4. Chapter Four
Chapter Four
E lyse
I didn’t sleep well last night. I tossed and turned and scolded myself with a thousand self-recriminations. For four years I’ve been deprived of affection, gentle touch, words of encouragement or praise, but why did I allow that kiss? That embrace? I can be so foolish—and stupid and needy and selfish.
What we are going to need for us to not only survive but be happy for the next fifty or so years is a firm foundation to the marriage based on friendship, not lust. What’s worse than having to be in enforced intimacy with a mate you just met? Being in enforced intimacy with him and miserable forever .
I need to back the fuck down, put this relationship in its place, and figure out where we’re going to live after Paragon.
Wrage isn’t an ogre. He’s smart and can be nice. I need to keep him sane and agreeable so we can figure out how to manage the shitstorm that is at the center of our lives. The last thing either of us needs is to have a quick fling and then nurse hurt feelings for the next half-century. That won’t do.
Of course, I wake to a naked someone’s arm slung across my waist, his morning woody poking the small of my back.
I know he’s awake when he jackknifes so his hips are chastely separated from my body, then his warm breath drifts across my face. After rubbing one of his buttons across my cheek, he rumbles, “No one smells as delicious as Elyse.”
A long and loud debate commences in my head. The part of me that’s instantly aroused by just his proximity wants kisses—and more. The sane part wants to inform him that we need to keep this partnership all business. There’s whining, begging even, as my weaker self wheedles for just a few more kisses, but reason prevails.
I turn to face him and heave a sigh. The look on his face would be comical, except it telegraphs his disappointment. He slams on brakes, morphing in an instant from lusty arousal to apprehension at what’s obviously coming next.
“I’ve been giving this a lot of thought . . .” I can almost hear him thinking ‘that’s never a good sign’. “Don’t you think it would be a good idea for us to develop a harmonious relationship? If we are going to be together forever, we need a good foundation, a solid working relationship, based on mutual trust and respect, not lust. So, I think we should be platonic friends and not let emotions get involved.”
Clang. If my hearing was better, I think I could actually hear the walls being erected inside his mind. Those muscles in his face that relaxed last night during the kiss become hard as steel before my eyes.
The golden glow in his gorgeous eyes dims, leaving a pale imitation of what he beamed at me last night.
“If you say so.”
“It’s just—”
“We should get dressed. We meet the males in thirty minimas ,” his voice is hard and emotionless as he rises from the bed and walks to the shower. He doesn’t bother to hide his nudity. My mouth goes dry at the beauty of the globes of his ass.
Wrage
I’m an ass. An ignorant, gladiator ass. Needy. Too hasty to trust. Too quick to open myself. How could I fail to notice this female has no heart?
I may have been drunk as Phager’s reen that night, but she wasn’t. She mated me knowing full well what she was doing. It was a premeditated scheme to gain her freedom, Wrage be damned. Well, now we’re both damned. Damned to a miserable life together.
She wants a relationship devoid of passion? Devoid of feelings? A harmonious platonic relationship? That she shall have.
An hoara later, we’re approaching the shore of a magnificent ocean. I’ve fought in arenas where I could smell the water milles away, but I never got a glimpse. The view from this distance takes my breath away. The salty smell almost overwhelms my mreen , but I choose to embrace the fragrance rather than fight it. Besides, it overpowers the delicious, sexy scent of Elyse sitting at my side.
I was rescued two lunars ago with fourteen others. We’re all gladiators, still reeling from the change. Slaves most of our lives, we were suddenly freed with no warning. It might sound like the answer to our prayers, but it’s not easy learning to make decisions when you’ve never been allowed to make them before.
Gladiators tend to be a rowdy bunch. We can be loud and crude. Elyse is smashed to my side on the hover-bus. If we had a different relationship, I’d put my arm around her and bring her into the conversation. Right this minima I’d be explaining things. At the very least, I’d calm her.
As it is, though, I sit straight and join in the crass talk. Let her get used to it. She doesn’t want to be lovers? By the sound of it, she doesn’t even want to be friends. She wants to be business partners? It’s everyone for themselves.
“Tell me again,” Maximus says. “Exactly how did you manage to get mated the first night you’ve had an hoara alone since we gained our freedom?” He gives Elyse little more than a hasty glance.
“I’ve since been told havaché affects Wryth’Ns ten times more than other species.” I shrug. I learned my first day in the ludus where I trained as a gladiator, not to let anyone see your discomfort. If they do, they’ll tease you mercilessly.
“Bad luck.” Now he looks my little companion up and down. “When’s the divorce?”
“We’re giving it a try,” I say, wanting to put an end to his interrogation.
“When you get tired of it, I’ll give it a try,” he licks his lips, and even though he’s sitting down, I know he’s lewdly pumping his hips, mimicking sex. “Just tell me when you want to get rid of the little Morganian. She looks a lot like your last one.”
I almost jump at his bait but know it’s useless. He’s not even being rude. He’s just being a gladiator.
“What makes you think we’re not madly in love?” she asks, her voice so loud and direct that every head in the bus swivels toward her.
Max laughs, throwing his head back in a hearty roar. “I never thought of Wrage as loveable.”
“Well, he is.” With that, she plants a long, hard, seemingly heartfelt kiss on me.
My comrades laugh and hoot and whistle as her kiss continues, her fingers twining in my hair. I have no idea what she’s up to. She’s going to drive me insane with being hot and cold and hot again, but I decide it’s fair to respond in kind. My hand cups the back of her neck as I penetrate her mouth with my tongue, grunting with the satisfaction of tasting her again.
We must be doing a good job, because the males all turn to look out the front window, leaving us to our lust.
Moments later, the driver has parked the hover-bus and we’ve emptied out onto the sand. I get a quick moment to appreciate the fragrant breeze wafting in off the ocean before we’re marched to our tour.
“Okay,” a tiny female Crichen says. Her skin is such a pale blue you can almost see through it. Her wings are flicking slowly behind her back even though she’s standing on the ground. “You reserved fourteen balfour rides. It looks like someone miscounted. You,” she points to Elyse as I release her from another kiss, “you want your own balfour or want to ride tandem with the male who can’t refrain from sticking his tongue down your throat?”
“Um . . .” She looks at the balfours. They’re large and ungainly. You wouldn’t think they could fly except they’re giving rides to people up and down the beach and out over the ocean.
“Tandem,” I say. Elyse nods her head in agreement.
It seems the only way to keep her sweet and compliant is to have my tongue between those pretty pink lips.
Minimas later we’ve been instructed on how to fly the beasts, Elyse is safely belted in front of me, and I press my feet into its side to tell it to fly—and it does!
“Gods!” I breathe as we rise from the shore. I’ve never felt anything like this. It’s what I always thought freedom would feel like—only better. The wind on my face and in my hair is amazing. There are stars of sunlight twinkling on the water below. The smell is overpowering; it almost burns my mreen , but it’s tangy and screams at me that I’m alive.
Elyse is belted so close to me her back presses against my front. Leaning down, I murmur in her ear, “How are you doing?”
“This is amazing!” she calls to me, her words caught and carried to me by the wind.
Her long brown hair, driven by the breeze, pelts against my chest. Closing my eyes, I try to capture this moment. I saw a vid once of someone pressing flowers between the pages of a book. I want to press this memory into the crevices of my mind.
The smell, that’s what I’ll remember first. Then the feel of the breeze. The feeling of freedom—it’s wild and banishes all other thoughts from my mind. But then it’s Elyse. Elyse in a small, beautiful package, her hips pressed against mine. And then I hear it—laughter bubbling out of her mouth.
“It’s magical, Wrage.”
I know she’s not mad at me when she says my name. I’ll press her happiness into this memory to look at later. She’s already warned me we’re not to be lovers. But this moment is a good one. I want to remember it.
“There.” She points down the shore, there aren’t as many people in that direction. “So beautiful.” Her hands grab my thighs, her fingers spanning them as if our physical intimacy is as natural as breathing.
We fly like this a while in silence. Enjoying the beauty and the endless expanse of the ocean.
Reaching up to pet the balfour, Elyse begins to scream. I wouldn’t call it a scream at first, it’s more like a howl. Then it rises in volume and pitch until it’s a screech. Her hands keep stroking the balfour as she calms him, willing him to keep flying even through her outburst.
At first, he turned his head to inspect her, his eyes wide in fright. But now that he’s used to it, her fingers still sliding through his short fur, he just keeps going in the direction I point him.
I don’t know what to make of this, but decide to keep heading farther down the beach, waiting to see what comes next.
“Fuck you, Urluts!” she screams. Urluts are known far and wide as the major players in the human slave trade. They must have been the ones who stole her from her home. “Fuck you! Fuck you!” her voice is torn from her mouth by the wind.
“And fuck you Blizen. You shitbag rapist. And Mrzz. And you too Plivik. And Drenken, you dirty pink asshole.” She’s mumbling now. Maybe her curses at her owners have become too personal to share. I feel a tiny splash of moisture on my cheek and know the wind has splattered me with one of her tears.
She continues her rant as we fly away from the crowd. When her muscles, so tight from screaming begin to relax, I peek around to see her face. It’s red and covered in tears.
“Don’t worry. That helped. I’ll be pulled together before we get back to the balfour station,” she reassures me.
“I don’t worry what others will think, Elyse. I worry that you’re alright.”
She turns to look at me, sneaks a peek at the sincerity on my face, and gives me the tiniest smile imaginable.
She looks like she just released a thousand dextans of pain and rage.
I envy her, wanting the relief she’s found. Without thinking, certainly before I give myself permission to show my private self to anyone, much less to a mate who doesn’t want my love, anger spirals in my bowels and whirls like a tornado that I need to vomit out of my mouth.
“ Drack you, MarZan cartel, who stole me from my home,” I scream. “ Drack you ludus of Tre’Val who turned me into an angry fighting machine.” I shout the words so loud they tear my throat. It makes me want to scream even louder. “ Drack you, Plenum of Trent who used my skin and my skill and stole my dracking heart in the process.”
“And drack you, Sibyl,” Elyse shouts when I’m done. “ Drack you for hurting this good male.”
She turns in my arms and presses a kiss to the flesh at my throat above my open shirt. “You’re a good male, Wrage,” she says as she cups her palm to my cheek, then faces front again.
My throat is on fire, but my heart feels open for the first time since I was fifteen. “That’s right, drack you Sibyl,” I holler, then feel a flood of relief.
We only paid for an houra, but I continue to head farther down the shore, feeling lighter than I ever have. Something broke free in Elyse, too. I feel it in her muscles as she leans against me. She unleashed a lot. Perhaps she released some of her anger at me as well.
When I turn back toward our destination, something feels different. I reach a hand to my face to feel the muscles under the skin. They’re relaxed, perhaps for the first time ever.
“I feel like I ran a marathon,” she says after turning toward me.
“Why did you kiss me on the hover-bus?” I ask. I’ve wanted to know since it happened, but didn’t think she’d answer. I know she will now.
“They were giving you shit. I wanted them to stop. You’re a good male. You don’t deserve their ridicule. For better or for worse I’m your mate. Claiming you as mine seemed the best way to stop them.” She said this like it was no big deal, that it was just for show. But her kisses and small caresses tell a different story.
I bend to kiss the top of her head, partly to reward her thoughtfulness and partly to hide my smile. She’s my female. She may not know it yet, but she’s mine. This little human who pretends she’s so angry at me tried to protect me from the mockery of fourteen huge gladiators. For the first time since Analac informed us that there was absolutely no way out of our predicament, I wonder if perhaps there might be, after all.
Elyse
I feel better than I have since I was abducted. More free. Not that I’m free—I’m mated. To a male I hardly know and sometimes don’t even like. But Wrage has proven a lot to me in the last few days. He’s been kind and it appears he doesn’t want to harm me. We might just be able to make this work.
As we stand in line, still holding our balfour by the reins, waiting to pay the pale blue wrangler, I pet the beast’s muzzle. It’s like velvet. The animal looks vaguely like a camel with mostly caramel coloring and the same build, except for the wings.
“Did the wrangler tell you its name?” I ask.
“What does it matter?”
I inspect his face. He’s not being flippant, he doesn’t understand why I’d ask.
Although his gaze is on the wrangler as he waits to pay for our extra time, I grab his full attention when I slip my hand into his.
“That’s how you’ve been treated your entire adult life, isn’t it? Just an animal. A piece of flesh to order around and use.”
He tips his head, his brows furrow as he considers my words.
“Your life is different now. It has worth. So does mine. So does this gentle balfour here who just gave us the most amazing ride.”
His eyes flash open, then shutter closed as he nods slowly. When his eyes reopen, his hand joins mine, petting the animal's silken muzzle which is the color of cocoa.
“When she saddled him, the wrangler said his name is Tockers.” He leans and whispers into the animal’s ear. I’d love to know what he’s saying. By the look of things I wonder if he’s thanking him for the ride.
“Thanks Tockers,” I say.
As Wrage pays, I notice a little vending machine that dispenses treats for the balfours at shockingly inflated prices. Before I can mention it, Wrage approaches, sticks his credits card in the machine, and gives me half the kibble to feed Tockers whose tongue is surprisingly agile—and slimy.
We have hours before we’re to meet everyone back at the bus, so we decide to swim. When we stopped to buy clothes on the way back from the restaurant last night, we both bought swimsuits. We climb into the bus where we left them.
“I’ll hold this towel around you, you can change here,” Wrage says.
I stare at him, wondering if this is a trick. He’s wearing his innocent face. Maybe too innocent.
He’s easily a foot taller than me. Holding the towel around me will keep prying eyes at ground level away from me—but not his.
“You have to promise not to peek.”
“But you’re my mate,” he objects.
“I’m your mate in name only,” I remind him.
Sometimes I wonder if I can read minds, because it’s almost as if I hear him saying, ‘but not for long’.
“I promise,” he says levelly. “I was just teasing.”
“Teasing, my ass.”
He holds a big, fluffy beach towel around me, keeping it so tight around my neck even I can’t see myself. I manage to shimmy out of my clothes and into the two-piece suit by feel alone.
“Okay. You can let me out.” When I glance at him I see his eyes are closed. I’d assumed he was watching every move I made, waiting for a peek. It strikes me that maybe I can trust this male. That would be a first. Even before my epic adventure of kidnap and enslavement I never had a man in my life I could actually trust.
“You didn’t peek?” I ask, still amazed.
“You asked me not to,” he says as if it’s the most obvious statement in the galaxy.
After handing me the towel, he steps a foot away, shucks his clothes as casually as he ordered dinner in the restaurant last night, and then bends to grab his swim shorts, his ass delightfully pointed my way.
Why does my mouth go dry when I see this display? Stupid question. His butt is perfection. And he seems to know it, because he’s in no hurry to cover it. Finally, after I watch every twist and bend of that fine body as he steps into the shorts, he glances at me.
“You’re peeking,” he scolds, a shocked, disapproving look on his face.
“You never told me not to.” I figured he was happily putting on a show for me.
“I assumed . . .” He has that ‘I just sucked a lemon’ look on his face.
“I’m sorry. I—”
I’m interrupted by his bark of laughter. “I’m a gladiator, Elyse. We often fight nude in front of thousands of people. Any modesty I may have had was beaten out of me annums ago.” His expression changes, his gaze lancing into me as he asks, “Did you like what you saw?”
“Uh,” I squawk, feeling my face turn hot and red.
He turns away from me in slow motion, bends at the waist, and pulls his swim shorts down. That doesn’t end the performance. No. Poking his naked butt at me must not feel like enough of a show to him. He wiggles it at me. Not a fast, funny wiggle, either. He stands and undulates his hips. It’s more sexual than what he did last night when he was singing.
My hand flies to cover my mouth. I’m not certain why—maybe to keep myself from drooling. I swallow my spit and notice my channel clench in lust. What I do not do, however, is drag my eyes from the show.
He glances over his shoulder and tosses me a serious, molten look that could set the world on fire. Then he laughs.
“You should see your face,” he teases.
“You should see your ass,” I fire back after somehow finding my voice. “You need a full-time aid working with a loofah.”
“You forgot one thing,” he says, unphased, as he points to one of his mreen . “I couldn’t have too many pimples on my ass. I smelled your arousal.”
“Dork,” I accuse.
“ Teesa ,” he responds.
“Jerk.”
“Let’s swim.”
He’s never swum before, but has a blast playing in the waves. After watching me for a few minutes, he figures out the basics of the crawl and keeps up with me pretty well. This male has spent his whole life in a gym. I shouldn’t be surprised he’s athletic as hell.
Justus calls to us over the breaking waves, “Time to get on the hover!”
When we climb out of the water, Wrage shakes out the towel and wraps it around me. When he leans in, I catch a whiff of his scent. It's beachy and salty and clean. It strikes me that I want to take a snapshot of this moment—with smellovision of course—to remember forever.
He and I might start fighting any minute now, but this, this right here, is good. He’s calm and happy, and so am I. To top it off with a cherry, he snags his hand around my waist, pulls me closer so our hips bump, then saunters with me across the sand. For one split second, I wish things could stay like this.
“We need to talk,” he says when we get back to the Hump Hostel.
My mom used to call those the four worst words in the English language. My body shifts from happy and relaxed to high alert.
“Am I in trouble?” I ask.
“No.” He shakes his head. He must be telling the truth, because the look in his eyes says I might be in for something, but it isn’t trouble.
“Whether we like it or not, we’re together now. We have to decide what our next move is. The way I figure it, we have two choices for the short term, and more choices for the long term.” He waits for my response.
“Okay.”
“Choice one is to stay on the Fool’s Errand or Devil’s Playground . Those are the two ships in our little runaway-slave fleet. They are good people—the best. They took me in, they took all fifteen of us rowdy gladiators in, that’s a lot of mouths to feed, without asking much in return. I think you should meet the Earth women. It will reassure you.
“The other choice is to return to Wryth’N, perhaps stay with my family. I think you should meet the women on the mainland tonight, and travel with me on a quick trip to my planet tomorrow. We have to return to Paragon either way to . . . give Analac his swab kit. This way you can make an informed decision.
“There are a thousand other places in the galaxy we can go, but I suggest we stick with these two choices for now until we figure things out. What do you think?”
What do I think? I haven’t had to think for four years. I guess that’s the one beauty of slavery—it requires no brainpower. Well, except for figuring out how to avoid your master’s wrath. That requires effort.
“Let’s check out Wryth’N,” I say. “I can meet everyone when we return.”
“Okay. They’ll love you. Who wouldn’t?”
Zing! He said those last two words as if they were the gospel. As if he couldn’t imagine anyone not liking me as much as . . . he likes me. Lord help me, but that was so genuine, spontaneous, and tender it’s giving me goosebumps.
“How do we get to Wryth’N? When can we leave?”
He gets on his wrist-comm and says, “I’ll book a swift-shuttle departing today, then inform Zar and Justus we’ll be back before it’s time to return to the ship.”