Page 25 of Jewel of the Alien Bandit
My loh extended out from my back and in slow steady pulses I exerted the radiated light from my body to keep us centered within the pod and stationary as the it rotated around us. Thiswouldn’t work if the gravitation simulator was on, but as long as we drifted I could keep us safe.
After a few minutes Vareo groaned, and I tensed up hoping he wouldn’t move too much when he woke. I hadn’t expected him to come out of his state so quickly. there wasn’t much information on the shol from the one book I could find, but an estreld’s loh have been known to help my clan withstand most pressure from space travel, for a time anyways. Until our radiation runs out.
But we’ve always had the moons nearby to recuperate. I had no idea what would happen to me without the moon’s rays. This should have been one of the things I figured out before trying to form an offworlder diplomatic mission. It was always assumed we would be near a moon, or a sun.
My loh pulsed in slow waves to steady us, and when Vareo’s muscles twitched in his back I thought for sure he woke up, but he remained still and said nothing.
“If you’re awake, don’t move. It’s more difficult to keep us in position if you do.”
He moved anyways, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling the rest of me in closer to him.
“What part of don’t move do you not–”
I pushed out a bit more energy to steady us, and found now that we were even more firmly held together it was actually easier.
“How long can you maintain this?”
His fingers traced along the edge of one of my loh on my lower back, and I wanted to adjust myself to look up into his face, in hopes of reading his thoughts, that they would be clear on his features. As much as I worried about what would happen if my light ran out, I equally worried about what would happen if I let him go.
“I’m not sure,” I answered honestly. This was new to me, both the use of my loh without the moons and the man I held in my arms. I wanted him, I knew that much, but I didn’t know him. Now, I was stuck with him until we distracted Carmen, and he was probably only helping me because I offered him a chance at profit instead of using me like a hostage.
And yet despite that I decided to help him during warp instead of only helping myself. It would have been easier to do this alone and then wait for Carmen to come back pretending to be passed out. Have her drag the unconscious Vareo out first while I used whatever energy I had left to trap Carmen in the prisoner seats and take over the ship. But there was no guarantee that my plan would have worked, and at least this way I’d have the muscle of Vareo to help take the ship back.
For some reason I trusted his word despite leaving the planet without telling me. He had no reason to inform me he was leaving if he decided he didn’t want to mate with me. Was that why he left? I mean, I told myself the reason why I went after him was because I needed his help with finding the technology that could help our offspring rates, but then why did it upset me that he didn’t want to mate with me after our time in the library? My cheeks burned thinking about the way his fingers moved inside of me, and his cock strained against his pants reassuring that at least his body wasn’t rejecting me.
Get a hold of yourself, Luan, this was business nothing more.
“What should we do?” I asked, wondering if he had a plan for Carmen when she came back.
I had my own thoughts about strapping her into the prisoner seat like she did me, but needed to know where his head was at.
“The warp drive makes the time inside the ship slow down.” We kept our eyes closed to avoid disorientation from the walls spinning around us. “We’ll have to wait it out.”
“That’s not what I was asking.” I knew how a ship’s warp drive worked. “after that.”
“Right… I was going to sell Carmen to the traders.”
I gasped, unable to stop myself. That seemed too far to take revenge, even if she was a bitch.
“She’ll be fine, she’s necia they’ll check her tags before she’s actually sold off and they’ll release her,” he assured, while his hands absently stroked my hair.
“Oh.” I was relieved to hear that, but something about being tagged seemed off. Did all necia tag themselves like supplies?
That seemed like something only done in the black market, and my lips flattened remembering that Necias was an outlaw planet, of course they tagged their people.
“How long will it delay her?” I asked instead.
“They don’t scan until the very end of processing when they are about to brand the slaves.” His voice was cold when he explained. “The processor will toss her to the side to blackmail her boss for a payout, and she’ll be held in the Lord Zorn’s office, humiliated, but no worse for wear. It’s after the scan when things get personal.”
There was a sadness in him that was palpable as he spoke. Like he knew exactly what being processed by the black market felt like, not just a bounty hunter that was tasked with saving a slave, or taking down a trader that went too far for even morally gray outlaws.
“Was that where Carmen was going to send me?” The reality of how close I probably came to being a slave hit me hard. I squeezed Vareo’s hard torso, like that would keep the outlaws from kidnapping innocents.
“It doesn’t matter what her plans were. Our plans are to find a scientist.”
“Once we have the planet’s location, we can head back to Estreldez and send a diplomatic ship over to seek their assistance,” I agreed.
It wouldn’t solve everything, but maybe Krelis would be open to the idea of a mating treaty to stop their trade hostility? Trent had mentioned they needed to find compatible females for their hive, but only if our clan agrees.
