Page 54 of Taken to Lemora
I grit my teeth, wanting her to stop thanking me for things. For everything. Wanting to rip out Igmora’s bloody throat for denying this perfect female something so small as this simple affection in the lunar. But I don’t.
I just fight my way through the dancing horde below and return with a pitcher of sweet water to find her fast asleep. I set the pitcher on the floor beside her bed and stack two cups next to it. Then I slide onto the bed beside her. She smells like bloodstone and like moss, like fresh dew — and now, like lobba. I am careful to wrap a sheet around her, not wanting to abrade her skin any more than I already have with the rough way I’ve handled her and I do just what she asked.
I form my body around hers and strap my arm across her chest. I squeeze her into the cavern of mine and I make her vows, scrolls and scrolls of them, that I will do better, that I will guide her through the wonders of this life, and that she will never hurt again.
She will live and I will not stop her.
13
Essmira
I wake with a start and with a sickening realization that there is a male in my bed and I will be punished for it brutally.
If Tyto finds out that I was with another male, even in sleep, he will make me run pleasure simulations for him for the next several solars, without rest, without food, without anything to drink. He’s done it before for offenses much less grievous.
My stomach roils and churns, turning over on itself like a wave. I lurch up and out of the male’s arms and stagger off of the bed. I double over.Oh stars. I’m going to be sick. I glance around and see a door against the right wall and try it, but it opens onto a ledge and beyond that is empty space.
I rush back inside and try the second door and find a chamber pot that smells…the smell is enough for my stomach to finally lose the battle to the bile raging within it. With a great heave over the chamber pot, I give it all up.
I heave and I heave…and I heave…I heave until I can’t heave anymore.
Eventually, I manage to stand up straight. I’m dizzy and disoriented and I’m not sure what to expect because I’ve never felt like this, so when I stagger dramatically into the main room only to be caught in arms, I’m quite shocked. I’m carried to a bed — nob, I’m carriedbacktothebed — by the male I know to be my master.
Wait a moment.
There’s no master. There’s no Tyto. Not anymore.
I am something else. Something that starts with anm…
“Stay here!” Raingar shouts in a panic, “You’re sick! You weren’t supposed to get sick! Lemoran don’t get sick from lobba! Here, drink this water and I’ll be back soon with food and a healer and all the things!” Stomp stomp, slam slam. He’s gone and I just lay there, wishing for the end.
My stomach bubbles and churns disgustingly and I get up when my body no longer allows me to lie still and I heave and heave and heave over a pitcher that’s been placed out for me. The water within has been emptied. For this purpose? I hope not. I’m miriga…and I’m ohringembarrassed.
Eventually — a miserable lifetime later — I’m dragged by my hair into the present. I recognize I’m in a room that I don’t recognize and that I shouldn’t be here because I escaped through the hatch with the rope Gorman told me to get out of the chest and last thing I remember before that is shouting at Raingar and him shouting at me.
Only we hadn’t been shouting anymore, had we? We’d reached a tenuous middle ground, that dangerous truce. And then he came for me. Flashes of memories come back. Raingar stomping by my side…dancing. He danced with me all through the lunar.
I want to go to him, shout at him, and tell him I forgive him…I want to do all of this, and then I want to lay down and die.
I make it to the door and then out onto the landing, which overlooks a room full of beings sprawled out across floor and benches and the one great table. I blink and in the haze, manage to spot a female I recognize.
“Charana,” I croak.
She lifts her face from the table, fins curling up as she grins. “Miriga,” she says, and then she tips her face forward. She has no differentiating marks from the males of her species, however, she is slighter and her eyes and mouth are both larger. Her fins aren’t as impressive, but that doesn’t make her any less impressive.
“I…” My stomach heaves and I slap both hands onto the table.
“Essmira, are you alright?”
“I’ve never…” I grip the edge of the wood so hard that my arm muscles burn all the way up to the elbows. “I’ve never…”
She starts to chuckle as she rises to her feet. Her hands grip my outer arms and give me a gentle squeeze. “Why don’t you go back to bed? Raingar’s been fretting around. He’ll have more water and food and likely every healer in his clan and the surrounding ones on your doorstep soon.”
“Raingar?” I shake my head and squeeze my eyes shut tight as another bout of nausea threatens to take me off of my feet. “I need to tell him…something…”
“Oh stars help you. You’ve never had spirits before, have you?” She gives me a dull pat on the arm.
“The…my sickness is from the ale?” Cursed thing!
