Page 48 of Taken to Kor
He growls and takes control of the kiss. Our tongues collide and he pulls me up against him and I’m pretty sure his intent is to swallow me whole.
And I’m in for all of it.
11
Rhork
It’s the seventh solar that I’ve come back from dealings in the city to find Deena at the mok-biz roulette. It’s a game involving holographic chips thrown directly at other players. It gets complicated because there are a fixed number of throws per round depending on the limb count of the thrower and the limb count of the throwee. Side bids can also be placed — meaning side chips can be thrown — to deflect throws or deflect throws and hit other players.
This solar, Deena is joined by twelve other players and twice as many spectators. The jumbled group is composed of Niahhorru, Eshmiri, two Lemoran females — distinguished by their enormous horns — an Oroshi, half a dozen Hypha, and a cluster of Egama who take up the same amount of space at the table as all of the other players combined.
I sidle up next to Herannathon, standing up on a raised arena-style seat. Most beings litter the gambling floor, but some spectators watch from this raised railed section. This one, specifically, belongs to Niahhorru. A female I’ve known for rotations is present and watching, too.
“Meghanora,” I say, giving her a respectful nod.
She smiles and her round cheeks make her eyes slit. Niahhorru females look nothing like the males. In fact, they look quite a lot like Deena. Full hips and breasts, soft middles, their tines are a lot like Deena’s hair, but much thicker, hanging like oily ropes down the backs of their heads and trailing down their spines to their full rears. Meghanora is a beautiful female, one I’ve had the pleasure of participating in shekurr with, but no kits came of it.
“I just came to see the human. Rumors are going around that you managed to find the lost satellite.”
I smile, careful with the information I divulge. Not that it matters. I’ve heard the rumors flying and am aware that we have little time before the mothership is ransacked. I’ve been pleased that, while I attend to the matters of Kor, my pirates have been able to keep Deenaandthe humans aboard the mothership well protected.
“It has been found, ontte.”
Her eyes light and her skein lowers. She turns to face me and the gormar fabric she wears shimmers, draping elegantly over her full form. “I have also heard that you kept the males.”
“Hmm. Have you now?”
“Rhorkanterannu, please, don’t tease me.” She steps forward and places one hand on the railing, the other on my lower right forearm. “You, of all beings, should know my interest in them. Just tell me how much it will cost to make an introduction. Where are they now? Why haven’t you brought them planetside?” She tenses, releases my arm, backs away. “Don’t tell me — is there something wrong with them?”
I laugh and place one hand on her shoulder, giving it a light, affectionate squeeze. “There is nothing wrong with them.” Except for the tubes feeding into their rear ends, the tanks that they’re trapped in and their complete lack of knowledge of the events of the past several hundred rotations. “And I swear to you, Meghanora, as soon as they’re ready, you’ll be among the first introduced.”
Her cheeks sag down her face in a way that makes my chest clench. She looks so disappointed and I am not in the business of disappointing females. “We can’t do better than this, yet. I’m sorry.”
She shrugs, but I can sense that her disappointment has not been eased. “You and your pirates are being awfully cagey about all of this,” she bristles. “I don’t know why you don’t just tell us how many there are and why you’re waiting. It’s been solars, Rhorkanterannu, and I’m sure you’ve already shared with the human female.”
I balk and cross my upper arms. “She is first a pirate,thenmy female. Not to mention, she is responsible for the discovery of the human satellite. Of course she knows.”
That perks her interest. She turns towards me more fully then and steps closer to me in order to be heard over the renewed shouting.Diekennoranu appears on my left and shoves against my back with the force of his exclamation. “That was an illegal toss! The bid is Deena’s!” No one can hear him but me and Herannathon and Meghanora and the half dozen others gathered here in this spectator’s section, but it still makes my heart swell to hear him — among many Niahhorru pirates — cheering for her.
I glance down at the betting table to see Deena on her knees on top of it shaking a fist angrily at the Egama warrior on the table across from her. He’s pointing angrily back at her, rising to each of her challenges in a way that makes me laugh given that she’s a quarter his size, possibly smaller, and he still seems caught in her shadow.
All of the Niahhorru around the table are backing her up and I can sense a fight about to break out and I’m eager to see how this plays out.
Deena is first to draw her weapon. Aside from the gambling pits, the Niahhorru armory has been her favorite place so far. We found her a weapon she likes — several dozen of them. She has a particular affinity for blasters but, as my aim is not to start an intergalactic war, I thought it better to outfit her with a small radi-blaster, which stuns smaller adversaries and is more of a nuisance to the bigger ones, as well as a lightning stick in case she’s ever battling an opponent up close.
Naturally, she withdraws the lightning stick first and starts running across the table towards the Egama, full speed. This section of the Cosmos Dome shatters into a riot and I laugh, watching Niahhorru rise up to defend their fellow pirate — even if she’s wrong — and Egama rise up to defend their kinsman and the rest either choosing sides based on who they think will win, or standing back and betting on the outcome.
Herannathon andDiekennoranujump the bannister and throw themselves headlong into the fray. Weapons remain stowed and I know that this is not a real fight by the fact that the Egama being challenged is grinning — something few of the moss-skinned Egama are known to do.
I stay where I am as a comfort to Meghanora. Niahhorru females aren’t warriors. They’re coddled and kept safe, considered nearly sacred in our culture. Watching Deena zap the Egama giant with her lightning stick and duck when he swats at her with his oversized hand, fills my chest with that same rush of pride that’s almost become more normal for me than any other sensation.Mine.The thought sticks, like putty. It feels good. There are few things that feel better and all of those things involve Deena on her back in my net.
I haven’t spent inside of her yet. We haven’t had the chance. Between her need to “catch up on sleep,” as she calls it, though I have no idea how sleep can be caught — it would seem to me that sleep is either lost or had and past or future actions have no bearing on its current status, though Deena rebuffs this line of logic — and the chaos that is Kor’s management, plus new security I’ve had to install on the mothership and its port, I haven’t had time to do more than massage and touch and lick. And I want more.
This lunar, I promised myself more.
“So, it’s true,” Meghanora says, voice growing dangerously wistful.
“Hm?” I have a hard time looking away from Deena, waving her stick wildly on the table. A Hypha, it looks like, got her with its finned fist, and half a dozen Niahhorru responded in kind. She’s ambling up off her back, none the wearier, and is heading back to the Egama to shout at him some more.I wish I hadn’t taught her how to turn off her updated token. I wish I could hear her.
