Chapter 5 | Hazel

Chapter 5

Hazel

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My body ached as I startled awake with the realization that I had slept without my radiation pack. My loh wouldn't have absorbed enough energy to function properly for the day without it. My lungs burned as I gasped and clawed at the hard wall I was against. My fingers grazed off the firm surface, and a low chuckle rumbled around me as my hands were gently held down.

"To a new rising, Treasure."

"I didn't mean..." I realized with shock that I was clawing at the one who had helped me.

"It'll take more than that to scuff up my scales," he assured with a twinkle in his eyes.

My hand went to my rough throat. "It's just the last time I woke up aching... it was after I was..."

"Taken," he finished for me, and he started to move me away. I clung more desperately, wrapping my arms around his neck.

"No," I begged. He was cool to the touch, but it felt nice against my burning loh jewels. If they didn't have radiation to absorb soon, they would crack the skin surrounding them and I would start bleeding again.

"Are you in pain?" he hissed in question.

I nodded against his chest.

"That shouldn't be possible," he said before he cupped the loh at my shoulder and pulled back, staring at it with narrowed eyes. "My scales disperse heat, but you are burning too hot for my tincture to absorb into your skin. Is this normal for your species?"

I breathed in his scent and rubbed my face against his cool scales with a sigh. "This planet doesn't have a moon. I traded my loh for a radiation pack that I normally sleep with."

"Where is it?" He stood immediately and grabbed his robes, which he promptly pulled over himself and me with his tail, while he continued to hold me to his chest. I was not a small female, tall and lithe like much of my clan. The robes were large, and both of our heads fit inside the ample fabric of the hood.

I giggled despite myself. On Estreldez, our fabrics were thin and light. We rarely, if ever, covered our loh from the moon's rays. Having so much fabric seemed so odd until I came to Delta Fal, where I had to cover my loh just to not bring attention to myself. Many leered at them greedily like I was a walking jewel mine that they wished to pluck the riches from my flesh. I would not survive it.

"Your robes are much larger than even the two of us," I had to explain my sudden outburst, not wishing to offend him. I hadn't noticed how much fabric there was before as the layers folded over each other and I was too focused on his eyes. Well, that and he wasn't wearing it when I caught him shirtless. His tail was hidden until it'd snuck its way between my legs. I flushed at the memory.

"The thick robes protect others from coming into contact with my tincture oil and keep my scales comfortable. The hood is to stop my baser instincts from spraying enemies or... mates while also hiding my predatory nature." He smiled, showing off his razor-sharp teeth.

He had sprayed me before with a mist that came from his scales along his head. I bit my lip, wondering what exactly the spray did to people.

Like he could read my mind, he added quickly, "If I'm under duress, the spray can poison my enemies but... when I'm mating it enhances pleasure sensors."

"Oh." I rasped with awareness and my mating loh throbbed with an expectation of feeling more of that pleasure spray and something more than his tail.

We were out the door and exiting the Den of Bounty when the junk trader stopped us. I squirmed, unsure of what Yueril would do if he knew she was who I sold my loh to. Not that the old Shol woman knew how painful the process was of removing a loh, or the lasting damage that resulted from it. She was the only one willing to speak with me or trade with me on this planet.

She had tried to convince me to be a spy and figure out what the trill were up to, and she guaranteed that she would find a ship that would take me home if I succeeded.

But a few kind acts from this strange male and I doubted everything. Here he was carrying me to find my radiation pack, and the only thing he asked of me was to hang out with him while he stayed on this barren planet. It could have been anyone. Why me?

The old shol spoke. "I've come into possession of some tarnpul. From the krelins, highly conductive. Great source of stable radiation! Heat your rations safely. Makes functional jewelry!"

Tarnpul wasn't tasty to eat, but it stored the radiation of the moon's rays and was sure to still have some left in it for quite some time. It's how my clan survived the storms inside the mountains when the moon's rays were blocked by the debris in the atmosphere. I clutched onto Yueril's neck tighter at the mention of it. He seemed to remember me speaking of the tarnpul earlier and asked the trader if it was native to Estreldez. Before she could even answer him, he faced her and said, "We'll take it." Not even asking how much it cost.

The trader handed him a heavy bag, and she gave him a strange hand gesture with her pinky and said, "In many we rise."

"It has been a while since I've been home and heard the greeting. You'll know then what I have to trade and may pick it up from my shuttle."

He dug into the bag and pulled out the black polished rock of tarnpul. A soft glow pulled between my loh and the rock as it got closer to my skin. The radiation sunk deep into my muscles and the raspy wheeze in my lungs eased as I began to process the stored power of the moons. It had been so long, I nearly wept again.

We made it back to the shuttle yard, and I finally got up the courage to ask him, "What do you trade?"

"We trade in many medical supplies. This tarnpul will barely cover the cost of a few vials. The trader knows she owes her boon to you, as the trill have far greater advancements not readily available this far out in the galaxy." He paused and stopped walking before he spoke again, but not to me. "Belder?"

I couldn't hear the other side of his conversation, but his nostrils flared, and he cursed—at least whatever words he said next did not translate.

He glanced at me apologetically. "I must return to the Den of Bounty. Where is this radiation pack of yours?"

Not wanting him to see where I used to sleep, and with the tarnpul so close, I didn't need it right away, so I shook my head. "I can come back for it later. The tarnpul may not be worth much to you, but it will save my life here. It feels like home." I held the rock close to my chest.

"Then you'll come with me?"

I nodded with a shy smile. Yueril still hadn't let me go, holding me in his arms like I weighed nothing. His tail was propped under my butt and wrapped around my inner thigh.

"I don't know what I'm walking into when we return." He eased me down his body until my toes touched the ground. He was only slightly taller than me, but not by much. Our foreheads touched, and he lifted the robe above his head and slipped out, leaving the large garment over me, the fabric now grazing the dirt.

I'd seen the horrors that happened to those who weren't cut out to be outlaws. It was a clan with a deadly admittance. The robe over my shoulders was used to protect others from Yueril, not to protect Yueril from his surroundings. I admired the way his scales shimmered in the dim light of the artificial beams surrounding the shuttle yard. This planet was more like an asteroid than a habitable home, barely in orbit of the nearest star. Its heat source was from beneath the surface.

He handed me the pack of tarnpul, and said with seriousness, "These are yours. It isn't normal for Belder not to respond, which means she was surprised by something... or someone."

A female? A twinge of jealousy heated my cheeks, but I hadn't even told him my name. I enjoyed the way he called me treasure too much.

"Pull the hood down over your face when I tell you to," he instructed, and we made our way back to the Den of Bounty.

The junk trader was nowhere to be seen, and that in itself was suspicious. I grabbed for Yueril's forearm. "This doesn't feel right."

He nodded. "I'd say my crew is being welcomed to the planet with a winner-take-all challenge."

I took a step back with fear and uncertainty. "I've seen what they do to offworlders that try to do business without using their services. I'm only alive because they are waiting for Lord Zorn to come and take care of me himself..." It went without saying that my time was limited to find a way off this planet before he returned, even if it meant sneaking aboard someone's shuttle and gambling where it would travel to, or if I'd get caught.

Borrowed time.

I took a deep breath and a deliberate step forward.

"Treasure," he reassured with a lick along his sharp teeth, "I won't force you to join me, but even if they ambush me, you will be the only one to survive it."

He flexed his claws, and his scales glistened like he was covered in the waterfall's mist from my home planet, and not off to enter a trap on an outlaw claimed rock. Muscles rippled beneath his scales, and a sharp thorn slipped out from the tip of his tail. He could have torn me apart, yet instead he destroyed me in a way that had me smiling at the excited anticipation in his dark eyes.

As we entered the Den of Bounty, there was no guard positioned anywhere to greet us. It was eerily quiet and empty as we moved through the halls, yet Yueril didn't pause to stop as he moved fluidly with determined precision.

He finally spoke. "The rooms are empty."

How did he know that?

We approached a room, and it opened to a torn membrane like entering the stomach of a large animal.

"She isn't here..."

But we hadn't even entered the room before he was turning fast and pushing me behind him.

"I can see you," he said pointedly in front of us, but there was no one there.

A voice from the hall echoed, "It's rare to find a species that is capable of detecting me before I strike." Laughter bounced against the walls, and I blinked several times, uncertain of what I was seeing appear from within the air itself.

I gasped, covering my mouth before I fell to the floor, before the image of Estreldez's Moon God.