Page 6 of Taken to Lemora
Air! Wind! Fresh air. Not this perfumed princess piss. I stomp towards the exit, past the mok-biz table, past the Oosa coupling openly on some atrociously bright green benches. I shudder and it has nothing to do with how I feel seeing them and everything to do with the strange taste of the perfume in the air, which seems to be giving me an even more severe headache. The scent makes me frown.
I think about what Tevbarannos said about this newly discoveredhoomainspecies.Soft, he’d called them. I wonder if he means they’re like the Oosa or the Oroshi. I doubt that, though. He also called themalluringand very few would qualify the Oosa or the Oroshi as alluring, outside of their own species. I can’t picture her, but I pity her. Based on what Tevbarannos said, she’ll go to either an Egama warrior who’s likely to break her on their first coupling or an Oosa clan who’s equally likely to suffocate her with their blubber.
I’m still thinking about this sad female coupling with a blob or a beast when I reach the tunnel that leads to the exit and stomp down it. There are a few doors in this hall. Which did Igmora say to take? The one on the right? I can’t remember. There aren’t any beings here to ask — not that I would have asked even if there had been — so I pick the farthest door down the hall on the right and push the door open…
My jaw unhinges, easily this time. A hinge so well oiled that air flutters in and out of my gaping maw breezily. For a moment, I forget where I am. Not where. Who. I forgetwhoI am.
All I know is that this is not the exit and that my horns have discovered the very definition of pain and yet, I could not care any less.
The scent suffocates me and I inhale once, and then again for good measure and a ghastly thought occurs to me…
I don’t…hate this.
2
Essmira
My fingers are shaky and my heart is slamming against my chest. I’m sweating uncontrollably and a female never sweats.
Females don’t sweat, or shake or slam —bannnng. That’s the sound of my hand connecting with the latch on the window frame. Females don’t slam, but I’m slamming now.
I thought…I thought I could do this. I’ve been training for this my whole life. Igmora showed me pictures of every manner of being over the rotations and my body waspreparedto accommodate them. I thought my mind was too, but it isn’t. It really isn’t.
The Egama wassomuch taller than I thought he’d be. He was terrifying and worse, Igmora let him touch me despite Tyto’s protests and the Egama’s grip was rough, cruelly so. I know that Igmora isn’t my mother and I know that Tyto isn’t my father — they’ve made that exceptionally clear my entire life to this point — but I still mistakenly thought that they’d want to protect me better than this.
Tyto especially. I haven’t forgotten what he whispered in my ear when we disembarked. He told me I shouldn’t worry. That no male here would be able to match the price Igmora wants for me. He told me that soon, I’d be back in the safety of his nest, though I didn’t understand why he used the wordbackconsidering that Igmora had never let him take me there before. I asked him and he told me that soon, what Igmora thought wouldn’t matter at all. Then, he touched my back, touched my neck in ways that Igmora discouraged — that they’d fought over…
“Tyto, with your claws and your barbed tail, you’ll ruin the merchandise. She isn’t meant for you.”
This time though, she was too distracted to see it, already working her schemes to give me to the one male she said she’d planned for me all along and, in her absence, Tyto let his forked tongue trace my shoulder up to my ear. He shuddered and let his wandering claws cup my rear through my dress and I let him because I thought that it would be the last time and that my new master would treat me at leastdecentlyand that he would take me away from Tyto and his frightening stare and, more importantly, away from a life of captivity.
But then Igmora introduced the potential masters, with their wandering hands and violent eyes.
The only other bidders that offered enough to compete with the Egama were a clan of Oosa and, seeing them in the flesh, I’m revolted by the idea of letting their slippery blue skin enter me in between my legs —perhaps even more revolted than at the thought of spending a lifetime in Tyto’s nest, though I’m not fully sure yet.
The Oosas’ collective touch might not have been hard, but it was no less cruel than the Egama warlord’s. They touched everywhere, caring nothing for communication between us. Between themselves, the bright lights that illuminate their translucent bodies is communication enough. But my physiology doesn’t allow for that. Perhaps if there were some sort of translator…
“Oh! What are you saying?” I whisper out loud to myself in Lemoran, the language I’ve come to speak best over the rotations. “That you’dliketo bed an Oosa? Nob, you wouldn’t. They’re slimy and wet and Igmora said…” I wince dramatically, like I’ve been hit. It sort of feels like I have been.
Igmora made promises, showing me pictures of males with warriors’ builds, bulky arms and massive legs, horns shooting up into the sky in defiance of the stars, and rough, gruff faces built to intimidate, more than charm. I’d liked the look of those males, the Lemoran ones in particular. Perhaps, only because I’d been trained to, but I can’t deny the arousal I feel at the sight of their images.
But I was also trained to like the Egama…Niahhorru, too, and so far, my reality was all tentacles and gelatin, eyes as big as my torso, fins in alarming colors…mouths without tongues or teeth or worse, mouths with too many tonguesandteeth…
I shudder and beat my hand harder against the window. “This isn’t working.”
I quickly turn around and find a hideous statue on top of a monstrously decorated table. The statue is of a Quadrant One prince and was cast in a most unusual and, um,flatteringway. The little prince’s cock is as long as his two legs.
“Even this prince would have been better than the males who came to view me,” I snort — an unattractive sound Igmora didn’t manage to train out of me. All she did manage to instill in me was, at the involuntary sound, an immediate sense of shame to follow it.
I wince again and try to refocus. I lift the gold statue of the boy with limbs like mine and the same amount of eyes and teeth and ears, but skin that’s colored in gold and hair that’s every color found under this planet’s three suns. I’d have been fine with a golden rainbow for a mate so long as his voice was alittlekind and his touch was alittlegentle.
“Essmira, you don’t have time for this!” I can hear footsteps in the hall — either real or imagined, they’re terrifying. The latch on the golden window won’t come loose, so I focus on the glass and crack the prince’s golden head against it. A splinter appears in the bright pink glass and then shivers outward, like a spiderweb. I thump the statue against it again. My arm is shaking. The back of my neck is covered in sweat.What will Tyto do when he finds me?Tyto with his reptilian skin and barbed tail.He’s used that tail on me more than once, against Igmora’s wishes even, and it hurt badly every time. He wants me to run, just so Igmora will give me up to him and so that he can spend his lifetime punishing me…
“No. Don’t think like that.If…if he finds you. And he won’t. You can’t be found if you escape. I mean, when…when…” I snort again as my panic builds. My arm gets jerky but, as I bring the statue against the window pane a fourth time, it shatters.
I return the statue to its proper place on the hideous table, then grab the ottoman beside it and drag it below the window. I lift my heavy skirt and step up onto the thing, which is a little alarming because it’s green and very furry and possiblyalive. It rolls beneath me and I squeal, my hands reaching out to catch hold of something to keep myself upright. The first thing in my vicinity? The jagged window. I grab onto it and pain lances my palm immediately.
Nob. Nob nob nobnobnobnobnobnob. What have I done?
