Chapter 44 #2
He was a powerful man who had a lot of responsibilities, and it wasn't often that someone took the time to just pamper and adore him. So, when Peony devoted over an hour to doing just that, he soaked it up like a sponge.
Which was handy because, as it turned out, pampering him was another kink of hers. She absolutely loved watching him melt under her touch. Seeing the adoration in his eyes as she took the time to make him comfortable and happy was a special kind of thrill and satisfaction.
The other girls all had their projects and passions on their new planet. Peony always felt a bit out of place because she couldn't seem to find hers.
Turns out, she already had. She found her joy in taking care of Atem. In being there to relax him and provide for him after he spent all his time providing for an entire planet.
Peony never realized that she wanted to be a stay-at-home spouse until that moment. Although it did explain why she could never seem to drum up the motivation for any kind of career or earning a degree of some kind.
She was finally exactly where she wanted to be, doing exactly what she wanted to do.
On the dawning of the fourth day, however, Atem could not stay away from his duties as Dominani any longer and Peony woke in their nest – bed – alone.
The curtains had finally been pulled back, breaking the illusion of this being a dark, safe den, and Peony was surprised to actually miss it a bit. However, the joy of the warmth of the sun on her face was pleasant enough to drive the twinge away as she sat up and stretched.
And immediately winced from the soreness between her legs.
Chuckling, she leaned back. Her head landed right on the pillow Atem had been using and she turned and hugged it close, breathing deep of his rich, filling scent.
She stayed in bed for a while. Not really sleeping. Gently dozing, but not ever losing consciousness as she enjoyed the gentle breeze coming in through the open archways, the sunlight warming her nude body, and the smell of Atem in her nose as she cuddled his pillow.
Eventually, however, the increasingly painful demands of her bladder forced her up.
Predictably, upon standing, her thighs were immediately dripping with the remains of his seed that hadn't already drained away when he first pulled out of her.
It wasn't the first time it happened. Her legs being closed in the night typically kept most of it in even when his knot was removed, but it still made for a wet and silly walk to the privy to first void her bladder then to the cleansing room to wash it away.
After a long, hot bath to ease her sore muscles, she took her time picking one of her pretty, flowing dresses – it was one with alternating pink and blue coloration that made her think of cotton candy – before returning to her room and using her combot to call Tilii and ask for breakfast.
“I'll be right there, vi Adassani. Do you have any particular requests?”
Peony grinned at her new title, before the question made her think. And though the answer immediately popped into her head, it made her frown.
“Er, Vora Vakara?” Tilii called again cautiously. “Did you not want to be called vi Adassani?”
“Huh? No! That's not it. You can call me that if you like. Of course, I'd rather you call me Peony. We are friends.” She smiled at the combot as it floated in front of her as though Tilii could see her. “As for what I'm craving... Can you bring one of those blood shakes? A small one.”
There was silence for a long moment as Tilii registered the unusual request. The humans never asked for blood. In point of fact, they specifically requested no blood for their meals.
But Tilii didn't question her and only promised that she would be up soon with the shake and an assortment of fruit leaving Peony to frown out the window, arms over her chest.
Why was she itching to try one of those blood shakes?
Maybe it was just her assimilating further into the culture.
After all, blood wasn't a completely unheard of thing for people to eat on Earth, right?
She was sure it was a thing in some foreign recipes.
Maybe it was just her delicate western sensibilities that had blinded her to the possibility. What did it hurt to try, after all?
Yeah, that made sense.
Nodding to herself, Peony returned to the bed. Not to lay down, but to make it. That OCD was flaring its ugly head again and she had to set the bed to rights.
That only took her a moment, however, now that she knew what configuration she liked. And when she was finished, she found herself pacing. Uncomfortable.
Anxious.
“Oh, no,” she moaned, putting her head in her hands. “Not again. Please. Not again. Crap, what were those breathing counts...?”
The breathing counts did not help and, a short time later, when Tilii came in with Scarlet and Holly right on her heels, she was still pacing.
Holly frowned as Tilii set the food tray down on the low table.
“Peony? Are you having another panic attack?”
“No,” she snapped, annoyed, not with Holly but with herself. “I'm fine, dang it. I'm just... hungry.”
Desperately clutching onto that lie, she rushed to the tray as Tilii stepped back. She fully intended to grab the bowl of cubed fruit. She loved the cubed fruit. She swore, fruit and blood made up like 70% of the diet of the domini, so it was a good thing she did love the cubed fruit.
But she didn't grab the cubed fruit.
Instead, her hand immediately clutched onto the conical glass that was quite obviously filled to the top with the thick blood shake, garnished with blue fruit slices.
“Er, Peony?” Scarlet looked at her like she had lost her mind.
And she felt like she had because that blood shake smelled amazing. Still metallic. Still obviously like blood. But somehow her mouth watered, and her stomach cramped with hunger, and she didn't even hesitate to put her lips on the rim and take a big, fearless gulp.
And holy shit, it was delicious!
Maybe alien blood was different from Earth blood.
That had to be it. But it smelled and tasted just like blood.
And it was the greatest damn thing she had ever drank!
She gulped it down, tilting the glass fully upside down and licking away as much as her tongue could reach, desperately trying to ignore the three pairs of eyes staring at her – though she supposed technically Tilii had a triad of eyes, not a pair.
“O-kay,” Scarlet nodded once, walking towards her. She took the glass from Peony's hand as she was tonguing the inside, making her whine unhappily. “Let's go, Peony.”
“Go where?” She asked as Scarlet took her arm. “I haven't finished breakfast yet. Hey, Tilii, sorry, but could you maybe get me another blood shake?”
“Vas, vi Adassani,” Tilii started to turn.
But Holly stopped her. “No, Tilii. No bloodshake. We need you to drive the hover.”
“The hover? Why?” Peony asked, frowning between them.
The realization was not one that she wanted to have, and her entire chest locked up with panic at the threat of medical intervention.
“No. No way.” She shook her head quickly, but Scarlet's hold tightened and Holly, not hesitating, stepped forward to grab her other arm.
“This is for your own good, Peony,” Holly said, helping Scarlet pull her forward.
“Guys, really, I'm fine,” she stressed, digging in her heels as Tilii looked between them all, clearly torn about what she should do. On the one hand, her Adassani had just given her an order, but on the other she was very clearly not behaving normally.
“You are not fine, Peony,” Scarlet said, her voice like steel. “You are panicking at the drop of a hat, you are drinking raw blood, and you're acting crazy. You need to see the healer. Something could be seriously wrong with you.”
“You guys were fine!” She whimpered, staring at the door as though the threat of needles and scalpels lay just beyond. And she knew that their medical technology had advanced beyond the use of those tools, but that didn't actually stop her phobia from rearing its ugly head.
“You promised, Peony,” Holly said, just as unmoved as Scarlet. “First, you promised to come back and get scanned if you felt even a bit weird, and then, you promised us you'd go if you felt anxious again. You're going.”
Peony keened, pulling back against them, but not really fighting as they dragged her out into the hallway and down a couple floors. Tilii rushed ahead of them then so that she could get the hover started. Peony wished her friend/servant was a little less efficient and reliable.
But it was hard to argue with them when she could feel the anxiety twisting tighter in her gut with each passing minute.
When she could still taste the ambrosia of raw blood on her tongue and knew it was staining her lips.
When she thought about that crazy OCD of hers that seemed to have popped up out of nowhere.
It was probably just some weird adult-onset mental illness.
But what if it was a crazy alien parasite? What if she caught a weird disease that the others simply hadn't? Though, why they wouldn't catch it when they had all been exposed to the same things as her was a mystery.
Peony hated going to the doctor, but even she could admit that it was better to catch a problem early than let it fester into something truly dangerous. Mostly because truly dangerous also came with the threat of surgery, sedation, and prolonged, painful recovery.
But the thing was, aside from the anxiety, she didn't feel bad. She wasn't in pain. She wasn't cramping in any way that couldn't be explained by Atem's vigorous love making.
She blanched at that thought.
Oh, shit.
Of all the girls, she was the only one currently having sex with one of the aliens. What if Atem was the one who had gotten her sick? What if she was having some weird reaction to alien jizz that no one could have been able to predict because no one on this planet had ever seen a human before?