The Last Hour of Gann (127 page)

Zhuqa followed the direction of her eyes as he unbuckled his harness. He did not remark, only smiled and undressed. When he was naked except for his loin-plate and the knives strapped to his biceps, he gestured at her.

She started to take her shift off, wincing as the coarse fabric pulled taut across her back, but he stopped her.

“In a moment. First, I want you to look there and see the plate I have set for us to share.”

She looked. Her stomach growled.

“I know that you are very hungry,” Zhuqa said behind her. “I see that you are tired. And hurt.” His hand slipped like slow hell down her spine. “But Hruuzk tells me you have been obedient and hard-working…most of the day. And I am inclined to forgive your foolishness there at the end, because it so warmed me to see my Eshiqi seeking her man’s aid. So. Are you hungry?”

“Yes,” she said, and said it again as best she could in dumaqi.

“I’m glad.” He took her arms and raised them over her head, taking the opportunity to nuzzle at her from behind. There, with his snout close to her ear and his hands like shackles around her wrists, he softly said, “Because if I find a weapon hidden on you, Eshiqi, I’m going to make you eat it.”

She started to look at him. He released one hand to catch a fisthold in her hair and yank her head back, so that she suddenly found herself looking into his face. Viewed this way, upside-down and from below, his eyes caught the light in a strange new way, almost seeming to glow.

“If you took something out of the workpit, bring it out. I’ll beat you,” he said calmly, “but I won’t kill you if you confess it now and beg my forgiveness.”

“I don’t have anything,” she said, truthfully enough. It wasn’t as if the thought had never crossed her mind, but the only knife she’d seen in the workpit had been strapped to the side of Dkorm’s left boot and he’d been staring at her most of the day anyway.

“Please yourself. But remember that I gave you this chance.” Zhuqa let go of her hair and pulled her shift off. He felt it out carefully, gave her a long appraising stare, then tossed it aside and resumed his impersonal search, this time on her body. He made thorough work of it: finger-combing through her hair, lifting her breasts, even thumbing at her belly-button. Unsatisfied, he then knelt to check between her toes, run his hands up her legs all the way to the crack of her ass, and once there of course, felt inside her pussy. “Take that look off your face, little liar,” he remarked. “You’ve opened for me.”

“Not open enough to hide a knife. Seriously, what are you thinking?”

He grunted and released her, his spines now flexed all the way forward, broadly smiling. “No weapons. Not even a splinter of wood to sharpen. Am I to believe my dangerous Eshiqi has been tamed?”

“Only long enough for Meoraq to get here.”

His spines came forward at once. “Was that a name?”

Amber shut her stupid mouth.

“No answer? So be it. You’re Zhuqa’s woman now.” He rose and walked over to seat himself at the table. “And Zhuqa feeds his loyal woman well.”

She didn’t let herself get carried away by relief at these words; he was altogether too pleased with himself. And sure enough, at her first cautious step forward, he patted his thigh.

She looked at his hand, then at his face.

He grimaced at her playfully (
first saw that look on meoraq yeah the morning after we first made love he probably has no idea how freaky it makes him look but at least he tries o god where is he
) and patted again. “I have only the one chair.”

“I don’t suppose sitting on the floor is an option.”

“You will sit to eat—” Pat pat. “—or you will not eat tonight, Eshiqi.”

She sat on his lap. He bumped his knee a few times, grimacing as she winced at the rough scour of his scales, then he pinched off a chunk of meat and held it up.

Her mouth snapped shut on a sudden river of saliva.

“This,” said Zhuqa, placing the morsel against her lips without any further torment, “is for sitting so immediately and so well upon your man’s knee.”

And oh but it tasted good. Tachuqi meat, she knew that at once, but the best damn tachuqi in the world. They’d actually braised it in something; the taste was richer and more tangy than mere hunger’s spicing. It was, in all honesty, the best thing she’d eaten since leaving Earth. Better than quite a few things she’d eaten
on
Earth.

He had a bite of his own while he enjoyed the sight of her trying (and failing) not to wolf it down in one swallow. Then it was gone and her hunger was fully awakened and clawing up her guts, and the real torture began.

“Put your hand on me, Eshiqi,” he said. “You know the way.”

Amber gave the bowl of food a pointed look and unbuckled his loin-plate. She cupped his groin impersonally and waited.

He tore off another chunk of meat. “That was neither immediate nor well done,” he said and ate it himself.

“Sadist.”

“Mm. It isn’t bad for camp food, is it?” He licked his fingers.

“
Fucking
sadist!” Her eyes fixed infuriatingly on his mouth.

He took more meat
and must have felt her hand on him tense in expectation because he glanced down before snorting laughter at her. “No, Eshiqi. One bite for you, one for me. That is how we share our meals. And you forfeited your last bite. This one is mine. But keep moving your hand. When I give you an order, I mean you to go until I tell you to stop.”

She kneaded at him mechanically as he sucked the juice from the meat, pinched it off into smaller and smaller bites, and finally ate it. He started to reach for another, then paused, pretending not to notice her hungry stare,
then held out his hand invitingly. “Taste?” he offered.

No way. No fucking way was she going to—

And then she grabbed his hand and sucked not just greedily, not just that…but gratefully.

Zhuqa rocked back hard, banging his head sharply against the back of his chair. Now his eyes were fixed and staring.

That’s right. They didn’t have lips. They could lick…they couldn’t suck.

“Well, damn,” mumbled Amber disgustedly, but she couldn’t let go of his hand.

And as long as she was sucking on it, he was in no hurry to take it back. But the taste of meat was finite, and the taste of lizard could not provoke the same gusto. “Enough,” he said, once her enthusiasm began to flag. He looked at his hand when she released it, flexing his wet fingers, and then at her.

“Yeah,” she said. “We’re going to be coming back to that, aren’t we?”

He picked up one of the roots—not a piece, but the whole thing—and held it up where she had to look at it. “I want your hand on my cock.”

His cock wasn’t out. Amber stroked his slit, which, despite his obvious effort to keep it tight against her, was already oozing beadlets of oil.

“You are such a slut,” said Amber, pushing her finger in to stroke his sa’ad. “Honest to God, that’s what you are. Big, tough Zhuqa. You’re just a dirty girl.”

He hissed through clenched teeth, then groaned, then finally gave up with a hoarse laugh and let himself extrude. As soon as she closed her fist on h
is shaft, he gave her the root. “Remember, you obey until I tell you to stop. Keep your hand busy.”

She did, although it wasn’t easy to fight open the thick, burnt husk of the root with one hand while gently rubbing a man’s dick with the other. Beneath the peel, the pulp of the root was grey and unappetizing, with a taste that was mostly that of the ashes it had been baked in. She ate it anyway, bolting it down in just a few half-chewed swallows,
until she had nothing to do but work her fist and watch him slowly eat.

“You are good,” he remarked between lazy bites. “Your Sheulek trained you well, but this is Zhuqa’s House. Get up, Eshiqi. Put my cock inside you just how we are.”

He looked so sly and serious about it, like sex in a chair with the woman on top was the absolute limit of unthinkable depravity, that she laughed at him. Then she got up, still shaking her head (very much aware of how closely he was watching her now) and straddled him. “Such a dirty girl,” she said, milking at the base of his shaft until she’d worked the thick head of it inside her.

“Just so,” he murmured, reaching up to stroke his thumb along her throat.

She bore down, rocking a little to let his oils make the entry easier, and then sat, eye to eye, waiting for further instructions.

“Make me cum,” he said, not moving.

It took a few false starts; she didn’t want to put her arms around him for balance and she
hated
having his face right in front of her while she bounced on his cock, having to watch him study the juddering of her breasts and smirking. So she leaned back, bracing her hands behind her on his knees and raising herself up on her toes to pump her hips at him while she looked at the ceiling instead. It put a lot of strain on her aching shoulders, but it wouldn’t last long, she knew. It never did.

Or at least, it never had.

“It was a sick mind that taught you this,” said Zhuqa in a mildly marveling tone. Apart from a minute clenching of his thighs now and then, he managed not to move at all. His breath remained slow and even. His hands stayed at his sides. His cock, ticking hard inside of her with the urgent hammer of his pulse, gave neither of them release.

Her shoulders couldn’t take this much longer.
“Hurry up and finish, motherfucker,” Amber muttered, bucking faster.

He
only chuckled. “Fierce little thing. A Sheulek is a master of his flesh. Just because I choose so often to revel does not mean I do not know restraint.”

Which meant he was willing to go all night, for no other reason than to piss her off. Irritation became the spark of an idea. Amber caught his wrist, brought it to her mouth, and sucked at his finger, bobbing up and down its small length to the rhythm of her pumping hips.

“
Fuck Gann
!” he spat, yanking back his hand, but it was all over. His cock jerked; she felt the heat of his cum spitting over and over, like fireworks blooming in some internal sky, until he shuddered out the last of it.

He glared at her, close enough that she could feel the hot grunts of his breath puffing on her throat and stirring through her hair. His neck had lit up at some point during the sex, but the color wasn’t fading now that it was done. If anything, it was getting brighter.

All sense of victory slowly died, leaving her nothing but Zhuqa’s eyes burning into hers and the sting of the belt still crawling like coals over her back.

“That was stupid,” said Zhuqa, scarcely audible even with his face right in front of hers.

Should she agree? Apologize? Stay quiet? Amber hesitated and lost the choice.

“You want me to finish with you, is that it? You have somewhere else to be tonight? Eh?”

“No,” Amber said, tried to say.

“No! You don’t decide when I’m done!” Zhuqa picked her up only to thump her down with ass-bruising force on the table and shove her flat. Her head hit the bowl, upending it. He swiped burnt roots and greasy meat out of his way, hauled her hips to the table’s edge, and stabbed himself back inside her, snarling, “I’ll fuck you until you bleed if that’s my pleasure!” His empty hand splayed open and heavy across her chest, pinning her in place for his rapid, unfeeling thrusts. The table rubbing at her from behind might as well have been wrapped in razor wire. “I’ll fuck you until we
both
bleed and you…” His back arched, bucking almost in convulsions, every cord of his throat pushing out through vibrant shades of black and yellow. “…and you…fuck…” His eyes were glazing even as he glared at her. “You,” he said, but the rest was an animal hiss.

Amber didn’t move.

Zhuqa closed his eyes. He began to breathe. “One,” she heard him mutter. “One for the Prophet…”

Someone knocked at the door.

Zhuqa roared. Not like an angry man, or even an angry lizard. It was the roar of a dragon, wordless, tearing through the air and her bones together at decibels no mortal voice should even be capable of achieving. His hips pumped spastically, brutally, without seeming to be aware of her at all.

Amber did not fight him, did not cry out, did not
even breathe.

Three more knocks, deliberate and loud.

Zhuqa stopped rock-rigid above her. His arms shook where he leaned on them, not (she was sure) from the strain and violence of his thrusts, as much as from the strain of not letting go to his killing rage. Amber, the only living thing in the room, held very still and watched him as he turned his head and looked at the door.

He breathed. Once. Twice.

“I,” he said in a rasping, hellish hiss, “do not care if the
skies
have split open and are
shitting fire
all over my camp!
Move the fuck on
!” he roared, once more in that dragon’s voice she felt even in her womb.

A moment’s stillness. Zhuqa’s heaving breath moved her minutely back and forth on the table. He didn’t look at her.

Tok. Tok. Tok.