Page 28 of Golden Darkness
She sighed and shuddered. Kethen was still hard.
“That was lovely. The only thing that would have made it better would have been your claws in my flesh.”
She tried to move her arms but thudded to his chest. “Sorry. Imperfect day.”
He laughed. “We have tens of thousand of days stretching before us. We will get it right eventually.”
She nodded, and his soothing hand down her spine relaxed her. She hoped he had what he needed because she didn’t know if she could do that again.
* * * *
Kethen looked at his precious mate and smoothed a hand down her back. If this was the last feast offered to him, he was sure it would last a century.
She didn’t understand the ramifications of being dubbed raiders, and he didn’t want to tell her what kind of horrors they would be in for if they were caught.
He flexed his inner gland and filled her again. His nanites had a lot of work to bring his little flower to full bloom. He would just have to provide them with enough materials to fix what was broken and repair what was damaged.
The Vel-ech had cut his pet’s reproductive system, obtaining samples for later dissection. His mate had experienced horrors, so he would do his best to make sure that he grovelled before the victims of his vessel and the previous crew to spare her any other fuss.
He would humble himself in public ways if he needed to. He wanted his mate to have a long and happy life with him. They just needed to get past the start.
* * * *
The aches of the day before were with her as she finished breakfast and then turned to look at Kethen. “So, that hold? With the Terran stuff?”
He snorted and kissed her cheek. “Yes, precious one.”
She dismissed that. It must be a manners thing. She had never been anyone’s cute, precious, adorable, or cuddly anything. When she had left high school at six foot one and one hundred fifty pounds, she had been gangly. Raw-boned. Folks looked at her and tried to guess if she was sick.
She hadn’t had enough meat on her bones during the disaster, and she had used the bits of science she had to keep her truck running. Biodiesel made her hungry, but it helped her get people into the emergency conclaves.
She had a map of all biodiesel caches within twelve states and used it to keep her moving, though she had had to defend her findings a few times. Part of her was upset at how readily she had embraced violence, but there were bonuses to having society collapse. She was able to let her inner beast out, and there were only bodies in her wake. It wasn’t her proudest memory, but it let her know what she was capable of. She might not be smart, but she was savage.
She smiled at Kethen. “So, when?”
He snorted. “At many moments, I enjoy your impatience. I had no idea you were a morning person.”
“You don’t sleep.”
“But, it cuts into the time I spend looking at you.”
“Yeah, that’s a little creepy.”
He grinned and wrapped an arm around her waist. “I know.”
They walked to the lift and then down to the hold. She was nearly vibrating in place.
“Excited by the thought of something from your home world?”
“Yes.” There was no sense in hiding it.
“Well, there might be a bounty on it, but you can have a rummage and try to match it with the manifest.” He smiled. “You will be alone in the hold, and I will be just around the corner explaining our situation to some of the victims.”
She turned. “You may want to wait until we confirm the possession of the items that are up for discussion.”
Kethen paused. “You have a point. Can you easily identify anything?”
She looked at him, read the manifest, and found something. “The Prithic orb. They need it for breeding season. They will be happy to get it back.”