Anika didn’t question her friend’s support. But she didn’t trust Tara wouldn’t confess under duress or persuasion. Marlix was Tara’s Alpha, and she held him in great regard despite his autocratic ways—and sometimes, Anika suspected, because of them. Her friend also carried Marlix’s son—the first offspring to be conceived of a Parseon and a Terran. And a big surprise to Tara because she’d believed herself barren.
“I’ll talk to Urazi. Maybe he can convince Marlix this is not in your best interests,” Tara suggested.
Anika squeezed her eyes shut and stepped away. She inhaled then exhaled. “No. Don’t do that.”
“Why not? Marlix sometimes seeks his counsel, even though Urazi is no longer his beta.” Male-male pairings were the norm on Parseon, but the anointment that had bound Marlix and Urazi as domestic partners had been annulled after Marlix had claimed and tagged Tara. The two had gotten
married
in an ancient Terran rite. Urazi still resided in Marlix’s domicile, though no formal union committed him to serve.
“His allegiance will be to Marlix.”
“True,” Tara conceded, and nibbled on a fingernail. “Are you sure you can’t give Ilian a try?”
Anika looked at her. “There is no
trial
. If I go to Ilian, it will be forever.”
Tara sighed and slipped the bag off her shoulder. “Here.” She held it out.
“You are giving me your skeins?”
Tara shook her head. “Other things you might need.”
Anika plopped the bag on the sleeping platform and opened it. She frowned as she extracted a box with a picture of a smiling Terran female with light yellow hair.
“
Bleeech
,” Tara explained.
“What is that?”
Tara flipped her pink hair over her shoulder. “A substance to remove the color from your brunette hair and turn it blond like the shade on the picture.”
Anika dropped the box. “Why would I want that?”
“To disguise your appearance, so people won’t recognize you. You are intending to run away, aren’t you?”
Anika sucked in a sharp breath.
Monto
. Was she that transparent? “You know?”
“It’s what I would do, if I were in your shoes.” Tara surveyed Anika’s bare feet. “Speaking of which, I’ll give you my winter boots, too. I think they’ll fit.”
“Does Marlix suspect?”
“I don’t think so,” Tara said. “Like a typical male, he assumes because he speaks, everyone in Province Four will listen. Alphas!” She rolled her eyes. “Let me show you what else is in the bag.”
Tara pulled out two small vials. She held one up. “Brown.” She shook the other. “Blue.”
“Brown and blue what?”
“Contact lenses. To change your eye color from gold to brown or blue. Blue, I might add, goes well with blond hair, if you do decide to use the bleach, although the brown eye color would be more common among Parseons.”
Tara fished around the bottom of the bag. “A knife.” She produced a finger-sized object.
“It is not very large. And where is the blade?” All Anika saw was a hilt.
“Right here.” Tara plucked at the side and pulled out a metal cutter. “It’s called a pocket knife. It folds up, see? She snapped it back into place. “It belonged to Ramon.”
“Thank you,” Anika said, touched by the offering, even if the dagger was too small to be of any use. She knew the item held great sentimental value because it had belonged to Tara’s friend and shop mate who had been murdered by Qalin.
“Money!” Tara dangled a bulging purse.
Now
that
she could use. Anika’s spirits rose. She might have a chance of survival, now.
“Thank you.” Anika blinked away tears of gratitude.
“I gave you all the coin I had and wheedled more out Marlix. I had to endure a lecture about overspending, but you’re worth it.”
“I am sorry about your business,” Anika said. Once, Tara would not have had to ask Marlix for money. She’d owned and operated a textile shop at the Terran Bazaar. When Qalin’s forces went on the march, Commander Dak had been forced to shutter the Bazaar and evacuate the Terrans and all other aliens to their home planets. Only Tara remained, because she’d been tagged and claimed by Marlix.
“I can’t lie. I miss the hustle and bustle and earning my own income. I dislike depending on Marlix. But when the war ends, and it’s safe, the Bazaar will reopen. I will return to work then.” She shrugged. “It’s not all bad, anyway.” She rubbed the mound beneath her shift. “I can focus on little Ramon and knit lots of booties.”
“So, Marlix has agreed to the name?”
“Oh, no.” Tara smiled. “He still insists the baby will be called Arak, but I will win this one.”
Anika admired her confidence, which had never wavered, even though Tara’s life had changed since coming to Parseon. However, Anika did not understand why her Terran friend chose to surrender the freedom to come and go as she pleased, to be respected as an equal, to decide her own fate. Perhaps you did not appreciate what you had always had.
And when you’d never had something, you didn’t comprehend your lack. Anika fingered the faint scar bisecting her throat, a cruelty inflicted upon her as casually as one would step on an insect. The incident had opened her eyes, begun to fan the embers of resentment.
Though Anika and Marlix had been born of the same sire and lived in his abode, their treatment could not have differed more. Expectations had been high and discipline harsh, but their sire’s pride and affection for Marlix had never been in doubt. Marlix had received the best their sire could afford—food, clothing, and sleeping accommodations.
Anika had bedded on a thin pallet on the floor next to Marlix’s
garmel,
the furred, long-eared pet he’d adopted. Her meals—and the garmel’s—consisted of the remaining orts after her sire and Marlix had finished eating. If not for the extra rations Marlix had snuck her, she often would have gone hungry.
As with most females, when she reached puberty, her sire had sent her to a Breeder Containment Facility. Instead of being purchased by an alpha as was expected, she had attracted a beta guard’s attention. Because betas were forbidden to breed, after Jergan had secretly purchased her, he had sought sanctuary at the Enclave, a community of deviants who eschewed many of the commandments of Protocol. She’d had greater freedom there, but still remained under the domination of a male, albeit a benevolent one.
When she’d met Tara, Anika had finally understood what she’d yearned for all along. The females of Tara’s race answered to no male. No wonder so many on Parseon reviled Terran ways and were glad to see them leave. Males of status had much to lose if Protocol were to crumble.
Though Tara had accepted their ways when she became Marlix’s breeder, she had a way of coaxing him to do her bidding. Anika figured she had a good chance of winning the naming argument. However, even Tara would not be able to change his mind about Ilian. “Thank you for all you have done,” Anika said.
“I’m going to miss you.” Tara’s eyes filled. “I’m afraid I’ll never see you again.”
The sight of her friend’s tears caused her own eyes to water. Anika blinked and grabbed her in a hug. Terrans were smaller than Parseons, and Tara’s head bumped Anika’s chin. “I am sure we will meet again,” she lied.
“You think so?” Tara sniffed.
“Yes.” Another lie.
“Be careful.”
“I will.”
“I’ll, uh, go get my boots for you. When you do you plan to leave?”
“This evening, after everyone is asleep.”
Chapter Two
Snick…. Click
.
Awake, but resting, Urazi opened his eyes at the sound of his chamber door shutting. In the darkness, he spied a familiar shape creeping toward his sleeping platform. The shadow tugged her shift over her head and dropped it to the floor. A cool breeze drifted across his body when she turned back the sleep cover. Then comforting, arousing warmth when she pressed against him.
“Are you asleep?” Anika whispered.
“No.”
“What are you doing?”
“Waiting for you.”
“How did you know I would come?” She settled her head onto a familiar place on his shoulder, and wiggled a leg between his, which caused her naked mound to press against his thigh.
“I just did.” He shrugged. Her closeness had its usual effect of causing his manhood to swell. Why was he so weak in body and mind? He always sensed when she would pay him a nighttime visit and would wait for her, instead of making himself scarce like he should. Instead of reporting her behavior to Marlix or applying the
sudon
to her backside. He had many honorable options to deal with her behavior, yet he chose the path that filled him with selfish elation—followed by acute self-loathing.
“Why do you never come to me?” she asked in a soft voice.
Because he attempted to resist her altogether. She was the female sibling of the Alpha he served out of duty and amity. To whom he’d once been anointed. Though he and Marlix had shared females before the Commander had tagged Tara, he knew without being told the Alpha would object to Urazi using his female sibling. “I do not need to,” he answered her question.
Because you come to me
.
“Do you need
this
?” She closed her hand around his erection.
Air hissed through his teeth.
Monto, yes. He needed that.
A gust of desire and shame swirled over him.
With a practiced hand, Anika stroked his shaft, tightening and relaxing her fingers in a way that would bring surefire release. His own hand came up on its own accord and cupped a mammary gland, squeezing the tip between his thumb and forefinger. In a futile fantasy, Urazi pictured her hardened nipple pierced by his breeder ring, envisioned his son suckling on her teat. The satisfaction evoked by the subversive thought of producing a child was bad enough, but worse was the stab of lust arising from contemplation of the act that would plant his seed.
He thanked the moon and the stars he’d at least been able to resist engaging in
that
perversion. Too many times, he had nearly succumbed. Only dread of Marlix’s reaction if his female sibling began to swell with the offspring of his lowly former beta had forestalled him. The thought of Marlix’s rage softened his hardness.
“Is something wrong?” Anika asked.
Everything. “No.”
“You do not desire me.” She released him and raised her head from his shoulder.
He crafted a lie of salvation, but the shameful truth spilled out instead. “I want you more than anything.”
She hunched and trailed her feather-soft hair over his chest and abdomen, stirring him to tumescence once again. The rest of him went rigid, too, when Anika’s breath warmed the crown of his manhood.
I should resist.
But instead of holding her off, he tangled his hands in her hair when she drew him into her mouth. She sucked and stroked with an avidness seemingly imbued with desperation, but he knew he transferred his emotions to her actions. Shame. Need. Always the
need
.
Urazi groaned, as reluctant pleasure overpowered self-recrimination. As always.
Her cheeks hollowed as she drew on his member, applying suction while gracing his length and squeezing his sac with a gentle, but firm touch. His gonads tightened, and he ached from the base of his manhood into his abdomen.
Anika’s head bobbed with her quickening movements. She moaned, and he heard urgency. Did she fear she would not please him?
“Yes, Anika, yes,” he growled reassurance. “Just like that.”
She hummed, and he jerked, the vibration heightening the rapture. She had never done that before. Where had she learned that technique? Had she been with another? Savage pangs of lust and jealousy shot through him, but the humming pushed him over the edge. His hips began to thrust. For the honor bestowed upon a warrior, he could not have curtailed his movements. The air thinned, and he could not suck enough of it into his lungs. His chest spasmed.
Sweat beaded, burned his eyes. Heat and pressure expanded.
He released his vise-like grip, frantically signaled he’d crossed the threshold, tried to force her head away, but she clung to him. In a surge of ecstasy, he released his essence into her mouth instead of spilling it onto his abdomen.
He panted, his head still swimming.
Anika sat up.
Why had she swallowed his seed? And why did he derive a perverse satisfaction from her doing so?
Her teeth flashed white in a tremulous smile then she scooted upwards and ran her hand over the lightscan. The room remained shrouded. She waved again.
They always engaged in their perversions cloaked by darkness. Though unlikely Marlix or Tara would investigate, Urazi had no desire for his shameful transgressions to be discovered.
“Leave it,” he ordered.
“I wish to see your face.” Anika persisted and palmed the lightscan again.
“You do not have authorization to turn the lights on in my chamber,” he explained.
She sat back on her haunches. “I would wager Terran women may turn on any lights they wish,” she said cryptically. He heard her inhale and exhale. “I would like to see you tonight. Will you please turn on the lights?”
He hesitated. The need for discretion had not lessened—were she discovered naked on his sleeping platform, consequences would be serious. “All right. For a moment.” He waved his hand over the scanner.
A low light flooded the room. Anika’s dark hair lay in an appealing tousle around her face and shoulders. Her lips were reddened and swollen from the attention she had paid him. He had the strangest urge to press his mouth to their lushness—and then to suckle the pink tips of her full, rounded mammary glands. Another reason to keep the lights off. Her pleasant appearance incited his carnal appetite.
He drank in the features of her face, her skin pale and smooth, except for a hint of pink, her golden eyes unusually guarded. When he pictured her—and he often did—her eyes came to mind first. Anika was the first person he’d seen after regaining consciousness following the attack. Despite her grief, she had radiated concern for him. Her bedside presence had comforted him during his long convalescence.