Page 67 of Taken to Lemora
Our captor nods and when Tyto licks his lips, I look away. “Let me see her.”
A few switches of the controls and a black spark flashes, blinding me momentarily. Tyto hisses louder, his tail emitting a faint rattle that I can hear all around me. “You’ve punished her?”
The nameless male nods.
“She was misbehaving?”
Another nod.
Tyto’s voice thickens with lust. “She will need morecorrectingwhen I receive her, then.”
Even though it wasn’t a question, my captor — the male whobeatme — shakes his head. He only shakes his head once, though. Perhaps, he misunderstood the question.
Tyto doesn’t seem to notice. He says, “You’ll meet me this lunar in Wasteland, as planned?”
Wasteland? I hope to the stars that isn’t a place…and I hope against hope that he doesn’t mean to take me there even though I know he does. Maybe I always knew. The moment I cut my hand on the window, I knew I’d never really escape him.
I touch the cut across my hand, fingering it for strength, as I watch my captor nod. Just as quickly he brushes his fingertips over the controls and the sands fall down, taking the picture of Tyto with them.
A few touches later, the sounds of that distressed female voice returns. The male above the controls closes his eye. His nostrils flare. He takes a deep breath in and on his exhale, his shoulders relax down his back just a little bit. Relief or something more maleficent? I’m not sure. I don't know who she is, either. Is she another victim for Tyto and Igmora? I wonder why Igmora isn’t doing the talking with this Sky savage. She always does the talking.
“Any luck, Tintin?” Banging, loud clanging, and what sounds like metal boring against metal. “Shrov! Don’t do that. Give it here. Wait, wait, wait… Do you have my stash?” Our captor flinches. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen any emotion in him at all.
“Ontte, I want it…ontte! The timing does call for it. You see this dot here? That means he’s closing in on us! Shrov!” The female’s curse cuts out at the same time that the ship beneath us smashes into something else.Or latches on.
I don’t know much about ships or space travel, but I know that this must be a rare piece of technology for it to move as quickly as it does and to be able to fly undetected.It must be, otherwise Raingar would have found me by now.Our captor goes to the hatch.He will come for me.He throws it open.I’m his Xiveri…
“Hey, Jer,” comes the friendly quip in a female voice before…BOOM!
A beam of green light flashes into the chamber, hitting the male in his metal shoulder and taking him off of his feet. He spins through the air and hits the ceiling before falling down just a few paces from me. He ambles slowly onto his feet, almost lazily, like he doesn’t care at all about the Niahhorru pirate bursting through the port hole in the floor or the Lemoran male that follows him in.
And that Lemoran is one I know with every fiber of my being.
“Raingar!” I scream.
He turns to me immediately and, seeing me, his eyes widen. Some of the fight that had inflated the bloated muscles in his arms and powerful thighs deserts him. He pivots away from the half-metal, half-Drakesh threat and stomps angrily to me and, before I know what’s hit me, he’s crouching at my feet and slamming both palms flat on the wall on either side of my face.
“Khaneyetooshyo,” he says in a voice too gravelly to understand. He chokes to clear it. “Can I touch you? Are you hurt? Where did he touch you? Did he hit you here?” His fingers are so delicate, so soft as they stroke my forehead, leading down to my injured cheek. I don’t wince, not at all, and I recognize this for what it is — a departure from the male who once wanted only pleasure from me.
This male is, just maybe,ready.
And I am more than ready. I’ve been waiting.
I throw myself into his chest and wrap my arms around his neck. In the meantime, more and more creatures have flooded the space and they’re of all kinds.
The first Niahhorru pirate is joined by three more and Raingar is joined by Merquin and Tana. They form a protective barrier around us, so I only spy through their legs, spread in defensive stances, the Eshmiri reaver horde that floods what little space that’s left. There must be over twenty of them even though this ship clearly holds no more than one creature comfortably — or three, if two are imprisoned and ignored.
I glance over to my mystery co-prisoner, certain that she’d be screaming by now at the onslaught of seeing so many interstellar faces…and I’m not wrong. She’s shaking violently, tears wetting her cheeks, her pink lips are quivering and there are goosebumps all over her pale body. But she’s also in the cage of a pirate’s arms.
He’s whispering to her frantically, but she just keeps shaking her head again and again until eventually, she gasps one more time and faints. The pirate catches her and the heat radiating off of him is only rivaled by the heat flashing off of Raingar’s skin like solar flares.
“Look at me,Essmira,” he whispers, grazing just one finger along my jaw to turn my attention back to him. I meet his gaze, suddenly remembering the pain in my head, left cheek and right ribs. I try to uncurl myself, because the terribly condensed way I’m wedged is no help. “What are you…”
“Help me stand, please? My ribs. They hurt in this position.”
“He hit you,” he whispers so softly and so darkly he strains the language.
I cringe, pain exploding through me in small doses. “Yeffa.”
