Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
“You two are like school children, teasing each other back and forth,” Ahmya said as she and Lacey walked arm-in-arm across one of the busy platforms.
Many vrix in Kaldarak were outside their homes. Some chatted with one another, some went about their morning chores, and others lounged in the sun, all while younglings played, their chitters and trills as pleasant as any birdsong.
Lacey glanced at Ahmya from the corner of her eye. “Who?”
Ahmya laughed. “You know exactly who I’m talking about.”
The red-haired woman wrinkled her freckled nose. “Telok can’t stand to be around me, and the feeling is mutual. He’s rude, broody, and impatient. He also acts as though I smell offensive anytime I’m around him, which isn’t often as he seems to avoid me as much as possible. It was nice not feeling like I’m some nuisance while he was gone.”
“Wow. I guess I hadn’t realized he’s been acting that way toward you.”
“Except for Ketahn, Urkot, Rekosh, and Ahnset, he doesn’t seem to care to make any friends. He tolerates Cole. Like for real? Cole ? But he can’t stand to even be near me?” Lacey brought Ahmya to a stop and lifted her arm high in the air, revealing the long, crude pink scar running along her inner bicep to her elbow. “So do I stink?”
Ahmya jerked back. “What?”
“Smell me. Do I stink?”
“You’re serious?”
“You have no idea how self-conscious he’s made me over this.” Lacey moved closer. “Come on, Ahmya, get in here and take a sniff.”
Ahmya laughed and shook her head before leaning toward Lacey’s armpit. She sniffed. She didn’t smell anything off-putting. All she could detect were the light floral notes from the homemade deodorant Lacey had concocted and traces of sweat, which was perfectly human.
Ahmya straightened. “You smell fine to me.”
“See!” Lacey lowered her arm. “He’s just mean.”
“He’s always been pretty stern. I wouldn’t let him get to you.” Ahmya looked ahead to the next platform to see a group of thornskulls near one of the main bridges leading out of Kaldarak. “We should hurry so we don’t keep them waiting.”
Lacey adjusted the strap of her backpack on her shoulder and stepped onto the bridge. “Yeah, you’re right. Let’s go be one with nature.”
Ahmya chuckled and grasped the rope handrail. “Aren’t we already that?”
“Ahmya!” Rekosh called from behind.
Her breath hitched. Stilling with one foot on the bridge, she turned to find him quickly striding toward her. Warmth suffused her, chasing away the slight morning chill, and her belly fluttered at the sight of him.
The thornskulls of Kaldarak were big, broadly built vrix. Ketahn, Rekosh, and the others from Takarahl were shadowstalkers, whose bodies tended to be leaner and more graceful but no less powerful. Yet even amongst them, Rekosh was especially lithe and elegant. Of all the males, he was second only to Ketahn in height, and his limbs were long and svelte.
She’d heard the word spindly used to describe him, but to Ahmya, that implied a fragility that didn’t fit him at all. His shoulders were broad, and lean, solid muscle flexed beneath his hide. She’d seen Rekosh fight. There was untold strength in him, and a ferocity that should have frightened her. Yet he’d shown her nothing but gentleness.
The rays of light breaking through the canopy made the unique crimson markings on his headcrest, wrists, and leg joints stand out and lit up the strands of red and white in his braided black hair. Back on Earth, that shade of red meant danger. It was the same color as the marking on a black widow’s belly, which had been the first thing Ahmya had thought of when she’d met Rekosh.
But that color had come to mean so much more. It had become safety, comfort, and caring.
He stopped a few steps away from Ahmya, mandibles twitching. His eyes flicked from her to the thornskulls on the other side of the bridge. “You are going?”
Ahmya reached up and caught the strands of hair blowing across her face in the wind, tucking them behind her ear. “We’re going to help gather food and look for herbs. I also want to explore a little more.”
Rekosh’s eyes widened, and a low, unhappy sound rumbled from his chest. “You are going only with them? No others?”
Both Lacey and Ahmya turned their heads toward the waiting thornskulls. Garahk was amongst them, leading the party, which was comprised of several male hunters.
Ahmya’s brow creased. “Um…yeah?”
“Not enough to protect you, vi’keishi .”
Her eyes widened, and that fluttering in her belly intensified .
Lacey chuckled. “How much trouble could Ahmya get into that fourteen beefy vrix wouldn’t be enough protection?”
Rekosh blinked, tilting his head. “What is beefee ?”
Lacey flexed her arms. “Big, strong, muscular.”
He huffed. “I am strong.”
“But you’re not beefy.”
Rekosh narrowed his crimson eyes. “I do not need to be beefee to protect Ahmya.”
Lacey chuckled. “Well, if it’d make you feel better, you could join us. We could use a translator, anyway.”
Rekosh straightened, mandibles rising in a vrix smile as he nodded. “Yes. I will come. Tell Garahk wait.”
“To wait?” Ahmya asked.
Stepping backward, Rekosh waved toward his den. “I will get my things.”
“Oh! Right.”
He extended a foreleg and brushed it over her bare calf, making her skin tingle. “Wait for me, a small time.”
Ahmya smiled. “I’ll wait.”
Even when Rekosh withdrew his leg, she could still feel his touch. Could still feel those soft, tiny hairs against her skin.
“ We’ll wait.” Lacey gave the back knot of Ahmya’s top a tug. “Come on.”
The women continued across the bridge to join the thornskulls, who greeted them cheerfully in a mix of vrix and English. None of the thornskulls could carry on a conversation in the humans’ language, but most of them had learned hello , and used it with genuine enthusiasm. The sense of community in this place, even with the existing language barriers, was unlike anything Ahmya had experienced before leaving Earth. The thornskulls were kind and helpful. They teased sometimes, but there was always a good-naturedness to their teasing.
“Ah, Lacey, Ahnya ,” Garahk said as the women approached him. Though Nalaki was essentially the queen of Kaldarak, Garahk was looked upon as a leader in his own right. His compassion and understanding had likely been the only reason Ahmya and her companions had survived their journey to escape Queen Zurvashi. “We…go?”
Ahmya smiled. Garahk was big and stocky, with hard, spiky protrusions on his head and shoulders and black spots scattered across his pure white hide. Yet despite his intimidating appearance, his friendly demeanor and natural warmth always put her at ease. He spoke very little English, but he’d made efforts to learn, and that meant a lot to the humans.
“Rekosh’ ur ikar , uh”—Ahmya waved her hands down toward the platform—“ akkan. He asked us to wait for him.”
“ Et rayathahl’al saavix ?” Garahk asked. “Rekosh go?”
Smile widening, Ahmya nodded. She grasped the strap of her backpack and lifted it off her shoulder. “He is getting his things.”
“Rekosh’ al saavix saal tavit ,” the thornskull announced to his companions, who responded with excitement.
Despite the thornskulls’ dialect being a bit different from the shadowstalkers’—and thus being harder for her to follow—she understood his words.
Rekosh will come to hunt .
But she knew that wasn’t quite right. He wasn’t coming to hunt, he was coming to protect her.
Or maybe he is hunting, and I’m the prey?
That thought and its implications set her cheeks ablaze.
“You okay?” Lacey asked.
“Huh?” Ahmya barely resisted the urge to cover her cheeks with her hands. Instead, she grasped the other strap of her backpack and pulled them closer together, as though the bag were a shell in which she could hide. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“All right,” Lacey replied skeptically. “You looked pretty red there for a second. I thought maybe the heat was getting to you… ”
It is. Oh God, it is.
“Nope, all good.” Ahmya rocked on her heels, fighting a new urge—this one to look back and seek out Rekosh. “Just excited to get out there, you know?”
“Me too. Nice as things are up here, it feels good to have my feet on the ground sometimes.”
“It does. We’ve been kind of cooped up here for a while.”
The thornskulls chatted amongst themselves as everyone awaited Rekosh, whose arrival was met with a chorus of cheers from the gathered hunters. It meant the wait was over. The excursion could begin.
Unsurprisingly, Rekosh walked directly to Ahmya. He had a bag of his own strapped across his back, and a spear with an obsidian head in hand. The sash across his chest, which usually held his sewing tools, seemed only to hold knives now, including one that was human-made, smaller than the rest but exceptionally sharp and durable. Ahmya had one just like it in her own bag, one of the few items still in her possession from the Somnium .
Rekosh gestured in apology to Ahmya and Garahk, bowing his head. He spoke first in English, and then repeated his words in vrix. “Please forgive the delay.”
Garahk chittered, thumped a leg against Rekosh’s, and replied with what Ahmya understood as essentially glad to have you along . When Rekosh’s eyes met hers, their intensity triggered something inside her.
Lacey nudged Ahmya with an elbow. “The heat again, huh?”
“You are too hot?” Rekosh asked, leaning closer to Ahmya.
Ahmya shook her head and glared at her friend. “I’m all right, Rekosh. Really. Lacey is just teasing me.”
He growled, gnashing his mandibles.
“Oh, come on!” Lacey pointed at Ahmya. “It’s not like she never teases me. ”
Ahmya gaped at the other woman and pressed a hand to her own chest. “I would never do that.”
Lacey rolled her eyes. “Of course, you wouldn’t.”
At Garahk’s signal, the group set out. Ahmya, Lacey, and Rekosh hung back, allowing the thornskulls to pass.
“Maybe we should invite Telok along too,” Ahmya suggested with a saccharine smile. “You know, to keep you out of trouble, Lacey.”
“Low blow, Ahmya,” replied Lacey with a laugh. “Low blow.”
“I know those words, but I do not understand,” Rekosh said. “Ahmya did not blow on you.”
Chuckling, Ahmya shook her head. “Blow is another one of those words with more than one meaning. In this case, it means I hit her with my words.”
“There’s at least one other meaning I can think of…” Lacey grinned at Ahmya, waggling her eyebrows.
“We’re not going there,” Ahmya singsonged as they trailed after the thornskulls.
Rekosh hummed thoughtfully. “I have much to ask, humans.”
Ahmya’s body flushed hotter. “No, no, no. No need to ask about that.”
“But Ahmya,” Lacey said over her shoulder, “don’t you want him to learn our ways?”
“What ways do you speak of?” Rekosh asked.
“Mating rituals, like blow jobs and—ouch! Ahmya! Did you seriously just pinch my ass?”
“And I’ll do it again,” Ahmya said. She gripped Lacey’s backpack and pushed, steering the woman across the bridge. “Conversation over. Let’s go! We have a jungle to explore.”
Lacey snickered as they continued out of Kaldarak.
To Ahmya’s relief, Rekosh didn’t press for more information, but she knew that it was only a temporary reprieve. His silence meant he was thinking. He was always observant and unabashedly inquisitive, especially when it came to language. He wasn’t going to forget. He was just waiting for a better time to ask again.
And Ahmya was not ready to explain what a blow job was.
Do you want to show him instead?
Shush!
But it made her to wonder… Did vrix even perform oral on each other?
Considering their sharp teeth and lack of lips, Ahmya was inclined to guess no , which meant Rekosh had likely never had a blow job, and she could be the first one to?—
Stop!
But she couldn’t stop herself from picturing it in her mind. Though she didn’t know what his cock looked like, she imagined his long, clawed fingers tangling in her hair, imagined those crimson eyes blazing down at her before his head fell back in pleasure, imagined his lean, powerful muscles flexing beneath his dark hide. What sounds would he make? How would he react to her taking his cock into her mouth, teasing it with her tongue?
What would he taste like?
Ahmya’s sex clenched. Her heart pounded fiercely, and her skin heated as the ache in her core sharpened. She gripped the straps of her backpack and released a quiet, shuddering breath, keeping her face forward. How could a little daydream cause such a visceral reaction in her?
Because you want him. Admit it.
Ahmya could feel Rekosh’s presence behind her. Could feel his eyes on her.
This is going to be a long, long trip.