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I did, holding on as tightly as I could with my arms and legs. Krxare wouldn’t be able to hold me while he monkey-barred across.
Krxare swung from branch to branch, following the old but still extremely agile leader. As he did, our bodies pressed together, bumping and rubbing. I groaned. What a horrible time and place to get turned on. It was having an effect on Krxare too. Something hard and rigid bumped against my open crotch with every swing.
I buried my face into his neck and inhaled. The sweat and blood from the fight were still on him, but behind that was the promise of the ultimate man. He smelled so sexy, and I wanted to lick him up. I couldn’t stop myself. I licked him.
Mmm. He was yummy. So masculine and virile.
I’d been frightened when he was fighting, but now that the danger was over, I liked the fact that he’d come to my protection. It had made me feel things when he’d called me his. And I loved that only I, a tiny, insignificant human, could calm his rage. Was that so wrong?
“Naughty little mate,” he growled into my ear.
The low rumble of his voice had me wet in an instant, and I worried I’d leave a mark right through my legging onto him. Luckily, we landed in the final tree, back where the matriarch had received us before the fight.
Krxare let me down slowly, his cock pressing against my clit as our bodies slid together. He grinned at me as the contact had me inhaling sharply. When I pushed away, his cock was still hard and unmistakably outlined against the front of his pants, but he didn’t seem to care.
We took a seat on the nearest mound of moss, next to Vostak and Trsak, who shared a similar seat.
Then, as if the fight never happened at all, it was back to business as usual, as the matriarch and the Kadrixans discussed the criteria for the next trade. The Vokiren now had plenty of the mineral pigments the Kadrixans had been offering, but the sky warriors—as the matriarch called them—still needed more fabrics for the growing number of human females joining them.
Krxare listed several ores they could trade, but none seemed to interest the Vokiren leader. I slowly lost interest in the talk and surveyed the room instead, if you could even call it a room.
When Krxare had told me the Vokiren lived in treehouses, this wasn’t what I’d expected. I’d expected artificial structures built into trees for shelter. Instead, the trees themselves were the shelters. They were huge. So large, a small shuttle could drive right into the cracks formed between the ground and the raised roots and disappear under them.
Each tree had a flat-floored, shallow bowl at the center, covered in bark and moss, where the Vokiren people lived. Some of the trees had platforms built over the moss. They were protected from the weather overhead by the thick foliage. It was right out of a fairytale.
The Vokiren tribe here differed physically from the ones on our colony’s continent, and they lived differently as well, even though they were clearly the same species. Tolan had been right at home here in the trees, despite living his whole life in longhouses. Perhaps at one point, our continent had been covered in forests, too.
I hadn’t known they morphed into beasts when they fought. Surely, if the colony’s officials had known, they’d have broadcast it to the whole colony to frighten the populace.
All it took to start a war was for a loud minority of sheltered, rich colonists living in the center to get the idea that by attacking the Vokiren they’d be protecting the less fortunate folk who lived at the edge of the colony. Those at the top always talked about finding ways to help the less fortunate, but much of what they did had the opposite effect.
If we started a war with the Vokiren, it would be those on the outer edges who’d be drafted to fight.
The natives were not the bloodthirsty savages intent on war that the colony insisted they were, but they were also not the peaceful, loving race some of the other groups proclaimed them to be. Those activist groups littered the ground of public places with their untraceable, hand-stamped propaganda flyers. The truth was somewhere in between.
The name of the planet, Vokira, was a native word, and Vokiren simply denoted those who lived on the planet. Originally, the colony had called the planet some name made up by Earth officials, but the native name stuck in colloquial use, and we’d been using it since.
Krxare’s hand tightened on my thigh, and I realized the meeting was over.
“Then it is decided. We will continue trade, for the technology which allows us to communicate over long distances.” Azala looked pleased, as did the Kadrixans.
“It will make communicating between our people easier as well,” Krxare agreed.
“We will meet again the day after the next full moon.” Azala looked to me. “Please bring your delightful mate along again.”
Why did everyone assume I planned on staying? No matter. I took her hand politely and repeated the formal greeting I’d learned when I first arrived, which they used to say goodbye as well.
Chapter 15: Krxare
I’d left my Clara with the other females when we’d returned, so I could finish putting the final touches on my nest. My rut was starting, having been triggered by the fight with the Vokiren male, and I felt hot and frustrated.
I needed to dunk myself into an icy river and cool off, but I didn’t have the time. Not if I wanted to have my nest ready for Clara. The furs from yesterday were ready, but that wasn’t enough. Aside from the soft, stretchy fabrics we used to clothe the females, we’d also traded for the cool-feeling satiny ones to use as sheets for our mating beds.
I scratched at the back of my neck and huffed at the discomfort of feeling like I was too large to fit into my own skin and was therefore suffocating. I’d experienced this every year since I’d become old enough, and yet every time, it was just as unbearable as the last. I hated it.
Of course, once I had a female in my arms, the torture eased, but only temporarily. It gave me reprieve only long enough for the female to leave and for me to find another. To prevent themselves from being affected by our pheromones too strongly, females on Kadri left once we were sated, keeping things transactional unless they wished to try for a mating bond.
Some females had tried to stay beside me beyond their welcome, wanting to hook themselves one of Kadri’s Champions, but I’d asked them to leave. I’d never spent longer than I must with a female.
