Lifemates (Tales of Wild Space Book 1) Read online

  The landing was softer than Cole had expected, due to the underbrush, but his relief was short-lived as his eyes focused on the tree that had previously been his perch, now falling directly towards him. Awkwardly, he scrambled away from the greenery that had broken his previous fall, just in time to avoid the thunderclap of felled timber. Knowing he was hardly out of the proverbial fire, he leaped to his feet and unholstered his magcel pistol, but too late, as sudden agony seared across his lower right leg. It was as if twin steel bars had struck across his shin and calf. The pseudobaryonyx had him in its massive jaws. With a high pitched shriek, the beast shook Cole into the air, tossing him like a rag doll. It was fortunate that Cole’s grip on the pistol had been already secure by the time the beast had caught up with him, but his concentration was crippled by the searing pain of its iron bite. Desperate, Cole fired randomly, trying to strike at any sensitive part of the creature’s hide to force it to let go, but merely wasted ammo in a shower of fifty shots-per-second auto fire. Eventually, his training took over and Cole forced himself to focus all his concentration through the otherwise crippling agony. With a scream of defiance, he twisted himself to face the creature’s yellow eyes, and aimed true. The shot tore from its magnetic linear accelerator, and through the flesh right between its two lower eyes, shattering its skull as the pea-sized bullet gouged into its brain meats.

  The pseudobaryonyx, without a sound, went crashing to the ground. Its head lurched upwards, and its jaws, once rigid and unyielding, went slack, and Cole felt himself arcing through the air towards an uncertain landing.

  Damn trees, was his only thought as he felt himself strike against something hard. And then all became blackness.

  ***

  “My hunter! Oh, my hunter! Are you all right? Please, speak to me!”

  Cole opened to his eyes to a face that was a mask of worry and fear, and to arms

  that shook him firmly, but tenderly. To this he smiled reassuringly, and reached out and touched Ni’linya’s soft, furry cheek.

  “I’m fine, little Tiger,” he said as the Felyan stopped shaking him, and a look of cautious relief crossed her delicate muzzle. “I’m fine. Just bumped my head on the headboard and got dazed. We were a little rough the last time.”

  Ni’linya was silent for a moment, as if to consider his words –and then smiled self-deprecatingly. Through her striped fur, Cole could feel the temperature of her skin rise a couple of degrees.

  “Yes … ah, that we were,” she said, and took hold of his caressing hand. A soft purr escaped her as she closed her eyes. “Are you absolutely certain you’re okay? I was about to call a medic.”

  “No need,” Cole replied. “Aside from a little headache, I’m fine. I’ve

  had far worse.”

  “Oh, I’ve no doubt.”

  Cole caught a wink of something unreadable yet familiar in Ni’linya’s softening eyes. But before he could say anything, she slid into his arms and nuzzled his chest: something that he recognized as one of her ploys to derail his train of thought. Usually, it worked; her skills in distraction were, after all, as remarkable as those of lovemaking. But tonight, he could not afford to be swayed.

  “Tiger, how long have we known each other?” he asked.

  “Feels like forever, sometimes.”

  “I’m serious,” Cole’s tone was significantly less sensuous, giving his lover reason to pause. Frowning, but only marginally so, she folded her arms atop her chest and rested her head sideways.

  Mmm … Three years?” She replied thoughtfully, but with only the vaguest hint of suppressed annoyance. “Perhaps four? Why do you ask?”

  “Four,” Cole answered. “And how many years out of those four have you accepted my offers to pay you?”

  “Is that what this is about?” Cole felt her chest heave in a sigh. “Is my

  hunter offended that I don’t accept his money?”

  “No!” Cole practically blurted it out, and then restrained himself, realizing from her tone of voice that perhaps he would have to phrase his next few sentences with a touch more trepidation. “No, not at all. But … well, it’s been three years since you’ve accepted a single credit from me, Tiger. And I’ve thought about it sometimes … thought about it a lot, actually. I guess it’s just made me worry. I mean, you have a house mother, and I’m sure she answers to someone else, right?”

  “Xengal.”

  “What?”

  “Xengal is the house proprietor. A Vlissian.”

  “Oh.” Cole feigned nonchalance as a shudder went unbidden down his back. He had only seen Vlissians a few times in his life, and each time was even more unnerving than the last. He only hoped he would never face a situation where he would need to actually speak with those enigmatic aliens. “Well, I wouldn’t dare to assume the number of customers you get on average, but of course, it’s no secret that humans don’t normally gravitate to your kya. I choose your services exclusively; I’m a preferred customer, I’m sure … and you never have anything to show for it. Isn’t that getting you into some kind of trouble? I mean, every time I visit you, I have to put out that riss incense you always have burning; I always thought they were trying to keep your mind fuzzy so that you wouldn’t refuse payment or …”

  Ni’linya shook upon his chest as a giggle bubbled out of her.

  “ … Or maybe you were beaten, or …”

  The giggle increased in volume and vehemence, and quickly transformed into a laugh, carefree and loud, as if he had told her the most ludicrous joke in the universe.

  “Um … am I saying something funny?”

  “Only all that rubbish about being kept drugged,” Ni’linya tittered, “and … beaten?” Her laugh was utterly melodious, then became raucous as she rolled off of his stomach and grabbed her sides, doubling over in an absolute conniption.

  “Hey! I really was worried about that, you know,” Cole protested as his lover rode out her laughing convulsion, and then slowly settled down.

  “Oh, my silly hunter …” a trembling giggle still came through as Ni’linya turned around, wiped the tears from her eyes, and then touched her palm gently to his face as he had done a moment before. You silly, silly man …”

  Cole tried not to scowl, and found that Ni’linya’s caresses made the task easier. And with the touch of her tongue to his lips, a smile could not help but appear, and he soon could not help but return her affection in kind.

  “So do tell, my very amusing Tiger,” Cole said after their affections had changed into a very protracted kiss, “how am I so silly that you had to say it twice?”

  That half-smile on the Felyan’s muzzle had returned in full force. “Because I’m something like … ah, how do you humans say? A ‘free agent.’”

  “Really now?” Cole raised an eyebrow, nonplussed by this new information.

  “I earn the money at my own discretion,” Ni’linya said.

  “Funny that I still have to go through your house mother in order to see you.”

  “I’m still indentured to the house, of course,” Ni’linya replied. “The house mother oversees our clientele,” She’s a hybrid, so she can sense when someone has untoward intentions. Her mind is always open to both us and our clients, so if someone gets violent, she can shut down his mind until the authorities pick him up. She protects us.”

  “So that’s why she always seemed so happy,” Cole said, recalling how oddly aloof the silver-haired half-Felyan in the elegant gown at the café seemed whenever he came calling.

  “You’d be too, if you had the thoughts of well over a dozen people making love at any given time going through your head,” his lover replied with another titter.

  “And the riss?”

  “I use it voluntarily. In fact, all the other members of the house use it. I get more clients than you realize, my very gullible hunter. And most of them aren’t as … thorough as you. It helps to have something to make it more exciting, even though it makes me as dopey as a child.”

  Cole ope
ned his mouth to say something, but then changed his mind. Noticing his pensiveness, Ni’linya gave a smaller, subdued laugh, more amused than raucous.

  “I see that the Tiger has stumped her hunter,” she said, running a finger along the center of his chest and down his stomach. “But I assure you, Felyan pleasure houses are much, much different than what you humans do in what you call ‘brothels.’ Ours is not an occupation to be ridiculed, and we are well cared for. There is no coercion with violence or drugs, and we are not slaves.”

  She draped a silken leg over his hip and in one languid movement, straddled over him, smiling hungrily. “And I accept and reject payment as I please.”

  Cole hated to admit that he could not avoid feeling somewhat foolish for asking the question. Laughing in spite of himself, he loosely curved his fingers over his Tiger’s wrist. “Shows how much I know, doesn’t it?” He asked.

  Ni’linya raised an eyebrow, but her half-smile never vanished. “Now my hunter feels foolish?” She said, playfully wiggling her hips -and by extension, her backside.

  “A little,” Cole answered. “And that brings something else to mind.”

  “Oh?” His lover thankfully stopped moving her lower half, giving his body a slight reprieve from not unwelcome, but very distracting sensations. “What would that be?

  “The fact that I never asked how you came to this job, for one thing,” Cole replied. “I never felt comfortable asking before, since I thought it might be something you were sensitive about. I mean, It’s no secret that your kya is a sort of ‘ruling class.’ If nothing else, I’d have expected you to be the house mother. Though it does make more sense for her to be a hybrid.”

  “You’re rambling,” Ni’linya remarked with a slight titter.

  “Sorry.”

  She shook her head, and smiled sweetly. “Do not fear, my nervous hunter. Besides, I can see why it would have been uncomfortable, with your preconceived notions. My story is quite simple, actually. I had nowhere else to go. My family wasn’t a ruling house, but a vassal house, in service to a minor trading guild. We did not live on the surface, but on one of the habitats in orbit around An’Re’Hara.

  “There was an accident. A severe meteor shower hit unexpectedly when the habitat’s shields were down for repairs. The majority of it was destroyed. Everyone was exposed to space; only I survived. I had no family or friends on the planet; I’d only ever gone there to visit during my leisure time, so I decided to seek my fortune among the human colonies. I attached myself to an itinerant clan for a time, but was accidentally left behind on Xiao. The economy was bad at the time, and there were few job openings for Felyans, except in pleasure houses, so I indentured myself here. My life is comfortable, and the humans here treat us well, but with the exception of yourself, I’ve never felt truly at home among them, or any of the other girls who work here. And I have to pay off my term of indenturement if I wish to go back to An’Re’Hara.”

  “You’ve had a hard life, then, haven’t you, Tiger?” Cole’s voice was low and flowed with a swell of newfound sympathy. “I never knew. I’m sorry I never asked.”

  The very lithe Felyan shook her head. “I never expected that you would ask, my sweet hunter.”

  Cole reached out and ran his fingers along the striped contours of his patron’s arm, towards the golden bracelet she wore between her left elbow and shoulder. “If you say that you can’t return home until your indenturement is paid off, then why can’t I-?”

  But before he could reach the bracelet, Ni’linya broke free of his grip, and then quickly entwined her hands with his, leaning forward to pin him to the bed. Gone was the gentle gaze in her soft eyes. It was replaced by a much more intense, but nonetheless playful look.

  “If you wish to pay me so badly, my curious hunter,” she whispered … perhaps we can arrange something.”

  “What did you have in mind?” Cole asked, forgetting his sympathetic melancholy for the moment. The previous emotions drowned in amusement at her playfulness as he did not resist her grip.

  “Pay me in your stories,” Ni’linya replied with a voice as intense as her gaze. “Tell me of the beasts you have slain. Tell me of the planets you have seen; tell me of how you lost your eye.”

  “I think I told you that last one before,” Cole said with a ghost of a chuckle.

  Ni’linya shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “You sure?”

  She nodded.

  “You really want me to pay you with stories?”

  “ Considering your line of work, I’m certain you have a million of them,” Ni’linya’s voice had become something that was at the same time keenly interested and devastatingly silken. “Will you tell them to me? Please?”

  “Not all of them are pleasant,” Cole warned.

  “I never said they had to be.”

  Cole smiled, considering the request –a process that did not take long.

  “I think I’d love to,” he at last said.

  ***

  It was a pleasant memory to have dreamed, Cole thought, as a prelude to waking up with twofold pain.

  “If memory serves, I had a cramp in the same leg after we did it that night,” Cole muttered aloud to himself, before suppressing a spasm from the firing agony of the rows of tooth marks that riddled his lower calf and shin. “And come to think of it, she never did answer my first question … little striped minx.”

  God, I wish I had her to distract me now, he thought as he removed several hypos from the medkit in his survival pack. He first applied a Novocain shot to numb the area, and then a multi-spectrum antibiotic. He then tore away at the black fabric of his pants and wrapped sterilized gauze around the wounds, pausing only to wince at the throbbing pain in his head, which he had nothing for.

  Cole rose to his feet, steadying himself on the tree that had rendered him unconscious. Satisfied, and more than a little surprised that nothing was broken, and seeing that the Novocain was in full effect, he took stock of his surroundings. The pseudobaryonyx’s carcass lay about fifty feet away amidst a mess of fallen trees and distended vines. Despite the waste of ammo in its felling, he was overcome with a mild wave of depression in light of his situation. This beast was unusually large for its species, and would have been worth keeping as a trophy, or to at least fetch a decent price in Solace’s markets.

  Perhaps it will keep until tomorrow, Cole thought, and then noticed, much to his chagrin, the fading light through the canopy, signaling late evening becoming dusk. He had been unconscious for a lot longer than he’d thought. Immediately, his mind went over plans. He had lost his bearings in the flight for his life, and had not checked his position since before the beast had sent him on that merry chase.

  “And of course, my compass would be broken,” he fumed aloud, removing the cracked, inoperative device from his jacket pocket. He was too angry to be afraid, but knew that it would perhaps be wise to be motivated by just a little fear. Night was not a good time to be out and about on Blair. The beasts that prowled the nighttime forests could be worse than any pseudobaryonyx.

  He located his magcel not too far from where he awoke, and holstered it, keeping the locking strap on the holster loose in case of any other unwanted stalkers as he meandered through the forest’s dense undergrowth. He then followed the trail of destruction left by the pseudobaryonyx, holding on to the hope that it would lead him back to the path. He moved at a hurried pace in spite of his injury, and felt distantly through the Novocain-induced numbness, spikes of dull ghost pain shooting through his calf. That can’t be good, he first thought, but pushed that unneeded worry to the back of his mind for now.

  An hour had passed before he admitted to himself that he had both lost the trail, and was lost himself.

  Not good at all, Cole thought, biting his lower lip. It had grown too dark to make out the forest for the trees, felled or whole. He heard no sound of jackal apes, which would have been on the pseudobaryonyx’s carcass like flies to rotting meat by now. At least t
hat was a blessing of a sort to not have to deal with that problem, as they swarmed in on their prey in large groups.

  In spite of his loathing to do it, he bivouacked outside without a fire. He would have preferred to sleep in the treetops, but with the wounds on his leg, he didn’t dare risk climbing. He sat between a large grouping of shrubs and a tree covered with vines that concealed himself fairly well, and, after using his flashlight only to make sure there were no biting insects nearby, settled down, ate a nutrient bar from his travel pack, and then fell into a fitful sleep.

  He threw up the next morning, and his head hurt worse. The Novocain was wearing off, and the pain had flared to worse than it had been before the drug. He used his second hypo, and followed a pervasive miasma of rotting meat back to its source. True to his gut, the carcass had been picked nearly clean by a multitude of animals. One jackal ape, a scraggly, weak one, however, was still hanging around it, and Cole made short work of it with his magcel, switched to electrocution mode. As the species was edible, in spite of its diet, Cole chanced a fire and made himself a meal –which ended up on the forest floor an hour later after a series of agonizing stomach cramps. An hour after that, half the contents of his large intestines joined it.

  “God … what’s happening to me?” He wondered aloud as he staggered through the forest, which had begun to spin. He touched his forehead, which was unusually hot, despite the cold sweat that was beading on his brow. His mouth was terribly dry, and he began to search for some source of water. A stream would do, although he might have found another pseudobaryonyx. Their main diet was fish, but in lean times, they were known to venture into the forest for prey, or even compete with carrion eaters like jackal apes for their food.

  Two hours passed before he found a small, muddy stream. He followed it until the water became cleaner, then removed his clothes, save for a bowie knife he kept in his teeth, and waded in. It was very cold –uncomfortably cold, and so after a few mouthfuls and splashing it on his body, he crawled out, shaking and shivering uncontrollably.