Page 53 of Taken to Lemora
“Yeffa. I mean, nob, she was until…”
I’m pulled around by the chatter, but the words fade as more creatures start to cheer. I don’t know why they’re bloody cheering. I know it’s likely at my expense, but I can’t bring myself to cower out of this. I’m a rotten bastard, yeffa, but I’m a clan chief — not a coward.
“Raingar, you’ve got to loosen up a bit! Don’t be so stiff!” Pilla shouts. He’s on the ground below, still. No longer dancing, he’s at a table playing a game of mok bir, the less dramatic version of the Niahhorru game mok biz, played with sticks instead of tokens.
I shake my fist at him and release a snarl, but it’s Essmira who responds on my behalf in words I can’t seem to find. She reaches across my body, slides her two soft hands over each of my arms. She pulls my raised fist back against my body and ticks her chin up at him. “I happen to like our stiff clan chief and the way he moves his hips.” She winks at him and Willa, nearby, shrieks with laughter.
Was that…was thatinnuendo?Is she…perhaps lobba isn’t the problem then. She truly has gone mental!
My mind shorts. My skin sizzles. I will my cock not to rise, but as she moves against me more vigorously it betrays every command I give it. She twists and spins and sings and dances and I move my awkward giant body on the table, content to stamp and stomp and simply be mesmerized.
She has another wyrn of ale and I have another two. It isn’t enough to dull my sensitivity to her skin, but it is enough to drop the reserve I had about touching her. I keep touching her, catching myself and then flinching away.
She falls against my chest, spilling lobba all over me though she neither seems to care or notice. “You know, I’m not a delicate flower, my Lord.” Her voice is a little slurred and I’m a little worried.
“I know you’re not, miriga” I say, brushing some of the spilled ale away.
“Do you?”
“I…” I’m not sure. “I’m trying. I’m going to try.”
“Good. That’s all any of us can do, isn’t it, Raingar?”
I capture both of her palms against my chest to stop them from fluttering over my skin and making my carefully composed restraint unfurl. “Raingar. You called me Raingar.”
“And you called me miriga.” She leans against me. She’s struggling to stand. Her eyes are already starting to slink shut.
“Miriga, I think we should get you to bed.”
She doesn’t respond and, though I yearn to give her choices, I’mtryingand I use that as my excuse when I scoop her off of her feet and carefully carry her from the table to the floor, across the pub, to the stairs to the second floor and find an open sleeping chamber. I kick the door shut behind me and the movement jolts her awake. Her eyes meet mine in the moonlight shining in through the room’s twin windows, one on either side of the narrow bed.
This is it.
The decision rests with me. What kind of life will she lead? The same one she has led under Igmora and Tyto’s vile, repugnant rule? Or something else? Something wild and perfect for this wild and perfect creature.
“I will not stand in your way, Essmira. But I would, I mean, if you’ll still have me, like to be your guide. I am a clan chief here, and we aren’t like the Voraxians — I don’t have control over all the planets in this quadrant — and I’m no scummy Niahhorru pirate. I can’t give you the skies. But I can give you Lemora.
“I know that a female of your caliber deserves everything. The suns, the moons, every shooting star, but I can only offer you mine. Those that I have.” I cradle her with one arm and pull the blankets back before settling her on the room’s only bed.
In the moonlight, the sweat on her skin shimmers like the Lemoran mines just after a fresh harvest. She smiles and leans back and my muscles all twitch, firing with the urge to reach her, gather her up and rut her into oblivion, but I can’t do that. I shouldn’t have done anything to her. I should have just taken Librida and her mate’s ohring advice and let her be. Let her live.
“I would be honored to have you as my guide, Raingar.”
“Shh. I don’t need an answer. You won’t remember any of this when you wake, anyway. Just sleep for now. We can go back to fighting at solarbreak.”
“I don’t think I want to fight anymore. I think I just want to be happy. Isn’t that what you want?”
I nod, heart full to bursting as I touch her hair, her cheek, her nose, her neck. “Yeffa, Essmira. But I already am. Every moment in your presence.” I clear my throat, feeling awkward and sheepish. “I will just be at the door. Shout if you need me.”
“Raingar?”
“Yeffa?”
“Will you hold me in the lunar? I’ve never been held and I’ve always wanted to be.”
My throat gets tight. What a request. So small. So painful. I was planning on sleeping in front of her door to keep the riffraff out but I don’t bother explaining this to her now. From now on, whatever she wants the answer is, “Yeffa. I’ll just get you a pitcher of sweet water first. You’ll need it if you’ve had a lot of ale to drink.”
“Thank you.”
