’t know how long I’ve been in love with you, but it started before I even saw you. Every move I’ve made since your voice illuminated my token and my whole world has been to retrieve you from your prison so I can have you.
“At first, I believed I wanted to honor you with shekurr but, when I saw you, I no longer did. Because seeing you wield a blaster like a maniac and protect yourself like a wild beast and kill like an assassin made me sure that I did not want to share you. It’s not a common sensation, and one I’ve been struggling to grapple with but, now that I’m certain, there is no going back.
“You are my female. My mate. Mine. I won’t share you and you won’t share me. There are no more shekurrs in my future. There are no shekurrs in your future ever. There is only me and my cock and our kits and our ship and Kor, mother to us both even though we come from different stars.
“Now, no more doubt. I’m bored of it and there is one thing that pirates are not, and that is boring. So, I don’t want to hear anymore shroving shrov about other females, shekurr, your shroving warrior’s mark or whatever health issue you seem to see that I don’t. If you want something, take it. Use whatever weapons you have at your disposal, including me. I am yours to wield however you want. Now come. How do you feel about gambling?”
He slides his hand behind my neck and pushes me forward. My feet are numb beneath the blue goop. I feel like the planet’s gravity has suddenly given out and I’m half-floating, half-flying. I’ve got this goofy grin on my face now and my heart is doing this jerky little mambo in my chest, dancing to a song of my own making.Plants! Plants! Plants rhymes with pants! Gambling shmambling! Gambling is rambling! Rumbling. Bumbling. I like tents…
“Good,” I say distantly, voice entirely divorced from my body. I look up at him and he’s watching me smile like a loon, so I quickly look away. But I peek. “I like gambling,” I say, even though I’ve never gambled before.
Only that’s not true, is it? I gambled once, less than a moment ago, when I gambled on whether or not to believe him, threw the dice, and burned down the casino walling my heart without waiting to see what I rolled.
I glance up at him with more surety, grab his wrist, force him to stop and turn my face up towards his. I grab the spine behind his neck and wrench his face down to mine. I kiss him hard and with force and without caring what my stomach looks like or what the fin-faced Hydra think of us.
“I’m in, Rhorky bear,” I say, voice cracking.
