Chapter 17
Keelo
Iglare at what little I can see of the back of Halley’s head, her back stiff, her feet digging into her stirrups.
She has her arms around Rin and is holding on to the reins, a wide-brimmed hat on her head.
If she thinks she’s doing a good job at pretending to know how to ride, she’s thoroughly mistaken.
No one with any experience looks quite so nervous about falling.
It's too late for me to protest her lie. The farmhouse has long since disappeared from sight behind countless sand dunes. The heat, which two days ago I relished, has become oppressive and relentless, the twin suns’ progress across the sky frustratingly slow.
It’s as if, with no identifiable landmark and nothing but sand and sky all around us, we’ve accidentally become trapped in time.
“Still due east?” I call to Eot, who’s riding at the front of our procession. He’s nursing the datapad that’s plotting our route toward the tracker the trikon ate.
“Still east,” he agrees, without glancing back at me. “Like it was the last time you asked. And the time before that.”
“It might’ve changed,” I grumble, ignoring how childish such an argument makes me sound and making sure to keep my voice loud enough that he can still hear, despite the distance between us.
“If it changed,” Eot calls, “I would’ve changed directions too.”
“Yeah, well, it’s fekking impossible to tell, isn't it?” And I make a wide gesture at the landscape, even though everyone has their back to me and can’t see.
A trail of bimor footprints is the only marker to show from where we’ve come, but even that disappears relatively quickly, the sand being so incredibly dry that the smallest breeze is enough to sweep away evidence of our passing.
I slump low in my saddle, bored and overwhelmed. Halley’s presence is…unsettling. I practice not looking at her, but my gaze has a mind of its own, returning to studying her back whenever my concentration wanders.
I try again, searching for shapes in the sand dunes as you might search for shapes in the clouds.
I count my bimor’s steps, the slowest of the three mounts and apparently quite content to remain at the back of the procession.
And I worry about my ship, left behind with the farmer as surety that we’ll return with his three mounts and his saddles and proof of the trikon’s death.
Every time, though, I return to studying Halley.
There’s tension in her shoulders as if she can feel my gaze on her, and she never appears to settle, almost as restless as I am, whispering secrets to Rin and chatting with Eot, her voice a touch too soft and the breeze blowing in the wrong direction for me to catch most of what she’s saying, despite my straining ears.
I can’t catch her scent either. I should be pleased, but I find myself subconsciously leaning forward, as though to bring myself closer to her.
For Arrok, a person’s scent holds important biological markers. That’s why our sense of smell intensifies when we reach our maturity and why, when I inhale and all I get is sand and bimor shit, I feel a mix of relief and consternation.
I dig my heels into the side of my mount, wanting her to hurry up, and receive an over-the-shoulder glare for my trouble. Evidently, Eot’s bimor is happy setting the pace of our journey and leading our small party, and of course I got stuck with the lazy one.
“Come on,” I wheedle, but it takes a lot more harassment before we finally draw level with Halley and Rin.
“That,” I say with a dawning realization, “is my hat.”
Made of felted fur, it’s waterproof and sunproof, but as my skin doesn’t easily burn, I rarely bother with it. A relic of our younger days, when Eot and I had spare money to spend on frivolities.
“It isn’t exactly I was hoping for, but beggars can’t be choosers,” she says, touching a hand to the brim in imitation of a salute and twisting in her saddle to see me as my bimor returns to her slow trudge and we fall behind again.
In some ways, Halley reminds me a little of Eot. She’s got his confidence, enough to voice her opinions and make known her needs. She’s happy to chat with relative strangers and is motivated by her concern with what we think of her.
“And that,” I say to Rin, “is Eot’s hat. But what the fek have you done to it?”
“We improved it,” Halley answers when it becomes clear Rin isn’t going to speak.
“That isn’t an improvement.” Eot’s hat is similar to mine, but Halley has wrapped a length of fabric several times around the hat’s crown and tied the ends under Rin’s chin, turning the hat into a “bonnet.” That’s the only word I can think of to describe what I’m looking at.
“It’s a hard hat,” Halley explains, as if that’ll clarify any confusion. “Well, a soft hat, in this case.”
“A what?”
“It’s to protect Rin’s head if she were to fall.”
Which…fek! Why hadn’t Eot or I thought of such a possibility?
Caring for a youngling is nothing like running physical security on a cruise liner or accepting the odd job to kill a predator. Those we can manage. But every day with Rin is another challenge I’m underprepared for.
“Besides”—Halley leans to the side so that she can see around the hat’s bent rim to Rin’s face—“I think she looks adorable.”
“She’s always adorable,” Eot calls from ahead. “That’s the first thing I said when I first saw Rin. Isn’t that right, Keelo?”
No. “Yes”—because if I’ve learned one lesson over these last few weeks, it’s that a small lie designed to boost Rin’s confidence is better than the hurtful truth.
She’s suffered enough hurt to last her a lifetime, and when she looks back at me, her eyes seemingly magnified under the wide brim of Eot’s hat and still too shy to speak in front of Halley, a wild and intensive need to protect her accosts me.
I tighten my hold of the reins, wanting to punch something. Or to hug her close to me. Because what I’d actually thought the first time I saw Rin was how empty her eyes were and how much I wanted to pummel the person who’d made her feel less than the incredible person she is.
And the first time I saw Halley? Well, technically, Eot and I had been in the middle of a fight, and I hadn’t much space in my head for thoughts of anything but trying to protect our family.
Later, when she stood before me dripping wet, I managed to hold on to my sanity through sheer force of will—against the better judgement of Eot’s pheromones and my throbbing cock.
But before that, the first time I really stopped to look at Halley had been right after we’d climbed into safety on board the ship.
Halley had laid face down on the passageway floor, utterly exhausted and overwhelmed, and Eot and I had shifted back into our individual selves, unseen by her.
I saw the way her long braids spread around her, a halo of hair.
I saw her bare legs covered in a dusting of sand and drained of energy.
More importantly, I’d smelled the faintest reminder of what we’d scented when in our combined form—something sweet and alluring. And that’s when I fled to the cockpit, because I knew even then how compelled I’d feel to protect her if given half a chance.
“What about setting up camp here?” Eot asks, raising his voice so that I can hear him across the distance separating us and motioning toward a sand dune that looks identical to the million other scudding sand dunes we’ve passed.
“Better we get settled while we can still see, than struggle in the dark.”
I don’t bother answering, merely dismount onto aching legs that threaten to buckle under me. These days, I’m not used to riding anything that isn’t a spaceship, and now I’m bow-legged and numb-assed.
I might, on any other day, have argued to keep traveling, regardless of the discomfort.
The faster we get this job done, the faster we get paid and leave this hellhole behind.
But Rin is struggling to stay awake. Halley isn’t strong enough to support the youngling’s sleeping weight, and I’m fed up with being stuck in a cycle of trying and failing to ignore the human.
Three good excuses to call it quits for the day.
My bimor, finally free of me, moves closer to its companions and noses at their saddlebags, searching for dinner.
Eot lifts Rin down and then Halley. His large hands on her waist emphasize exactly how much of a size difference there is between her and us, even in our individual forms.
I grab a saddlebag with the intention of unpacking our bedrolls, but my attention immediately drifts back to Halley as Eot sets her feet on the ground. Her knees buckle, and she catches herself with a hand on each of his thick forearms.
“Whoops. Seems I’m a bit out of practice,” she says, cheeks flushing darker. “My legs must’ve fallen asleep.”
Eot doesn’t respond. There’s a tendon visible along the side of his neck as he flexes his muscles in an effort to prevent the release of his pheromones, clearly caught off guard.
For a long moment, we remain there, Eot frozen in place by Halley’s hands on his arms and his innate attraction to her. I’m trapped by my memory of Halley smelling like our soap and Eot’s scent when I clapped my hand over the back of his neck the first and only time he’s lost control.
There’s a haziness to his expression as he stares down at Halley, and I can’t help wondering if the two of us are imagining the same thing—Eot fucking Halley, her legs around his waist and him thrusting up into her.
My heart’s thumping so loudly I’m almost surprised nobody comments, its beat an accompaniment to my rising cock.
“Going to piss,” I call, tripping up and over the nearest sand dune, desperately putting some space between me, the breeding female, and my other half. The one male in all the known universes who I shouldn’t crave and can’t allow myself to want.
Why now? I silently demand of myself. Why now, after all these years together?
Didn’t I just spend the better part of two days worried about how Eot and I have already taken on more than we’re capable of handling? And now my body has decided this is the perfect time to throw another problem into the mix!
The looseness of the dry sand has me skidding down the far side of the dune, and a quick glance behind proves that I’m out of sight of the others. Finally, I let my legs collapse, and I sink to the ground, my hand down my breeches before I’ve made the conscious decision to touch myself.
A shudder contorts my expression, the pleasure of my hand on my leaking cock almost too much to bear in my heightened state. I stroke myself with rough movements, focused on speed and efficiency, even as I cast another heavy-lidded glance behind me, fekking terrified of being caught.
I work my hand up and down my cock, pausing long enough to untie the closure of my breeches so that the fabric parts, granting my hand a greater range of movement. I give my wrist a half twist as I palm the tapered head, gritting my teeth against a moan.
Closing my eyes, my mind instantly conjures up the memory of Halley in her wet clothes, the fabric nearly transparent and clinging tightly to the curves of her body.
She’s so unlike any Arrok female, and until I saw her I never knew how much I desired a rounded contour from breasts to waist to hips to bare thighs.
Or…maybe I desire these things purely because they are Halley.
My mind also conjures up the feeling of Eot’s pheromones sinking into the palm of my hand—how my head had spun and my legs had threatened to give way.
It would’ve been easy to sink to my knees.
Then I could’ve prostrated myself at their feet, begging for the chance to lick Halley’s cunt and to suck Eot’s cock.
That mental picture has my hips bucking as I thrust into my pumping fist. Heat prickles my back, despite the largest of the suns having finally dropped below the horizon.
Fine grains of sand catch on my exposed skin, and while the lubrication of my pre-cum mitigates the worst of the sandpaper-like effect on my cock, there’s no denying that my impromptu masturbation session is quickly transforming into something more closely resembling self-punishment than self-pleasure.
Rather than damping my ardor, the tempered pain heightens my senses, making every thrust of my hips and every half-twist of my wrist all-consuming.
Coherent thoughts are eviscerated from my mind, except for my monopolizing need for Halley and Eot.
I imagine my hand carding through her braids.
My cock in her wet cunt. Eot’s hand squeezing my throat.
And I work myself at a brutal pace, my sac drawing tight.
When I come, it’s in long bursts, and I paint the sand with cum. My trembling breaths rattle through my chest, and my back hits the sharp incline of the dune behind me as my muscles are sapped of the last of their strength. My humiliation is a heavy burden.