Chapter 19 #2
I run my lips along her lower ones. She's delicious as always, but my chin rubs against her bone structure. It's more prominent than the last time I kissed her pussy.
I stop immediately. "Are you losing condition?"
She raises her head and blinks at me, eyes already hazy with pleasure. "Pardon?"
"You're thinner than before. Is this intentional?"
She flushes. "No, I'm just busy."
"Too busy to fuel yourself?" Drok na. Law-rah should join us at El-len’s breakfast table every morning. "You will find time to eat, or I shall insist on feeding you."
"You wouldn’t." Law-rah’s gaze turns flinty as she sits up.
"Yes, I would." I shuck off the belt and pull her upright easily. She’s so slight in my arms, my stomach flips. “What ails you?”
“Nothing,” she says, but across the mind sync, darkness pulses. Like a boil stuck under scales, sickness builds.
“Law-rah. I can… sense there’s something—”
“I said it’s nothing.” She does not meet my eyes.
Pressure pushes on the slight female from all directions. Her purpose. Her drive for justice. The disruption from our mental connection. Yet she keeps our arrangement, for my benefit.
She needs relaxation, the way she provides to me.
Who is her mental anchor?
I pull up her pants, securing them at her waist. "Swear you’ll make yourself some food now, and come back to see me only once you’ve eaten."
Her cheeks take on a rosy hue. Under her skin, her aura burns like a sunset. "You’re lucky you’re cute, or you’d be getting a taste of my bad side.”
"Eat, then give me a taste," I say, and her aura melts around the edges again, revealing another of Law-rah’s secrets without me needing to pry. She likes it when I take charge.
But I know she will never consent to me giving her what she gives me. That is not our dynamic.
The sound of crunching outside shocks us both still. Law-rah freezes as if she’s a photograph, and I cast my mind out.
‘Humans arriving to the farm,’ Nevare says, from the fields.
‘No SHIT,’ Law-rah blasts back. ‘Why didn’t you warn us before?’
‘Distracted,’ is all he says, but I close my eyes briefly. That’s going to be too much for Law-rah right now.
‘Fuck fuck FUCK. I HATE THIS!’ she screams mentally, grabbing her shirt and buttoning it over her perfect breasts. “Stay hidden in here. I’ll go see what they want.”
I nod, hoping to reduce her mental load through my obedience, and move to the side of the shed without a sound. Cold settles on my naked scales despite being overheated only a few seconds ago, a puff of dust skating across the human concrete.
Law-rah peers through the thin gap between the shed walls and the metal door. In her shock, she pushes an outline of what she’s seeing to me and my wave brothers; a car, a human getting out, and a square device she labels as a camera in his hands.
“Him,” she says with a groan, twisting and tying her hair in place with quick movements. Her aura shimmers blood red over a disappointed beige.
The human raises the square to his face and Law-rah’s stomach lurches. I brace for a blast of a weapon from it, pulling her back against me.
“Get off,” she hisses. “He’s taking pictures, photographic evidence. He’s going to report El-len’s barn!”
Before I can ask who this him is and why taking pictures fills Law-rah with dread, she wrenches the door open and marches out.
I can only watch from the shadows, and while I know she interacts with other humans all the time, I have a feeling I get the night before a big raid, as if Law-rah is charging into battle.
This human is trouble.
Law-rah's words are clipped but polite when she calls out, “Can I help you?”
“I'm taking some pictures,” the male says, not looking at her.
I keep a close eye on him. He's an unremarkable specimen, no unique features or crest marking him as a True Born son, and no bright scales to signal his intentions. He wears thick clothing but the shape underneath doesn't hint at muscles thicker than mine.
Me and my wave brothers could take him, but it's not us facing off against him, it's Law-rah. I crouch, ready to leap up and run out there the second there's a signal of distress from my female.
A ripple of discomfort slides from Law-rah like a cold breeze. ‘Not your female.’
‘Of course not. It refers to… well.’ I can't scream, ‘I want to belong to you, you would be my leader,’ no matter how much I want to.
The ripples halt and turn warm as though they are glowing hot at their source, but Law-rah speaks out loud to the human. “She's not here. Can I take a message?”
“No, I'll wait.” The male folds his arms and leans back against his vehicle, his insolent gaze tracking up and down Law-rah.
Metal creaks in protest from my strangling grip on the door.
‘BE QUIET,’ Law-rah sends to me, but she also says it aloud at the same time. I wince because I know she didn't mean to say it, not because I don't feel this male should be put in his place.
His eyebrow raises, and he straightens up from his car. “What was that?”
“Nothing.” Anger simmers in waves from her, all because of me.
I hunker down, trying to make myself smaller physically and mentally to please her.
“I'm not sure when she'll be back, so it's best if I tell her to contact you. Can I ask what it's about?”
“Yeah, it's about her–” A roar from the track signals another human machine coming this way. This one's signature engine grinding sounds familiar.
‘El-len and the star hound Floss,’ Nevare announces. ‘Ilia is returning—’
‘No more aliens!’ Law-rah sends an image of her ripping out her beautiful blonde locks to blow away on the wind. My hearts lurch at the sight, but that seems to make her more stressed. ‘Everyone, stay back until I get rid of Fassbender.’
‘I'll relay the orders,’ Arik responds, while I look at this man afresh through Law-rah's memories. Apparently he’s after El-len's land, and moreover he enjoyed a privileged position as El-len's partner before he spurned her.
‘Ignore those memories,’ Law-rah says, her mental vibrations erratic. Her grip on her control turns as slippery as sweaty palms, and she adjusts her mental positioning to hold onto the secrets spilling across the mind sync. ‘Don’t look!’
‘We can’t help it,’ Arik sends. In a tight band to me he snaps, ‘It’s happening again, she’s losing control. We need to shield Nevare against her.’
Shame colors my mental landscape puce. ‘We tried that before, it didn’t work, and it was worse when her emotions broke through.’
‘Now is not the time for experimenting!’ Arik mentally scowls. ‘El-len is returning. Perhaps her presence will moderate Law-rah.’
El-len’s truck bounces into view, going far faster than usual. The vehicle no sooner skids to a halt than El-len tumbles out of it, red-faced and breathless.
She flings herself in front of the restored barn, arms wide. “Stop! This is my private property.”
“It’s a breach of planning,” the male returns, a smirk playing on his lips. “You’ll get an injunction against you. It might even go to court.”
El-len pales, and I know if Ilia were here, he would charge at this male for frightening his mate with the threat of court, whatever that is. Law-rah supplies the idea of a trial for me, El-len in the dock. No!
“It won’t be that bad,” Law-rah says soothingly, but her pulse pounds with simmering rage for her friend. She’s angry at this male for trying to scare her. “It will need retrospective planning permission, which we have in hand to submit tonight.”
El-len shoots Law-rah a relieved smile, eyes shining with gratitude Nevare can feel all the way from the other side of the farm.
The male lets his camera go, and it bounces against his puny chest at the end of its tethers around his neck. “And you are…?” he drawls.
“My lawyer. Ish,” El-len explains quickly.
Law-rah internally winces at that. She doesn’t like directly lying, only concealing the truth and misdirecting others.
‘No I don’t!’ she shouts at me, putting in a poor attempt at raising a shield against me. ‘Please, be quiet while we sort this out!’
The Fassbender male turns his muddy brown gaze to Law-rah. “Are you her lawyer?” he asks, an undercurrent of something dangerous in his thoughts.
He’s constructing a trap for El-len, one that will catch Law-rah in its jaws.
‘Say nothing!’ I send to Law-rah and at the same time ordering Nevare to search his mind for his nefarious plan, but Law-rah’s shield holds and she doesn’t hear me. I thump against it but it remains firm as Law-rah locks down away from me.
“I’m advising her on general issues, yes,” Law-rah replies slowly, her words muzzy and distant for me when it’s only her speaking voice.
The smug smile on his face twists his unremarkable face into a grin of triumph.
Out of the other side of the car comes a short but bulky frame, a red face sporting white hair atop a crisp dark-blue suit.
Another human male, this one bowed by age and the roundness of its body, something I’ve never seen on Oloria as clones don’t live to deteriorate with age.
But while the physical threat posed by this specimen seems to be miniscule, Law-rah’s shield breaks outward with a huge torrent of fear. It ratchets up so high and so fast she sweeps us all up in the mind sync, making us act as one.
A huge threat stands before Law-rah, one we can’t ignore.
‘Kill,’ we intone mentally.