Page 7 of Taken to Lemora
I stare down at the blood on my hands and the cuts slashing horizontally across them. “Essmira, you have to escape now. You don’t have any other choice. If Igmora sees you like this…if Tyto sees you…” And just as the first breath of fresh air caresses my face and neck, the doorknob behind me twists and the door swings inward and open.
I turn, jaw working, eyes growing wide and round in my face. Nob. Nobnobnobnobnobnobnobnob. “Essmira, this is it,” I snort in terror.
But when my gaze swings around and connects with the being who just stepped into the room, my breath gathers in my stomach like a series of knots I can’t free for an entirely new reason. This being isn’t Igmora or Tyto, but one whose picture Igmora showed me often. This is the Lemoran she said would buy me.
I exhale shakily, suddenly so relieved I could cry, and then I remember that I’m supposed to be making a good impression so that hedoesactually buy me. If he doesn’t, there’s a possibility I might still be sold to the Egama or the Oosa or maybe a surprise species Igmora’s prepared for me in secret and that’s even more gruesome than the ones who’ve spent the solar pawing at me.
“Calm down, Essmira,” I whisper quietly under my breath. I pray he can’t hear it. I don’t want him to think I do this often, though I do, or that I’m crazy, which…after a lifetime in captivity, I might be.
I stiffen and straighten and carefully fold my fingers over the fresh cuts in my hands and offer him a bow, rather than the Lemoran greeting, which would require me to show him my injured hand. He might not want me if he sees the cut on my hand. Tyto always hated the few times I got scrapes.He liked licking them clean, though.
Hinging at the waist, I bow deeply, but when I try to step one foot in front of the other, the furry thing under my feet decides to keep rolling, this time, straight out from under me. …
I go flying across the furry carpet, landing hard on my right shoulder. My head hits the floor, springing painlessly off of the plush blue and yellow carpet. A strangled grunt hits my ears and I groan instead of reassuring it.A female must always reassure the male, even when he is wrong. It’s very important for his pride and this fragile beast should be protected above all things. It is your duty as his pleasurer to bolster it, even at the expense of your own.
I wonder distantly if this is what Tyto taught Igmora, what Igmora taught Tyto, or what they taught one another. She always seemed like the Alpha between the two of them and if Tyto ever frightened her, she did not let it show.
“I’m fine, truly,” I say, but the breath has been knocked out of me and my heart is hammering in my lungs now, making my words unintelligible. Tears come to my eyes as I fight for my next breath and then gulp it in greedily, making unattractive sounds in the back of my throat.
“Ohr! Stay where you are,” an angry voice grumbles before hands that are just as rough, just as angry as the voice they belong to, fit to my shoulders and pick me up like a grain sack.
Dooth. That’s the sound my feet make when he sets me down and, though the room spins, I force myself to remain upright.A female must always be graceful. It helps reassure the male, providing him with essential comfort.I force a smile.A female must always smile, it…
I open my eyes and have a tough time keeping my smile in place. This male, he ismuchbigger than he appeared in the holo images Igmora showed me though I doubt, looking at him now, that an image would have ever done him justice.
He carries a history with him written in the rings of his eyes. There are so many of them. White on the outside, like mine, but then black and blue and purple and grey and orange and yellow and pink and in the very center, an iridescent green that flashes blue when the light strikes it.
His eyes are, in a word, beautiful. Even if the rest of him is too rough to use such a descriptor.
He has the same rough skin the Egama have, only his shoulders are blockier, almost stone-like in their roughness. His cheeks are high and his lips are full and a pale brown against his medium-brown skin. He doesn’t seem to have hair anywhere because his pate gleams bald between twin horns that loop so huge past his cheeks and then up above the top of his head that it’s a wonder he can see out of his peripheries.
His chest is even deeper than my shoulders are wide and appears to be completely solid…as solid as stone. I have a hard time processing whether this being before me is truly made out of the same blood and bone I am or if he’s just rock all the way through. I have to fight the urge to lift a hand and touch his arm to see for myself, but then I recognize that the temperature around me has increased with his presence, so I must assume that, if he is stone, it’s at least got a pulse.
I stay my touch and remind myself that even though males like to be touched by females, it should be on the male’s command at the time of their choosing. This is what females do.Females who don’t want to end up on their backs in pleasure houses. If I play my tokens correctly, this male could be theonlymale I have to pleasure.
And it would not be a tragedy.
So far, he has not touched me inappropriately or done me any harm. He hasn’t even shot me a lascivious leer. He’s just watching me like I’m a…like I’m any other member of the delegation outside, even though these are the Quadrants’ most esteemed leaders and traders and I’m but a thing to be traded.
He looks at me like I’m real.
My cheeks warm at the thought and a sudden burst of nerves wash over me. I could mess this up. He could decide not to bid and I could go home with the Egama, at best, and that’s only if he wants me now that I’ve been so foolish as to cut myself.Males like unblemished females. Your skin should and will be perfect for me.That’s what Tyto always used to tell me though, in Igmora’s presence he’d amend himself to say that I’d need to be perfect for when theysellme.
Pushing thankfully away from thoughts of Tyto, I lift my gaze from his chest, past the worn out collar of his cream-colored tunic with the frayed olive stitching around the neck, up over his chin which is hard and smooth, his mouth, wide-set nose, back up to his eyes. My heart beats faster. His eyes are so pretty. I could pleasure this male, I think quite suddenly. My mouth opens and I realize with horror that my next words are going to be to tell him just that.
I clamp my mouth shut and am aghast when he’s the one to speak first.It is the female’s job to speak first and smooth out the conversation. The male does not need to trouble himself with this.
“Are you hurt?” He speaks to me in Meero, but I can tell it is not his native language. Nob, his native tongue is the same one that was bred into me from the start.
I offer him another deferential bow before making the quick switch into Lemoran. “I am perfectly fine, thank you so much for asking. You’re very kind.”
I stand and meet his gaze and attempt a smile. It’s strange how much more difficult this is out from in front of a mirror. I’ve practiced this smile with a thousand different subtleties — perfected it, even — but faced with his scowl, it’s a little hard to remain confident in it. I’ve practiced that smile, sure, but this is the first time it’s been tested.And I cannot afford to fail now.
He narrows his gaze and takes a half step back. His own gaze wanders over my face, offering no critique or assessment. The other bidders were quite vocal in what they liked about me, but he is…silent. His flinty gaze passes to the window and then drops to the floor, like he’s searching for something.
Evidently unable to find it, his mouth puckers and his forehead wrinkles and his prominent yet hairless brows scrunch together over his nose. “What did you smash the window with?”
He cannot know that I tried to run.A female does not run. Not from Tyto. Not if she fears punishment.“I…” I swallow.A female is always elegant.“Pardon me?”
